#RPGaDay #FavoriteFiction/TieinNovel

#RPGaDay #FavoriteFiction/TieinNovel

Time for another confession:  I hate rpg fiction. I know hate is a strong word and I mean it in it's strongest definition here. Okay, why? 

First, if you can't describe your material, without fiction leading into your setting book, module, whatever rpg splat book, you need to spend more time working on your ability to evoke emotional responses to your writing. Too often, I see this as a crutch used by weaker writers. I have read this in other people's products and rejected submissions sent to me due to it. My recommendation is to write the non-fiction first, then let that inspire you to write the fiction lead-in. If it does not inspire you to write something awesome, why would it inspire your readers?

Secondly, keep lead-in fiction minimal. If you can't do it in 2000 words in a core book or less than 800 words in a supplement, you have lost me. Give me a quick read, a taste, a sampling, and move on! I don't want 16 pages of fiction by various authors whose voices are so different to be jarring and turn me off. 

Now, if you are butt hurt at this point, don't be. This is just my opinion. There are plenty of fans who love what you wrote. I simply am not your core audience.

As to fiction novel tie ins, I don't know that I can pick a fave. It's been too long. I will go with The Book of Cthulhu as edited by Ross E. Lockhart. It is not designed to be fiction tie in, but it is some of the best Mythos I have read.

#RPGaDay #FavoriteCharacter

#RPGaDay #FavoriteCharacter

I have performed the GM task for most of my rpg career. Yet, a few characters stand out through the ages.

My first Vampire the Masquerade character was a Giovanni. This would lead to me running a full-on campaign of Giovanni (and related sub-Clans) while I was living in Memphis.

My first character in one of Lowell’s games was a Werewolf the Apocalypse character named Merik. Despite a really bad player, the game was awesome. It also showed the inherit flaws of the rule system’s combat damage mechanics. What do you mean I’m a nine foot tall werewolf who just did no damage on a 6 die successful attack roll?

Then, there was Ur-Traczek Qingu Adapa-apkallu the Gunslinging Goblin in Steve’s Freeport True20 game. We called him “Ur” for short. He started with an eyepatch that he didn’t need. It covered his “shooting eye”. He ended with a sombrero no one needed. Where the werewolf character was flawed at dealing damage, Ur was a powerhouse to rival any other powerhouse in the party, except for the magic users. He had more guns than teeth and didn’t believe in waiting for the rest of the party to catch up before moving on to the next room (or five) in dungeons. Ur was different for me, because he wasn’t cautious, he wasn’t worried about being cut-off from the rest of the party, and I didn’t try to be in charge with him. Not that he was a beta personality, either. He was a solo adventurer in his own world  and the rest of the party was there to back him up as needed.

He may have also been a bit of comedic relief.

That leaves my D&D 3^rd edition, half-orc. This poor boy was an orphan, adopted by humans in a very human-centric village. He was a ranger, carrying on the tradition of his adopted father. He also stuttered, unless he was in combat. The players thought it was great that here I was, playing a stuttering, nervous, shy, giant sized half-orc. I had even managed to botch up some die rolls about ranger-y things before the first real combat, which helped sell the bumbling kid act. At soon as we went to initiative, the stuttering stopped, the shyness fell to the background, and the killing machine started. I did not get many feats with the half-orc ranger, but I maximized everything I could improve. He would eventually manage to use a magic scroll to kill off a troll as we reclaimed a keep for the baron (or whomever it was). That was likely the highlight of his life. Kip ran a great game and the group was a lot of fun when they got along. Sadly, personality issues crashed our group within 3 years.

#RPGaDay #MostIntellectualRPG

#RPGaDay #MostIntellectualRPG

I’m not sure I own intellectual RPGs. I probably do. I probably own several. Let’s see what I can come up with:

Microscope – It’s about designing and building whole worlds. I would argue it is not a RPG in Gary’s view or my view. However, it is a great tool to set up a shared world setting. I put Microscope in the same pile of books as Aria. Great products, but not what I am looking for with this topic.

Primal Order – Is an older product from Wizards of the Coast. The idea was to supply ideas on how to include deities and religion in your game. They supplied rules for various games in publication and received several cease & desist notices and maybe even a lawsuit occurred. The books are okay, but again, I don’t think this hits the nail on the head.

Nobilis 2^nd edition – This is a physically beautiful book. The rules are light. The players take on the roles of sovereign powers where they represent abstract concepts (death, time, cars, the color orange, etc.). This game is likely the most intellectual in my collection.

However, I am going with Mage as my most intellectual. Mage requires the group to work through what is reality, to the individual and the masses. It also requires the group to work through spell casting, what is rote and what is improvised? When does one become the other? This game requires the most “thinking” among my collection. It is also a game that many people I know just never understood. It requires the players to get inside their characters’ heads and understand their view on magic and reality.

#RPGaDay #FavoriteRPGNeverGettoPlay

#RPGaDay #FavoriteRPGNeverGettoPlay

Mine isn’t a specific game, but rather game-genre. I would love to get into a gritty, military sci-fi game. I have touched it on occasion, but never had the luck of playing in an active campaign that lasted more than 4 sessions. Traveller, Hammer’s Slammers, even Warhammer 40k with its mentalists and demons would be alright in my book. Settings like Apophis Consortium’s Obsidian or Mongoose’s take on Judge Dredd would also work for me. 

#RPGaDay #MostOldSchoolRPGOwned

#RPGaDay #MostOldSchoolRPGOwned

Traveller – little black book edition. . . in the original LBB format, and the reproduced landscape edition. . . and Megatraveller, and New Era,and T5 (and 2300 if you think it’s part of the universe). I know I don’t own Traveller d20 or the new Big Black Book. I own a GURPs book or two for it and I picked up Hammer’s Slammers and Judge Dredd, which use the Mongoose Traveller rules. I have several boxes of books and maps for this game. I even have boxed set miniatures rules and ships for the game.

So, um, yeah, I like Traveller. Yet, as much as I like it, I have played it the least, among the sci-fi games I have played. I think I like it the most as it has the most “open” feel said sci-fi games and I found it very inspiring to be able to sit there and create whole vistas of places to travel. Star Wars, Fading Suns, and Dark Heresy all have their worlds mapped out for you. Yes, you can create your own, but they don’t have the charts or the math involved like Traveller.

#RPGaDay #MostRecentRPGPurchased

#RPGaDay #MostRecentRPGPurchased

The most recent book to make it into my collection is the 13^th Age Beastiary. I pre-ordered this as part of their Kickstarter when I was running a 13^th Age game. It’s a good book filled with better write ups than art. I may not be running a 13^th Age game at the moment, but I may one day in the future.

Maybe a viking game.

#RPGaDAy #1strpgGameMastered

#RPGaDAy #1^strpgGM

I do not remember the first rpg I GMed. It was likely D&D or Superworld (from Choasium). They would have been one-shots for my little brother. The first game I ran as a campaign was Werewolf:  The Apocalypse. Robb was running VtM, so I picked this one up. Some of my fondest campaign memories are from the all but one female group and the one was again, my little brother. He was not always available to play with us. It was after high school for me and we would often start late at night and end early in the morning. He was in high school and very active with tennis at the time.

I would go on to run other campaigns via WtA. Another great one was a four person, six episodes, miniseries of a game with an awesome climatic battle as the pups became full on warriors of Gaia. The entire thing was action-packed fun that I wish could be captured in a bottle and doled out as needed. The players were very into their characters and I was dead on with the NPCs.

I made it to second edition, but not third. I have picked up the nWoD core book, but have not done anything with it. If you are looking for a game with a lot of combat in the modern day, this could be the game for you.

When will you rage?

#RPGaDay #1stRPGPurchased

#RPGaDay #1stRPGPurchased

The first core book I remember owning would have been AD&D 2^nd edition. I may have owned the D&D Rules Compendium, but I didn’t understand it. The 2^nd edition book led to my first true gaming group during high school. I played Friday nights at a friend’s house. I could not tell you who or what I played, only that I did play and had no idea what I was doing. I was out of my league playing with seasoned veterans. They helped me learn and eventually I would leave them for a game of Vampire:  the Masquerade with a group my own age.

#RPGaDay #1strpgplayed

#RPGaDay #1strpgplayed

The first roleplaying game I played was D&D red box edition. My friend Aaron owned it and invited me over to play. It was the early 1980s and I was in elementary school. I do not remember much of the experience, emotions only, really. I had fun. It was a new experience. I had no idea what I was doing, I am sure. I played it two times, maybe three. The first two times were solo adventures with the dungeon master. The third was with a different dungeon master and my friend as another player. I did not care for that experience much. I think it had more to do with not wanting to share time with my friend with another kid I barely knew, than anything else.

From there, I discovered the Choose Your Own Adventure books. These led further down the rabbit hole for me. May father would eventually come home with a boxed set from Chaosium featuring their Basic Rules, a supers setting, a futuristic setting, and a fantasy setting. What I remember from this game was not liking the rules. The percentile system did not lend itself to a young boy wanting to play a tough fighter already experienced in the ways of war. We tried, my brother, father, and I, but it did not go very far.

To this day, my experiences with the art are what continue to inspire my fond memories. For the D&D game, it was the maps my friend created. While I would not go on to run the game myself, I would create hundreds of maps. Sadly, I never made it past drawing in 2D. Outside of geometric shapes, I never made it to 3D drawing.

From the CYOA novels, it was the covers. The colors, the movement, the characters facing danger. From Chaosium’s boxed set, I think I gained a wider worldview of the roleplaying game genre. I was raised to read and I read as often as not. The boxed set showed me roleplaying games related to novels, comics, and movie posters.

And that is where I started. Where did you start?

The End of the War of the Cross

Beginning

I ran a one shot over the weekend for 2 of my 3 regular players. The 3^rd was out of town. Instead of running a continuation in the normal game, we opted to go with something different. I thought something more high energy and potentially high excitement, with dice gimmicks could be fun. Sadly, I slept in and was not able to work in the dice gimmicks. Instead, I came up with quick characters via Ghosts of Albion for a game set in Theah, AEG’s 7^th Sea setting.

Unisystem is a natural for me to default to, as I have mastered its craft many years ago. I would love to get to that level with nWoD, but I have no interest in paying for the books I would need to really understand the game and its tweaks from under the hood. In short time, a cavalier, a soldier, and a hunter were all designed at a mid-power level tier.

The scenario involved the two party members traveling home after the War of the Cross. One was from Montaigne, the other Avalon. The rest of their traveling compatriots had gone their own ways by the time we joined the party. They stopped off in an Eisen village for the night. By the following morning they were involved with ghouls, mercenaries committing foul crimes, and a mayor’s wife being kept alive Elizabeth Bathory-style. Let us not forget, the laissez-faire Pierre the chef. Provider of fine wine and back door entrances to utilize en route to killing the mayor’s now-vampire wife.

 

System

Unisystem didn’t fail us and the players had fun. I would really like to try and run a 7^th Sea game, some day. I played in a one-shot of Legends of the 5 Rings and it was as deadly as I desired. At that same time, I think long term games might churn through player characters, as played in the one-shot. There is talk of a new edition of 7^th Sea. While Unisystem is not out of print, there is only a slow trickle of products

produced each year, including reprints. However, I think I have all I need with what is in print. I would just need to pull it from various books. 7^th Sea is out of print, but L5R is not and has updated rules if I need references. However, 7^th Sea is limited by what is available in terms of the world. The game’s setting is Euro-centric and has no magic system for voodoo that I have seen. The idea of a swashbuckling game without voodoo and Caribbean references is a bit bothersome to me. However, the game always struck me as more 3 Muskateers and not a Disney ride. Still, Caribbean, or if it is there in the Pirate Islands, I need to read up on it more.

Another alternate is Savage Worlds utilizing Solomon Kane and Pirates of the Spanish Main. Savage Worlds also has a plethora of products out there, much akin to Unisystem, and I can cobble together whatever would be needed.     

Still, I need to research more into 7^th Sea and the available rules. I have played in a True 20 game of swashbuckling via Freeport. I would rather move on to something new. Perhaps there are items in Witchhunter I could use, as well?

Setting

This all started with my wife asking me to pick up Diablo 3. She wanted a game to play with me that was not a first person shooter. It was on sale, so we picked it up and started playing it that very day. Right away, the game reminded me of Ravenloft and my small amount of experience with that. It also came to remind me of the tone in Obsidian. There were angels and demon infestations, cities using portals for travel, and plenty of violence.

The more I thought on the idea of a 7^th Sea game, the more I wandered towards influences from those other games. The Mists from Ravenloft may be why lone travelers use the gate/portals found in Diablo 3. The merchant’s guild hires soldiers and knights to guard the caravans from attacks. Perhaps the leaders of the caravans or the drivers of the wagons have a psychic ability that allows them to traverse the Mists, similar to the Vistani from Ravenloft. The fact these people exist and are in the employ of the merchants leads to the merchants gaining more and more power in the realm.

At the same time, dread powers are encroaching upon the land due to the War of the Cross results. Fields of slaughtered villagers side by side with burnt fields next to soldiers still clinging to their life as they lie dieing in the battlegrounds. Torment, strife, apathy, all these things to draw demon lords into the realm.

Maybe the 7^th Sea metaplot can be worked in, maybe not. I am not overly familiar with it and what little I know does not impress me.

Real World versus Fantasy World

The next question becomes, does one use the real world for such a setting or does one use a fantasy world, such as Theah, or Ravenloft? In my mind, I want to utilize a fantasy world. While my players are not generally history majors and that would not preclude me from changing things up here and there, I prefer to step away from our world. In addition to that, Theah seems a bit more simpler than our world. Then again, it could be due to my unfamiliarity with it.

All of these thoughts lead to the following four paragraphs, which I quickly wrote out before falling asleep that night after running the game.

The War of the Cross has ended. Eisen is a disaster. The government is in shambles, the people are destitute, and the farms are barren. Other countries are entering Eisen to claim territory under the guise of protecting their own sovereignty. Powerful individuals and groups within Eisen are doing the same.

The amount of emotional torment has allowed demon lords to enter the real of Theah. They have begun land-grabs of their own in the battlefields from the war. The Church of the Prophets does not realize this is occurring. Instead, they are focused upon the end of the war and the beginning of the Inquisition. Meanwhile, monsters both human and inhuman have begun to roam the lands of Theah. The growing darkness goes unseen in most lands.

Local soldiers and citizens realize things are amiss, but remain uncertain of where to turn. The church is focused internally. Governments are mostly unstable or detrimental to their own people. The common man is powerless to influence either the religious or political rulers. In times such as these, it will take men and women of great virtue and conviction to bring light to the darkness.

The strengthening of the merchant class is occurring while all else appears bleak. Armed caravans cross the countryside to bring trade goods where they are needed and occasionally, desired. It is with one of these caravans that we find our cast of characters. . .