RPGaDay 2017 #7 What was your most impactful RPG session?

It's funny that for all the time I've spent gaming, I've had very few sessions that I would call "impactful." There's been so much time spent in that "just having fun" mode that deep, emotional roleplaying moments just haven't been in the cards for me.

But I have had a couple.

In the Fate Star Wars game I played in at DunDraCon a few years back, each player was given a backstory that they got to fill in pieces of themselves. On my character, I was told that I made a fateful action in my past that set me on my path. As play progressed, one of the NPCs pointed out my fateful action and suggested that it may have been the wrong course of action for me to take. It was quite a shock to go into this scenario thinking of my character as a Big Damn Hero in her own way, only to find out that it might not be true. It actually got some real, non-roleplayed emotions out of me.

The Fiasco Fallout game that I played last year had a different, very interesting impact on me. In that session, I wound up with significant leverage over one of the other characters, which I then used to destroy their relationship with the other character in the group. That's something that I had never done as a player or GM. In a traditional, longer game, you don't really want to do that because then the group has to live with the consequences of that action. Also, the sort of casual adventure gaming that we'd been doing didn't really allow for stuff to build up to the point that it was interesting or useful to smash them down like that.

RPGaDay 2016 #9 What Things Are Part Of Your Ideal Session, Other Than The Actual Game?

The list of things I need for an ideal session is actually fairly low. Paper for character sheets, dice for everyone, and my laptop full of data and notes. If I'm running a game with a detailed combat system, I'll break out the maps and minis.

I've seen GMs go all out for a convention game. The most elaborate production was the Star Wars Fate game I played at DunDraCon 2 years ago. That GM used background music from the films and unused concept art by Ralph McQuarrie to create a previously unseen corner of the Star Wars universe and it was very compelling.

For a one-shot game, that's great. Awesome, even. But for something I'll be doing week in and week out, I don't think I would do anything so elaborate.

Besides, the things that really make or break a session are the players. Even in that Star Wars game with the awesome visuals and music, one of the things that sticks out in my mind was when one of the other players tried to ship my character with another. A few days ago, I mentioned the heroic sacrifice that one PC made that I hadn't expected. That whole campaign took place with no props to speak of in my living room around a coffee table.

RPGaDay 2016 #3 Proudest Character Moment (or not)

This is one of the tricky questions this year. As someone who's been the GM more often than not, I don't have a lot of experience playing a character. Which means that I don't have a lot of Crowning Moment of Awesome-type stories. In fact, I told all my good character stories 2 years ago, and haven't picked up any new ones since.

So instead of that, I'm going to bring back the Day 3 topic from last year: Favorite new game of the last 12 months.

This year, I would have to say that my favorite new game would be the new Star Wars games from Fantasy Flight Games. They released 3 separate core books, each with a focus on a different aspect of the Star Wars universe. Edge of the Empire (smugglers and bounty hunters), Age of Rebellion (The Rebel Alliance), and Force and Destiny (Jedi and Force users).

I actually liked the three distinct core books. As I've said on my blog previously, a successful game is one that addresses the campaign level, where players and GMs decide what goes on at the table. So the fact that they've those three big campaign foci of the Star Wars setting and gave them each room to breathe is a plus in my book.

Keeping Jedi and the Force off to one side is also a good thing. One of the complaints of previous Star Wars RPGs was that the Force was frequently imbalanced compared to other abilities and character types. While I believe that they addressed this pretty well, at least in part by giving every other character type cool abilities, GMs who don't want to deal with the Force don't have to.

Long time readers may remember the demo game I played at DunDraCon a number of years back with the wacky dice that gave out too much information for the GM to deal with. The main thing that brought me around on the concept of the dice was listening to the One Shot podcast play it. They actually took the time to use all of the information the dice gave out and made a very entertaining show of it.

DunDraCon Days 4 & 5

The past few days have been so packed that I haven't been able to take the time to tell you about it.

When last we left our intrepid hero, he was just about to run his adventure for the Teen Room. When I got there (yeah, I know. As fun as that opening line sounded, I don't think I want to write this whole thing in third person) I found a full table waiting for me. Including the two presenters for the seminar where nobody showed. I had the time to talk to them about the game as part of our conversation that night, so they decided to give it a try.

Overall, the game went well, and the party came up with an amusing solution to the final problem. There's typically some variation in how the players handle the problems presented in the adventure. Most groups come up with fairly typical solutions to the problems presented, but the final encounter is very open ended and demands a unique solution.

The Jaded City of Oz is a city so magical that they're not entertained by much anymore. In order to get into the city, the players have to demonstrate that they have something unique and interesting to offer. That night, the player who had the Shaggy Man (I use the Characters Pack to provide pregenerated characters to play) used the Love Magnet to romance the guard into opening the gate.

We started at 7 PM and finished the adventure at around 10:30, which wound up being bedtime for me.

The next morning was nice and easy, with very little to do. I wasn't scheduled to run my game for grownups until 2 PM, so I took advantage of the morning to get some shopping done. I'll tell you a bit more about what I got and what I think of it in another post, once I've had proper time to digest it all.

I had a full group by the time I showed up. One player had announced that he would not be arriving, and I believe that one other person who signed up simply did not arrive, but I had two girls turn up to see if any slots were available. Since there were, and I wouldn't have minded squeezing a few extra players in anyhow, they both joined the group. That left us with 4 females and 2 males (a father and son team if I'm not mistaken) to start off the adventure.

Both of the guys picked the Soldiers, Omby Amby and Private Files, and I got the feeling that they were expecting a more traditional, action oriented adventure. They did find some action and eventually got into the swing of things.

The girl who picked Prince Inga played him as haughty and overbearing, but it was fun because she kind of expected the trouble she caused. Between the encounters in the Winkie Country and the Gillikin Country, Prince Inga was such a mess that they were allowed to enter the Jaded City because they'd never seen a Prince who was covered in so many egregious substances.

One of the things about the Jaded City of Oz adventure is that it never really takes as long as I schedule. On at least one occasion, I've had a group clear through the whole thing in only 2 hours. The average time is actually closer to 3. It's just that the minimum amount of time I can request on the schedule is 4 hours.

So once the players completed the adventure after 3 hours or so, I checked with Game Registration to see what game I had gotten into. I had 2 selections that were at about the same time, so I decided to let the con's computerized Sorting Hat make the decision for me.

It was a Fate game set in the Star Wars universe. Even though I've got all the books and several sets of FUDGE dice, this was my first time actually taking it for a test drive. The GM was really awesome and the game was very visually and cinematically oriented. He had pictures of every character and background images for every place we went. He had Star Wars theme music loaded onto his tablet for background music, and even started off the proceedings with a title crawl.

The characters were pregenerated, but we were allowed to choose their gender. The GM had pictures of the character whichever choice we made. I decided to try playing the female version of my chosen character. There was a female player in the group, so I told her that this was my first time cross-playing (as I've heard it called), and I was relying on her to correct me if she found I was doing it wrong. (I don't know if I've told you any of my horror stories of when male players have tried to cross-play in games I've run, but I do have a couple.) She told me that the fact that I was worried about doing it wrong meant that I was very unlikely to do it wrong, which made me feel much better about the proceedings.

We also got to fill in some of our character's backstory. Most of it was already established and we were given a sheet that laid out the major formative moments of our character's lives, but also leading questions about the specifics of how those moments went down and what they meant to us. It was the first time I've had to put that kind of thought into a con game, but I think it did help the experience a bit.

One of the characters was a really exotic looking alien (an Ithorian, for those who know the Star Wars universe) and whenever the player spoke in character, he would speak so that the air blew over the top of his drink bottle. It was a really cool effect, making him sound a bit like he was using Stephen Hawking's voice synthesizer, but with far less technology.

The GM's cinematic focus came through not only by the way he described scenes and scene transitions, but also how we required us to roleplay. Rather than simply letting us say things like "My character is suspicious of that guy" or "I think about it, but decide against it" he would make us describe our character's internal monologue as if we were characters in a movie. "Okay, you're suspicious. What does that look like?" "How can we see the decision process? Tell us how that decision process would play out visually so the audience can understand it."

It was an interesting and exciting challenge. The GM has apparently run the scenario several times, and might do so again, so I'm not going to go into detail on the plot, but I had a lot of fun.

That started at 6 PM and we kept at it until about 2 AM. Everyone was having a blast, but we were all pretty wiped out near the end of it. On top of that, I knew I would be facing a busy morning. The last day of the con, we would have to be packed and out of our hotel room, while making the last sweep of the Dealer's Room, which would only be open for a few hours.

It was rough, but we managed to get out and catch the transit bus and then the BART very smoothly. We did run into trouble at the Greyhound station, however. It seems that with all of our purchases, our checked baggage wound up exceeding the weight limit. We juggled some things and packed them into our carry-ons so that our luggage would be under the limit.

Finally, last night and about 10:30, we arrived home, safe and sound. And after such a full day, it was pretty much straight to bed for me.

And that's why I didn't write this until now. But there you have it, folks.

Firing Characters (Out of a Canon!)

No, that's not a misspelling.

One thing I've always liked about RPGs is that you get to make your own character and have your own adventures and make your own mark on the game world. But when you're dealing with an RPG based on an established property (let's say, to pick a random example, Oz) you've already got a cast of protagonists who have all of the important adventures. Dorothy and company have melted Wicked Witches and saved Oz in a number of other ways throughout the stories. So if you wanted to roleplay in Oz, you've got to be Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Woodman or Cowardly Lion, right?

Wrong!

When Wizards of the Coast launched their Star Wars RPG their ads featured stills from the Star Wars movies with multiple characters gathered. Even if a major character was in the frame, the ad instead drew a circle around the head of a minor character or an extra and asked the question "What's his story?" Sure, Luke Skywalker was the guy who blew up the Death Star, but he's not the only person in the Star Wars universe. And those other stories have the ability to be just as interesting and compelling as Luke's.

A lot of people seem to agree with me, because RPGs that focus solely on the main characters of the franchise are generally unsuccessful. The original Indiana Jones RPG from TSR focused solely on Indiana Jones and his compatriots. An old Doctor Who RPG (namely Time Lord) has an astonishingly complete list of stats for every Doctor and every companion to enter the TARDIS with the assumption that you are going to be playing those established characters. Neither of these games were successful, especially compared to other RPGs based on those properties that did allow original characters (such as the new game Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space)

Another problem that comes up when dealing with established characters has to do with expectations. Once a character gets a certain body of lore built up, especially if it's written by different people. Suppose that in a superhero game, someone decides to play Batman. Not just some guy who's kind of like Batman, but Bruce Wayne Batman. As a character who's appeared in thousands (if not millions) of comic books, several films and a number of TV shows, he's got a lot of background. Which means that every time somebody says "Batman would never do that!" someone else can come up with some instance in some media where Batman did just that. Suddenly, you've got everyone at the gaming table telling you how to play your character and no one agrees on what to do and, most importantly, no one's having fun.

But what about those characters that I've been putting up on the blog for the last few months? Am I suggesting that you completely ignore them?

No. My primary motivation in posting them is to show you what a character looks like and to demonstrate that my system can handle the majority of Oz character types. If someone decides to use them as their character in a game, I don't mind. Sometimes, just starting out, it's useful to have a character you're already familiar with. But I think you'll have more fun by putting your imagination to work on creating your own characters.