Today is Independence Day in the United States. We celebrate with parades, picnics/barbecues, festivals, carnivals, and fireworks.
How does the town that is home base for your players celebrate its founding, or other secular or religious days?
Are there any nationwide celebrations? Are their similar yet different celebrations and traditions in neighboring nations?
Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans!
+Matt Jackson [G+ page deleted before archived] has quite the writing talent and is generating a Science Fiction pulp serial, with an obvious White Star influence. He is publishing it both on his blog and a site called Wattpad.
I am honored that my encouragement to write more has helped him to come up with more ideas.
My recommendation is to go read this serial!
He can write and make cool maps!
A couple days ago, I wrote about The Fun Is In Yes! Today, I’ll give an example that shows how invisible this can be to players.
In my face to face campaign with my sons and the girlfriend of my oldest son, they kill creatures and skin them, decapitate them, etc. and then have things made.
For example, due to really bad rolls when they encountered a minotaur returning to its lair, it could not hit them and they killed it. Being a large and impressive monster, they took its head and brought it back to town. They wanted to take it to a taxidermist and have it mounted.
When I created the town, I had generated the different businesses and skills available in town. A taxidermist was not one of them. However, since the town is on the marches between the kingdom and the ancient abandoned city, and serving adventurers is one of its industries, it made sense to have a taxidermist. So I picked a name and decided what part of town the shop was in. They haggled with the owner over a price, and arrange for a time to pick it up.
They go back a few days later, just to check on progress, only to find a crowd gathered around the taxidermist’s shop. It turns out that the taxidermist was charging to give people a chance to look at this head in progress. All the normal benches and things in the shop were cleared out to focus on this one head and allow as many paying onlookers as possible. This little twist greatly enhanced their enjoyment.
The agreement was to mount the head on something to make it easy to mount on their wagon behind the seat and above the heads of the driver and passenger. This sight alone makes an impression on less powerful foes they encounter. They later added an ogre head to their wagon display, prepared by the same taxidermist.
They fought two giant weasels, who again couldn’t roll to hit, and how their heads and hides are hooded cloaks.
I am sure, if we ever resume play, that they will skin and decapitate more creatures to add to their collection.
The twist of adding an unplanned NPC expert hireling increased the fun for both the players, and me.
There was no good reason not to bring the taxidermist into existence. Had I said, “No”, the mental image of two preserved monstrous heads mounted on a wagon, with a driver and passenger wearing giant weasel cloaks would not exist. That’s part of the fun of the collaborative storytelling that is RPG’s.
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[EDIT: Google is deleting all G+ comments to non-blogger blogs. Below is one of two G+ comments on my blog I want to save. 02/06/2019]
Finding ways to say “yes” is such a great framework for driving not just consequence, but byproduct to either polarize; but strengthen the hilarity! The ability of giving a yes in your example, would give a total acceptance “yes” from the players to segue that taxidermist to become so desperate to continue his fame, that his only recourse is to have the heads of the adventurers who depopulated the region and have moved on…. or at minimum dog the party from a far, exposing their surprise assault on the next monster that can’t hit them. 🙂
Roy Snyder
plus.google.com/u/0/+AlphaGamersRPGMI/about
06/30/2015 at 8:35 pm
I have written a lot on this blog about my favorite character, Griswald, from my brother Robert’s campaign. Griswald is a half elf Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User.
As a character with two spell classes, it grew harder to track spells, levels, and details of each spell, so I came up with this simple, old school solution.
Lots of erasing of pencil on paper, or writing in ink and having to re-write makes for a mess. I settled on a neatly handwritten form made with a ruler on typing paper, later I printed it out on a dot matrix printer. I put it in a sheet protector. I can write on the sheet protector with a dry erase marker or grease pencil and wipe it off for continued use.
Griswald has three magic user henchmen, so I have one sheet to track all three of them.
Next is the dot-matrix version.
Here is a link to a PDF of the unfilled printable version in a current word processor, Libre Office writer. It could just as easily be done in a spreadsheet, like Libre Office Calc. I did not take the time to get the row height adjusted to only have as many rows as needed. This gives a bit more room to write.. In my brother’s game, he does not enforce level limits, so my half-elf F/C/M is level 10/10/11. It took a LONG time to get there dividing XP by 3.
Here is a link to a PDF of the blank printable version
This has proved to be a handy tool for at the table. I will make something like this available to the spell casters in my game, or at least a suggestion that they use something like this to speed up play.
What I did was indicate one side for cleric spells and the other for magic-user spells. I then indicated how many rows for each level of spell. There is a spot for spell name, range, area of effect, casting time, and duration. This covered most of the crunchy bits of using spells. I also had a copy of the spells from the player’s handbook, also in sheet protectors, so that I did not have to take long to find them.
I got this idea from playing Star Fleet Battles and having the ship sheets in sheet protectors.
I came up with a few other uses, one that I find can apply to my current campaigns, that I will share tomorrow.
[EDIT: A common sense trick I heard a year or two after I first posted this advises to always note the page number of the spell and what book it is in. That holds for any version of D&D or other RPG with defined spells. Specialized equipment and abilties can also be handled with a page notation. Especially if you are gaming and don’t have your own PHB with all your notes and bookmarks. I should really add a spot for page number to the linked PDF….]
I saw this YouTube video about the GameFindr app beta and a request for feedback and going to thei FLGS page and adding all the local game stores you know about.
I thought that I would help out with this, but there is not way to verify if my FLGS is in their database, at least from their website,
I read further and at the bottom of the page where you enter FLGS information is states: “By submititng your information, you agree that GameFindr may use your data and showcase it in the offical GameFindr app. Additionally, you agree that GameFindr may contact you if deemed necessary to validate any information provided regarding your LGS locator application. Please allow 4-6 weeks for the approval process and for your store data to appear on the app. Thank you.”
Sorry, but I will not provide information that encumbers someone else for which I do not have the authority.
I shared the following comment on the YouTube video I mentioned above.
Interesting idea for an app.
However, I have the following issues:
1.) There is no search for LGS. It shows me stuff from Chicago about 200 miles away, in a different state. I have to scroll down the list. I realized that zooming in on the map let me look and my icon is the same color as other icons, are those gamers or LGS? I think they should be a different color. I also don’t like that it shows exactly where I live. It should be over the center of town. If I am the only one who can see my location until I accept a friend request, it is not obvious.
2.) I suggest that once you sign in that it take you to fill in your profile. It took me a couple minutes to find it.
3.) After watching the video, I was going to be helpful and go to your website and input my LGS, but I read at the bottom of the page that the person inputting the information gives your company rights to use the name and more of the LGS. I don’t have the legal authority to bind my LGS to those terms, so I will not make a headache for them.
4.) You have D&D as a game choice, but it defaults to ANY for version and won’t let me change it.
You asked [in the video] what it would take to give it five stars, this is my answer.
I think the idea of the app is a good one. It is still in beta, so I will check and see if anyone in the Kalamazoo area is on and interested in OSR games, esp. AD&D, Metamorphosis Alpha, or White Star.
I read through other comments on the YouTube video, and this app was funded by Kickstarter. It looks like they are on track for their project. Other than questions from backers wanting to not have ads, and the growing pains of what is consider proper development of a program now days, the Kickstarter portion seems to be well in hand.
I did have a few issues with the app itself. It took me a minute to figure out how to put in my information. I only get one match, and since they haven’t filled in their information, I don’t know what games they play.
A few days ago, they released this video explaining how to configure your Gamefindr profile, so people will click on you. As for me, I now have two matches, one is 8 miles away and the other 43 miles, but there is no picture and more importantly, no listing of what games they play. I won’t be friending anyone in this app without knowing what games they play.
I like that you can add games, but you have to use the website, etc. or it won’t let you submit them.
At Free RPG Day on Saturday at Fanfare, I mentioned Gamefindr and that the closest stores I noticed were in northern Indiana, and none in all of Michigan. Today, for some reason the two stores in Indiana are no longer showing. One of them was close enough I was planning to visit, but I did not make a note of its name or location. So now what? I have to google game stores in Indiana and hope I find it.
I know there are or were two game stores in Kalamazoo, at least one in Battle Creek, and several in Grand Rapids. It is free advertising, so unless there is some drawback I don’t understand, I think it’s a good thing.
Gamefindr has had 4 or 5 updates since I first installed it last week. They are making a big push to boost the number of users. Having more users only helps if people fill out their profile. If you haven’t managed to hook up with a local group of gamers, this might be one way to do it. But without more users in areas of less dense population, it won’t do much good. Chicago looks like they are packed. Detroit and Indianapolis don’t have much.
It’s a free app, if you can put up with the ads. I’ll do my part to help out and let others know about it. If you are looking for players or games for in-person gaming, this app could cut past all the limitations of online sites. The biggest limitation is remembering to check it every day. But no new area gamers, or no replies to inquiries is frustrating. However, just like the online sites, if no one knows about it, or those who use it don’t fill out their profiles, it is next to useless.
Free RPG Day, 2015 in Kalamazoo, Michigan at Fanfare Sports & Entertainment.
We had three co-GM’s: +Doug Kovacs one of the artists for DCC and other Goodman Games products; +Adam Muszkiewicz of +Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad & +Drink Spin Run – An RPG Talk Show Podcast, one observer – Adam’s wife Katie (She didn’t to play today. It was something about being in the last trimester of pregnancy and the inside of her ribs being used for kickboxing practice.), and +Roy Snyder and 6 players. {See here [G+ post not archived.] for Roy’s write up.]
I was expecting more players. the only other game as part of Free RPG Day was D&D Attack Wing. they had one demo game going when I got there. I wasn’t paying too close of attention. I am not sure if they did one or two other demos. Their last demo closed out the store with us.
It was interesting to see the three GM’s trade off and take turns with different parts of the adventure, each working their own particular twist into it.
Play was scheduled to start at 1:00. We played until about 3:30 PM for a food break, and had a few different groups we broke into to go to different places. After we got back from eating, we resumed play until finishing right before 8:00 PM.
We had some cool freebies. Afterwards, Adam and his wife, Katie, Doug, Roy, and I went to Louie’s Trophy House and Grill. Several taxidermied animals, either heads hanging on the wall or free standing full body animals. We went until a bit after 1:00 AM. They have $1 off local drafts on Saturdays, which was cool. We had a Garbage Pizza which is really good. My son has been there, which didn’t surprise me. He is a beer snob. We may go there sometime.
I was good to see Adam again and play with him as a GM, and meet his wife, Katie. I enjoyed meeting Doug, playing in his game, and getting to know him. He had an interesting idea for DCC, called “Fleeting Luck”, that he said they used at NTRPG Con. The GM would award luck for various things, but if it was fleeting, any time someone rolled a natural 20 or healed, the GM collected all the fleeting luck. Bad puns and jokes earned fleeting luck. I earned 2 and lost each of them in the same round because my initiative was after both most of the other players and the monsters we faced. One player rolled a LOT of 20’s, so I don’t think anyone got to use their fleeting luck. Their might have been one, maybe two, I don’t recall.
Tomorrow is Free RPG Day, and I will be in attendance at my FLGS, Fanfare Sports & Entertainment. [This is their new website.]
From the official announcement [G+ link not available to archive.] by +Roy Snyder.
Along with the immortalized +Doug Kovacs; +Adam Muszkiewicz of +Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad & +Drink Spin Run – An RPG Talk Show Podcast we bring that special blend of original 1974 gaming to Kalamazoo… “Yes! There Really Is a Kalamazoo!” home of Marmalade Dog marmaladedog.org – Over 20 years of con gaming at Western Michigan University.
I met Adam at Marmalade Dog 20, I had read his blog, and we both gushed about how much we liked Delving Deeper. I played in two sessions of Adam’s Kickassistan, which was my introduction to DCC. I had a blast. I also interacted with Roy Snyder as a player in those sessions, and am now in Roy’s semi-irregular DCC game.
I am looking forward to more DCC!
Sunday’s post will be a write-up of what we did for the day.
Here’s an image of the cool poster for the event! See the official announcement mentioned above, for a link to the PDF.
An email came out that the PDF was ready and things are in final preparations for the printing. 627 pages in the PDF!
I never had any of the original Grimtooth’s Traps, and don’t recall reading any of them. Looking forward to getting the book in hand so I can flip through it! A quick flip through the PDF is interesting.
This article started as a comment to +Erik Tenkar’s post at Tenkar’s Tavern about vetting Kickstarters. That is, he is planning to look at RPG related Kickstarters and share if he sees warning signs about potential train wrecks. On the plus side, it will help highlight the ones most likely to be worth the risk.
I think that is a good idea. The RPG crowd should work together to encourage those with good ideas to be successful before they launch their Kickstaters (or other online funding drives). Proper planning and allowing for timing variables and the unexpected before jumping in. I think those who are strong in the creative aspect and have little or no planning/scheduling skills should find someone to join their team, or spend the time to learn those skills.
Erik has written a sort of things to avoid with Kickstarters in the past. Perhaps putting together a PDF of what has worked in the past, what hasn’t worked, and let the creators know these are the criteria for the vetting posts.
His Note on the Pedion Kickstarter is helpful but brief. [I don’t have miniatures, and am working to downsize stuff I don’t use. The stuff on my downsize list takes up many times what my RPG space occupies.]
I think those of us that either read Erik’s posts about Kickstarters, or who have backed Kickstarters, or both, know that miniatures as add-ons, and shwag for stretch goals can kill a project. Just as much as unrealistic timelines and not planning for shipping, taxes, and Kickstarter fees.
Perhaps a PDF linked to the right. Feedback from those who ran successful Kickstarters or links to examples of well run campaigns would be good. I liked the advice from the NTPRG panel +Richard LeBlanc, of New Big Dragon/SavevsDragon, who shared the audio yesterday.
It would be great to get poorly planed & executed Kickstarters on the right track before they start, so those with a good track record don’t get a black eye from guilt by association.
I don’t mean to discourage good ideas, or halt creativity. But good intentions aren’t enough to make a Kickstarter a success.
The old adage of under promise and over deliver is appropriate. At the bare minimum, do what you said you would do. Doing more is great, not meeting the minimum of what you said is failure.
I am sure that there are others in the RPG hobby, like me, who have dreams of publishing our own content someday. For many of us, it may only be a dream, but it we take the steps to do it or share it, we should do it in a way that adds value to the hobby; and not leave one looking like a cheating money grubber, or total incompetent.
Before I attempt even something as “simple” as a PDF on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow, I know that I have a lot I need to learn, on top of writing, revision, and editing any such product. Even a free product says a lot about one’s capabilities and integrity. Rising to the level of a Kickstarter, one has to make that a job and put in a lot of time before even considering clicking the launch button. From what I have seen of Kickstarters that succeed vs. those that failed, those that put in the time and effort up front to get all their ducks in a row, tend to succeed. Simply put, those that PLAN to succeed will succeed if they are backed.
My definition of a successful Kickstarter is one that delivers in the time frame listed, or adjusted time frame clearly and timely reported to backers.
Those Kickstarters that should have been successful and weren’t tend to be the ones that add unrealistic stretch goals that they have not researched and planned as meticulously as everything else. Or to have a major player in the product wig out after leading the team to believe they were working on it this whole time, so things just get worse.
The team involved matters. If you or someone on your team has health issues, especially mental health issues, either get their part out of the way before launch, or they should be gracious enough to bow out before they screw over their team. [There is no shame in having mental health issues. However, if you know about your issues, you should be professional and courteous enough to share with your team and build that into your plan.]
Accidents happen. As someone who survived a major car accident many years ago, I know how quickly one can leave this mortal coil. {I don’t recommend sleeping and driving at the same time.] If something like that happened, what would happen to delivery? To my knowledge, there is not a situation like this, but it would not surprise me if a major actor in a funded Kickstarter dropped dead, what would that do? I think that is another argument for getting more done before clicking the launch button.
If you do a Kickstarter, you should act like it is your job, and put the required amount of effort into it. The most successful Kickstarters have the text complete, and maybe only need the final layout done. Those that put their own money into it up front to get a jump on things, which also save headaches.
Communicate any delays with your backers. Have a tool, whether a calendar, notebook, spreadsheet, or scheduling app to track where you are in the project. If your project funds on the first day, forget stretch goals and make sure the object of the Kickstarter is DONE or well on it’s way by the time the funding deadline hits and you get your funds.
The bar for someone’s first Kickstarter is very high. Some individuals have the skills to do it all on their own. If you are not one of those individuals, you need to either hire or acquire those skills to fill in the gap.
I hope that we see all the scoundrels ignored and wasting their time and soon give up, so that the true gems shine out and we can gain the benefit of the good stuff!
There are two types of old school roleplayers. Those who lived it back in the day, and those who are discovering it today.
Back in the day, everything was pen, pencil, paper, and maybe an electronic calculator. Calculators were very expensive back then.
We could create entire worlds from our imagination and some notes and stats on notebook paper and a quick map on graph paper.
We could stuff sheets of graph paper into a spiral notebook and hope we didn’t lose them. Or we could get a three ring binder and organize our notes. We’d use a hole punch, to punch one hole at a time, if any paper we used didn’t have holes. Sheet protectors could be used for maps to make sure they were not damaged.
We made our own character sheets on notebook paper, using narrow ruled or college ruled paper to get more on the page. Notebooks to track a player’s character information could quickly grow to include tracking spells and items, castles and troops. I made a sheet to track spell slots that I could put in a sheet protector and write the spell for the slot in dry erase marker, or grease pencil. I then either erased it, or checked off that I used it, if I planned to use it again.
When computers were first affordable enough to have in the home, some of us made dice rolling programs to generate a thousand kobolds in a few seconds.
When word processors became more usable, we could type up our notes, and make our own character sheets, and other notes that we as players or DM could use. Does anyone remember the DOS version of WordStar? Italics and bold remind me of how to do it in HTML.
Spreadsheets, word processors, scripting languages, programmable text editors, and more all have a use. Now many of them are all online and shared storage of Google Drive, and Communities.
As new tools came along, we could put them to use too. 10 cent copies at the town library or college library, or access via a job, allowed lots of copies of our hand drawn maps to note different information. One for terrain, one for monster locations, etc.
As computers improved in performance and tools became available that we could afford, we did more with computers. The availability of free and open source software (FOSS) opened a lot of doors. A lot of FOSS has neared or equaled commercial software. We have GIMP, Scribus, Hexographer, and many others for various purposes. Such tools and scanners and cell phone cameras have enabled us to take our original old school materials and make a record of it. We can also share our original stuff with the world, or just make it available for a virtual session via the internet.
The new tools we have, allow us to do a lot of things with our old school methods and ideas. We can share them with the world, and can game with people from across the globe. In my weekly Wednesday night AD&D game our DM alternates between two states because his work is in one location and his family in another. I am in Michigan, one player is in Florida, another is in England, and we have a few more, all in various U.S. locations.
Playing over the internet has one weakness of in person play. No electricity, or no internet, or computer problems, or provider problems, and you can’t play. With in person play, just like back in the day, you don’t need electricity. You have your notes, manuals, dice, and a flashlight, candle, lantern, or camp fire, and you can game. For that aspect alone, in person play rules. In person play also rules because you can see player’s faces, and body language, and you have more time to get to know each other, than people across the planet you only interact with once a week for four hours. I feel I know them, but I wouldn’t know them if I passed them on the street. We don’t use our cameras in Google Hangouts to help minimize lag issues.
The one way online play rules, is that you can easily find a group to play with, if you know where to look. If you live in a small town and don’t know the right people, it can be hard to find a group to game with. So you have to find a FLGS or go to a local con and meet the local people. This is an issue if you are new to an area, or are new to RPG’s.
For me, if I still lived within an hour of where I grew up, I could get together frequently with many of the original gang I started with. Since I have been 13 years in Michigan, and only got serious about getting back into playing the last few years, I have found that the resources for finding local players for in person gaming, like Pen and Paper Games, and others like it, aren’t helpful if no one is interested in your version. It looks like it would work great, if you lived in or near a major city, like Detroit, or Chicago, where the numbers are there.
However, once you find people who like your style of game, you are in a circle of knowledge that lets you dig deeper to try to find a group for your own local game, whether as a player or a DM.
Or you can have kids and game with them, until their lives get complicated with their own kids, or they move out of state. Then the cycle of looking starts again….
