Musings of a Chatty DM

Last week, Chatty DM told you about his experiences in AD&D (aka “First Edition”) as the edition that he started in. Many of us founding members of Critical Hits got our start in RPGs a bit later in the same game group playing AD&D 2nd edition. Now, that game group has expanded, split, mutated, split again, expanded, and changed a lot since then. However, we all still have some fond memories of those early days.

Like in Phil’s experience, we didn’t necessarily know the real rules (or particularly care). Some of the game play issues that would later come to bug us would be several campaigns down the road before they really became impediments to play. We played with a DM that liked to use 4d6 in order drop lowest, leading to playing fighters with 13th strength and paladins with 4 intelligence.

It was also the system that I would first run campaigns in. First, my utter failure of a campaign that mashed-up the video game Doom and D&D, or my much more successful followup that featured such unique NPCs as Lord Dort Invader, his Twelve Penetrators, and Gigantor the Great Big Robot.

From these memories of our early days, we’ve assembled a few of us who were in those games together to pinpoint what made those days of D&D so great.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2e)

• Age Range When Played: 12-17
• Nostalgia Factor: High
• Rules Mastery: Low

1. Flexibility

The O recalls those times fondly:

My D&D memories from that time have mostly been pushed out from all the cramming I had to do in school, but the ones I do remember are near and dear. My viewpoint comes directly from a novice player’s standpoint. What stood out the most to me in 2nd edition was the flexibility for both players and DMs. It felt as though the game was more open-ended, left more room for the imagination, and allowed greater room for house-ruling.

By far my favorite memories, and also my most saddening, involved my first long-standing character, Gurias the Half-Elf Wizard. Most of the great times involved our gaming group’s head DM, Abe. He was quite volatile and would quickly make rash decisions that could, to quote They Might Be Giants, “lead to excellence or serious injury.”

I recall once making Abe laugh because a couple of players were arguing amongst themselves, and I quickly ended the argument by saying, “Make half-elves, not war!” This campaign also involved my greatest failure both in D&D, and possibly life in general. Gurias was True Neutral and Abe created a magical neutrality test. He presented a white knight and a black knight fighting a complete stalemate, then asked me which I would choose to support. I chose the white wizard. I missed out on a great reward while being mocked into oblivion.

One memory, which I mention because it’s Dave’s favorite, involved Gurias’s demise. Gurias sadly died at mere level 7 and it was my first experience with character death. Remember how I mentioned the nice flexibility of 2nd edition? Well, rolling 1s and 20s with volatile Abe’s house rules were QUITE dangerous. Critical hits would lead to some heroic, amazing, over dramatized feat, while a critical miss lead to serious consequences. Our party was locked in a heated battle against an illithid mage. Gurias was at full health when said mind-flayer threw a fireball at me. I rolled my saving throw and it came up a natural 1. Abe’s response was that Gurias was blown to pieces then disintegrated by the fireball, preventing any chance of resurrection. Keep in mind that Gurias had enough health to withstand the fireball even if the damage dice rolled the maximum! I would eventually bring back Gurias in Dave’s 4th edition game, and the lore about the mind flayer’s fireball made it into that campaign.

Abe ended up giving me some redemption when my replacement character for Gurias, an evil Elven Fighter had a two-handed sword which received bonuses against humans. We were fighting a death knight and I critically missed AGAIN. This time however, he declared that the sword flew into the air, stopped, spun around making beeping sounds (as if a heat-seeking missile) until it locked onto a human character in the party (he randomly rolled which one), and stated that the sword flew at him and sliced off one of his legs. The best part? That party member was a guy named Ben… Abe’s younger brother! What ensued was a complete firefight of sibling warfare and sadness that words cannot describe. I can say that tears were shed and furniture was overturned.

2. Authority

The Main Event has this to say:

I did not know it at the time, but 2E’s byzantine bloated and vastly impenetrable rule set vested great authority in the DM. Adding to this dynamic was the fact our play group tended to have ‘older’ and ‘younger’ players… the older being somewhere in high school and the younger being in middle school. So, my first era of 2E play involved older players running games with a set of rules that was unfriendly to universal comprehension as a n00b. Rules-lawyering happened, but most of the time it was easily squashed with DM fiat. The thing is, it made for damn fun games. Rather than being hung up on the rules we were immersed and in love with the game and the game world. Part of that was my age and part of it was game design that I’d never endorse, but it was a different play experience in that era. The DM was in charge, end of story.

And you know what? With a good DM it can make for a better game and a better story.

3. Worlds of Wonder and Danger

Bartoneus recalls his first steps into D&D:

2nd Edition D&D came into my life at just the right time. I was ready to enter other people’s worlds and play a part in their stories, but I wasn’t yet to the point of wanting to create my own worlds or tell my own stories. For me my memories of 2E will always be tied to my first introduction to the planes and fantastic places like Sigil. I remember vividly the first time I had a character step out of a portal and into Sigil, but for me it wasn’t just entering “Sigil,” it was stepping into this wondrous city where the street arched upwards and kept going into the sky and all of your assumptions about the world were immediately left behind.

Back in 2E I always felt like non-weapon proficiencies were something special for my characters. I remember several instances of being encouraged as a player to sing my way out of certain situations because I had decided my Dwarf Fighter was proficient in singing Dwarven Drinking songs. Then of course there’s the instance of my first character’s death, where he was beaten unconscious after a courtroom scene involving Gigantor turned bad and the rest of the party fled through a portal to safety. When one of the players, I believe The Main Event, was asked by the DM if he wanted to try and save my character lying on the floor, he thought about it and responded, “No.” My character perished under Gigantor’s foot as the portal closed.

4. Whimsy

And finally, I recall some of my favorite characters and moments, driven by what was in the game:

The first D&D book I ever owned was The Complete Psionics Handbook. Without having a PHB, using what I could infer from the rules in the book plus half-remembered rules from convention games I had played in, I created an Elven Psionicist named “Spock.” The gaming group I tried to play him in didn’t let that fly, but I still got to play a Psionicist with all kinds of arm-stretching, weapon grafting, Id Insinuating goodness.

The second book I owned (yes, still without a PHB) was the Tome of Magic, and from there, Wild Mage easily became my favorite class. Memorized spells not coming in handy? No problem: cast Nahal’s Reckless Dweomer, roll on the wild surge table, and hope for the best. Though the results were heavily skewed towards something wacky (and not at all impactful) happening, I always felt like I had a chance to impact the situation… even if it was only a 1 out of 100 chance.

I also played a Halfling Cleric of chaos (once again using spells from the Tome of Magic) who was reincarnated into a skeleton through some chaotic consequences. Later, another curse would force his alignment to Lawful and necessitate worshiping a deity of law (I was NOT happy when that happened). There even came a battle against a powerful mage where my chaotic spells would have come in handy in scrambling his spellcasting, but all I had were law spells… except for the ones I had stored in my Ring of Spell Storing before the change. That last vestige of chaotic magic used at the right time saved the day, and my halfling would eventually revert to his old chaos-worshipping self before heading off on his immortality quest.

This is only a sampling, not even including the food mage, the berserker whose presence was announced by an organ, the bevy of characters based on Squaresoft games, the rogue who saved a gold mine and power-leveled through 4 levels thanks to the gold pieces therein, and much more. You still had the races and classes that had already become classics, alongside new and crazy options. And whether your fireball was turning into butterflies, or you were pulling a string of Christmas lights out of a Robe of Useless items, this is the edition to me that embraced some of the wackier sides of the game, for some memorable times.

Do you have any fond memories of AD&D 2e that you want to share? Please do, but remember to keep it positive.

Next week, we tackle a big era in D&D and the gaming industry: 3rd edition.

The recent annoucement that D&D was going to get a new iteration has garnered a lot of reactions on the web. I decided to refrain from early judgement but, much like when 4e was announced, I take an optimistic approach to it. I happen to respect and even quite like the work of the three main designers working on it so that helps my somewhat positive outlook.

I was very intrigued with Mike Mearls vision of creating a “D&D’s Greatest Hits.” It evokes a plethora of images about modular designs and piecemeal “build your own game” elements that inspires the writer and budding game designer in me. This gave me an idea for a series of post here at Critical Hits. Some of the bloggers here have been playing various editions of D&D for the last 4 decades, I thought it would be interesting if we shared our five DMing Greatest Hits for some or all of the versions of D&D we played as dungeon masters.

Let me start with my first foray in RPGs:

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1e)

• Age Range when played : 10-16
• Nostalgia Factor: Very High
• Rules Mastery: Moderate

As I mentioned in my RPG DNA post a while back, I discovered  tabletop RPGs when I was 10. A schoolmate invited me over to show me a made-up  game based on what he had played with his cousin (the original Red Box) over a weekend. We played for hours with hardly any rules more complex than “Roll a d6 to fight, you die on a 1, you kill the monster on a 6, we roleplay the inbetweens“.

When I showed that game to a 13 y.o. friend of mine, he came back a few days later with a borrowed Player’s Handbook he got from a buddy in high school. We played with that for months.

I bought the Dungeon Masters Guide one year later. And more or less taught myself English while reading Gygaxian prose. The rest is history…

So onwards with the Top 5 elements I loved most about running AD&D, admitting I am heavily biased by the nostalgia factor.

1. Inspiration

The AD&D core books ooze with inspiration for games, NPCs, dungeons, traps, tricks and plots.  Charts, titles (brazen trollops anyone?), random tables, weapon names, monster lore and the much misunderstood concepts of Gygaxian Ecologies.  From random dungeon generators to  monster lairs found in the wilderness, I yearn for as many inspirational aids I can get to design exciting settings, campaign arcs, plotlines, and encounters for my players.

2. Exploration

What I remember most of AD&D is that sense of discovery about almost anything as I deciphered Gary’s teachings. I wanted every stone turned, I wanted to draw dungeons that took multiple pads of graph paper (and I did), I wanted to use and create monters that made no frakking sense (Crap elementals FTW), and I laughed when  friends threatened each other by comparing their character sheets.

Joel: Oh yeah? Well just wait till my illusionist levels up and I’ll Phantasmal Killer you with images of your parents DOING IT!

All editions of D&D have this, hence my nostalgia warning. Practically speaking, as a DM I expect to be provided concise tools (tables, charts, generators, short blurb) at my gaming table (in paper or e-format) and more elaborate online resources to help me cater to my players’ sense of exploration.

3. Attitude

You’ve got to hand it to Gary Gygax, he had a very strong opinion of how his game should be played. Now, while I HATE to be told how a game MUST be played, I loved how Gary’s attitude and certitudes transpired in the pages of his books and lent them a sense of credibility that made you feel like you were invited to join a club (or attending a heartfelt lecture).

While I’d like to do away with the most glaring patronizing passages (as I ignore them now), I like engaging, authoritative or conversational tones in my rulesbook. AD&D certainly had the tone right to engage my tweenaged mind.

4. Resilience

I’ve rarely met people that played AD&D 1e with all the rules and subsystems and ENJOYED it for a prolonged periods of time. Yet AD&D’s chaotic goo of crunch could take some severe misinterpretation, heavy handed house-ruling and glaring omissions while remaining very playable. I like that in a game. Keep giving me a system that has a  simple core and allow me to eject almost anything from it without threatening its fundamental integrity as an engine and I’ll be happy.

5. Modules

The early AD&D modules were simple, had low page content and were direct.  Short intro (ex: do this quest or the baron burns you alive), dungeon rooms with minimal description… and an emergent sense of plot that arose organically through play. (I’m referring to  modules like Village of Homlet, Against the Giants, the slave lords and others of that ilk). I want more of that.

What about you? Did you play 1e? What was the elements you liked the most about it.  Please keep it positive, we all know the warts of our games, let’s focus on the awesome.

Up next, Dave and friends tackle that multi-headed beast that was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition.

Can you believe I have been with Critical-Hits for two years already?  A lot has happened since July 2007 (when I started blogging) and January 10th 2009 (when I merged my blog with Critical-Hits). Yet, as I’ve discussed a few weeks ago, my passion and my drive to write content for the website has now collided with various other priorities. They range from my freelance assignments to reorganizing my life in the light of a recent separation and adjusting to the violently joyful upheavals of love found anew.

In that time, I’ve further thought about what gets my blood boiling and sends my brain in a creative frenzy. As I seek to find this feeling anew among all the clutter that accumulates in my existence, I realized what makes me tick as a writer. I found it while reading a book.

A while back, I was reading Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek while I was waiting for Dr.C to finish work. I came upon his story about trading his Death Star playset vs a  landspeeder and 10$ back in the 80′s and it just dawned on me:

Will was lousy at trades. Oh wait, that’s not it.

Much like Wil realized that he was a born storyteller, I realized that was also one of the things  I liked doing most: writing stories about what my experiences with RPGs.  If you look over my previous 2 posts (here and here), my series on becoming a freelance writer (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) or all my posts about playing with my children, you can feel the energy being poured into these articles. Yet, as I recall, they required minimal effort to write. I enjoy sharing my experience through a (slightly) fictionalized account of what occurs in my geek life so much that it doesn’t feel like work to me… at all.

Secondly, as I re-read my posts about DMing at the New York Comic Con, I remembered something fundamental about my blogging experience.  My absolute best posts are and have always been those where each paragraph oozes with the bubbling enthusiasm that is a hallmark of my extroverted personality. I seem to recall someone (probably Logan Bonner) at Pax East last year telling me that whenever I raved about a new game, he would usually cut what I said about it in half before considering how true it could be.

That’s me to  T.

So this is what I want to reconnect with. I want most, if not all my blog posts to be like the one I wrote about NYCC, I want to share my insights as a GM, share my good ideas, tell a good story.  But most importantly, I yearn to talk about things that get me excited again, things I feel enthusiastic about. Be it the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying campaign I may start with my friends, the mounting excitement (albeit sans details) of playtesting the next iteration of D&D, my burgeoning experiences as a foodie geek or exploring new gaming horizons with my children and my girlfriend.

In fact, if I recalled what brought me to Critical-Hits 5 years ago, I’d say it was the enthusiasm of Dave, Danny and co. This is what this place means to me, this is what I want the place to remain.

And you dear readers have been a huge part of that. Thank you for reading.

Last week,  I posted about a formula I devised at the New York Comic Con to  play an improv randomly generated dungeon crawl.

At the time, I had no idea how successful the experience would be. As it turns out, things went quite well indeed. Read on for the “storified”  highlights of this two hour game.

Puzzling it Out

In one room I rolled “puzzle” on my trusty chart. The map showed two pools, one silver coloured and one gold. So I devised the following “simple” puzzle. The players had to take a container made of silver to transfer water from the silver pool to the gold pool OR take a gold container to do the reverse. Doing either popped a secret latch in the wall and uncovered the treasure.

I let the players experiment for about 10 minutes, answering questions, helping them learn about skill checks to obtain hints and figure things out. They eventually caught on but no one had a silver or golden container.

Rogue: Hey wait (throws treasure token from a previous encounter my way), I have this magnificent silver liquor flask. I pour out the content and use it.

Chatty: What was in the flask?

Rogue (smiling evilly) Fine Dwarven spirits…

Dwarf: No!!!!

Obligatory Level 1 Generic Critter Fight

Later in the game, the characters  were hard at work fighting  kobolds.  The PCs were in deep trouble; everyone was bloodied as the Kobold Sligner was spreading chaos and mayhem.

Drow Ranger: I swear to god, if I get hit by another shit pot, I’m going to turn that guy into a pair of boots.

Chatty: That’s a great use of the Nature skill by the way.

At that point, another player asked to join the game, I gave him the cleric, explained that Groo (the Goblin bookie that gave the quest) was worried that his investment wasn’t being properly attended to…

Party: Hey!

… And that the cleric was “insurance”

Party: HEALING PLEASE!

The cleric’s timely arrival saved the day… as were the treasure tokens traded for healing potions.

It’s Dungeons AND Dragons Bro…

The last scene we played was, by far, the best of the whole convention for me. You see, when I was prepping the game, I really wanted to showcase both elements of the game’s name. When I told Wizards of the Coast’s community manager  Michael Robles about my plans, he lent me his Red Dragon mini (sorry Mike, I still have it, I’ll bring it at Gen Con).  When the party entered the room bearing a huge circular rune, I rolled “monster” and decided to go for broke and plopped the Dragon mini on the table.

Chatty: As you enter, you see an elephant-sized Dragon covered in spiked and blood-red scales. It looks quizzically at you, sniffs around and says. “Good, treasure and lunch all at the same time!”

I decided to totally Mouseburn that scene and make it into one of those “one main skill check with many helpers” skill challenges like the one I did here.

Chatty: Okay guys, this is not a scene where you can win a fight. This thing is big and powerful, you’ll have to deal with it by interaction. One of you needs to take the lead in either negotiating or bullying the dragon in not killing you all.

Dwarf Slayer: I’ll do it! I’ll intimidate the dragon!

Chatty: Anyone opposed to that?

Party: Nope, all good.

(As they were saying that, all the players were placing their minis behind the dwarf, it was hilarious to watch).

Chatty: All right, before you start roleplaying your dwarf”s attempt at intimidating, everyone else can chose any of their skills and try to help you out. Everyone gets to describe what they’re doing.  You’ll get a +2 for each helping PC that succeeds and a -1 for each failure. Are you cool with that?

Dwarf: Hell yeah!

The paladin pleaded with the dragon that everyone knew that dwarven meat was foul tasting and out of fashion. (Diplomacy, failed)

Dragon: Ha! If it wasn’t for your armour and the artificially sweetened taste of goodiness, I’d be munching on you right now Paladin, stand aside.

Drow Ranger: I want to sneak behind the dragon, and knock an arrow while standing  right behind its head. I stand ready to whisper some kind of Batman-ly threat in its ear. (Success)

Chatty: This is very cool! If this ever degenerate into a fight, you’ll be first to attack.

And so on. In the end, the dwarf had to roll a in the mid 10s to succeed. The player played his swaggering and blustering dwarf  beautifully, earning himself some generous bonuses. As he picked the d20, everybody was sitting up straight, eager to see the results.

The dice rolled… and rolled….

… And settled on a 3. (Fail!)

The players looked expectantly at me.

I made a pained expression.

Chatty: The dragon scoffs… and in a lightning quick strike, bites the dwarf’s heads off.

(Pause for effect)

Chatty: The dwarf ‘s soon to be lifeless body remains standing up… blood spurting from it’s mangled torso.

Chatty: The dragon, chewing contently, looks expectantly at the rest of you. What do you do?

Everybody else: WE RUN!

I looked at the stunned player who was, up until a few seconds ago, playing a dwarven Slayer.

Player: That… that… was the MOST AWESOME D&D GAME EVER!

I don’t think I need to add much more to that.  Many weeks later, I still share this player’s enthusiasm for that session.

That’s why, to this day, in spite of all the other fun games I’ve discovered these last 2 years, I will always remain a fan of D&D… whatever incarnation or name it takes. I plan to keep teaching it to players, old and young for as long as my inner flame remains. I’m convinced that this is the BEST way to grow our community.

Dear game designers and publishers, keep innovating and bringing out new games and material, because that’s how you keep my inner flame alive.

As for the formula? It works like a charm. Feel free to borrow it and have fun with it. I’d love to hear about the experiences you had with it.

Thanks for reading.

Earlier last fall I was at the New York Comic Con as a volunteer DM for Wizards of the Coast. I asked to be assigned to the “Learn D&D” activity. The organizers asked me to provide an improvised adventure using the material available in the D&D Red Box (the 2010 version) rather than play the adventure found in the box.

I played 3 such games and they each were incredibly entertaining. I recounted one of them here.

In the last game I played, I wanted to create a dungeon crawling experience with absolute minimal prepping in advance. More importantly however, I wanted to be able to play without floundering for ideas whilst in the middle of running the game. As I pondered my options, I came up with a formula for running a quick 2 hour game. I’m sharing this with you because I think you might find it useful.

I started with the Red Box , including the dungeon battlemap packaged with the game. I then took a fistfull of glass beads (which I dubbed “treasure tokens”) and wrote the following table:

Roll a d10
1-2 Empty Room, Treasure out in open
3-4 Trap
5-6 Puzzle
7-0 Monster

The idea was to have the treasure beads distributed in various rooms of the dungeon and roll on the table whenever the party entered one such room. I’d make up an encounter based on the result using nothing but the list of monsters in the Red Box’s DM’s booklet and the mini-Rule 42 found on the booklet’s last page (the DC for level 1 adventurers and a damage chart for hazards). If I rolled “monster” I’d make a level 1 encounter on the spot based on what made most sense or was cool.

With only a 40% chance to face monsters (combat not being the only outcome even then), I thought this distribution to be ideal for fostering exploration and creating the classic “poke with a stick” experimentation that I fondly remembered of my early D&D games as a tweenager.

Turns out I was right…

Armed with these, I got a group of 4 players and we created the setting for the game by having them answer these questions:

You are adventurers that banded together recently. Tell me what your last adventure was about. More specifically, tell me one good thing that happened to you and one bad thing that requires you to return adventuring in dungeons.

The wizard player (sensing an exploit) said “I found a very powerful staff”

I answered “Ha! Sure, no problem… But since this is a one shot level 1 game, please work in your ‘bad’ stuff how you lost that staff… even if only temporarily.”

The Dwarven Slayer piped in: “I know! I spent all of the party’s loot from our last adventure on ale and whores… I even pawned the wizard’s staff!  I’m so sorry guys, I’ll make it up to you!”

Everybody was laughing their heads off, the game was already a great success.

Chatty: Okay then, well the dwarf knows this Goblin “Bookie” called Groo that specializes in booking high risk, high paying, no-questions-asked forays into vaults, catacombs and other subterranean locales in exchange for a very fair share of the spoils.

Dwarf: Oh yeah, he’s the one who spotted me the money for the staff.

Drow Ranger: You are so not leaving our eyesight, ever again!

Dwarf: Oh come on, I told you I’d waive my part of the treasure until I paid you all off!

(The guy was so funny…)

Chatty: Okay so Groo tells you that the thieve’s guild has had one of its minor vaults run over by monsters from the Underdark and were ready to sign off the valuables stored as a “business loss”. Groo bought back the “content” of the vault at 1 silver piece to the gold crown and wants you to recover as much from it as you can… he promises to let you keep 50% of whatever you recover.

I pulled out the Red Box’s Dungeon map and handed out a pair of glass beads to every player.

Chatty: Okay each of these beads represents a small generic treasure pile whose worth you’ll evaluate once you leave the dungeon. You’ll alternate turns placing these tokens onto the dungeon map, representing in what room treasure can be found. Whenever you enter a room with one of those beads, I’ll play on my little table here to see what you meet, it won’t necessarily be monsters.

The players started placing the beads commenting on some of the features appearing on the map, like braziers, pools and ominous runes on the floor. It reminded me that these were all new players or players who hadn’t played in decades. It dawned on me that I had a very important job here: present one of my favourite games to these players so they could taste how awesome playing D&D is.

Chatty: Okay, before we start, here’s one last thing about the beads. Since they are generic treasure, it’s possible that they could be useful for you in a given situation. So at anytime that you need a particular tool or object, you can “spend” a token and tell me “Oh but I have this doohickey that’s great for disarming traps” or “Oh look, here’s the key to that locked door” or better yet “Hey guys, what does a “healing potion” do?”

They loved it.

In hindsight, they mostly used them as healing potions as things got HARD, but I love this mechanic and will use it for all the “unattributed treasure parcel” I keep struggling with to this day.

The game was a huge success, Up next, I’ll share the  highlights of the game. It turned out to be among my great D&D games and certainly one of my most successful convention games ever.

Every year, in December, when I get out my fall seasonal funk, I’m overflowed with the inevitable introspection that comes with all light depressive states.

As awesome as 2011 started (getting published ROCKS), the second half of the year has brought turmoil and uncertainties beyond what my strengthening psyche could manage without help. Brutal changes have rocked my life leading me to move into a new apartment, deal with the always unsatisfactory compromise that is shared custody of my children and deal with the unbridled joy (and distractions) of newly found love.

All this, coupled with keeping up with my client’s projects, has led me to slip out one of my best established habits: blogging. As I let this slide, my “need” to write online receded  and I stopped rationalizing why I didn’t feel the old compulsion to write as I have for so many years.

As I write these lines, I realize that “needing” is fed by the act of doing.

As I floundered in moving boxes,  struggled with deliverable and dove into awesome dates with the one I have been affectionately calling Dr. C, I realized that I more or less sat on the  achievements I worked hard to unlock after implementing the plan I successfully hatched, nearly 3 years ago,  redirecting my life. As a result, I need to take back control of my creative life. I need to start writing again.

Scratch that. When I hear people around me bemoaning their life, my inner coach wakes up. “I should” and “I need” are poisonous inertia-fueled guilt-trips. I need to think and speak action words!

Let’s try this again shall we?

I want to take back control of my creative life. I will start writing again.

Okay Chatty… how are you going to do this then? How about this?

Let’s go back to basics and tackle less ambitious subjects. Let’s start working on blog posts that I can write and edit in less than one hour (hence this post’s name). This column, being public and read by so many people, remains one of the best instant feedback soundboard there is out there. It forces me to pour a little bit more of myself in the text than if I was writing to my “Document” folder.

Plus, you all know how much of an attention whore I am.

Also, let’s ask Dr. C, my coach and muse, to add a ‘writing’ element to the  ”getting  life back on track” game we’ve been playing. In it, I get rewards for doing exercises and eating better.  Thus, I’d also get rewarded to do something that I fundamentally enjoy doing: writing.

I’ve been at it for about 40 minutes so far  and I’m already about to hit the 500 words count.  This is a good sign as I type noticeably faster when I enjoy myself… and I totally am right now.

That’s EXACTLY what I was seeking.

What about you, when you need to be creative and have let the habit slide for too long, how do you get back in the groove?

Looking forward to hear from you. I miss reading comments!

 

On October 2011, I started my move into my new apartment and was sitting alone and dejected, waiting for people to deliver my new furniture.

(Yes I am recently separated. Everything’s fine now, including the kids.)

I picked up my smartphone and sent a call out on Twitter for some entertainment.

Chatty: Spending day alone in new unfurnished apartment, awaiting for new furniture and services. Keep me company plz?

That’s when my good friend FDL, sent me this completely unexpected response:

FDL: Ok. you see a grue. What do you do?

(I was thinking: “Hey cute joke…. Let’s see how it plays out.”)

Chatty: Wave torch

FDL: As you wave your torch, you set your furniture delivery guys on fire. Game over. Restart? [y/n]

(I fell down my flimsy beach chair onto my hardwood floor laughing. This could become fun.)

Chatty: LOL yes. Talk Grue.

FDL: The grue says she’s your upstairs neighbor and she hopes her noisy Angry Birds parties won’t bother you too much. What next?

Chatty: examine exits

FDL: There is only one exit, a hangar bay door.

Chatty: kick door

FDL: Door says “Ow!” and kicks back. Grue looks at you in disgust.

(Very funny man… At this point it was clear we had a Parsely text game going. The fact that it worked so well on Twitter was awesome. People had started reading it and reacting to it. I was having fun, my woes forgotten.)

Chatty: Apologize door.

(I was still playing it old school with 2 words)

Chatty: Inventory

FDL: This game uses the Diablo II inventory screen, so assume that you can’t find anything useful, ever. Assume your hands are empty.

(Har har har…)

Chatty: Exit room

FDL: The grue locks the door behind you. It is very cold outside. And you forgot to say “wear pants”, didn’t you?

FDL: It’s Friday. You never wear pants on Friday. Lord knows you said so on Twitter often enough.

(Smartypants, stop reading my Tweets.)

Chatty: Scoff about need for pants.

FDL: As you exit the apartment pantsless, you run into your other new neighbors who wanted to welcome you. All of them.

(*Facepalm*)

Chatty: Do dance of pantless pride

FDL: Neighbor’s kid takes a swing at your pantslessness with +5 Vorpal Steeltoed boots. Rolls a natural 20. You’re in ER.

(That was a low blow FDL)

Chatty: (ouch…) summon nurse

(There was a missing, untagged tweet here about a nurse casting Cure Critical Wounds and an Orc lying in the next bed, a Battleaxe embedded in its forehead, smiling at me.)

Chatty: Examine room

FDL: Well, it IS an examination room, so you sorta have to do that, yeah. BTW, the Orc says: “You pretty!”

FDL: BTW, the grue called and said you missed your cable guy. He rescheduled your appointment for March 14th, 2177.

(Sigh, it’s funny because it’s almost true)

Chatty: Ask orc for battleaxe

FDL: Orc smiles (toothlessly), hides battleaxe behind his back and says: “You no say magic worrrrd, pretty one!”

(Sigh… time to test the parsely engine.)

Chatty: Smile sweetly and tell orc “give me the (censored) battleaxe you (censored) or I’ll (censored) your (censored) (censored) please.

FDL: Orc hands you the battleaxe and says: “You not gotta be big meanie, hurt Ogg-Bogg’s feelings!” Nurse frowns at you.

Chatty: Kiss orc on forehead and say “I was speaking Bromantic Orc you dummy” then find pants… Any pants.

FDL: You put on clown pants. The clown you take them from looks pissed, until he sees your battleaxe and your Orc.

Chatty: Search clown pants pocket for clown car keys and go out into parking.

FDL: 12,000 evil clowns pile out of the car and squirt unholy water at you with their lapel flowers. Roll saving throw.

(I gotta hire this guy for my next adventure)

Chatty: I’m wearing a  gown, clown pants, a battleaxe and an amorous orc with a splitting headache; I make the damn save.

FDL: OK. Just in the nick of time, the Orc dives in front of you to take the Unholy water blast. He dies with a smile.

(Nooooooooooooo…… Ogg-Bogg, our bromance was too short.)

FDL: And then the grue swoops by and steals you away from the angry clown mob. You’re back home, safe. You win. 5000 XP!

That was a great little game. It helped me pass the time and I thank FDL for having taken some time and invested significant creative effort in doing this.  So you see, Twitter can be used for parsely games after all (and others too). Provided both parties are willing to play some give and take for entertainment value.

Also, if you haven’t tried them yet, give Jared Sorensen’s Parsely games a try. They are a great way to pass time in between games.

Special thanks to Dr.C., the new special someone in my life, who safeguarded this exchange so I could make a post out of it.  Also thanks to Tangent128 who made the TwitRPG logo back in 2008 when I played my first RPG game on Twitter.

Tomorrow will be one of the year’s slowest days on the Bloggosphere: the American Thanksgiving weekend. Of course, that’s when I feel the biggest urge to write in a long time.

But that’s never stopped me before.

So after asking my Twitter readers for inspiration (thanks Christian), I settled on a question that’s been on my mind for a long time:

Given no limits in ressources, time and talent, what would you design?

Hmm, that’s an easy one; I’d design something along the lines of the “Young Ladies’ Primer” found in Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. The Primer was a nano-computer with one main function, to act as an interactive smart-book that taught children through a long interactive storygame.

So when I say I’d like to do something like that, I’m not thinking about an actual book-shaped computer made with nanotech (although it would be cool), rather I’d like to do something that could, eventually, evolve into just that… with a tabletop RPG spin.

Here are the basic pitching points:

• An application for a tablet PC like the iPad or the equivalent
• The app features a richly illustrated (animated?) adventure story aimed at tweenagers, I’m thinking 8-12.
• The story progressively  becomes fully interactive as a CRPG with elements such as dialog choices, character sheets, conflict resolution mechanics and character growth (XPs).
• The game should last between 5 and 10 hours depending on side-quests completed.
• A simple, yet complete set of tabletop RPG rules that allows readers to continue the adventures of the characters of the story
• Stats for all main characters for the story and rules to make new ones.
• A primer to teach parents how to play tabletop roleplaying games with tween-aged children, complete with advice on preparing new stories, inserting educational content (if needed) and letting the creativity of children drive the show.

The tabletop game would most likely be narrative-driven.  So far,  the mechanics that I envision fitting the most with what I need is  is John Harper’s Lady Blackbird as it has just the right amount of rules element (fitting on a demi-page) to make it into really enjoyable roleplaying game for people of all ages.

I don’t know if the technology is there yet or if parents would be interested in this, but as a customer, I’d snag such a product (and pay more than once for different stories) in a minute.

What about you? Do you like the idea? What elements would you like to see in such a app/story/game?

More importantly, if you were asked the same question I was, what would you design?

Earlier this week, Dave sent me a link to an event called “Teach your Kids to Game” and Dave thought it would be a good idea that I dug in my archives to bring back my  posts about how I brought my kids into gaming, namely through bedtime storytelling.

Long time readers will remember some fondly and I hope that new readers will discover some of the best gems of this little corner I call my blog.

And just so everyone is up to speed, I have two children: Nico, a 9 y.o. boy and Rory an 8 y.o. girl.

The stories I will link to range from 2008 to 2011.

Nico’s Quest: What started it all

Upon my return from Gen Con 2008, riding high on a thousand ideas and projects, I decided to turn my son’s bedside story into an simple, freeform interactive roleplaying game. It worked so well it sparked a mini-campaign:

• Part 1: Nico’s Quest
• Part 2: Bend it Like Nico
• Part 3: Nico’s Party 

If you click only one link in the whole post, at least click the first one, it will be worth your time.

D&D 4e vs a 6 y.o. Attention Span

During the bedside campaign, I tried playing D&D 4e with Nico, using pregens and a very simple improv adventure. After a 30 minutes encounter, Nico’s attention wandered and we never returned to that game, but you can see some of the cool things that can be done with D&D and a 6 year old.

• Nico’s Pick-Up D&D Game 

An Old Classic gets the Nico Treatment

Some time later, Nico and I decided to play the bedtime story game again and we managed to cram a great session in one session. It featured the now classic Super Nico (Laser Knight Esc.) and was about saving a young prince in the clutches of the evil Red Dragon Smaug.

• Nico Outsmarts Smaug The Dragon

What is really ironic is that I just showed him the original post and asked him if the name Smaug rang a bell.

Nico: Yeah, wasn’t that the dragon in The Hobbit?

Chatty: What are the chances?

Nico: Daddy!

Intermission:

During Gen Con 2008, I wrote a long, crazy, disjointed live-blog post which I will spare you.  In this post, one H. Gygax left a comment about remembering the early Gen Cons as she was serving drinks and hot dogs in her basement…

O.o

We exchanged a few messages on Facebook and when she read about the stories I did with Nico she shared a great Gygax family story. She told me that Gary would often gather all the kids in a bedroom and start doing a grand interactive story with all of them. The kids loved it and really got into it. And often, Gary would fall asleep in the bed while the kids kept adding to the story.

I love stuff like that, thanks Heidi.

Unfinished Tale

At one point I had a harder time keeping up with the Laser Knight  stories I did with Nico. They all started to feel like they were the same. One such story did stand out and I recount the first part here:

• The Sword of Dreams

I’m sad I don’t remember that last part of that story because I do recall its conclusion was cool.

Variations on the Same Theme.

As time flew by, we tried other versions of bedtimes stories.

One was about Nico taking on the role of a Mecha pilot

• Bedtime Campaign: Pilot Nico’s Battlebot!

The story was really cool and let Nico deploy new ideas based on technology and whatnot.

But my favorite of the gang was the Indiana Nico series, of which I have only one post:

• Indiana Nico and The Golden King

In that post 7 y.o. Nico shared a fundamental piece about what many people like about RPGs; we call it the Rule of C4 here.

New Breakthrough: The Notebook RPG

The bedtime stories petered off with Nico (I’ll talk about Rory real soon) until I stumbled upon the idea of playing an adventure using a visual support: A notebook.

• Notebook Campaign: How I got my Son into Tabletop RPGs
• Notebook Campaing: Super Nico vs the 3 Hungry Goblins

To this day, more than 2 years after we tried it, Nico still talks about the experience and wants to “upgrade” it with more players, minatures and bigger paper…

…i.e. a full blown tabletop RPG.

 Culmination of an Art: The Lego Campaign

The following two posts describe a battlegame we created with only Rock-Paper-Scissors and what I call “Mouseburning” it . It was when Nico asked me to play with some Legos with him and I suggested we made they whole thing into an adventure game. We had a lot of fun.

• Nico’s Lego RPG: Assault on the Crystal King’s Cave, Part 1
• Nico’s Lego RPG: Assault on the Crystal King’s Cave, Part 2

It’s Not Just a Boy’s Game: Introducing Rory

My daughter Rory has mostly been less interested than Nico in doing those story games, with a few very notable exceptions.

First when she was very young:

• Bedtime Adventure: Enter Cartain!

After that experience, she didn’t want to play alone for 3 years. But when we did, what a result! (This is from earlier this Fall)

• Bedtime Adventures: May-Gee’s Big Test, Part 1
• Bedtime Adventures: May-Gee’s Big Test, Part 2 

The sensitive nature of Rory that you see when she was a preschooler has flourished in a richer, stronger ability to forge a story.

I remain constantly amazed at the skills my children are developing through these games. I do hope they become as useful to their lives as gaming has helped me in mine.

All together Now: Brother and Sister Editions

Nico and Rory played the story games twice, both were notable events, with, shall we say, interesting results…

•  Bedtime Campaign: Brother and Sister in the Car Edition

In which siblings fight for narrative control and unlock the power of synergy when they finally team up.

• Nico and Rory’s Quest: Meeting the Ice Titan

In which both my children were introduced to Sword and Sorcery ( a D&D 0th edition retroclone) and had fun talking to the quest givers.

Leaving The Nest

I always wondered how these games would shape how my children would play with others. Well it turns out it had more influence than I thought…

•  Kids and Games: Getting it Wrong is Doing it Right

In fact, Nico, Rory and thier friend Felix are playing an extremely complex Lego game right now where each player has to trade gems to the other two to be allowed to purchase specific parts to build machines and people.

The complexity of the game baffles my mind.

Oh and all three  now share a Minecraft server  (very originally called Nicocraft) that my friend PM setup for them.

How’s that for having guided them into gamerland?

So what’s your “Teach Kids to Play” story?

In part 1, I described how an improv D&D game I ran at the New York ComicCon had a Zombie Apocalypse as a setting.

While the game had nothing spectacular in terms of the encounters we played or the monsters the players fought (zombie wolves), the concept awoke my dormant creativity and sent into a spiral of ideas and concepts upon which a campaign setting could rest on.

The Fantasy Zombie Apocalypse What-If Game

Ever since that game, my mind’s been afire with the idea of running an actual D&D game during a Zombie Apocalypse. The game has the necessary resources: there are a gazzillion zombie creatures in the D&D Compendium, the Open Grave sourcebook has many ideas about them and, well, zombies are just too cool for school.

(Hello Phil? The 80′s called and they want that tacky buzz phrase back)

But here’s what makes ot so interesting to me, when you mix any generic fantasy world and apply a zombie plague over it, you get the most interesting concepts.

For a modern take on the subject, refer to this 2009 Halloween post of mine.

So why don’t we play my favourite of all creative games, the What-If game?

Minding the Zombie Problem

What if the plague is parasitic in nature and only affects denizens of the material world? That would mean all material-born creatures would be likely to fall to the plague… except possibly a few special individuals destined to fight or maintain it (read: characters and a few villains).

Could that imply that creatures originating from the Far Realms like Mind Flayers and Beholders are  immune?  That would likely mean that the illithids could take over the world… or would they if they can’t control or blast the minds of millions of mindless walking corpses? If you’re going for the classic brain-eating zombie plague, the mind flayers would actually have to deal with starvation as they race across the world to “preserve and ration” their food source from the ravening zombies. Maybe with a few nudges in the right places, the Flayers could be convinced to pack their bags and head back to the Far Realms, or at least go invade another material world.

In the same line, what of the denizens of other planes of existence (regardless of the cosmology of the edition of D&D you play)? With a world overrun by the mindless undead, it stands to reason that it could be the end result of a grand scheme of some god or demon prince of the undead. In fact, an actual global-scale zombie plague could mean that Orcus was finally successful and was spreading chaos and destruction on the material world. In such a version, the world would be run by a few of the Prince of Undeath’s chosen, psychopathic cultists with strange necromantic powers that allow them to sculpt undead flesh into unspoken monstrosities that defy even the grossest entries of your favourite Monster Manual.

Imagine a mimic made of undead flesh. A spider with the jaws of an alligator and 8 human arms. A red dragon with its head replaced by an undead Beholder.

Possibilities: endless.

You could make the cause of the plague a theme of your mini-campaign.  What caused it? A biological virus, a magical plague, a divine curse?  Answering questions like these would open new plot possibilities that you can develop (or not) as the action unfolds.

One of my favourite questions to explore would be “what of the other undead?” How would the catastrophic increase in near-mindless flesh-eaters affect the “Necrosphere” so to speak? I’d be particularly interested in exploring what the ghouls would do. What would thier king, Doresein, do if it noticed that its subjects were starving as the availability of  dead humanoid flesh dwindled to near zero? I’d explore how the King of Ghouls would go about hiring  the PCs through a front, not easy when 99% of humanoid life now shambles around, to solve his food problem.

Oh, what’s this? Two parallel explorations of ideas that lead to the same issue: Food. So what if you mixed the Mind Flayer plot line with that of the Ghouls. In a world where these two empires become forced to clash, which would the PCs side with?

And finally, what of a small shrine of a near forgotten goddess was rediscovered?  What if the sole relics she left behind were a rusted syringe-like contraption and a heavily damaged book of rituals explaining how to create something called, in a lost language, a Vhak-Ssine? (It doesn’t have to be that obvious). And what it these were the only known elements capable of curing the plague and immunizing against it?

Remember that in all those musings, I assume that the cure disease spell does work.  I just assume that much like our modern health systems, a virulent plague would overload the relatively small number of spellcasters that can cure it.

But what of the adventurers? How would we explain their resistance to the plague? Would they be likely to fall to it? And if so, what would Zombie rules for PCs be like in D&D 4e? What would they accomplish in such a bleak world. What would be a typical plot for a 6-10 sessions mini-campaign?

I leave those things for you to mull over and share in the comments.

As you can see from the very few examples above, a setting that’s been explored many times can still yield original and engaging adventure ideas by just asking a few questions and exploring where the answers could lead you.

I may tackle a part 3 in the near future where I discuss what form a zombie apocalypse mini-campaign could take.

Thanks for reading.

A few weeks ago, I got to attend  New York’s ComicCon as one of Wizards of the Coast’s volunteer DMs. I ran a few “Learn to Play” events, using the recent D&D Red Box and a few level 1 pre-generated characters to entice new (and returning) players back into the fold.

As I was getting ready to play the less than stellar adventure found in the Box, the event’s organiser pulled me aside and told me these magical words:

“Forget about the red box adventure, make something up entirely. Just start with a Roleplaying encounter and play it by ear from there.”

I had just given me the keys to the kingdom… and no one was there to watch me steal the crown jewels.

(Ewww, get your mind out of the gutter!)

You see, while the adventure in the Red Box is quite ordinary and the character generation method is one of the worst I’ve seen since Battlelords of the 23rd Century, the Red Box’s DM’s book is a solid piece of introductory gaming. Thus, armed with the monster chapter and the digest rule-42 on the last page (i.e. the DC table for level 1-3 gameplay), I got ready to inflict my very own brew of D&D on unsuspecting players.

I decided to put all my small press experience to bear on those games and approached the game as such:

Chatty: Okay, so you’re all relatively new adventurers who’ve banded together in the recent past. Can you tell me about your last adventure? More specifically, can you tell me one thing that went really good for your group and what that was really bad…

This post is about one of the best answers I got:

The Zombie Apocalypse, Indie Style

Player #1 (Human Paladin) : The GOOD thing we had is that we’ve so far managed to survive the Zombie Apocalypse.

Chatty (trying to imagine what a fantasy zombie apocalypse would be like… and trying to scale it to a 2 hour game): That’s… interesting. Are we talking regional, continental or global apocalypse?

Player #2: Let’s say “continental”

Chatty (Doing double-time building a setting scaffold in his mind): All right, and if that was the “good” thing, what was the bad one?

Player #2 (Dwarven slayer): Well see… I kinda caused the apocalypse… I kinda was supposed to help my necromancer friend and things got… complicated.

(Oh man, I live for moments like that.)

Chatty: You did? Now THAT is interesting. Does your adventuring colleague know about that?

(Player one was grinning like an idiot at that point.)

Player #2 (Sheepishly): No… I kinda grabbed him real fast and dragged him out of my necromancer pal’s dungeon as the plague was spreading.

(Call it what you want, but in my book, this is true roleplaying.)

Chatty: So basically you guys have survived for some time huh? So this game will kinda be like a 28 Days set in the world of D&D right?

Player #1 (Already passed the point of excitement): Oh YES, this is SO cool!

I had the ingredients needed to fill 2 hours of pure, undiluted D&D gaming.

The Clan of the Dead

I decided to set a classic 6/3 skill challenge where the characters (a 3rd player had joined by that time) were trying to reach one of the few remaining reinforced surface outposts before being overtaken by… (I flipped through the Red Box’s monster chapter) Zombie Wolves!

But Chatty you ask, there are no Zombie wolves in the Red Box.

Yes there are… I’ll show you later, but right now we don’t need stats since the PCs might actually make it alive and outrun the wolves.

(That’s a huge time saving secret just there, don’t refer to stats untill you actually need them… and that’s only if you didn’t make them up in the first place.)

So I ran the challenge very loosy goey, asking the players how they tried to outrun the wolves, slow them and find ways to deal with them. I told them that whatever they managed to win or lose the scene, they would make it into the cave… the challenge was: How hurt and how many wolves would be after you by the time you got there…

Sadly, the players lost the challenge so I decided to make the next encounter into a combat one where the characters had to fight off the zombified versions of 2 wolves and a Dire Wolf… After having inflicted each PC the damage equivalent to a bite…

Things were, pardon the pun, dire indeed.

So how did I zombify the wolves? Real simple. I lowered all thier defenses by 2, bumped thier damage by one category and added the “dies on a crit” feature (which, sadly, never came into play). Had this not been a one-shot game, I would have also added the “Zombies get up the round following getting dropped to 0 HP” power.

The players eventually beat the wolves with very savvy use of fire, chokepoints and the mindlessness of the creatures themselves. I was proud of the players and they were having the time of thier lives. Player #1, who was a 20-something New Zelander who used to play way back when, promised me he was going to start playing again.

There’s no sweeter sound a DM likes to hear in such events.

As I recounted the experience to Dave, we agreed that the concept of a Zombie Apocalypse that wiped out most civilizations from both the surface and underworld would make for a very rich fantasy setting for a mini (5-10 sessions) campaign.

Why don’t we explore this in part 2?