Return of the Blog!

Hi all! 

It is about to be 2024 and wow did I fail to maintain this at all in 2023... or 2022 for that matter.  A little has changed since my last blog.  I ran an 8 session 5e campaign, 12 sessions of Dungeon World, and am currently 12 sessions into a Worlds Without Number campaign.  I've been lucky to try many new RPGs too: Break, The Walking Dead, and Dragonbane, Mythic Bastionland being the most recent. 

So why did I want to return to blogging?  I just got back from PAX and had an absolute blast.  Met a bunch of people and got to talk a lot about ttrpgs.  I would really like to get back into reviewing the numerous books I've acquired and have more sustained conversations about ttrpgs throughout the year! 

Specifically, I ran Mythic Bastionland at PAX and have a lot of thoughts.  I also bought Old Gods of Appalachia as a last minute impulse purchase.  I don't know much about the cipher system so I'll prioritize reading and reviewing that.

It's late and I'm really exhausted from PAX so this is all for now.  Basically: I want to do more blogging and discussing ttrpgs! 

Session Recap: #1 - Don't Get Arrested

Small Caveat: This is a 5e game. I find it hard to say no when group inertia claims a system. This game will run for 8 sessions - so I’m going to experiment and try new things.  Feel free to suggest concepts to try in RPG’s and I’ll see what I can do.  I still run the game very much like an OSR session, and I do not feel beholden to anything WOTC has said or done.  With that being said, on with the blog.

Session 1: Don't Get Arrested 1/30/2022

Session Summary: The party started in jail where a benefactor paid for their release. Some were arrested on false charges. Others . . . . Regardless, they are free. The benefactor requested they investigate an inn and deprive the tavern owners of a weapon smuggled into the city. The party split up, trying to gather information and pursue their own goals. Finally, they all met up at the inn, raided the basement and through usage of the city guards, had the cult arrested. The party ended the session acquiring a vorpal jewel and the deed to the Yellow Key Tavern.

Things That Went Well: Rewards. I used Matt Colville’s reward cards for the first time and it was a big success. Writing down - if this, then this - is particularly helpful for encouraging the kinds of behavior you want to see. DM’ing for some chaotic teens, I wanted to start the game off with a stable first session - so the “benefactor” tasked them with not getting rearrested. The card read: if you are not arrested for 24hrs / Reward: 1 level up. Boom.  The players carefully made decisions based on that.  I gave other rewards, many of which incentivized chaotic play.  This caused some tension — which is good. I want players to vocalize which goals are more important to them.  I think this is a better version of milestone which 5e DM's should absolutely check out (see my blog on Making Experience Work for You).  

Things to Improve On: 5e combat for 6 players.  I just cannot feel motivated to make a fight interesting, especially when my sessions are only 2 hours. The players fought some ghosts, but the combat felt drab for me and I did not feel like it added anything to the game. This may be a reoccuring problem for me — so it is something I am hoping to work on once the party hits level 3.  DM's should keep session time in mind when designing and planning their games.  With only two hours to play, the game will lose any momentum if a combat takes 45 minutes.  

Inspiration: Woodfall; Blades in the Dark; The King in Yellow

Quick Reaction: The Lighthouse at the Edge of the Universe

 

2d6 = 9 

• Well written and easy to learn rules. I used playing cards which made this experience feel more unique than a traditional ttrpg with dice. 
  
  
• As someone who is TERRIBLE at papercrafts—assembly of the Lighthouse was not bad! That is a cute prompt.  Seriously play this game at night, it is 100% worth it.
  
  
• Relaxing — an oft missed trait of solo games, some of which require nearly as much work as prepping a 5e session.  This was the tone it was going for and it succeeded.  
  
  
• I enjoy slightly more structure in soloRPGs — which is why I usually bounce off of writing prompt games.  If you are into journaling soloRPGs then I would highly recommend checking this out!  For what it is worth, I prefered this so much more than Thousand Year Old Vampire (2d6=5).

• Replayability isn't king, but I don't think this is a game I would play weekly, or likely even monthly.

• I would absolutely buy and check out more from the author! — https://lostwaysclub.itch.io/

Cutscenes

 I’ve spoken about stealing from Mörk Borg and Mouseguard — now it is Starforged. In Starforged:

Cutscenes can reveal a lot about your game.  They can show how a faction or town views the players.  For example, as a party leaves a town after completing good deeds, perhaps a toast is held in their honor at the tavern—where potentially a less than honorable individual sits in silence, taking the information in.  Or the tavern patrons could all state how lucky they were the PC’s came—and they hope only to return the favor (setting up for a possible deus ex machina down the road).

Cutscenes also highlight tone. While gameplay should be reinforcing the tone of your game, having cutscenes are like that edge highlight in a miniature—bringing additional attention to a specific point. A grim world where things do not improve, even with the party’s help, can be reinforced by a cutscene of the rescued town falling back into ruin the moment the party rides off to their next goal.

Finally, cutscenes can be used to set up future mysteries. My main advice for cutscenes is they should be non-interactable by the party nor should they be immediately relevant. They can be—and this can work—but by having cutscenes pay off a session or two later builds apprehension in players.  Compare it to the “in the coming weeks” segment for TV shows on a weekly schedule.

The common critique against cutscenes is “then the players have meta knowledge!”

So what?

Starforged is almost always played solo.  Meaning, I have the meta knowledge whether I discuss the cutscene out loud or not.  That doesn’t reduce my enjoyment.  Rather, it focuses my attention on the world around my character and how the world is reacting to my actions or just progressing along. Metaknowledge can also be mitigated.  Don’t have your villain exposit their *entire plan—*instead do a cutscene where a lieutenant informs them that the heroes have taken X action and the villain responds: “hmm that will set me back, but no matter, we must advance to phase two sooner than I thought.”  Now that is obviously devoid of flavor, but the barebones concept stands.

Try opening or closing your session with a cutscene and let me know if you/your players like it!

New Campaign!

 I am starting a new campaign! 

Running the game for new people is such a wonderful feeling. While my "main group" is always where my heart lies - we've developed a general standard operating procedure. Playing and running for new people helps jump start my creativity and improve as a DM and player. I would highly recommend running adventurer's league or some other game at a store to not only continue to encourage new players - but to shake up your standard operating procedures. While running a game at a store carries a certain stereotype of players, the best way I’ve found to combat that is to be picky about the store. A FLGS should absolutely be welcoming to you and others. The more welcoming and friendly a store, the more likely it is to have a community of wonderful players who will be kind to each other.

I'm going to work on blogging my experience prepping and running the game. This will include a session summary, things that went well, things I can improve on, the inspiration I drew from, and a short sentence or two about how I plan to prep the upcoming week. I found Matt Colville’s campaign diaries incredibly helpful so I hope to capture some of that energy here.

As I have moved away from 5e, I was very excited to hear that a group was interested in playing Worlds Without Numbers. The biggest draw to return to 5e is always the player population is astronomical. However, 5e's drawbacks are pretty big dealbreakers for me: very low chance it will be human-centric (my overwhelming preference), it assumes high magic (I'd rather magic be a less dominating factor in world building), and it puts too much emphasis on character builds (characters gain abilities based on choices made away from the table v. earned through gameplay) — amongst other reasons.

I chose Worlds Without Numbers becase:

1. It has minimalistic class creation, while still giving players the feeling of 5e “options.”

2. I think its 2d6 skill checks are super interesting to resolve

3. The spells are evocative, yet clearly designed to not dominate all aspects of the game

4. Shock damage keeps combat progressing (I want to write a blog post questioning the value of “to hit” rolls)

5. I’ve never run it or Stars Without Numbers before and I wanted to expand my game knowledge

I’ll have a blog topic soon outlaying my setting primer and map - as well as what I plan to cover in session 0. I also hope to have a new review coming in the next week or so!

New Year New Goals

 

Hi all,

Wanted to take a day to organize myself for the new year. I find it incredible helpful to lay out goals so that I can check in with myself throughout the year to see how things are progressing. I’ll start with goals:

Easy

• Start running a new campaign
  • I’ll be running a new game at Gamer’s Corp in Ellicott City! This is still a goal because it is not officially official. The hope is that it will start before the end of January.
• Hobbystreak on Twitter for a whole month

Medium

• Start 2023 with all 2021 mini’s painted and based

• Play a 1k point game of Age of Sigmar
• Write and publish three one page adventures
• Blog session summaries for each session of the new campaign

Difficult

• Blog once a week for the whole year
• Write and publish a multipage adventure

I’ll do a blog post sometime around May/June/July checking in with these goals and see how on track I am!

Index Card Maps

I am not very creative.  A lot of my solutions involve seeing what other people do, and constantly trying new stuff.  If it doesn't work - no stress - just try something else. 

I do have an amazing strategy on how to design maps with index cards.  I wish I could attribute this to someone, as I cannot imagine I am the first to do this - but hopefully I'll at least be the first to suggest it to you!

Here is a tavern:

Then you can place a die, maker, or minis for each player in that card to show - you are here.  It is easy to expand with additional cards if they head in a direction or split up.  I think the cards encourage splitting the party in towns - which I love.  I actively suggest each PC go where they want to in town and say "hey this is an option."  It is important not to punish this split - but that's another blog topic I want to do.

Index card maps allow for a ton of flexibility if players go in a direction not immediately planned because it doesn't reveal you didn't consider the player's path.  This increases immersion to me.  It also harkens back to old rogue-likes or CRPGs! It can be done beyond just towns

Oh and it is substantially less to bring to a table if you're traveling to a game store or player's house.

Try it out sometime!