Friday, June 4, 2010
The End?
I just made the encounter with the Adventurer's Guild, and I'm not sure The Flayers are going to win this one....This will prove interesting.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
On "winging it" and my method of GMing
It's nice to work with a pre-written script at times, it takes so much less effort to GM when you have most of the story on a page infront of you. But it's just so stagnant, even if it's a story you've written yourself.
I find it so much more interesting when you know only a bit more than your players, and you find yourself just as surprised with the game as you. It keeps you on your toes, and results in a livelier game. People feed off of others' energy levels. If the GM is bored, which could very well happen especially if the story is from a can, then your players will be bored too; but if you are able to produce a level of excitement and energy about what is going on in the game then your players will reflect and amplify that same energy. The downside is that it draining to keep only a step ahead of the players, whereas if you wrote everything beforehand than your creative energy was spent at whatever pace you wrote the thing.
What I have been doing with my campaignlets is having a rough sketch of the story. The underlying problem that the PCs solve, who the badguy is and a few features about the world. I often have a handful of events that are expected to happen, but these events don't usually have resolutions built into them.
By not knowing what will happen next, you don't end up railroading the players unintentionally. If there is no track to begin with, then there can be no train.
A word of advise for those considering this style of GMing. Fill the environment with a smattering of random details, and take notes, or have a really good memory. Those random details can be used later as clues or jumping points for the plot which you didn't think of before. But that can only work if you actually remember those random little things. I take quick little notes during the game, and after write down everything fully in a session recap. It's often during that process that I get ideas as to where to go next.
I find it so much more interesting when you know only a bit more than your players, and you find yourself just as surprised with the game as you. It keeps you on your toes, and results in a livelier game. People feed off of others' energy levels. If the GM is bored, which could very well happen especially if the story is from a can, then your players will be bored too; but if you are able to produce a level of excitement and energy about what is going on in the game then your players will reflect and amplify that same energy. The downside is that it draining to keep only a step ahead of the players, whereas if you wrote everything beforehand than your creative energy was spent at whatever pace you wrote the thing.
What I have been doing with my campaignlets is having a rough sketch of the story. The underlying problem that the PCs solve, who the badguy is and a few features about the world. I often have a handful of events that are expected to happen, but these events don't usually have resolutions built into them.
By not knowing what will happen next, you don't end up railroading the players unintentionally. If there is no track to begin with, then there can be no train.
A word of advise for those considering this style of GMing. Fill the environment with a smattering of random details, and take notes, or have a really good memory. Those random details can be used later as clues or jumping points for the plot which you didn't think of before. But that can only work if you actually remember those random little things. I take quick little notes during the game, and after write down everything fully in a session recap. It's often during that process that I get ideas as to where to go next.
On the new side bar picture
That picture will be on the cover of the 2d6 manuals. Tim's dad described it as "someone about to be electrocuted", but I think otherwise. In my opinion it's more of a mind to matter sort of thing, which goes well with the concept of roleplaying games and any creative work as well. Taking the raw energy and creativity and forming it into something tangible. The results may be completely different than what you had expected and wanted but no matter what form it takes, it is an experience and hopefully a good one.
My mother (hi mom!) used Tim as a model for this, and I outlined her pencil with a felt-tip and then scanned it.
My mother (hi mom!) used Tim as a model for this, and I outlined her pencil with a felt-tip and then scanned it.
Organics
Just a working title until I think of something better. Post suggestions!
As Catica will be coming to an end in a few sessions, I've been planning our next campaignlet. This one will be a Sci-Fi story about survival, mystery, and hopefully some fun interpersonal relationships.
Year 2997.
Politics: While earth is still divided into countries, these divisions more resemble the differences between states than individual countries. The International Union (IU)is a collection of officials, some elected, some not, but at least one official from each country. Under the International Constitution they govern several aspects of life: International trade agreements, peacekeeping, military forces (most countries have their own military that take orders from both their country and the IU, which obviously gets messy sometimes), and tax collecting. There are many IU run services and facilities, with the International Institute (II) being the most prominent and prestigious universities in the world. Peace is a relative term, officially there has not been a war in 100 years, but there have been many underground uprisings and unofficial battles between underground groups. The IU tries their best to keep everyone happy, but naturally not everyone can be satisfied with the way things are.
History: The IU grew slowly over a number of years, and there are several ways to count when they started. At first their responsibilities and power was not well defined and in 2157, Adrian Switch, a member of the IU manipulated the IU, and took advantage of his seat and power, he was completely corrupted. Adrian very nearly collapsed the IU, several country governments, and almost started a World War. A Late night IU meeting on December 24, 2157 crafted the International Constitution overnight, which lay out exactly what the IU could and could not do, and gave them the power to remove Adrian from his position. It took many years after the the Switch trials to restore the peace and re-model the IU. Every school child knows the story of Adrian Switch and the Late Night meeting, the constitution can be found displayed on holoboards everywhere.
Technology:
Communication: Pretty much everyone has a BlueEye these days. It is a device that clips to your ear with a selectively transparent screen that covers the left eye. The BlueEye is controlled by one's brain patterns. It is a skill much like typing on a keyboard, it must be learned, some are faster transmitters than others but everyone can at least "hunt-and-peck" (For the exception of a few who are inexplicably incapable of interfacing with the BlueEye)
Travel: Short distance travel is done by car. Cars runs on solar cells and have very few but not insignificant pollution emissions. Long distance travel is done via Tele-pod. One can only travel from one tele pod to another with proper authorization and codes. The number of telepod stations is equivalent to the number of modern day airports. Travel for the ordinary citizen costs about 50 International Credits (ICs). Private Tele-pod stations are extremely expensive, but a few wealthy individuals have them as well as a handful of major companies (Equivalent to owning a private jet plane now)
Energy: Large metal towers can be seen everywhere, mostly in large urban areas. They convert the inert gases and pollutants in the air and converts it into energy which is fed into a switching station that sends the energy to where it needs to go and stores the excess.
Terraforming: Huge machines have been designed and built to be able to massively reshape the landscape. However, no one can agree what to reshape the land into. Every proposition is torn down by someone or another.
As Catica will be coming to an end in a few sessions, I've been planning our next campaignlet. This one will be a Sci-Fi story about survival, mystery, and hopefully some fun interpersonal relationships.
Year 2997.
Politics: While earth is still divided into countries, these divisions more resemble the differences between states than individual countries. The International Union (IU)is a collection of officials, some elected, some not, but at least one official from each country. Under the International Constitution they govern several aspects of life: International trade agreements, peacekeeping, military forces (most countries have their own military that take orders from both their country and the IU, which obviously gets messy sometimes), and tax collecting. There are many IU run services and facilities, with the International Institute (II) being the most prominent and prestigious universities in the world. Peace is a relative term, officially there has not been a war in 100 years, but there have been many underground uprisings and unofficial battles between underground groups. The IU tries their best to keep everyone happy, but naturally not everyone can be satisfied with the way things are.
History: The IU grew slowly over a number of years, and there are several ways to count when they started. At first their responsibilities and power was not well defined and in 2157, Adrian Switch, a member of the IU manipulated the IU, and took advantage of his seat and power, he was completely corrupted. Adrian very nearly collapsed the IU, several country governments, and almost started a World War. A Late night IU meeting on December 24, 2157 crafted the International Constitution overnight, which lay out exactly what the IU could and could not do, and gave them the power to remove Adrian from his position. It took many years after the the Switch trials to restore the peace and re-model the IU. Every school child knows the story of Adrian Switch and the Late Night meeting, the constitution can be found displayed on holoboards everywhere.
Technology:
Communication: Pretty much everyone has a BlueEye these days. It is a device that clips to your ear with a selectively transparent screen that covers the left eye. The BlueEye is controlled by one's brain patterns. It is a skill much like typing on a keyboard, it must be learned, some are faster transmitters than others but everyone can at least "hunt-and-peck" (For the exception of a few who are inexplicably incapable of interfacing with the BlueEye)
Travel: Short distance travel is done by car. Cars runs on solar cells and have very few but not insignificant pollution emissions. Long distance travel is done via Tele-pod. One can only travel from one tele pod to another with proper authorization and codes. The number of telepod stations is equivalent to the number of modern day airports. Travel for the ordinary citizen costs about 50 International Credits (ICs). Private Tele-pod stations are extremely expensive, but a few wealthy individuals have them as well as a handful of major companies (Equivalent to owning a private jet plane now)
Energy: Large metal towers can be seen everywhere, mostly in large urban areas. They convert the inert gases and pollutants in the air and converts it into energy which is fed into a switching station that sends the energy to where it needs to go and stores the excess.
Terraforming: Huge machines have been designed and built to be able to massively reshape the landscape. However, no one can agree what to reshape the land into. Every proposition is torn down by someone or another.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Announcing Draft #6
Announcing Draft 6. Page count: 20.
The biggest addition to this one is the Alternate/Optional Rules section. Things including: rolling character attributes (something I'm personally not a fan of, but recognize that many are), movement rules, simplifying the rules, cover and flanking.
On another note: I've signed up to GM 2d6 at the Recess in NYC. http://nerdnyc.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=25
They're already full so I'm only signed up as a sub if anyone drops out, which I hope they do!
I've also made some unique business cards with an equally interesting business card holder.
The biggest addition to this one is the Alternate/Optional Rules section. Things including: rolling character attributes (something I'm personally not a fan of, but recognize that many are), movement rules, simplifying the rules, cover and flanking.
On another note: I've signed up to GM 2d6 at the Recess in NYC. http://nerdnyc.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=25
They're already full so I'm only signed up as a sub if anyone drops out, which I hope they do!
I've also made some unique business cards with an equally interesting business card holder.
Catica: the eve of battle
Things have been rather crazy at the wench bench lately. Eric, a promising young member of the Flayers interrupted the party with turning into a werewolf. Fortunately he was cut down quickly and was unable to infect anyone.
Ariel, an ambitious and attractive frost mage eyes the opening of a Lieutenant's position and is willing to do most anything for the job, including using her powerful magics to cool the drinks of her superiors. Bob and Garrett sent her to find out more about the lycanthrope and about the mysterious red shards Bob found in those pesky rats. Ariel knows of a similar kind crystals that come in pairs and resonate with each other, allowing for communication and remote control, though those crystals are extremely rare and are never this small.
Drool, searches the sleeping drunks and finds a small egg in a man's pocket. She thinks that it could hatch into a small lizard and maybe even a miniature Dragon, something that the wealthy often put collars on and name BoBo.
As the ashes of Eric were scattered to the wind, a Dwarven fellow came into the small inn, bringing with him a dozen huge wooden crates that stunk up the entire building making the wenches very unhappy. Drool opened a crate and recognized the contents to be humanoid remains that were stewing with raw necromantic energy. The problem with a product like this is even though the flesh carries a substantial amount of raw energy which can be crafted into many many things, is that the energy dissipates quickly and will become useless in a weeks time. And nobody really knew who they were supposed to sell the stuff to. So the stuffed all but one smelly crate in a warehouse, and called upon a few experts for their opinion and hopefully purchase of the meat.
A flying origami bird found it's way to the wench bench. It came bearing a message, a ransom note for Nog, with Nog's pin attached to it. After visiting a party store and finding out where Drool keeps her money (you do NOT want to know), Bob and Drool found themselves at the residence of an eldery Wizard named Sax.
Sax is a dealer in fine Magical artifacts, his store is held in his residence and only those who know that it is infact a store would know so. Just the way he likes it. Sax takes a sniff at the paper, and trades one crate of nasty dead things and a night with Mindy, and tells you that it came from the Adventurers' guild.
The group scout out the guildhall. It is a stone building that is three stories tall, with barred windows on the first floor. A mostly forgotten temple, made of the same stone sits next to the hall, they ask for a prophecy from the elderly Cleric who tells them that 'Goodness' is what has Nog and that goodness is their enemy.
The Flayers gather in the basement of the wench bench and start planning. Garrett secretly plans to kill Nog and blame it on the chaos of battle, leaving himself as Master Flayer, and also eliminating that pesky guild once and for all.
Ariel, an ambitious and attractive frost mage eyes the opening of a Lieutenant's position and is willing to do most anything for the job, including using her powerful magics to cool the drinks of her superiors. Bob and Garrett sent her to find out more about the lycanthrope and about the mysterious red shards Bob found in those pesky rats. Ariel knows of a similar kind crystals that come in pairs and resonate with each other, allowing for communication and remote control, though those crystals are extremely rare and are never this small.
Drool, searches the sleeping drunks and finds a small egg in a man's pocket. She thinks that it could hatch into a small lizard and maybe even a miniature Dragon, something that the wealthy often put collars on and name BoBo.
As the ashes of Eric were scattered to the wind, a Dwarven fellow came into the small inn, bringing with him a dozen huge wooden crates that stunk up the entire building making the wenches very unhappy. Drool opened a crate and recognized the contents to be humanoid remains that were stewing with raw necromantic energy. The problem with a product like this is even though the flesh carries a substantial amount of raw energy which can be crafted into many many things, is that the energy dissipates quickly and will become useless in a weeks time. And nobody really knew who they were supposed to sell the stuff to. So the stuffed all but one smelly crate in a warehouse, and called upon a few experts for their opinion and hopefully purchase of the meat.
A flying origami bird found it's way to the wench bench. It came bearing a message, a ransom note for Nog, with Nog's pin attached to it. After visiting a party store and finding out where Drool keeps her money (you do NOT want to know), Bob and Drool found themselves at the residence of an eldery Wizard named Sax.
Sax is a dealer in fine Magical artifacts, his store is held in his residence and only those who know that it is infact a store would know so. Just the way he likes it. Sax takes a sniff at the paper, and trades one crate of nasty dead things and a night with Mindy, and tells you that it came from the Adventurers' guild.
The group scout out the guildhall. It is a stone building that is three stories tall, with barred windows on the first floor. A mostly forgotten temple, made of the same stone sits next to the hall, they ask for a prophecy from the elderly Cleric who tells them that 'Goodness' is what has Nog and that goodness is their enemy.
The Flayers gather in the basement of the wench bench and start planning. Garrett secretly plans to kill Nog and blame it on the chaos of battle, leaving himself as Master Flayer, and also eliminating that pesky guild once and for all.
Grenades, Hordes, and Armor
Before I didn't have any rules for grenade type things, and I'm working on it. My idea is that the item will have it's own attack/damage stats and different things can have different effects. Such as some kind of grenade that makes them fall unconscious will have the status effect 1 or 2 power, with adding modifiers on the size of the room at GM discretion.
I've been thinking about how to run a mass battle type of thing because of the upcoming raid on the adventurer's guild in Catica. And I've come up with a few ideas.
1. Just use narratives. Since both sides have a bunch of minions and a handful of actually competent people, it would be easy to simply say, "Ok, this group of people and this group of people are busy fighting each other while the heroes are locked in an epic one on one fight in the middle.
2. Each minion on that side's initiative rolls 1d6 (all at the same time obviously), add up the number of 6s and that's how many minions/heavy wounds they have dealt as a group. This way is nice because it makes the battle a bit more quantifiable in terms of which group is winning and losing. However, it does take time, and if the heroes of a side win, it doesn't matter much which group of minions is left standing.
3. This one doesn't work as well with what I have planned for the next game but it is something I'm definitely going to play around with either in the playtesting group or on my own. Treat the horde as a single monster, but with a few differences. Give them a ton of health points (which in this system is like 10) which isn't necessarily representing 10 minions, each health point could be 2 or even three if your super heroic and can toss orcs like Gandalf. And give the horde a damage and/or attack bonus based on the number of HP they have left. It makes them incredibly scary at the beginning but as the battle wears on, they become much less so. I need to play with the numbers before deciding were the balance is with this one.
Armor and Mages: I wanted to have something to discourage a mage from wearing heavy plate armor. But I didn't want it to not be possible for there to be a fighter character or ranger type that can use both. So now light armor takes a -1 attack penalty to magic attacks, and heavy takes a -2.
I've been thinking about how to run a mass battle type of thing because of the upcoming raid on the adventurer's guild in Catica. And I've come up with a few ideas.
1. Just use narratives. Since both sides have a bunch of minions and a handful of actually competent people, it would be easy to simply say, "Ok, this group of people and this group of people are busy fighting each other while the heroes are locked in an epic one on one fight in the middle.
2. Each minion on that side's initiative rolls 1d6 (all at the same time obviously), add up the number of 6s and that's how many minions/heavy wounds they have dealt as a group. This way is nice because it makes the battle a bit more quantifiable in terms of which group is winning and losing. However, it does take time, and if the heroes of a side win, it doesn't matter much which group of minions is left standing.
3. This one doesn't work as well with what I have planned for the next game but it is something I'm definitely going to play around with either in the playtesting group or on my own. Treat the horde as a single monster, but with a few differences. Give them a ton of health points (which in this system is like 10) which isn't necessarily representing 10 minions, each health point could be 2 or even three if your super heroic and can toss orcs like Gandalf. And give the horde a damage and/or attack bonus based on the number of HP they have left. It makes them incredibly scary at the beginning but as the battle wears on, they become much less so. I need to play with the numbers before deciding were the balance is with this one.
Armor and Mages: I wanted to have something to discourage a mage from wearing heavy plate armor. But I didn't want it to not be possible for there to be a fighter character or ranger type that can use both. So now light armor takes a -1 attack penalty to magic attacks, and heavy takes a -2.
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