Welcome to the Quagmire. Actually more of a squat little bunker on an island in the middle of a quagmire. Its a well-stocked bunker with amenities and creature comforts as well as a fully stocked and equipped library, machine shop and armory. Take a look around and relax.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Dungeons & Dragons and Role Playing Games
Barry Osser, the owner of North Coast Role Playing in Eureka, California talks about the history of role playing games, the types of RPGs, genres, and lots of interesting tidbits in his video series How to Play Dungeons & Dragons and Role Playing Games.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Letting a game freely roam
Unexpected line of thought after reading this entry and some discussion with the blog writer who made that entry. It got me thinking in retrospect along with the left turn agenda as well as I look back in my high school game which I GM'd back then.
To put it simply, this is to elaborate on the usual model of RPing as opposed to the more free-form or sandlot type of gaming.
The usual style goes like: Crawl through the adventure locale, kill encounters and take its stuff, cash in xp/advancement point/etc paycheck and call it a session done. The variation on this would analogized to a by-the-rails format of gaming, a concept I borrowed from by-the-rail shooter games like most light gun arcade games go. The limitation in the above-mentioned example is that, the grind or process of accruing the wealth and advancement points would be a tedious time consuming affair. It sets goals but more of a selfish variety in regarding to personal advancement as well as wealth and materials advancement.
The free-form or sandlot game would be considered for the experienced GM and a decently seasoned group of players in his handling. The free-form or sandlot game is where the need to do the usual grind process is eliminated and the focus or priority is more to smoother game handling and role-playing aspects. Given that its free-form or likened to a sandlot style of gaming with the likes of the GTA videogame series, Mercenaries games or the Fallout series especially. This format is giving the players complete autonomy to do what they want in the game setting and nothing is heavily forced onto them. The experienced GM is a must to handle it since story elements would just be triggered and other details would be enabled on the fly. Pre-made stuff would be the order of the day to cover all the bases in case the players desire a certain encounter or action to be met by opposition. It also eliminates the matter of origins and other stumbling blocks of coming of age and such because you have unlocked all the potentials and possibilities that the player's imagination would conceive of. This frees up the doldrums of grinding away and having to deal with beyond/over the horizon goals of getting to that level of character advancement while the pacing is slow in handling due to a number of things. Its also a trust issue for the GM and the players to commit in an unspoken agreement to make the story go smoothly without giving each other grief.
With a synergy of GM and players going with the common goal of having fun, the results speak for themselves in terms of memorable storytelling since the tedium of a traditional dungeon/building crawl of a game is rendered nil or minimized. Its all in the story and character development which makes me very enjoyable in the long run.
Its all a matter of fiddling with system switches and dials to crank up maximum fun with the system. Texture of game system would also be a deciding factor in making such an endeavor fly and roam. I say this because sandlot games would have a moderate to minimum level of crunchiness because a overly crunchy game system would bog things down due to the GM processing done. A rules-light with a eye to cinematic gaming would be key in making this happen.
GMs can be agoraphiles in the context of this topic because we always have this affinity for freedom that makes possible our imaginations to roam and explore. That's it for now on this entry. Happy gaming!
To put it simply, this is to elaborate on the usual model of RPing as opposed to the more free-form or sandlot type of gaming.
The usual style goes like: Crawl through the adventure locale, kill encounters and take its stuff, cash in xp/advancement point/etc paycheck and call it a session done. The variation on this would analogized to a by-the-rails format of gaming, a concept I borrowed from by-the-rail shooter games like most light gun arcade games go. The limitation in the above-mentioned example is that, the grind or process of accruing the wealth and advancement points would be a tedious time consuming affair. It sets goals but more of a selfish variety in regarding to personal advancement as well as wealth and materials advancement.
The free-form or sandlot game would be considered for the experienced GM and a decently seasoned group of players in his handling. The free-form or sandlot game is where the need to do the usual grind process is eliminated and the focus or priority is more to smoother game handling and role-playing aspects. Given that its free-form or likened to a sandlot style of gaming with the likes of the GTA videogame series, Mercenaries games or the Fallout series especially. This format is giving the players complete autonomy to do what they want in the game setting and nothing is heavily forced onto them. The experienced GM is a must to handle it since story elements would just be triggered and other details would be enabled on the fly. Pre-made stuff would be the order of the day to cover all the bases in case the players desire a certain encounter or action to be met by opposition. It also eliminates the matter of origins and other stumbling blocks of coming of age and such because you have unlocked all the potentials and possibilities that the player's imagination would conceive of. This frees up the doldrums of grinding away and having to deal with beyond/over the horizon goals of getting to that level of character advancement while the pacing is slow in handling due to a number of things. Its also a trust issue for the GM and the players to commit in an unspoken agreement to make the story go smoothly without giving each other grief.
With a synergy of GM and players going with the common goal of having fun, the results speak for themselves in terms of memorable storytelling since the tedium of a traditional dungeon/building crawl of a game is rendered nil or minimized. Its all in the story and character development which makes me very enjoyable in the long run.
Its all a matter of fiddling with system switches and dials to crank up maximum fun with the system. Texture of game system would also be a deciding factor in making such an endeavor fly and roam. I say this because sandlot games would have a moderate to minimum level of crunchiness because a overly crunchy game system would bog things down due to the GM processing done. A rules-light with a eye to cinematic gaming would be key in making this happen.
GMs can be agoraphiles in the context of this topic because we always have this affinity for freedom that makes possible our imaginations to roam and explore. That's it for now on this entry. Happy gaming!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
RPG Game Reviews on Youtube.com
The post title says it all. The video reviews of a number of tabletop RPGs, whether they be major franchises or obscure are located here. It covers a gamut of game genres and settings indicated in its review. The reviews are pretty straightforward and not without much bias or preference and the reviewer Kurt Wiegel handles it well with his own honesty in the review of the games he has covered. Its a refreshing take on a game review without the dripping snarkiness that can be said for certain videogame review shows. All in all, a highly recommended view on this video reviews that can help you pick and choose games for your preference.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Making your game feel awesome as it should be (or whatever sales pitch you marketed it to be)
Just browsing through threads at this forum and this thread caught my eye. The deeper I read into it, it appears more in line with the left turn agenda I have come to realize and apppreciate.
The thread mentioned happens to start the semi-rant of the thread creator about how come the games he's been in doesn't have that sense of awe in spite the efforts put into the game by players and GM. Further responses and feeling some sense of familiarity brings it to the fore.
Its about the emotional investment for the players with regards to the stories they offer and play out in the campaign whether as mainline plot or subplot. Plot and/or subplot can be addressed with decent storyhandling skills of the GM but part of the equation has to come from the player in terms of input and what story elements he/she offers.
I would surmise enough that it has to start from the campaign's creation and the players who'll be interacting with it. The other element that would make this work further is that players have to trust GM in the handling of the story elements brought into the campaign's mix and secondly, GM and Players should not downplay or ridicule any emotional spotlighting that can happen in the course of the session or campaign itself.
I would have to treat the matter as a theatrical production which is done by the table and not on the stage. Another thing to note is that some enticement or incentive from the GM would help matters along to encourage players to act out the parts more or give meaning to the very personas they are playing. Without such, it always come out trite and just another mundane routine of scenario crawling and bashing usually perpetuated by incentives of earthly rewards achieved by the brief thrill of rolling dice.
To get your own brand of awesome into the game, it will require planning, cooperation and time to get it out. This is like locating and mining the really hard-to-find stuff which you can use to make your magic bullet of creation (This is a metaphorical reference based on this entry writer's post.). The payoff from this in the long run would be great stories that reflect on the session itself and moreso for the campaign in terms of memories and its highlights.
All in all, like a movie, investment is one part of it and the rest has to be handled competently by its production and cast in order to produce a movie of good story and presentation.
The thread mentioned happens to start the semi-rant of the thread creator about how come the games he's been in doesn't have that sense of awe in spite the efforts put into the game by players and GM. Further responses and feeling some sense of familiarity brings it to the fore.
Its about the emotional investment for the players with regards to the stories they offer and play out in the campaign whether as mainline plot or subplot. Plot and/or subplot can be addressed with decent storyhandling skills of the GM but part of the equation has to come from the player in terms of input and what story elements he/she offers.
I would surmise enough that it has to start from the campaign's creation and the players who'll be interacting with it. The other element that would make this work further is that players have to trust GM in the handling of the story elements brought into the campaign's mix and secondly, GM and Players should not downplay or ridicule any emotional spotlighting that can happen in the course of the session or campaign itself.
I would have to treat the matter as a theatrical production which is done by the table and not on the stage. Another thing to note is that some enticement or incentive from the GM would help matters along to encourage players to act out the parts more or give meaning to the very personas they are playing. Without such, it always come out trite and just another mundane routine of scenario crawling and bashing usually perpetuated by incentives of earthly rewards achieved by the brief thrill of rolling dice.
To get your own brand of awesome into the game, it will require planning, cooperation and time to get it out. This is like locating and mining the really hard-to-find stuff which you can use to make your magic bullet of creation (This is a metaphorical reference based on this entry writer's post.). The payoff from this in the long run would be great stories that reflect on the session itself and moreso for the campaign in terms of memories and its highlights.
All in all, like a movie, investment is one part of it and the rest has to be handled competently by its production and cast in order to produce a movie of good story and presentation.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
d20 Modern SRD Home
Modern SRD Home is your OGL d20 Modern reference, hosted at 12 To Midnight creators of Fear Effects, Brainwashed, Last Rites, Bloodlines, Fire in the Hole, Jerry's Midnight tales, Skinwalker, Innana's Kiss and others.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
d20 Hypertext
The Hypertext d20 SRD (v3.5 d20 System Reference Document) is very useful tool for DMs and players using d20 D&D in their games online or off. A very useful tool that I like is the Firefox search plug-in which really enhances the usability of the site. Check out the "Site Utilities" for other tools.
The author notes that all the content on the site are only open content released under the Open Gaming License (OGL), which includes OGL content from the following books: Player's Handbook, DM guide, Monster Manual, Epic Level Handbook, Deities and Demigods, the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Check out the FAQ for items included and not.
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The author notes that all the content on the site are only open content released under the Open Gaming License (OGL), which includes OGL content from the following books: Player's Handbook, DM guide, Monster Manual, Epic Level Handbook, Deities and Demigods, the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Check out the FAQ for items included and not.
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The Escapist
Have you ever found yourself hear certain people claim that Harry Potter and D&D books contain real spells? Read The Escapist - Random Encounter - It's just my opinion, I could be wrong..., it's funny!
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