#RPGaDay: Day 30 and 31

Final post in the series, so let's make it a good one!

Day 30:What RPG genre mash-up would you most like to see?

I had this idea a while ago for a mash-up of Fallout and Robotech; the Zentraedi and Invid Invasions happened, but a section of humanity survived by isolating themselves in Vault-Tec vaults. It was a quirky concept I could never get much mileage out of when I tried to actually flesh it out.

Beyond that, I'm still trying to get my Fantasy/Space Opera game up and running; Anomaly.
 It sounds like it will fall into a similar vein as Starfinder, but I'm obviously trying to make it unique and my own. I've got several worlds plotted out, several major events planned, I just have to decide how it all comes together.

Day 31: What do you anticipate most for gaming in 2018?

That's a pretty loaded and complex question to answer.

First, I'm expecting 2018 to be the year my two Renegades games come together. The two three-man parties will have played out their time, and hopefully decide to fight against the Empire in the Tantra Sector. Hopefully I can get that game going on a regular Bi-Monthly schedule.

I'm looking forward to getting more time in on my character in my buddy Tim's Star Wars game. I enjoy playing a PC, and want to get some more time at the table as a PC.

There are conventions that I want to go to; GamerNationCon 2018 is going to be a hoot, because it's going to be Harry Potter themed (or at least magic-themed). GM Chris and I are planning to write modules using FFG's Genesys system; his at Hogwarts, mine at Ilvermony. I almost have to bring a Fallout module down there too, but do I write a new one or create a third module? And do I bring down a Star Wars module to run as well?  At that point I might be diluting my time too much, and should probably stick with only 2 modules to run.

Then there's GenCon 51, where the organizers from FFG have already sent out the "we hope you can join us next year" email. We'll have to see about that one; I'd love to do it, and had a great time running games for them this past year. Mostly about time and airfare.

There's a gaming con or two in the area that I should probably reach out to and get a presence at. Total Confusion is coming up in February, at a convention center near where I work. Might be nice to start going to that and developing a larger Gamer Nation in the Northeast...

Now aside from all that, my big focus for 2018 is going to be freelancing. I've lived with too many regrets, and I'm going to do what I can to stop living that way. One of my bigger regrets is never really taking a chance and a risk at writing for games. I've formed a lot of contacts at various points in the industry, and have friends who are willing to critique my work in the hopes of making it better. I'm going to spend 2018 working on my own writing, my blog, and improving my writing style in hopes that someone is interested in my work.

2018 is a year I'm hoping for positive change, but it's not going to happen unless I put in the work for it.

And that's it, I suppose. This has been a fun, if disjointed exercise. These were a fun series of questions to answer, and really made me think back to some classic times in my gaming history.

Thanks for following along!

#RPGaDay: Day 28 and 29

Going to play catch up with these two brief questions.

Day 28: What film/series is the biggest source of quotes in your group?

It would be foolish to say anything other than Star Wars; probably because I run a lot of Star Wars and the classic lines have a high re-use value.

"This deal is getting worse all the time."
"I have a bad feeling about this."
"Impressive! Most impressive..."
"May the Force be with you."
"But I was going to go to Toche Station to pick up some power converters!"

Classics!

Day 29: What has been the best-run RPG kickstarter you've backed.

All of Chris West's Maps of Mastery kickstarters are very well done. I'm amazed at his ability to get a Kickstarter done in a week, have it almost completly fulfilled, and print off all the maps in a couple of days in time for GenCon. It's crazy.

Aside from that, the Rifts for Savage Worlds kickstarter was very well done, it's fulfillment schedule was spot on, and was handled very professionally. It also turned out to be a really fun game to boot. I couldn't back it anywhere near the level I would have liked to, but I was able to get some digital copies of the books, and they're wonderfully crafted.

Two more days, two more posts...

#RPGaDay: Day 27

With recent developments this week I find myself at home with some time on my hands. I've got 5 days of these things to do, so let's bang them out.

What are your essential tools for good gaming?

I've got three that immediately leap to mind.

First, minis. I love minis, and the way I run games (especially Combat) it's highly important to me and the players around my table where folks are at any given moment. I've used simple tokens in the past that had the Character's first initial on it (Which was a real pain when I had a bunch of "A's" in the party...), but as time went on and the variety of minis became more widespread the potential for truly unique and personal minis became possible. The wide variety of minis that came from the Star Wars Miniatures game from Wizards of the Coast gave me pretty much any figure I needed for a PC or major NPC, and if I couldn't get one exactly correct a suitable mini was only an Xacto knife and some Green Stuff away.

Hero Forge took it to the next level with their online design program, thousands of options for parts, and their ever improving line of materials to print 3D minis in. They're pricy if you go for the high detail plastic, but if you need a mini for one character and plan to use if for years, it's a solid investment.

Next to minis is maps. You've got these things, the next progression is to enhance the look of where the minis are arrayed on the field of battle, and what obstructions or opportunities there are lying around to exploit. I'm a huge fan of Chris West's Maps of Mastery line of maps. He's made a wide variety of excellent sci-fi maps over the years, along with some fantasy ones that can perform double duty too. In the last 10 years I have yet to run a session of any game where one of Chris's maps hasn't been used.

Finally, an initiative tracker. Roll20 has their online tracker that works just fine, but for table games I like my Alea Tools Initiative Board that they kickstarted a couple years back. It's really just a foot long metal plank that you can stick their magnetic tokens to, but it's elegant in it's simplicity and works wonderfully.

It's too bad these haven't been made available to the general public. The did a kickstarter for them a few years back, and haven't made them available on their website. Which is a shame, because folks have asked me where to get one anytime I run a game at a convention.

#RPGaDay: Day 26

I missed posting yesterday primarily because I was running an RPG. Good times.

Which RPG provides the most useful resources?

I'm going to take this to mean they're talking about game lines that had extra items that can be used in play. I'm going to have to go with the Star Wars RPG from Wizards of the Coast. WotC had this marvelous cross-support for Star Wars. The gaming books usually had a couple good maps in them, either as ground locations or as ship deckplans. Their Miniatures game provided hundreds of minis for a variety of PCs, NPCs, and opponents. Starship Battles gave gamers all the ship minis they could want to plot out dogfights or captial ship slugfests. And all lines gave us a variety of exceptional maps from Christoper West, who has turned it into a career over at Maps of Mastery.

FFG's Star Wars RPG Beginner Boxed Sets come in a close second, because each box provides useful counters, maps, and a set of dice. Get all four Boxed sets and you'll have plenty of dice to share and plenty of tokens and maps to play with. You can use Imperial Assault minis for characters, and X-Wing minis for space battles, but they're more expensive than WotC's models. For the price of one X-Wing miniature or one pair of Imperial Assault minis, you got 5-7 minis from WotC's packages.

I'll work on today's in a couple hours. It should still be fresh enough in my mind from yesterday's game to practically write itself.

#RPGaDay: Day 25

We're in the home stretch, only one more week to go.

While this hasn't been as involved as my "30 Days of World Building" exercise from last October, this has been a fun daily task to undertake (even if I had to play catch up a couple times). If nothing else, it pads up the amount of content on the blog...

And now for a total self-serving answer!

What is the best way to thank your GM?

Oh, a question near and dear to my heart; probably because I GM a hell of a lot more than I play.

As a GM, I'm going to give you all some insight as to what I appreciate seeing or receiving when I run games.

• Show Up to Play: Obviously there's the literal definition; if we schedule a game, I appreciate it if you actually show up to the session. But beyond that, show up ready to get into game and get into character. I love it when the story can inspire folks to really get into the feel of the game, and into the session. Immersion is a wonderful thing to achieve. Look, I know some times you just want to show up and roll dice, and that it's hard to completely disconnect from life some days, but as long as the effort is there I'll see it and appreciate your efforts to at least share in having a good time.

This also means helping to keep the game on-point. I get that we're playing with friends, and I'm as guilty of going on a tangent for the sake of a joke or a story, but the ability to bring it back to the game quickly can be a real savior.

• Logistical Assistance: There's a lot of work and effort that goes into running games, or at least there's a lot that can go into running games. Some GMs are happy and content to sit down with a prepared module and adventure and simply run that. Other masochists, like myself, want to write a story from scratch, to weave in character backgrounds into the narrative. That takes time, but it also takes material to work with. I appreciate it when my players can create backstories I can work with, and that fit into the story.

I do a lot of my campaigns on Obsidian Portal, so everything is written into a wiki on the page. I reward my players who add to the game by writing up a summary of the adventure from their perspective. It helps me track what happened in which adventure, and what the story looks like from the player's perspectives. This is helpful because if the PCs missed something I intended them to see, I can take steps to correct it next session.

Finally, yes there's the monetary support. Obsidian Portal is cheap, coming to about $5 per month, but paired with Roll20 that means I'm effectively paying $15 per month to game. I'm on a fairly tight budget these days. Fortunately several of my players happily chip in so I have the tools necessary to run games. 

• Thank you: This is a big one, appreciation for the work and effort I put into these games. Trying to herd a group of 6-12 PCs is sometimes like herding catnip-stoned feral cats. Writing and gathering the supplies to run the game isn't always easy. Transporting said supplies to a place where I can run a game for 6 people is sometimes a pain. Running the game means trying to juggle running the adventure, combat encounters, adjudicating die rolls creatively and in fun ways, and portraying a dozen unique characters (at least). Nothing makes me smile more than someone afterwards telling me they had a good time. Criticism of any sort is welcome; if something didn't work then I want to know for next time.

One of my favorite parts of GenCon was the fact that at every table, someone shook my hand afterwards and said they had a great time, that they thought I was a great GM, and/or that I made their convention. 

There are many ways to thank your GM, simple appreciation is perhaps the easiest one.

Oooo...tomorrow could be really tough. I'm going to have to think on it...

#RPGaDay: Day 24 - Alternate Question #1

The usual question for day 24 was Share a [Pay What You Want] publisher who should be charging more. This is a moot question for me because I honestly don't know any PWYW Publishers, and thought today was going to be a rather boring day. My brother pointed out that there are a list of alternate questions on the original blog for #RPGaDay, and I dove on over there to see what there was to choose from. After parusing the list, I settled on this one...

How far from human do you enjoy getting the chance to be in an RPG?

Brief Answer: Pretty far

Longer Answer: One of the reasons I got into RPGs was to be something I wasn't. I enjoy playing the alien races, the odd ball characters. Some of my favorite characters from fiction aren't human, and some of them are very non-human. I enjoy the challenge of trying to be something alien, something that people can't always relate to. I find it to be a welcome challenge. It goes back to wanting to be different, but in a special way.

One issue has been that I tend to be a gamemaster, not a player. Those rare times I did play?

• A T'skrang from Earthdawn
• A Kel Dor Jedi Knight as my RPGA Living Force character. 
• An Ithroian Jedi in Star Wars Saga Edition. 
• A Twi'lek in FFG's Star Wars RPG. 
• A Dog Boy Glitter Boy Pilot in Savage Rifts.

I don't say I never play humans, but generally speaking give me a party of humans, and I'll likely be the one looking to play the most alien among them, mechanical stats be damned.

Looking at tomorrow's question, I foresee that my answer may be a little self serving. Still, it should be fun to write up.

See you then!

#RPGaDay: Day 23

Here we are at Day 23 (Hail Eris). It's a solid question today, one that I took in a direction you might not expect...

Which RPG has the most jaw-dropping layout?

Answer: Palladium Books. The whole line, at least up until the mid-2000s.

Those of you who have any of the old Palladium books books prior to 2005 will notice that the layout there in was a bit...odd. I could never put my finger on why it bothered me so much; the layout was incredibly simplistic, artwork was reprinted regularly and in a way that hinted the image was a copy of a copy. I didn't really now why until several years ago when I read a recount and criticism by Bill Coffin on Kevin Siembeda's design practices.  Bill's recount is rather colorful and laced with snark, but it did give me insight as to why I was bothered by it all.

Once Kevin's ready for layout, he prints out the whole mess and fires up his wax machine because he still puts these damned things together by hand. What's that? Desktop publishing software? Naw, he's faster without it! To his credit, he lays out the book in fairly decent time, but he also illustrates why all Palladium books have a simple two-column format. Kevin isn't going to cut columns to shape or deviate from formula because he might have to reflow a section of the book, and when he does, all those columns have to be standard or else none of it works. Where this really makes you want to bang your head against the tip of an artillery shell is when he lays out 80% of the book, discovers that he'd like to rename an alphabetically ordered item on page 5 and decides that it would be too much work to reflow the rest of the list. You know how every so often in a Palladium book you'll have a series of NPCs or OCCs or something and one of them is grossly out of alphabetical order? That's why. I used to think it was because Kevin couldn't read the alphabet. Now I know it's because he's truly, madly, deeply in love with putting books together in ways that even Monty Burns would decry as old-fashioned.

Now, admittedly a few years after this post hit RPG.net, Bill issued a public apology to Kevin and they seemed to have buried the hatchet. But still, if that was what was going on with Palladium back in 2003, it certainly explains a lot of the issues I had with the layout of the various books from that company. This post always stuck with me, and every time I crack own a product from Palladium, even a modern one, I have to wonder if it was laid out by hand on a light table.

Tomorrow's question is going to be tough...probably because I don't think I've ever used a game from a Pay What You Want publisher.