Atreus's RPG Works

I hope everyone’s having a great holiday season. I know mine’s been good and busy so far.

I’m hoping to come back with a fresh set of ideas, but that will have to wait a little while longer.

Sure, everyone knows you’ll need dice, pen, and paper. You can use a laptop or other electronics in place of them (see: nearly every play-by-post game ever), but that’s up to you and there’s some debate as to how that affects the feel of the game.

But the field expands so far if you look past that. Miniatures (and any variations thereof), battlemaps, DM screens, special character sheets that act as cheet sheets (though I’m not sure why any game doesn’t include frequent calculations into its sheets), props (see Buccaneers Guild for some spot on props and some tips). It can be overwhelming.

I hate to slow roll this, but come back soon and I’ll show you what I made for my first D&D campaign.

So, if you wanted to start GMing, how would you do it? Probably different that you did if you’ve already passed that stage. I thought I might talk about some of the issues that may arise (feel free to add more in the comments!). There’s a recent episode of Fear the Boot that touches on this subject some, and I know for certain that there are past episodes as well.

First, you have to pick a system and sell it. D&D is usually an easy sell, but it may not be the best choice every time. Something like Spirit of the Century may be better for a more pulp-oriented crowd, while a new GM in a group of hardened roleplayers may want to branch out with some like Dogs in the Vineyard. Don’t think these are your only choices, either. The world abounds with options. If the group you’re going to sell the system to loves wuxia films, something like Weapons of the Gods or Exalted may be right up their alley. If they want lots of magic, either Mage game from White Wolf may do but don’t count out Unknown Armies.

But style of game/system isn’t the only factor to include here. D&D (especially 3.5 and before) can be fairly daunting to learn for new players, and filled with potential traps – and it’s not even the crunchiest system around, by far. Make sure that, by the time you go to game, you know the system well enough to not have many issues running the game, and that you have a good idea of where to look when issues come up.

Similarly, make sure your players know what their in for. If you give a bunch of completely new players (or hardcore dungeoncrawlers) a game like Dogs, and they may freeze up. I’m not saying they can’t handle it, just that a heavy-roleplay, low-crunch game can be daunting for people expecting certain things. That’s part, of course, of why you have to sell them on the game beforehand.

Anyone have any thoughts as to other things to take into account?

Well, my buddies came back from States. Neither won, but one of the guys they went with Top 8′ed. The record was: WUR control, 0-3 drop, Mono-White Midrange/Control 2-4-1. EDIT: I think Top 8 guy went 6-1.

But less important than that in the grand scheme of things is this: Jund is still at the top of the game. Looks to me like just below it you see the Boros deck (in some variation, as I know there are a few) and Turbo Fog/Jacerator as the other top players. I also see the a BGW Junk deck won in Alabama.

I have to wonder how this might affect the metagame for the future, but Standard is actually off the big-league radar for a few months.

I don’t think there’s a single game actually built around this concept (there could be an indy game, as I don’t know too many of them), but I’ve always been taken in by the idea (if not always the execution) of slice of life stories.

The best example of what I’m specifically talking about is the first few episodes of Haibane Renmei. Through them, we follow our protagonist during her first few days in her new life, and see the lives of her companions as she spends a day with them in an attempt to discover how she’d like to spend her days. Eventually the show develops an over-arching plot, but it starts out simple: show one day (or a series of days) in the life of the main character.

I think the closest you come to in current gaming thought is the episodic game, where most (if not all) events are tied to a single session/story, and then just become part of the background. The “slice of life” game would, I think, be similar. The main thing would be that any character development would be put on slow-burn for a while. Big things would and could happen, but very few things that actually have a far reaching impact for the characters themselves. Mostly, you be in character-discovery mode.

That may be a distinct that makes no sense though: character development versus character discovery. Here’s how I see it. Character development is the evolution of a character beyond their initial personality, the natural change of viewpoint that happens throughout life. Character discovery is the revelation of the initial personality – rather than challenges changing the person, the challenges are designed to bring out who that person/character is already.

This may be an interesting twist on episodic gaming, or it may be a pointless thought exercise. I really have no clue.

This really seems to be the more common issue I’ve run across in my own games, as well as descriptions of other’s games. What do you do if you have an “evil” character in a group of otherwise good characters? This can be the chaotic neutral rogue who doesn’t see any problem with stealing from everyone he can, or the evil priest using the rest of the party as a way to get the power or relics he needs bring his god’s plans to fruition, or any number of other possible characters.

The simplest solution is not to get into this situation in the first place. Use a group template or group character creation session to ensure that no one creates a character that significantly clashes with the rest of the group – unless that’s what you want. This may be the only solution, really.

When it comes to the characters that are only rogue-ish instead of truly evil, you may not have a problem at all. That is, as long as you don’t have any lawful good Paladins, who are traditionally the other side of this particular problem.

Anyone care to share their experiences with this?

I wanted to talk about a trend I’ve noticed lately in video game RPGs: the disappearance (or nearly so) of “good” and “evil” alignments. This isn’t to say that polarized alignments are gone, merely that we’ve changed viewpoints.

In games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and even Fallout 3 (despite being able to be completely despicable in Fallout 3 by helping the slavers and such), alignment isn’t going to affect the way you choose to end the game. Instead, the end goal is the same (even if the post-game outcome is different): you save the universe, world, or whatever small corner of it you’re trying to protect. Instead, the game tracks whether you’re a shining example of all that is good or a real asshole about it.

For example, in Mass Effect, being a Paragon generally means doing everything you can to protect lives and taking a very egalitarian stance politically but being a renegade means doing everything necessary to get the job done right now and taking a generally Earth-first stance. In Dragon Age, there’s no real alignment tracking, you’re still going to save Ferelden – even if you piss everyone else off first. The closest it gets is by tracking your relationships with the other members of your group. They have their own personalities and some can be hard to please (see: Morrigan and Sten). If you finish Fallout 3, someone’s going to step in and give their life (or not if you have DLC) so that the DC area can have clean water, even if it’s not you. You can take an anti-ghoul stance though, and poison the resulting otherwise-clean water so that the Ghouls will die.

I think it makes for an interesting choice to do things this way, though I realize that games are doing it because it’s easier to not have to program endings that are too disparate.

I may talk a little bit more about alignment after this, as it seems to have sparked some creative juices.

I just want to wish some luck to everyone playing at States tomorrow. For those not in the know, States/Provincials (for you Canadian folk) is an annual batch of Magic tournaments, all played for the title of State/Province Champion – and some free constructed PTQ/Grand Prix entries. It’s not much, but it’s one of the times that the casual and competitive worlds mix, with the best deck/player combo hopefully coming out on top.

This would’ve been my first chance to go, but another joyous event is in the way (my girlfriend’s birthday). I do have two friends going, though, and I’d be so proud if either of them came back with the title for Arkansas.

All I ask is that you do everything in your power to not let Jund win the day!

Ok, this may not be anything new, but I thought I’d mention that the concept of “player types” can be very important when creating a game that will work for everyone (or as many as possible) in your group. The funny thing is, that I realized this bears a striking relationship to an ongoing thread in the realm of Magic: the Gathering. They use player psychographics to aid in understanding and designing the cards for the game.

For Magic, there are three main play-style psychographics: Timmy, Johnny, and Spike. The breakdown goes like this: Timmy plays to experience something (frequently achieved through the use of big creatures or big spells), Johnny plays to express himself (combo players, rogue deck designers, and the occasional guy who builds a deck with Barren Glory and One With Nothing), and Spike plays to prove something (usually that he can win but any challenge is appropriate, like strategically correct play). Most players are a mix of types.

The same goes with RPG players. Other sites have covered the various known player types several times, and it’s been covered in several editions of the DMG. Something I mentioned right off but may not have stuck (and the Magic R&D knows well), is that you have to design the game with something for all of your player types in mind. Luckily, even though we have many more “types” to go in our list, we only have to design to the players we’re going to have for this one game.

So I haven’t gotten a new post up for several reasons, not least of which is that I’m sick enough to disrupt my creativity. I really don’t think I overdid myself over last week and the holiday, but I guess I did. Bleh.

Anyway, I thought I’d not leave you hanging without know why.