What is a Game?

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

art by mazeo

According to Wikipedia a game can be considered an organized activity in which the participants engage in activities aimed at achieving a goal, either in competition with others, or in cooperation with them. The article in question notes that games often have elements in common, such as goals (victory conditions), a limited arena or playing field, and often a time limit. What about roleplaying games?

Note that in the case of an RPG most (there are exceptions) do not have formal goals, have an expansive playing field, and no real time limit. In the case of the last, play can be considered unending, with the group deciding when a particular campaign will come to an end. In short, you don’t need to end the game at a certain time and then assess victory and defeat. Nor do the players have to end a session when certain conditions are met and then determine victors and losers.

Instead, the players may suspend play at any time, then resume later. Thus the typical RPG is an endless game. Indeed, in some cases groups have made their games multigenerational, with the successors and heirs of the original characters carrying on after them.

Where time limits are concerned, they aren’t always adhered to. One group may solve the problem inside a few minutes. Another may take months of play just to get the adventurers together and hired to explore an ancient set of ruins. That is the thing about the great majority of RPGs, the players don’t have to complete their tasks in a certain set time, despite what certain parties would have you believe. In that sense RPGs are open ended.

The same applies to the arena. In a typical game – Parcheesi or Go or Chess – the field of play, pieces and terrain, are limited. This make mechanical balancing relatively easy. In an RPG the arena and the available actors are expansive indeed. When you consider an RPG environment is a largely active one, you come to realize the typical RPG cannot be mechanically balanced except in the most limited of fashions and for the most limited time. Look into Chaos Theory for further information regarding this.

Following the above we have the fact that things in any comprehensive world can not be equal in any real way in any but the most restrictive RPG. There is just too much going on for RPGs to be substantially balanced or to stay balanced.

So what do we have with RPGs? No real objective, no real time limit, and an unbalanced situation that relies on initiative on the part of player and GM alike for matters to work. And let’s not forget the opportunity factor. In a traditional game the player only has so many options he can follow. In an RPG there may be limits, but the choices available can often be wide ranging, and often there are occasions when even those choices can be expanded upon. When you get right down to it, RPGs really don’t qualify as games in the traditional sense. An RPG is more an exercise in imagination, exploration, and interaction. You have the freedom to solve your problems in a wide variety of ways, not just a few.

More could be said on the subject, but I think we’ll stop here. Unless something happens we’ll be taking a look at players in RPGs and what they do next week.

Alan Kellogg. I am a blogger and a gamer, and I opine on various subjects and topics. I live in San Diego CA, have been gaming since 1964 (board games) and 1975 (RPGs). Have credits in Dangerous Journeys: Mythus and have helped out with a few other projects (Charlemagne’s Paladins for TSR for instance). Currently working on a revision of Mythus for possible publication.

Building Your Own Campaign World

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Last week I asked the question of if you brew your own campaign world and gave some cost effective options for those people that wanted to get into a pre made campaign. This week I am going to run through part one of building your own campaign world from scratch. To do this I am going to base it in Pathfinder and give references to resources that I use in that system. That said, the setting that I will come up with will be easily adapted to most rules systems so if you like it use it. Take it as a basis and make it your own.

The first thing to do is come up with some kind of hook or seed for your world. What is going to set it apart from every other campaign world. Think of the classic books: Tolkien’s seed was the One Ring and probably persistent evil, Weis – Hickman had the riding of dragons, Feist’s initially was likely the linking of worlds and the strength of magic, Gemell is normally about legend and Eddings prophecy fulfillment. All of these are generalisations and each of these authors had/have much more going on in their writing than just these small snippets that were taken out of them. It is great to start with a central idea or theme that you want to investigate or expand that makes your world yours!

You will want to keep in mind your players if you know who they are already. A group that loves high powered magical adventure is less likely to go with a premise of lowly court intrigue with little action but loads of diplomacy. It can be helpful to sit down with the group prior to your first design session and talk to them about what they like to give you an idea on what to focus on as a hook or a theme. As I am not likely to use this setting that I will create for this blog until I work out how to remain awake for twenty three hours a day I have no idea who my group is so I will select a theme that I would be interested expanding.

Persistence of Spirit

So there is my theme. It does not need to be a four page document, and mine is only three words long. It need only mean something to you at this point. But as I am trying to demonstrate how to build your own campaign I will clue you in by what I mean with those three words. I want to create a fantasy land in which death is a true transition of the spirit. In death the spirit of the creature persists for some time before the spirit is taken by the God that rules the realms of death. What this means in game is that the character can be played past a death event but I will need to develop some other material around that before I start up.

The next thing you should do is start the design and there are two ways you can go with this. Basically it all comes down to a question of scope. If you only want to have a one off game, you don’t need to create a complete world or continent, all you would need do is create the village and surrounds it is going to happen in. You only need to create the NPC’s and environments that you are likely to use. If you want to run a campaign that will last over several years though you will have to up the scope BUT you can make it one bit at a time developing more and more NPC’s and areas as you think of your world or continent involve.

In a campaign style game where I am expecting most, if not all, of my game sessions to revolve in or around the setting I would spend some time with a pen and some scrap paper or a mind map/brainstorming app for your tablet/computer to build a mind map for the idea that I have created as a seed. From this you can think about anything at all about the setting from NPC’s to locales to adventures to unique treasures, gods. If you can imagine it, write it down. Don’t edit yourself immediately just write it down. There is plenty of time to edit stuff that seems silly or ill conceived when you come back to it.

After you have done a run through at the brainstorm and you have exhausted your ideas for the time being (remember you have a long time to continue development) go through your mind map and decide what is worth keeping and what is not. Be merciless, if you look at something and can’t think what the idea came from, cut it and have a think about what you want to expand initially in the list.

The main rulebook of Pathfinder focuses much more on building a couple of adventures up front with the campaign and extending on from there. I would tend to agree with this approach with one exception. People like to see or know a bit about the world around them so I would prepare a map at least of the kingdom or country that they are in. This is a must in a game where the scope has you expecting to play many sessions in the world you create. Just because you have a map does not mean that you need to know everything about it and you can use dirty tricks like I do on my campaign map that is shown here by having unknown or unexplored regions.

The next step I would take would be to begin building the initial settlement or base for the players. in my mind-map and on the map I created for the campaign I chose the village of Dante’s Rest as the place that the players will start. The very first thing I would do is build a settlement stat block as set template as is set out in the Gamemaster Guide pp. 203-213. This will give you some statistics that you can refer to for the game but not really put any life into the setting. The stat block for Dante’s Rest would be the following;

Dante’s Rest

NG village
Corruption: -3 Crime: -1 Economy: -1 Law: -1 Lore: +0 Society: +0
Qualities: Holy Site, Rumourmongering Citizens
Danger: +0

Demographics
Government: Autocracy
Population: 134 (89 humans, 23 Elves, 15 Halflings, 7 other)
Notable NPC’s:
Mayoress Rowan Mayfair (Human Aristocrat 7 NPC Codex p. 253)
Blacksmith Terran Harfoot (Halfling Expert 6 NPC Codex p.262 modified halfling racial stats)
Innkeeper Selma Treble (Human Expert 4/Warrior 1 Gamemastery Guide p.303)
Brother Elleniel of Bindara (Human Cleric of Bindara 11 NPC Codex p.52)

Marketplace
Base Value: 500 gp Purchase Limit: 2500 gp Spellcasting: 5th Level
Minor Items: 1d6 Medium Items: 1d3 Major Items: –

To flavour the stat block a little, give your village or settlement a little bit of a historical blurb that touches on some of the salient points in the statistics. For example, the below flavour text would give you a great start in thinking of the village as more than a simple set of statistics:

Dante’s Rest is a humble unassuming village sitting on top of a bluff that overlooks the Fell Sea. It is here that the great hero Dante, Jasmine the Creator’s only mortal lover, was killed by the Graveknight Listross who was reincarnated into the Armour of the Fang to challenge the only mortal that had lain with a God. Dante’s companion Terella preserved Dante’s corpse and built him a sarcophagi of the purest veins of crystal that are found in the caves that riddle the bluff. She made it her life’s work to build an amazing mausoleum that was testament to the heroes courage.

Today it is said that only the blood of Terella may become Mayor of the village that sprung up around the mausoleum. It is far from the metropolises of the Radiant Kingdom but it attracts its fair share of religious pilgrims and history scholars. It is due to this steady flow of travellers that flow through the town that it is said that the truth of any small rumour can be found at the bar of The Fallen Siren, a famed Inn located with its outlook over the cliffs of Dante’s Bluff as the area is now known.

Now we have the backbone of our little village we need to start giving it some real flavour and build on the culture of our land. We will want to introduce a good deal of detail to the characters of Dante’s Rest when they start adventuring as it is likely the place that they have called home, though this may not be the case also. We need to build this village as a microcosm for our game and it’s seed, being the persistence of spirit. We want the first adventure to reflect this seed and so part two of Building Your Own Campaign World will focus on bringing our initial adventure and locale to life. Taking the stat block above and turning it into a place that the players will remember and talk about in years to come!

Mark Knights is 39 year old guy living in a small rural town called Elliott in Tasmania, Australia. I have been role playing since I was 11 years old playing the original versions of Dungeons and Dragons, MERP, Elric, Dragon Warriors and the like amongst other genre games. I played D&D 2nd Edition through the 90′s but I ran Earthdawn for my fantasy setting and loved it as a GM. When 3rd Edition came out for D&D I tried it but found it too heavy on rules. I ignored the 3.5 edition of DnD in favour of Earthdawn (big mistake) as I thought it was just a money spinner. When 4th Edition DnD came on my players and I gave it a red hot go but hated what it had dumbed the game down to be. On a trip to Melbourne to buy some 4E stuff from a hobby store an old mate of mine pointed me at Pathfinder and in a Fantasy setting I have never looked back.

Finding the Right Word So You Can Get On With Your Life

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

photo from viZZZual.com

Have you ever been writing down an idea and then hit the proverbial brick wall that stops you dead in your tracks and completely derails the process? If not, count yourself lucky. Happens to me far too often. To the point in fact where I’ve had to develop some coping mechanisms to deal with it. In this post, I’d like to focus on three of the ways I’ve learned to turn these walls into speed bumps: Breadcrumbs, Dictionary Dives, and Thesaurus Thumps.

We’ll start with “Breadcrumbs” because the other two ideas can be used to follow up on those later. When I’m pounding away and suddenly am at a loss for the next word, I’ve discovered that I can a) completely derail myself for hours or days by trying to figure it out immediately or b) put in a marker of some sort with a few key ideas and keep on chugging away. Option (b) sounds like a much better approach to me, though I probably go with (a) more often than I want to admit.

The basic technique works something like a Mad Lib. I put in a blank with a few words beneath it or put the keywords in brackets or parentheses and then move on to the next thought as quickly as possible to not lose the train of thought. Later on during the editing or revising phase I can find these little breadcrumbs and hunt for the correct term, idea, or concept to fill it in.

Let’s take the following passages as examples: “…As the party slowly works down the hall, they may hear (with a decent Perception check) the [slimy, squishy, blubbery] noises of something up ahead…” or “A small rusty metal cannister has been placed carefully on the shelf between two ancient tomes. Inside you find the [sand-like, dust-like, shavings-like] remains of something of indeterminate origin. On the can is a small note with lettering smudged and worn to the point where all you can read is ‘add water.'”

As you can see, I mostly use it for descriptive words, but it can be a handy technique for just about anything. Need a name? Tag it. Need a place? Tag it. Need a thing? Tag it!

So what do you do with the tags when it’s all said and done? Well, that’s up to you of course. I use those breadcrumbs to remind me what I was looking for and then use a couple of different techniques… Dictionary Diving and Thesaurus Thumping.

image by Improulx

There are two variations of “Dictionary Diving” I use frequently. Rarely do I actually open a physical dictionary, though I have one by my desk at all times for just such an emergency. It’s far too easy to hit the web and go to Dictionary.com to do my exploration. It involves taking the keywords from the breadcrumb, typing them into the search field in my favorite dictionary website, and seeing what comes up. If you feel like living dangerously you can even do a raw Google search with your terms to see what comes up.

If I try this approach with my two breadcrumbs exactly as I wrote them in the passages I wrote earlier, I end up with nothing useful. I can’t simply put in “slimy, squishy, blubbery” or “sand-like, dust-like, shavings-like” and expect good results. Think of this as like spelunking where we’re exploring different dark caves in a network, finding a few dead-ends, and doubling back to find something more cool or useful.

So let’s go down the rabbit hole and I’ll show you the process. In this case, if I try “slimy” I end up with the basic definitions and an encyclopedia entry, Nothing very useful. But if I click on the linked term “slime” I find the definition “any ropy or viscous liquid matter, especially of a foul kind.” Viscous is a great word, but doesn’t really apply to sound, so I’ll write it down and set it aside for now. Like with a good prestidigitator performing a card trick, this is a bit like being asked to “pick a word, any word” and stuffing it back into the book so we can pull it out later.

If I don’t end up with anything I like out of the dictionary, I can use the same technique with my favorite online or offline thesaurus. If I look for “sand” at thesaurus.com, I end up with a variety of great terms to play with: ashes, filings, granules, flakes, grit, powder, dust, gravel, or soot. And I can play with various words and combinations, exploring different paths until I end up with a word or phrase I like.

In this case, I may end up with something like “they see thin, viscous trails along the walls and floor and hear something squishing down the corridor ahead” and “the gilings and granules of some ancient thing once whole, now ground to pieces…” There’s endless varieties and this exploration of words not only helps any immediate word choice problems, but expands your vocabulary for later projects. I’m constantly learning new words and new uses for old words.

Hopefully these techniques help you in your own writing!

One last piece of advice… Remember that sometimes it’s not about finding the exact word YOU need, but about finding the right word that expresses what you’re trying to say to your READER! It can be very easy to be so focused on finding the perfect word that you get lost along the way, never to return. If that happens often, I recommend you set a timer and give yourself 5 minutes to poke around. If you still don’t have what you need, leave a more detailed breadcrumb with some of the choices you investigated, and keep moving. Don’t get so deep you forget why you were there in the first place. 🙂

Brian “Fitz” Fitzpatrick is a Software Engineer who manages (or is that mangles) Game Knight Reviews and tinkers with writing game materials via his Moebius Adventures imprint. When he’s not writing about gaming, he’s actually gaming or at least thinking about gaming in some capacity. During the non-writing, non-gaming time he’s likely trying to keep up with his wife and two daughters or wrangling code for a living!

Edition Warring

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

This post started brewing last week after the boingboing.net post titled Old School Dungeons & Dragons: Wizards of the Coast’s Problem Child by Peter Bebergal hit the net. In fact I had about half a post written last week on the topic before deciding it needed to cool off a bit. I still question whether I should post this particular post, but I think the topic needs addressed even at risk of this very post itself being taken in a way I did not intend it.

Edition warring as a label

The “Edition Warring” comment thrown out to label viewpoints you disagree with is not a valid argument or debate point. It is equivalent to simply trying to shout someone down because you disagree with them. Anytime you respond to a viewpoint about an RPG system you do not agree with “the person is edition warring” or “the person is just trolling” you are not helping make the situation any better. If anything these comments as a reply to discussion are doing more harm than the original post.

Edition warring versus discussion

I have spent a fair amount of time hanging out on various discussion forums, social media networks, and such in search of good discussion about RPGs. It is my hobby and I like to talk about it with peers. Good discussion does not mean only discussing the good things about systems, but it also means discussing things I think one system does less well than another. It means discussing systems I like and systems I dislike. It means stating reasons why *I* do not like something in a system and why I do like something in a system.

In the course of this discussion I am going to read posts and articles I do not agree with. I am going to reply with opinions that others do not agree with. This is not “edition warring”, this is discussion about RPGs. It is why we are here on discussion forums – to discuss RPGs, warts and all.

Actual edition warring

Now that is not to say there aren’t any posts that are “edition warring” in nature. There are posts that cross the line of being opinion and into the realm of saying people are “choosing the wrong system” or “you are doing it wrong if you choose that system” or “you aren’t playing the game if you play it that way”. Those posts are inflammatory and are treading into the realm of “bad wrong fun”. But the majority of posts I see being labeled “edition warring” are not guilty of this. Posts stating ones opinion and what they see as pros and cons of a system or their system preference is not this.

Back to the article

Let’s go back to the article that triggered this post, Old School Dungeons & Dragons: Wizards of the Coast’s Problem Child. This article falls into the category of someone posting their opinion and thoughts on the Old School movement and its impact on Wizards of the Coast. This is an example of someone providing their opinion on that topic.

This article was not an opening salvo in an “edition war” and it was not a “troll”. It was an author walking the audience through what he thought the implication of the OSR movement was on Wizards and the current D&D game.

If after you read this article you found yourself on discussion forums or social media networks making proclamations like:

“That guy thinks feats are from magic the gathering, and roleplaying left when 2e introduced new rules…. that is a way back edition warrior”

“it’s just Standard Edition War Tract 101…”

“it is just another cheeto beard old school gamer”

Then you were part of the problem. In many ways I think if that was your first response you are likely more of the problem than the initial poster who did not make an attack on people, but rather stated his opinion. These statements did not discuss the path and conclusions made, but rather tried to dismiss the commentary under the “edition war” or “troll” guise.

That does not mean you need to agree with the post or the path he took to reach his conclusion. By all means, contribute to the discussion and disagree with his statements and conclusion. I know I did not agree with everything in the article.

I saw good discussion on how roleplaying was easily possible in newer versions and that was not something unique to AD&D or earlier. I saw people discuss some of the copyright topics mentioned in the article. I saw people discuss what the Magic the Gathering influence was in the game and whether or not that was a statement they agreed with.

Discussion

My point is. Don’t be so quick to label a viewpoint not your own as “edition warring” or “trolling”. Those labels do not help and just increase the negative vibe of the RPG community more than people posting opinion pieces for discussion. People in the RPG community are much too quick to shout down opposing viewpoints under labels of “trolling” and “edition warring” when there has not been an opening shot in the most recent “edition war”. Next time you see an article that you do not agree with, slow down, breath and think what exactly about the article do you disagree with. Address those points in a respectful manner, but don’t resort to name calling or stereotyping views you do not agree with.

Storytelling or Story-making?

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

You see, the shared computers I’d usually use at my place of residence lost connection to the Internet, and that connection won’t be fixed until tomorrow. So I’m using a library computer, which means I can’t do the research on games I’d was supposed to do for this post. That means this second post will ask a question or two, starting with:

Given that a story is about things which have happened, and life is about things which are happening, and that an RPG is about things which are happening—albeit, imaginary things, how can RPGs be story?

How did performance; that is, playing a role, come to be storytelling?

Are we really storytelling, or storymaking?

I’d like to read your thoughts on the above.

Do You Brew?

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

After last week’s post about why I prefer Pathfinder as a gaming system for my fantasy games I had a good discussion with some gamers about how much setting was involved in the core rulebooks and the Beginners Box. I had always been fairly close to the Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) franchise through it’s various incarnations that the lack of setting material in these books did not surprise me at all. However there are a bunch of other games out there who apply a system and a setting in one main rule book so it got me to thinking about how many homebrew campaigns were out there for Pathfinder and who simply spent the extra money to get the PDF or actual books for the Pathfinder Campaign setting in Golarion or a third party setting.

Campaign Setting vs. Rulebook

Let us unpack this issue a little and see what we have. Pathfinder’s core rulebook is aimed at providing you as a player or a Games Master (GM) the rules to the setting as a whole. It gives player classes, character creation tips, spells, traps, equipment, poisons combat advice and the like. It is largely a book of rules with very little setting. The rules are the open source material that have been built on top of the D&D 3.5 Open Source rule set. Stripping back the rules you find the small portions of the setting that are included in the setting which is the Intellectual Property (IP) of Paizo and therefore not open source. It is their copyrighted material that they will protect. If you want the clearest example of this and you have a Pathfinder rulebook handy, turn to the Cleric character class description. In this description you find a table that lists the major Gods of the Pathfinder Chronicles describing their portfolio, domains and favoured weapons. Look at the online resource Pathfinder Reference Document you will notice this table is nowhere to be seen.

The reasoning is that the material is the IP of Paizo and it is based on a setting that is uniquely theirs. They will be very upset if you handed their setting material out for free without their express permission. It is the main reason that none of the setting materials have been put up in a fashion similar to the PRD. They could, but they want you to get a taste for Golarion through the snippets they offer in the Core rulebooks (they are scattered through there liberally) and decide that this is a world you want to play in. Now the discussion I was having after last week’s post was with a couple of gamers who felt that this was an expensive process for players to get into the Pathfinder game. I found this odd as I always knew that the D&D model (and Pathfinder as well I suppose now) is that they provided the rules and guidelines on what to do with a setting and you made the choice. You could make your own setting or go buy another book with a prepared setting.

Building Blocks

I also realised in this discussion that the reason that the Pathfinder Rulebook is so large is that they try to give you all you need to create a setting. Building encounters, environments and NPC’s is all there for you to take a building block approach to your world and develop it. In the example of the Gods you are free to create your own Pantheon of Gods for your own setting. They never say that you must use those that are included. In a game that is all IP (both system and setting) like Earthdawn there is as much setting material and plot hooks in the main rulebook as there are rules. It presents itself as a package for play in their developed world using their system that goes with it. Further books in Earthdawn tend to expand the setting much more than the rules where further books in Pathfinder expand the rules much more than the setting (though new classes can give the setting a different feel).

This means there are two types of games. Pathfinder is definitely a builders game where the GM is going to have to do a lot of work in preparing their world if they do not buy a setting that is pre made. Earthdawn is a setting complete game where the GM is more likely to spend time ensuring the adventures she makes fall in line with the canon of the story.

Keeping Pathfinder Affordable

So, if you are not terribly creative and think that building a world is out of the question how can you keep the costs down to get into Pathfinder. It is apparently the most popular tabletop RPG at the moment but it can be expensive having to buy the rules and then buy the setting. So I have come up with some options of how to go about this.

Don’t buy the rules! That is right, don’t spend a cent on the rules books. Use the online Pathfinder Reference Document website as your rules source. This way all the rules goodness that is Pathfinder is free of charge and at your fingertip (but without the art and beautiful new book smell)
Buy a reduced price set of all the rule books. In this wonderful world of mobile computing if you have a smartphone (iPhone or Android) or a tablet (iPad or Android) there are cheap App options available to you. The prices vary depending on the part of the world you are in but you should be able to buy an App that contains all the Pathfinder core book rules for under $8 that is available wherever you take your mobile device without needing internet access
Buy PDF’s of the books and use eReaders. You can buy all of the Pathfinder books from Paizo in the form of a PDF. These are a great deal cheaper than the hard copy books and contains both setting and rules
Spend the money I just saved you on a setting! Be it Golarion from Paizo or one of the optional third party settings that have been released! Book or PDF.
You can even buy settings from D&D 3.5 edition that people are selling over eBay (and the like) cheap because they are compatible as well, keeping the costs down!

Build Your Own

The other option if you are feeling creative is to build your own world! The main rulebooks give you all you need and more to create a world from scratch. What is more there is a wealth of information out there on the internet from people who do this as standard. Most of us call it a homebrew campaign or world. It is a world or country or land or village where things act in the form that you want them to.

It can be a daunting task building your own setting but it does not need to be. It is a rewarding experience to know that it all came from your imagination as a GM and I want to help this process. There are at least 101 “How to make your own campaign” guides out there on the internet so let us make it 102. Next week I will blog about how to make your own campaign world, with a slant on Pathfinder but also generic enough to be translated to any system. Don’t expect it to fit all in one blog, in fact it may be a fortnightly or monthly blog that we revisit regularly but it is an important one and one I hope you join me on the journey. In fact if you have any specific questions you want answered hit the comments and let me know! I’ll try to incorporate the issues.

Brainsqualling Techniques

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

Photo by Leszek.Leszczynski @ Flickr

Brainstorming. The term is thrown around enough these days you’d think it would solve all your problems while cleaning your house and cooking you a gourmet five-course meal. It can be done alone or in groups and be quite effective. But it boils down to thinking, talking things out, or doodling on paper or on the computer to come up with or flesh out ideas.

That said, instead of “storm,” I prefer the word “squall.” Storms can last hours or days and may affect larger areas. Squalls pop up quickly, affect a smaller area, blow things around, shake things loose, and rattle the walls… then they’re gone just as fast. That’s more what brainstorming is to me.

So let’s call it “brain-squalling” for now, shall we? And yes, I am getting to a point.

How do you come up with ideas for your adventures or campaigns? Inspiration? A muse? Alien transmissions? And what happens when those sources dry up and you are generating material for the next session? Does the world suddenly stop? Probably not. There’s always another session to plan for!

What I want to cover here is three different techniques I use to rattle things loose in my brain pan when I get stuck… Mind maps, lists, and talking to myself. Hopefully they’ll help you generate ideas as well.

Let’s start with mind maps. In case you’ve never heard of a mind map, here’s a good description. Basically it boils down to using a bit of a graphical approach to draw on both sides of the brain, combining art (circles and lines, so don’t panic) and words (or phrases) and discovering relationships between them.

It’s really easy to get started. Get a piece of paper. Write down a word (let’s start with “dungeon” here) and draw a circle around it. Think of the first thing that comes to mind about a dungeon and write that down somewhere close to “dungeon” and draw a circle around it. Then draw a line between “dungeon” and your second term. If more words come up for “dungeon”, add them and circle them. If a word comes up for one of the secondary terms, write it down and connect the two via a line. Eventually you’ll end up with prickly beasts of words surrounded by circles and connected to other circles. Each connection denotes a relationship of some sort. And before long you might have your idea for a dungeon or a session or a whole campaign.

Here’s a sample mind map I came up with for a dungeon (using FreeMind – a free mind map tool)…

Next up… Lists. They’re everywhere. Whether it’s a list of names, items, or words; or a list of questions to get you thinking about a topic from another direction – sometimes we just need that spark to get us going. Do a quick search on the Internet for “world builder questions” and you’ll come up with a half dozen lists right away including the exhaustive Patricia C. Wrede Worldbuilder Questions or 13 Worldbuilding Questions from Veronica Sicoe (a little more recent), you should get somewhere quickly by coming up with answers for yourself. If you’d rather look at some of the awesome products from Lee’s Lists at DriveThruRPG and other folks – everything from prophecies to monsters, names, artifacts, food, and more.

And there’s always the classic list – Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How? If you’re designing a dungeon, here are a few questions you might ask yourself:

Where is it? Above-ground, below-ground, mixed?
What’s it made of? Stone? Brick? Wood?
Who built it? Miners? Slaves? Contractors? Priests?
Why was it built? Honor the dead? Hide treasure? Secret lair?
When was it built? Is it ancient? New?
How was it built? By hand? Magic? Alien technology?

Lastly, I’ve had great results just talking to myself out loud. There’s something about how the brain processes spoken language vs. how it processes written language that gets entire chunks of the brain in gear that don’t always fire when you’re just reading and writing. I don’t recommend doing it in a crowded place or you may get a few funny looks from your unintended audience, but if you have a few minutes of alone time in a place where you can talk openly it’s made a difference for me.

Use some of the different techniques together… Why not mind map the answers to some of the questions that you’ve asked yourself out loud? Looking at a single problem from multiple angles sometimes reveals interesting creative tidbits.

Hopefully you’ll find one or more of these techniques useful. And if you do use them, let us know how it went!

The New Classics: Stonesky Delve

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

There is a shared experience in gaming that I miss. When I meet adult gamers I can usually talk about Tomb of Horrors or the Sinister Secrets of Salt Marsh and even if we’ve never gamed together we can talk about what it was like to play or run these classic modules. Even for gamers that never played them they have at least heard of them.

Today that shared experience is more difficult to find. There are so many different kinds and versions of RPGs people play and countless adventures for them all that it even if I talk about adventures from the largest companies like Wizards of the Coast or Paizo the chance that others have played the same modules is rather small. With that in mind I humbly offer the following as a new classic. A module that I feel people should play and have fun with.

Stonesky Delve is an OSRIC module written by Joseph Browning and published by Expeditious Retreat Press. It is the fifteenth in their Advanced Adventure line. At the risk of sounding biased Joe is a friend of mine whom I have gamed with on many occasions. I was a play tester for this module and when Stonesky Delve was first published it was run as a tournament at Gen Con 2010 and I was one of the DMs Joe asked to help him with the tournament. I enjoyed the module immensely and when I was running Dungeon Crawl Classic RPG earlier this year this was one of the few modules that I had to run for that group.

Before I get farther in there will be spoilers but not a lot. There will be talk of some specific encounters but mainly just the general themes and feel of the module.

Stonesky Delve is a module for six to ten adventurers of levels four through seven. The front cover says it is for four to six adventurers and I think that is a misprint but while challenging I think you could go through this with fewer characters. The setup is rather simple. A new cave has been discovered and needs explored. In the beginning text it does have a time limit as it is a module for a tournament, but that can be ignored without significant impact to the module. The time limit does help keep the PCs moving and the way the module is presented makes that an interesting factor.

The module is designed to run in two sessions. The first session is cave exploration. It is really well designed to do this. There are small spaces that are difficult to fit through. Instead of many passages branching off left and right most of this module is up and down making it unlike other modules. Climbing is very important. The first part of the module contains animals, vermin and monsters one might find in a typical fantasy world cave. This goes a long way to making the cave feel real but also makes it tough on an adventurer’s pocket book. There is treasure within, but it is not obvious and not easy to find.

The second part of the module is part of an ancient Dwarven temple connecting to the caves. This area is not very large so it exploration in a four hour session and does feel more like a more traditional dungeon crawl. There are some places a TPK can happen and one of them is with a Dwarven wizard that can really be a problem. There are in module reasons for allowing a dwarf to cast spells, so do not worry about that. What I really like about the encounter is there are ten rounds of suggested actions for the villain. These actions are well thought out using the environment as well as the powers of the wizard. This guy should and will give the PCs fits, but it is also one of those great memorable encounters. The module also has one of the few encounters with a Flail Snail that I can recall.

Much of the treasure found is not coins. There are paintings and valuable pieces of furniture and many books. This creates a new problem as the group has to climb out of here and part of that climb includes a waterfall. The climb is much more difficult with a bed strapped to one’s back.

The module does have a few new monsters to keep even experienced players on their toes. My favorite is the Gampoge Hulk cousin to the Umber Hulk and is featured on the front cover of the module.

The module is good for parties that want to explore and fight and to face some different problems like how to safely climb down when the party runs out of rope. It is not a module that offers a lot of role playing opportunities or mysteries. There is a riddle to solve but most encounters are going to start and end in bloodshed.

When I ran it for DCC RPG I ignored the level requirements. The party was full of first and zero level characters, many who died with failed climbing checks. The monsters descriptions remained the same, but behind the screen the mechanics were mostly the same for each monster. They only had a few hit points and attacked with just a d20 roll and did maybe a d4 or d6 damage. Some encounters like the Wizard I prepped for, but most of the conversions were done at the gaming table behind the screen.

Stonesky Delve is a good adventure that offers something a bit different to most fantasy games. It makes mundane actions like climbing more important and challenging and focuses on the exploration and discovery more so than just wanton killing, though there is that too. There are rules for tournament scoring so you can keep track of what the PCs do and score them accordingly. It is a newer module and one I declare as a new classic.

What other more recent modules do you think would be great for other groups to play to get back some of that shared experience?

Chris Gath. I’ve been gaming since 1980 playing all kinds of games since then. In the past year I’ve run Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classic, Paranoia, and Mini d6. My current campaign is mini d6 and we are using that for a modern supernatural conspiracy investigative game. On some forums I’m known as Crothian and I’ve written a few hundred reviews though I took a sabbatical from reviewing for a few years as it burnt me out. I was also an judge for the Gen Con awards (ENnies) six times. Jeff, the owner of this blog, is one of my players and a good friend.

Awarding XP

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

I have seen several discussions on how people award experience points for their system of choice. Some dole out the experience points by their system’s guidelines. Some make tweaks to the system or do it in a manner completely their own.

When I got back into gaming after a decade long lapse, I came with with D&D 3.x. I followed the experience point system religiously. Calculating challenge ratings, encounter levels and then handing out the appropriate amount of experience. A decent portion of my prep time was being spent with an experience point calculator so I could hand out experience points “correctly”.

My comeback as GM ended after about 6 months thanks to a TPK at the hands of an arachnid mouther. One of the other guys, a long time GM, in the newly formed group took up the reins as GM. He didn’t assign XP. He just told you when it was time to level up. It took just a little bit of getting used to, after all we were so used to recording experience points and watching that progression from week to week. But once we got used to this level up when the GM says, it worked out just fine.

The next time I GM’ed I ran a Paizo Adventure Path. I did not award XP at the end of each session. This alone frees up a good amount of time from bookkeeping. Time that can be better spent in other weekly preparation tasks. Of course with an Adventure Path this is a very easy method to use. Each installment of the AP tells you what level the characters should be at the beginning and at the end. This makes it very easy to keep pace without all of the overhead of calculating XP from week to week.

I adopted this same method for the Dungeon Crawl Classics game I am running online. I do not track XP there either. Characters hit 1st level once the 0-level funnel was complete. From there they level when I say it is time to hit the next level. We’ve been playing since late July, early August and they are 3rd level at the moment.

This method seems to have worked well for this DCC RPG group as well. It saves me a lot of time that can now be spent prepping fun things for the sessions instead of accounting tasks.

The Future

As I continue my closer look at several other OSR type rule systems it appears I may need to change my ways. With character classes frequently reaching their level advancement points at different XP amounts it will be a little harder to tell everyone to level-up at the same time.

I suspect as I finally settle in on an OSR system (or my own unique blend of them) I will end up handing out XP once again. I do not see myself going back to the meticulous accounting I used back in D&D 3.x, but a quick eyeballing, counting of treasure, and roll from there in handing out XP.

Finding this happy medium between arbitrary leveling up and meticulous accounting of XP I think the blend will help give players a feeling of achievement while still keeping my overhead as GM down.

I would much rather spend my limited time prepping the fun parts of adventures than playing accountant via complicated XP systems!

Roll20 Outage Aftermath

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

Saturday evening Roll20 had a service outage. I typically do not get to play on Saturday evenings as most of my gaming takes place on weeknights as that is what fits my schedule the best. However, I started seeing the tweets about it on Saturday evening even though I was not playing. Then earlier this afternoon the good folks at Roll20 posted a note on the previous evening’s downtime.

Technical problems happen with anything that involves tech. Anyone that owns a computer, smartphone, or any tech device has been troubled by a technical issue at some point. Even the big companies like Amazon or Google’s Gmail have the occasional outages and they have substantial amounts of money invested in avoiding these outages. Hitting 100% uptime is very difficult, even for the big players.

A key differentiator between different companies is how they communicate with their users during these outages. I must say, Roll20 handled things very, very well. Let’s look at how Roll20 handles keeping folks up to date on their availability.

First, they maintain http://status.roll20.net/. This is the method they provide to check the current status of their servers. If there is an outage, it should be reflected here. The historic availability is also available for the past three months on the status site. This is a handy resource for Roll20 users if they are experiencing some issues. It provides a quick easy way to see if it is a server problem or a player having isolated technical issues.

Next, Roll20 maintains an active Twitter presence. If you use Twitter and play in Roll20 games, you should follow them. Looking back at their Twitter timeline from last night you can see they were up front about the issues and were tweeting updates about the problem keeping people informed. While tweets do not fix the problem, communicating about the problem really helps people know what is going on and that the issue is being worked on.

And finally, after the outage last night Riley posted on the Roll20 forums more details about what happened. He reassures the community Roll20 takes the downtime seriously and goes on to describe what is going on to help minimize these issues in the future. I have great respect for companies that post these post-problem updates publicly.

I am quite happy to see how Roll20 handled the outage and communicated during the outage. Technical issues happen, it is how the companies handle them that differentiates them from the others. Kudos to Roll20 for handling last night’s brief outage like professionals in an open and forthcoming manner.

The Iron Tavern

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