Category Archives: RPGs

RPGs

I Must Be Doing Something Right

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Yesterday, I woke up from a nap to see the following on the Discord server for my Sunday Roll20 AD&D game. [Listen to the companion podcast here.]

I made a comment of appreciation and got this reply.

I guess I’m going something right, this is how I feel about my brother Robert’s game. If I didn’t live nearly 600 miles away, I’d do something about that.

One thing I’ve found about a campaign world you engage in, is that it becomes an important part of your life. The creativity feeds an itch you can’t otherwise scratch. The bonding with family and friends is a great way to have stories that are over the top hilarious to us, and without a long set up to give background, are maybe a chuckle from others who weren’t there.

I think this is why things like Critical Role are so popular. It is an invitation to participate in the game world and the fans buy in with creativity on their side. There is fan art, fan fiction, fan cosplay, etc.

While they are not rolling dice and actually playing the game, they are still going along for the ride, filling in the blanks with their own imagination, just as in any RPG game, or a radio show, or reading a book. They are getting the creative, living in the moment, as observers of the heroes, and are essentially seeing the same benefit as playing does. The audience is like the crowd in the streets observing the heroes. They are unnamed NPC’s.

Some say the not actually playing the game doesn’t make them real fans of the game. I bet if they could find a group, they’d play.

I can only hope that all DMs/GMs can evoke a living world with the collaboration of their players. Once the world comes alive for the players, they will get hooked. It came alive for me as DM the moment the players started interacting with it.

RPGs

Session summaries

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Having write ups of a game session is helpful to keep track of when the party was where, and whom they met, and what they did.

I first experienced session summaries, as an official thing players can do to earn XP, in the AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign, Graveyard of Empires, of over four years of Wednesday nights. I’ve written about it many times. The DM gives 150 XP per level, so at 7th level, I’m earning 1,050 XP per session. John, the DM, wants at least one player to do an “official” summary, but each player can participate. We used a G+ group for this.

For the AD&D campaign, John made us pay for training. After awhile, he modified the Session Summary award for virtual GP equal to our XP awards that could be used to pay for training, and could be shared with others.

John carried on with that in the two year Stars Without Number [Affiliate Link] campaign, and now the follow-up to the original campaign, called After The Fall, using OSE [Affiliate Link]. The Stars Without Number game was posted to a Discord server. For After The Fall we are using a wiki software called MediaWiki that the GM hosts on his website.

My Campaigns

I use session summaries that I write as GM for my games, to ensure I don’t lose track of anything. I write them for the players, as I know what the GM needs to know, but also sprinkle in some things they didn’t necessarily know to reward them for reading it. I used the free Campaign Wiki site. It requires manual formatting, but is simple, and one can export it to text or HTML.

I first did this with my AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign, The Broken Lands, and then the Delving Deeper campaign, Delver’s Deep. With Delver’s Deep I also put it into the Markdown editor Joplin. Joplin has a desktop and an Android and iPhone app and it can be synced vie Dropdown or similar service.

It may seem like a lot of work, but the information is built over time. the most amount of work is getting the starting information the players need, and to cross-link things as they begin interacting with the world. After 10, 20, 30, and now 43 sessions, The Broken Lands wiki looks quite impressive.

For the most part I try to do the summaries right after the session so it is more complete. I do this for both the Wednesday night campaigns and my campaigns.

The Benefits

There are several benefits for a campaign wiki:

  • The GM has a handy cross-linked reference to minimize forgetting what the players know and keep track of multiple threads of information.
  • Diligent players can keep up with things, and also have a reference.
  • New players or players that miss a session can more easily get up to speed with what is going on.
  • It could be the basis for a novel or short stories, or help create modules based on the campaign.

My First Experience With Campaign Summaries

Campaign summaries are nothing new to me. Back in the day when I first played Griswald, the namesake of Follow Me, And Die! i wrote up a personal summary of what Griswald did. I maintained that for every session for a few years of real time, and over ten years of game time. I did this because my brother Robert, my first and favorite DM, has a very rich campaign world. It is about 36 years old. Now his wife and kids and spouses play in it.

I still have it somewhere, and at one point when I had a decent enough computer, I typed up those notes.

One funny thing is I used the dating system of my brother Robert and I have Griswald at one year ahead of where Robert said I was. He said he was DM and he was right, so I accepted it.

What is your experience with campaign summaries whether back in the day, or more recently?

RPGs

How I run AD&D

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I’ve mentioned bits and pieces of how I run AD&D in various blog article and quick blurbs on various social media, but I don'[t think I’ve ever done a complete explanation.

AD&D (and by that I mean 1st edition), is what I’ve played and ran the most. AD&D is a collection of “modules” that one can use or not use. My preferences for how I run it are largely influenced by how we played it back in the day. One example is weapon speed. We tried it a few times and gave up on it.

In some ways AD&D is a better as a source of an example system for something, like random gems and jewelry. I like a simpler set of rules, like Delving Deeper. The Dungeon Master’s Guide is a great tool for any GM for any game.

AD&D is also a great example of how NOT to organize an RPG rule book. Like rules should be near each other, like height, weight, and age tables. I recall similar things being near each other in the DMG, but that is only my mental catalog, some things have 40 or 50 pages between them. Then there is something like multiple attacks by fighters like 3/2 attacks per round, which is mentioned in a couple places in the Players Handbook and a couple more in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

I used to have a fully functioning catalog and ability to find stuff in the various manuals, but over the years, some things have faded. Things that I recall as near each other, are nowhere near each other. I am slowly getting the pieces needed organized.

Books Used:

For the DM, whatever I want. But generally the Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual, Monster Manual II, and Fiend Folio. I use all kinds of things for planning settlements, lairs, tombs, and dungeons.

For the Players, the Players Handbook and spells from Unearthed Arcana as they discover them.

[All of the above links are Affiliate Links.]

Character Creation

4d6 arrange as desired. I have a rule I call, “But I want it….” that allows players to have the minimums they need to run the sub-classes.

But I Want It – Players wishing to play a class who do not roll the stats for it, can set the minimum stats for those ability scores that are pertinent, but all other stats will be rolled on a d4+8 making their range 9-12.

Starting gold is 3d6 x10.

Hit points are maximum at first level, including the bonus or penalty from Constitution.

Death at -10 Hit Points. Binding wounds stabilizes, but does not bring consciousness. If knocked to negative hit points, you have experience trauma and are out for 1 hour per negative. Magical healing can minimize this.

Birth Date: Calendar is 12 months of 28 days, so d12 for month and 3d10-2 for 1st-28th day of the month.

Alignment: Good and evil are as one does. I have evil characters who are saving the world as long as they continue to get rich off it. Are they truly evil?

Alignment Languages: NONE. We NEVER used them that I can recall back in the day.

Detect Evil – Only beings of great power and consciously and consistently devoted to evil will register. I don’t necessarily play kobolds, goblins, and orcs as evil, just against the status quo of the “civilized” groups. I take this from the DMG. Good or Evil are based on one’s actions. Call yourself evil but if you save children from a burning building, you’re not necessarily evil.

Classes: Players Handbook, bard class document. Any race can play any class. I also allow non-standard multi-class options, like a half-elf cleric/ranger.

Experience Points for casting spells. Spell casters get 100 XP per level of spell they cast that benefits the adventure. The spell has to work, so interrupted spells are just waster, no benefit. I took this from my brother Robert, my first and favorite DM.

Reading Spells – We never required Read Magic to read spells. That’s how I still do it, as do most I have played with. Nor do we require Write to inscribe a spell into a spell book.

Spell Components – We alternated or were not consistent with spell components. sometimes back in the day we were super strict about spell components. Other times we only required components for the big power spells that needed rare or valuable components. In my campaign, I don’t worry about spell components.

Spell Range and Area of Effect – Range is in feet indoors and yards outdoors. Area of Effect is ALWAYS as stated, feet are always feet. It’s easy to confuse this and an enormous AoE gets used, when it really isn’t that big.

Gaining levels. If the party acquires enough loot to level up, they must be in a safe place, such as getting back to town, or a fortified location that allows them to rest up. On the journey across the sands of The Broken Lands, I have ruled that the lairs they cleared out are secure.

Don’t Roll a 1 – When a task is relatively trivial, but there is urgency, danger, etc. I tell players, “Don’t roll a 1.” on a d20. This ratchets up the tension and focuses everyone to watch and see if the 5% chance of failing a simple task under stress thwarts their plans. I use this mostly at convention games, and use it in all games I run, not just AD&D.

Deities – Not really a rule, but they way I’m handling deities in my campaign. Instead of pantheons and all the different bits, the main focus is the general phrase powers of light and powers of darkness. There are individual deities, but few stick to just one. This has a bonus for the home brewing GM. You don’t have to make up a pantheon to fit your world, or file off the serial numbers from another pantheon to make it fit.

The powers of light support life and natural death. The powers of darkness deceive and promise eternal life, that ends up being undeath. This is the good/evil conflict in my campaign.

GM Rulings

As situations come up in the course of play, I make GM rulings and add them to a GM rulings document in Roll20 for the players to see, and to remind me.

Shooting Into Combat – Normally, there is a chance to hit allies. After a fight with an Ettin, I decided to make a formal change, so it is clear. It makes sense to me that when the party is fighting a giant sized creature and no one in the party is Enlarged/Polymorphed/Etc. to also be giant sized, and there is sufficient illumination/vision to see both targets, that there is no chance for friendly fire. I made one formal check and no one was hit. I silently decided not to make further checks to avoid bogging down the combat with discussion. If you do missile fire into the dark or vs. an invisible opponent, even if a giant, there is a chance to hit an ally.

Spell Casting While Invisible – Enlarge does not constitute an attack when cast on an ally. Thus an invisible caster stays invisible. My current party loves to enlarge their tank so he hits harder.

Adding spells from Unearthed Arcana – I added some spells as part of the normal spells, like ceremony, phantom armor, and alter self.

Brazier for summoning Fire Elementals – As per MM p. 37 Elementals can only be summoned once per day per device. A device capable of summoning more than one type, can summon one of each type each day.

3/2 Attacks per Round – Like so many other simple things in AD&D, all the rules for this are scattered. I made a GM ruling that gathers all the information together and how it works.

This rule is all over the place and buried in the Gygaxian prose. It ONLY applies when fighting non 0 Level types. Any classed PC or NPC or monsters of 1 or more Hit Dice. For 0 level types fighter classes get 1 attack per level up to 6 available opponents, if surrounded.

3/2 means every other round of melee you get 2 attacks, once at beginning of the round, and once at end. The first attack goes first, in spite of the initiative.

This is made clear on page 63 of the DMG (see quote below in yellow) that the 3/2 means every odd numbered round of melee they get 2 attacks. (Every odd numbered round of melee for that individual is how I interpret this. If the first round of combat is only melee for SOME combatants, and those with 3/2 don’t engage in melee until round 2, then it is their 1st round of melee. One attack at beginning of round, and one at end.)

Those with 2 attacks per round get one at beginning and one at end of each round of melee.

Haste adds one to this number, 3/2 would be 3 attacks one round and 2 the next. 2 attacks per round becomes 3. Slow removes the 2nd attack in melee.

Casting Verbal Component Spells underwater – Water Breathing or Airy Water or similar required to cast spells while underwater.

Water Breathing in air – Air breathing creatures in air with this spell can breathe normally and don’t need to stay underwater until the spell expires.

Rules From Other Games

I like the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic from D&D 5e. This would make sense in a situation where a player or party says they avoid the medusa’s gaze. If the medusa tries to gaze into their eyes rolling the save vs. petrification with advantage makes sense.

I also like the Usage Die from Black Hack [Affiliate Link]. This makes a lot of sense for a magic item with charges. The DM assigns a usage die and that way there is the mystery of no one knowing how many charges it has, and the benefit of the DM not having to keep track.

Fudge/Fate dice are interesting and can add a special element to a challenge or other scenario. The plus, minus, blank options could be used to gauge the degree of something. For example, with a reaction check, you could “flavor” the role with a fudge die. + means the best possible interpretation, – the worst interpretation, and blank a meh interpretation.

I have yet to incorporate these into my campaign, it is there in the back of my mind, in case there is a situation where it makes sense to use it.

Conclusion

I feel like I’m leaving something out. If I think of it, I will update the above. Part of my method is habit and preference born of habit. The rest is either from my experience as a GM or playing with various GMs.

RPGs

GMs Reference Library

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Cavegirl has this to share on Twitter.

I don’t know what instigated this, but this was my reply. I thought it good enough to make a blog post out of it.

What fool said this?

My role as both GM and player is a hodge podge of every book, comic book, TV show, movie, play, conversation, random thought, and past play experience.

I’ve taken ideas from they way we ran our games BITD, plus ideas of bloggers, and other games.

I like advantage/disadvantage, usage die, and other simple tweaks that can make a game fun and flow.

I’ve tweaked my GM style with the way other GMs do things. It may be subtle, but I still learn something from every game I run and play.

In recent weeks, it finally sunk in to my old set in my ways self, that I have a passive/aggressive streak that comes out in all my characters when I’m frustrated with what another player is doing to drive the narrative.

Strongly outspoken people who will talk nonstop really bring that out.

It was like I’m naked under a floodlight in a crowded room when the lightly went off.

I’ve been playing over 40 years and didn’t see it til now.

This may seem like a segue, but this illustrates the player growth aspect.

Now I can work on not doing that and changing my timing by anticipating these things and using my player agency to improve the session.

What are your resources? You should have an enormous reference library in you memory.

Work on utilizing it.

Brainstorming, free association, just writing whatever comes out, daydreaming, etc.

My whole blog is built on using my ever expanding personal library. My ideas that become PDFs on DriveThruRPG use that same library.

It’s OK to play or just read other games. You might find something you like, or think about something in your favorite game and get an idea to improve it.

Change is inevitable. We can either waste our strength resisting change, or we can ride the wave and see what we can do with new information.

RPGs

A Village Of Healing

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Imagine a remote village with a remnant of an ancient tradition. Every decade of life, a person gets a cure disease. End to parasites, cancer,etc. As long as one does not meet an accident, or disease they can’t survive, hey will reach their maximum age.

As a remnant of a past age there is only a 5th level priest who can only do one 3rd level spell per day, baring an 18 wisdom and time to rest and relearn spells.

Twins and triplets would be a challenge as oldest gets the day, etc. Get 23 plus people together and 2 of them will share a birthday. (I had a logic professor who proved this in every class.)

I see an overworked aging cleric with a young assistant not up to the task.

The aged would be honored. Death would have a grand ritual to show the deceased into the nextv realm.

In ancient times, all healing spells would be available. Healing, restoration, disease, etc.

A lost or hidden town or city where this is still the case would be a fun adventure.

Customs and norms a party would wreck, or be a welcome relief.

A healing fountain that is broken or lost to living memory would fit well here.

My inspiration:

I got home from surgery for prostate cancer and would love a cure serious wounds to get some energy back. Then I realized cure disease would have handled the whole thing. My mind naturally wandered to an adventure scenario.

RPGs

Point Crawl-Like Session Planning

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I tried something new with session planning for the last few sessions of my Sunday AD&D [Affiliate Link] game on Roll20. The party is traveling West across the sands of The Broken Lands. Rather than do a map of where everything is and have to measure, plan, and plot things on a map, I decided to try more of the Point Crawl method.

With a Point Crawl the focus is more of traveling point to point and not necessarily all the things in between. In my game, there are sand sailors (vikings) with ships that sail the sand. Endless miles of shifting desert terrain (dunes and the things the sands cover and uncover) is much like the endless terrain of the seas. I gloss over the boring parts, and only mention the things that stand out.

How I Did It

I’ve written about using desk pads of graph paper before, here and here. (I also backed the Dungeon Desk Pad Kickstarter.). I took one of my graph paper desk pads and figured out the distance based on how long it took the sand vikings to cross from the West. It took them three days because they had favorable winds. The party has had 3 days of unfavorable winds, so the journey is taking twice as long.

I divided the journey into groups of squares and drew lines after that many squares and determined how many of these groups there were. I numbered them from East to West. These became the “points” of the journey. I determined wind direction, weather, random encounters, adventure locations and other mechanical things that put bookends on what could happen each session.

This is a picture of the actual desk pad, but blurred to be illegible and avoid spoiling things for players. (It’s amazing the clarity and legibility of a cellphone picture. The original is very easy to read.)

These loose parameters gave me a basic outline to present to the players during each session. The party is free to choose to stop and investigate anything I explain that they see in the distance. So far, they have stopped to check out most things, or gotten close enough to check things out and kept away from danger.

I set this desk pad on a TV tray next to my chair at the computer where I run the game. I can then check off things or make notes on this check list.

I have found that I was quickly able to plan the journey across the sands and so far two sessions of play have gone very well. I expect at least three more sessions for this crossing, depending on what the players do. Players are always doing things that make travel take longer.

The players seem to be having fun, and I’m having fun as a GM. I’ve been using monsters that either I’ve never run as a GM, or never encountered at all in my years of play. I’m randomly determining treasure, including the magic that appears. Magic items I’ve never had in any game are also fund to have. They finally found some powerful ones in the last session. It will be interesting to see how that goes.

It has given me the flexibility to organize notes and think about repercussions of what they have done, and plan for what is on the other side of the desert. I find that I am planning as much as I need and less likely to go overboard writing or planning things the players will never see. I’m trying to do all the cool ideas. Even if my execution is not how I see it in my head, I’m having less stress in prep and more fun running sessions. As with all things in life the more I do this, the easier it gets. The stage fright is always there, but once I get started, I don’t have time to think about how nervous I am. Even with 4+ decades of gaming, I still have nerves before running a game.

My last podcast episode was a play summary of two weeks ago. I’ll do another summary of last weeks game. I’ll at least do summaries to get them across the sands. I’ve had some summaries of other sessions. If you like that sort of thing, let me know. I’m trying to get my momentum back after getting derailed by COVID-19 and a cancer diagnosis.

CELEBRATION

This article marks the eleventh anniversary of this blog that started on July 18, 2009 with this article. I hope to be around and blogging and gaming for many more years!

RPGs

A themed Mask

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When I saw that Teespring finally had masks, I made a mask [Affiliate Link] to sell beside the T-shirt on my Teespring store [Affiliate Link].

I hope it’s a bit a humor for this horrible situation of a deadly global pandemic that feels like it will never end. We all at least probably know someone who has lost a family member to COVID-19, if not knowing someone who has had it or lost someone we know. I mean no disrespect to those in pain. I just wanted something to dress up my face covering.

I’m thinking about another design, “FUCK CANCER! Follow Me, And Die!” Instead of waiting, I went ahead and added a new T-shirt: “Cancer is the new Red Shirt. Follow Me, And Die!” [Affiliate Link] Something along those lines sounds appropriate when I go in for surgery. Well, anytime between now and then, and after.

For those who didn’t know, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the end of April. I was supposed to have surgery in July, but COVID-19 and the first lock-down put all non-emergency surgeries on hold. The backlog from that pushed my surgery to August. I just learned this yesterday. So this means I am still waiting for the phone call to schedule my surgery.

The good news about the long wait is that I am mostly over my existential dread of surgery. Now I have a fairly calm acceptance about surgery. However, I am annoyed at having to wait. I hate waiting.

So while I wait, I’m trying to get back the focus I had on creating RPG stuff on a regular basis.

RPGs

RPGs, Alignment, & Races

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Alignment and racism is now a topic of conversation in RPGs and most notably, the “big-gun” in the RPG space, D&D. Below I work through my thoughts on these issues.

ALIGNMENT

First some history, alignment entered the RPG space via the fantasy rules in the table top war game Chainmail. Chainmail introduced the three-point alignment system: law, neutral, chaos, to gaming. The idea for this is one side of the battle represented the good guys and another the bad guys, and the neutrals could be recruited to either side.

This lead to the idea of alignment languages, which were means of one side communicating with another.

While Three Hearts and Three Lions, Lord of the Rings, and the Elric of Melnibone series are cited as the influence for alignment, it also comes from the tales of King Arthur, and other chivalric tales of good vs. evil.

All of these things were an influence on Gary Gygax when he took the initial idea and inspiration from Dave Arneson to create the original version of D&D in the first three books in the box set. I know more about Gygax’s thoughts on alignment, so that is all I will speak to here.

Sadly, alignment became more complex in AD&D with the nine-point alignment system that combines the original law, chaos, & neutrality with good and evil. This gave rise to more alignment languages, spells and items for protecting from good or evil, detecting alignment, knowing alignment, etc.

The idea that one is their alignment took root among many. Even though Gygax wrote that one’s actions determined whether one adhered to their stated alignment. Also detect evil whether a spell, item, or ability only indicates a being or creature who is wholly evil, like a vampire, lich, demon, or devil, or very committed individual. That got lost in the Gygaxian prose.

MY TAKE ON ALIGNMENT

I’ve never liked alignment languages. We never used them back in the day. Sadly, we used alignment like a hard and fast thing for good vs. evil. In one game, the DM allowed a player to have a drow, and my brother and I with “good” characters” killed the drow character in his sleep. Who was evil in that interaction? I wrote more about it here.

With 30+ years of life and gaming experience since high school, I no longer allow player vs. player/PC vs. PC conflict. I wouldn’t want it to happen to me, so I just don’t allow it. The only exceptions would be if a villain charmed or blackmailed a PC into siding with them, or a one shot where one of the party is a traitor. The nature of going against the party would not be killing characters, but impeding progress, hiding clues, swiping the item they are after, etc. However, this would require buy in by players and very clear and careful boundaries established by the GM to avoid problems.

In my current games, alignment is very loose. I don’t emphasize it at all. There are no alignment languages. Good or evil is how one acts. In my regular Sunday AD&D game, instead of explicit alignments, the central struggle is one’s approach to death. Accepting death and only doing natural things to avoid it is essentially “good,” while attempting to cheat or avoid death by turning to the “dark powers” and undeath is “evil.” This has lead to a party with stated evil alignments among some of the PCs. Yet they are acting like heroes because they see the money in it and don’t like undead.

I’ve used the old tropes of other creatures being evil, but the way it has worked out in game, the PCs haven’t just killed them just to kill them. Giants raiding wagon trains were killed. Hungry ogres trying to make them a meal were killed in self defense. So there are ways to make groups of humanoids more like factions than evil to be eradicated.

RACES & ALIGNMENT

Sadly, the way races are pigeon-holed into a particular alignment is based on folk tales and various fantasy literature, such as Tolkien. Tolkien explained in The Silmarilion that orcs were tortured and corrupted elves. Since elves are the analog of angels, this makes orcs “fallen angels” and thus demons/devils. His influence for this was his attempt to infuse his Christian believes into his mythos. Angels are without a doubt good, and demons & devils equally evil.

The groups of creatures that fall under the umbrella of evil are thus worthy of death on sight. This gives rise to the murder hobo trope, where they just kill all the evil and take their stuff.

It also has the subtle influence to perpetuate the ideas that humanity is separated into multiple races. Race is an artificial construct to separate humanity into varying levels of “acceptable” groups. If you’re a Bible believer, it says that all of us descend from Adam & Eve, and then Noah. Many arguments for justifying slavery in the U.S.A illogically claimed they were descendants of Cain. None of Cain’s descendants are claimed to have survived the flood. Other arguments pointed to the descendants of one of Noah’s sons, and his shame as justification for slavery. In all cases, descendants of Adam & Eve. DNA also agrees that all of humanity is related. I think race is a word we should only use to refer to all of humanity. We need other words to describe those who are different from us. Ancestry and ethnicity are much more helpful terms in this regard.

To get away from the overused trope that all groups are good or all groups are evil, we need to use factions. Factions are like nations in the real world, and the various groups within each nation. Factions favor a certain viewpoint and come together to face common foes/challenges/issues. While most orcs might unite under the same banner, some would remain neutral, or align with another faction.

CONCLUSION

There are many that feel like the changes many want that treat the historically “totally evil and unredeemable ‘races'” in D&D and other RPGs as actually multifaceted and complex communities composed of a diverse cross-section of individuals is “ruining the game.”

While I admit to the change in mindset can be challenging at first, why would one want to have only one way to do things? I don’t run monsters from the game’s bestiary 100% by the book, why do I have to have all of a certain type of creature be totally evil? Just as I modify other rules in the game to suit my own style for running the game.

The only creatures who should be totally evil are demons, devils, and their minions who know they are following demons and devils. Those tricked into following demons and devils or doing their bidding may not be evil, just duped. How many groups of PCs have unknowingly advanced the plots of the villain? Is that evil if they do good along the way? If they don’t have the full picture the GM has set in place until “the big reveal,” when they discover their plans coincided with the villain.

Complex plots with twists and turns are more realistic. As the old adage goes, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”

It doesn’t make sense why talking about change should be upsetting. I know that being open to hearing the ideas of others can often challenge our habits and beliefs, but we live in the real world where that happens frequently, especially with the instant communication of the internet. We can choose to unplug and live in a bubble cut off from others, or we can choose to interact with others in real life and online.

We limit our creativity and the possibilities if every session is find the evil, kill it, and take its stuff. Monsters are not all intelligent. Some are just acting on instinct to eat, or protect young or their territory. If these creatures are terrorizing a village, do you have to kill them to save the village? Can you not find a way to lure them to a steep and secluded valley and trap them there so they can live and do their own thing without eating villagers? Combat is dangerous. Avoiding a fight is the best way to live long enough to get the treasure or accomplish some other goal.

If treating the local kobold tribe fairly, will they not be more likely to stand with you when the zombie hoard invades? Making allies of them keeps the land populated and less likely to fill up with more dangerous and larger predators, or unfriendly factions.

Just as our ideas of how to make an adventure, or our characters more interesting requires change, playing a COOPERATIVE AND INTERACTIVE GAME, like RPGs, should direct us to listen to the ideas of others. An RPG session, like improv, requires those at the table to riff off of each others shared narrative.

Don’t go yelling “story games” and run off. Explain to me how you have an RPG session without some sort of story to set the scene? Without story it is a series of random fights and occasional puzzled like a boring multiplayer video game.

How do the PCs know where the dungeon is, or the monster’s lair is, without some explanation? You don’t want the GM to railroad the game, so how does your open sandbox setting work without story? It is OK to let the “younger generation” add their mark to the game and express how they feel the story can be more fun.

So many of the arguments against changes to RPGs or new RPGs is that this isn’t how you did it back in the day. So what? Why is how you did it 30 or 40 years ago so important to continue? I don’t have a problem with understanding the history of the game and the way it has changed, but there is no one size fits all. If there was one game that did it all, there wouldn’t be more than one card game, or more than one board game, or more than one video game, or more than one RPG. Just as there is more than one story in literature and video, there is more than one way to RPG. If your way was the best way, everyone would agree with you.

There’s no need to be hurtful, hateful, or bitter if someone suggests a different way to play. Going that route is giving into the same narrow mindedness of the idiots during the “Satanic Panic.” If you are old enough to remember how stupid and uninformed those who yelled the loudest were, why are you acting like that when someone dares to say there’s more than one way to do it?

Games are supposed to be fun. Why are you suddenly against fun? Go take your Geritol and watch Lawrence Welk and leave the rest of the world in peace. (I apologize to anyone who really likes Lawrence Welk, I just had way too many episodes forced on me back when, I don’t need to see another episode ever again.) This attitude of a certain way is the only way is for the close-minded attitudes that mirror the “Satanic Panic.” There’s no room for such lack of creativity and fun in a game of “make believe with rules.”

RPGs

A Quick Update

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I’m still here and kicking.

No real change from my last post. You can listen to the companion blog post here.

I have decided on surgery. I am waiting for the call to schedule it some time in July, 2020. However, things are still backed up from the halt on all non-emergency surgeries. I called to find out how long until I could schedule it and just have to wait. I’ll keep nagging them anyway, as I don’t want to drag this out. I am not a patient person for things like this and I’m climbing the walls a bit.

I’m still gaming, running my Sunday afternoon AD&D [Affiliate Link] game, playing in a B/X game on Mondays, and Wednesday, July 1st, we resume the campaign from the old AD&D [Affiliate Link] game with the same characters, but transitioned to OSE. [Affiliate Link] All of these are via Roll20.

I’m approaching 800 subscribers on YouTube and will pass 90,000 lifetime views in a couple days.

June 24th was the second anniversary of my podcast.

July 18th is the 11th anniversary of this blog.

The end of August is the second anniversary of my Patreon and my publishing efforts on DriveThruRPG.

I look forward to many more years of gaming. I especially look forward to getting surgery behind me so I can get my focus back on track.

I’ve been in a funk with the isolation and limitations of lock down/common sense to avoid being infected or spreading infection, my unexpected news about prostate cancer, and the horrid murder of a black man by police.

This has sapped my energy and seen me unfriend people on Facebook (many from high school) and lose followers on other social media. It saddens me that people can value human life and human rights so little as to want to avoid the topic because to them “it is politics.” Until the lives of people who don’t look like me (white) are valued equally, I will keep mentioning that Black Lives Matter, until we all live like they do matter, not merely change the subject with “all lives matter.” I don’t understand how some read Black Lives Matter as having the word ONLY in front of the phrase. Of course, all lives matter, but too many don’t really believe that. I won’t belabor that point here, as I know you’re here for games. I mention it since it is an important part of why my motivation is lacking. If you’re offended, you don’t have to stay.

As I said, this is a quick update about what’s up with me, and world events and my fight with cancer are the main focus of my thoughts and energy right not.

I didn’t mention party. I have views all across the political spectrum. I don’t fit a neat label. I won’t belabor the point. I just wanted to share what’s up with me, and future posts will focus on gaming.

RPGs

Revising Plans

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I’ve gotten some unsettling news, on top of all the pandemic induced issues of the last several weeks. My last two annual physicals my PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) has been elevated. Since it stayed elevated, my doctor advised I see a urologist. The urologist said if it was him, he’d have a biopsy instead of waiting.

Companion Blog Post Here.

My decision was to do the biopsy, so after a few weeks of worrying about it, I finally had the in office procedure on April 29th. While it wasn’t pleasant, it was far from as bad as I anticipated. My mindset was to not worry until I knew I had something to worry about. Just over a week later, I had a phone call from the urologist with the results. So this past Thursday, May 7th, I found out that eight of the 12 samples have cancer. They use a sliding scale with 6 the least bad and 10 the worst. Seven of the 8 samples that were positive had a score of 6, and the other a score of 7.

This means that I have a slow growing, non-aggressive form of cancer. It’s the best kind to have, as it is easily treatable. Since my prostate is basically full of cancer and is self contained, from what they can tell, it should be easily curable. The two best options are surgery for removal, or radiation. Both come with their own benefits and side effects.

Currently, I’m leaning towards the option for surgery. However, I have to have an in office visit to go into more detail on the two options so I have all the facts before making a decision. Plus, I have to wait and heal up from the biopsy first before they consider any form of treatment.

Fuck Cancer

So while I heal from the biopsy, I have time to think and plan.

My head was swimming a bit after getting the news, but I’m OK. Knowledge is power.

This is just the big bad and I found out about him and now I’m going to foil his plans and kill him. I have time to formulate an effective plan with the right team to do the job. Just like in RPGs.

Revising Plans and Looking Ahead

The reality of having a life threatening condition that will lead to a painful and shitty death if ignored definitely gets your attention. I plan to be around for a long time, but I need to wrap up loose ends so that no matter what happens, it’s less crap to worry about.

I can’t do all the bucket list things due to travel restrictions with COVID-19. I can’t go visit all my relatives and friends for the same reason. I’m thankful that my son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter live with me.

So I have to work with what I’ve got. My job is secure and paying the bills. Less going out and about and the bank account is in good shape. No telling how big a hit treatment will be, so that’s good. I hope to avoid having to ask for help, but I need to hold that thought until I know just what my share will be after insurance. So I have to reduce spending and backing Kickstarters, etc.

I have enough games I’ve never played, let alone read. So I don’t know how much time I’ll have for reading and playing new games. That’s all on my radar of things to consider.

My Patreon has gone to the back burner as the whole lockdown and Gary Con going virtual and I ran a couple games for Gary Con, so I didn’t finish my March PDF. I did something totally different for April, I shared my Caverns & Cave Bears rough setting PDF along with the Simple Generic RPG that I made for any setting. I have only shared it with my patrons. I will share it with anyone who gives feedback so I can make it better. I’ll eventually have them available on DriveThruRPG [Affiliate Link].

So my Patreon got derailed by how I reacted to the chaos of lock down. I just got done with the busy season at work and was so looking forward to getting out of the house to go to Gary Con. I got into Minecraft to get my mind on something else, and I built a mountain top temple from one location in my AD&D Roll20 campaign, The Broken Lands. I am also working on another location from the same campaign, an underground temple. You can catch these on my Twitch channel since I streamed them there.

Sorry for dragging this out about my Patreon. I need to revise it to fit whatever my plans end up being to help me wrap up things and streamline for the time I need to heal up after treatment. At the moment, I don’t know what that will be.

What About The Card Game?

My final round of play testing I expected to do at Gary Con did not happen. I think where the rules are will work. My plan is to get the card layout done and just put it on DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link]. Kickstarters are not the thing to do right now, and they take a lot of work. I’ll put it together with the public domain and other art from my test decks. My artist is still producing art, but has a lot more pieces to finish before I can use that art. I can use the funds generated on DriveThru Cards [Affiliate Link] to help fund finishing the art, in case treatment eats up my savings. I should have enough in my business account to cover it, so I’m not worried about that. Once I have all the custom art pieces, I can think about a Kickstarter. But there is no way I have the time, energy, or the mental or emotional oomph to run a Kickstarter right now.

Running & Playing Games

I just re-started my AD&D [Affiliate Link] campaign on Roll20. I plan to keep going and will only stop when treatment and recovery prevent me from running a session. I will have plenty of time to think and plan leading up to that point, and during recovery.

The Monday night B/X game [Affiliate Link] and Wednesday night Stars Without Number [Affiliate Link]game on Roll20 will get by without me for any time I am down. I intend to keep playing in both.

I may do a special weekend of running games I’d like to play, maybe for Memorial Day. Maybe I can get my brother to run a game online with the old gang. That would be a hoot.

Podcasting, YouTube, & Twitch

I will continue to podcast as I have topics I think are worth sharing. I will keep making YouTube videos about Roll20 and other things. I will keep streaming Minecraft and other things on Twitch.

I can make a quick update and post online following any treatment to give a heads up on making it through the treatment (surgery).

Other Plans

I’ve been trying to downsize all the stuff I have with the long term goal of my sons not being left with a bunch of stuff they don’t know what to do with it. Everyone should do that so their loved ones don’t have to. It’s been on my to do list for years, and it feels like I’ve only scratched the surface. I want to wrap up the things on my list of home projects, at least the ones involving organizing things, so I don’t have to look at them and be tempted to overdo it during recovery.

I also really need to do a will. Not to be morbid, but one never knows. I had a severe car accident 27 years ago, and that could have been it. I’ve got enough life insurance to pay off my mortgage, truck, and other debts with some left over. Plus my pension. It’s more than my parents were able to leave to my siblings and me.

I want to cover all the bases I can and do all that I realistically can to leave things as organized as possible to minimize my stress when stuck sitting or paying around for recovery. My brain will insist on thinking and worrying about stupid shit that doesn’t matter, so no matter how well I prepare, I’ll still have that to deal with. But maybe I can short circuit it a bit.

Thanks!

I want to thank everyone who has messaged me words of support and encouragement. Those mean more to me than you can ever know. I plan to beat this thing. Cancer is one of those things for which I had a fear. Mostly about it being too late to do anything about it, or being the kinds few survive. So I’m not as affected as I would otherwise be. I’m now worried about the side effects of whatever treatment I choose. There may be none. I know I’ve internalized some of my stress, as I’ve snapped a bit at family. So I know it will be a challenge to be the positive and encouraging person I try to be. I plan to be around a long time.