New 4E House Rule: Channel Arcanity
Developing from my post over the weekend about the new Tome Implement presented in Arcane Power and how it adds more options for the 4th Edition Wizard, several comments were made that a larger selection of spells makes the Wizard better but that the class as whole is still underpowered. Our experience is that even with more spells to choose from for Daily powers, most wizards will still choose the same spell at least 80% of the time. Sure they have a choice for their daily powers, which is an advantage over every other class… but without something to base that choice off of, it really doesn’t give much of an extra benefit.
With that in mind, I present here a new house rule that Dave and I will be using in our games to playtest and try it out with high hopes.
New Wizard Class Feature
Channel Arcanity
You have memorized your spellbook meticulously and practiced the arcane gestures in tedium so that you no longer need to prepare spells every morning. Instead of preparing spells after an extended rest, when you use a daily attack or utility power you may choose any equal or lower level spell of the same type (attack/utility) from your spellbook to cast. Regardless of how many daily attack and utility spells you have in your spellbook, you may only use a number of spells according to what you cast per day for your level and you can never substitute a daily attack for a utility power or vice versa. As such, once you have used the highest level daily or utility power that you know, all spells in your spellbook of that type and level are no longer accesible until you take an extended rest.
One-Page Dungeon Contest Update 2: Four on the Template
After 2 weeks, the one-page dungeon contest is revving up nicely. Entries have been coming in at a steady pace from all over the world. Seriously, this week we got entries from Australia, Italy and Germany just to name a few. The dungeons are also very very diverse showing off various genres and themes.
I can’t wait to start judging this as I already expect some heated discussions between the judges. Hopefully it won’t come to dueling.
This week Chgowiz and I thought it would be nice to discuss how the template can be used to help DMs/GMs create adventure faster. We’re taking a He said/He said approach to it, so after you’ve gone through my answers, have a look at his.
How can I use the template to Brainstorm adventure ideas?
What’s great about a one page template is that you can print out a bunch of them and have at them with nothing but a pencil. Depending on your personal adventure design style, you may start with drawing a map and then as you draw/cross-out/erase/redraw you might see an adventure seed unfold. As ideas come to you, you can jot them down directly in the large white spaces (The Title bar, the right box or the bottom half ‘dungeon key’) sitting around the map.
Don’t feel constrained by the page, you don’t have to finish one, you can scrap it and start again, or you can return to an unfinished one to steal an idea, a structure or complete it.
Once you’ve got your dungeon’s idea firmly in mind, you can re-do it with your favorite document creation tools (Word, Gimp, Photoshop, etc).
Alternatively, you can start by jotting down plot ideas and room contents on the template and draw a dungeon to fit your ideas. This backwards approach is also a great brainstorming strategy as the constraints you give yourself by pre-designing the adventure’s content can help you draw a map more easily.
At least, that’s how my creative process works for me.
How do I approach dungeon building that includes a sense of setting when being brief?
A common thing among GameMasters is that they get lost in the details of their adventure. They start to design an adventure and get caught up in writing pages and pages of maybes/options/background material. All this, while possibly useful in the coming game, can end up eating a lot of your most productive time where your mind is set to prepping your game.
Using a one-page document to fit your adventure forces you to focus on what the PCs are going to have to do in the adventure, and spend less time on “getting it perfect”. If you see it to the end, you’ll at least have a good idea of what’s going to happen and how.
Once you are done doing that, you will likely have a To-DO list of things to finish your prep, keeping you organized and focused. For example, when I designed the Font of Sorrows, I drew the map and filled the template in less than 2 hours (counting me inking over my pencil-drawn map and cutting and pasting the document). After that, I knew that I had to get monster stats, place treasures and work out the terrain features and of each encounter.
This was as clear a roadmap to finish the adventure as I was likely to get.
How do I make the one-page template fit my own system of choice?
I think that the one-page template is perfect for D&D 4e if you use it at two different levels of your prepping.
First off, the template is perfect to act as a summary of your site-base adventure. Exactly like the maps and short keys you find in current D&D published adventure, a completed template can represent each locale or dungeon level in your adventure. In that, the template is used exactly like for other role playing game.
But here’s where the template really shines. You can modify it a bit to use one sheet (possibly two) for each encounter! The map is there to draw a larger scale depiction of the encounter’s battlemap and you can use all the remaining white space to include monster stat cards, tactics and terrain features.
Even if you keep monster stats in a different place, you can detail individual NPC reactions and describe traps and other hazards in detail.
In fact, when I have a bit more time to focus on that, I think I’ll mod the template and release a 4e pack.
How do I think the one page can be used by other DMs?
The template is simple enough to cater to the styles of all types of DM.
Freeform DMs that prefer Sandbox campaigns can create many one-pagers to drop on players at a moment’s notice and improv anything that isin’t already written. In fact that’s probably what many old-school users of the template do.
DMs who prefer more structured game notes can use the template like I’ve been describing above. First they can use it as a brainstorming tool. Then, they can use it again as a more refined adventure summary to place at the start of thier gaming notes.
Also, note that the one-page limit only applies to the contest we’re having now. DMs are free to explode the template to take as many pages as they need too.
There you have it. Now I’m curious to see what Chgowiz said on his side… I guess I’ll know later when both posts go up.
So don’t wait, send in your entry if you haven’t done so already. The number of prizes is large and the pool of entries is not that big, you have a good chance of coming out with a prize!
Best of luck!
Contest Rules:
1. Participants create a one page dungeon using the template found here. For a contest entry example see here.
2. The dungeon must have the following features:
- Name of Dungeon
- Map
- Dungeon Key (in an edition-neutral form: Description of monsters, Treasure, Traps, etc… No game stats)
OPTIONAL (If you can fit them on one page…)
- Wandering Monster or Random Event tables or a list of scripted “events” that can occur over the adventure
- Background
- Additional descriptions that add to the dungeon, such as detailed description of trap or trick or unique feature.
3. Only one entry per participant. Participants may revise/replace their entries up till the end of contest, with the last revision counting as their official entry. Entry may win grand prize or one of the runner up prizes, plus any number of alternative prize categories.
4. Participants are allowed to modify the template, provided it remains a one-page entry.
5. Submission must be emailed in PDF, Word or Open Office format at the following address: onepage@chattydm.net
6. Submitting a dungeon to the contest releases it under the Creative Common Share-alike license (US 2008) with credit to the contest participant.
7. Contest closes on May 14th 2009 at Midnight.
The prizes (oh yes, the prizes!)
Grand Prize
- Patron membership of Wolfgang Baur’s Open Design
- Quarterly membership to Monte Cook’s Dungeon a Day
- A full Licence for Smitework’s Fantasy Grounds II
- 1 year membership to Obsidian Portal
- 50$ Gift Certificate from One-Bookshelf
- 4 Badges to Neoncon 2009
Grand Prize Runner-Up: Old School Dungeon Design
- Bundle of Goblinoid Games product
- Bundle of Brave Halfling Production products
- Otherworld Miniatures Demon Idol Miniature
- Bundles of Fight On and Knockspell issues
- Bits of Darkness Bundle from Tabletop Adventures
- 6 month membership Obsidian Portal
- 2 Badges to Neoncon 2009
Grand Prize Runner-Up: New Edition Dungeon Design
- D&D 4e Dungeon Delve & Adventurer’s Vault
- Fantasy Grounds II License
- 6 month membership Obsidian Portal
- 2 Badges to Neoncon 2009
To divide among other Categories
- Open Design’s Kobold’s Guide to Game Design
- Quarterly membership to Monte Cook’s Dungeon-a-Day
- Bundle of Necromancer Games products
- Bundle of Brave Halfling Production PDF products
- Bundle of Knockspell and City Encounter PDFs
- Bundle of Fight On Magazine (issues 1-4 PDFs)
- Tabletop Adventure’s Bits of Darkness Bundle
- Tabletop Adventures’ Deck O’Names Set
- A few D&D 4e Adventures and Hardcovers
- Otherworld Miniatures – Pig Faced Orcs (Or Box of Minis)
- Goodman Games – Random Esoteric Creature Generator
- Badges to Neoncon 2009
Our sponsors!
These prizes have been generously donated by our sponsors – they really are excited about this contest and we hope you are just as excited about their support. Please be sure to show them your support as well.
- Avatar Art
- Brave Halfling Publishings
- DungeonADay
- Fight On Magazine
- Goblinoid Games
- Goodman Games
- Mythmere Games
- Necromancer Games
- NeonCon
- Obsidian Portal
- Open Design
- Otherworld Miniatures
- Smiteworks
- Tabletop Adventure
If you have any questions about the contest, please feel free to contact either of us: Phil (Chattydm@chattydm.net) and/or Michael (chgowiz@gmail.com)
Free 4th Edition
- GURPS Lite: “GURPS Lite is a 32-page distillation of the basic GURPS rules. It covers the essentials of character creation, combat, success rolls, adventuring, and game mastering for GURPS Fourth Edition.”
- Ars Magica: “The fourth edition of Ars Magica‘s core rulebook introduces improved systems in several key areas such as combat, character advancement, and covenant generation.”
- Shadowrun: “Shadowrun, fourth edition quick start rules, strips Shadowrun down to the core with fast, playable rules, an introductory scenario-Food Fight 4.0- and four ready-to-play characters.”
and now…
- Dungeons & Dragons: “These quick-start rules provide an overview of the game so that you can play the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure.”
Random Thoughts Table: Sounds of Free D&D with new Tools!
Here’s a mix and match of some of the things lying here and there on my blogging desk.
Worlds of Sounds
Earlier this year, I got a complimentary set of 3 CDs from reader Giorgio Vezzini. Giorgio runs a studio in Italy called World of Twillights where he produced 4 CDs of sounds to use in your favorite tabletop Roleplaying games.
- World of Creatures: 19 short tracks of monster sounds from the Tarrasque to Giant Ape.
- World of Magic: 19 tracks of magical effects and incantation. The Evocation of Yog-Sothoth is particularly creepy.
- World of Ambiances: 19 tracks of sounds you are likely to hear in the background of a fantasy RPG scene, from city sounds to the nightly noises of the forest.
That last one is my favorite one, mainly because the tracks are long enough (a few minutes each) to be left playing in the background while playing out a scene. The sounds of the taverns and town square are great tracks to create immersion and I’d like to find a way to include this in my game.
The other CDs, being usually shorter tracks, would require more fiddling on my part, potentially creating dead air in the game. In fact, as I muse about using such tracks in a game, I’d likely put them in my iPod and play them as needed in the game. With a playlist of sounds arranged to fit with some of the scenes I plan in a game, that could work while limiting fiddling with a CD player or browsing 16 GB of files to find the right tracks.
Oh and each CD has a 20th track with music composed to fit with the CD’s theme. They are all very good.
So give them a look, Giorgio has a few samples available on his website.
D&D 4e Test Kit
I got an email yesterday informing me that Wizards of the Coast was releasing the Keep on the Shadowfell freely as a PDF along with the Quick Rules booklet that came with it.
Here’s the press release:
Today it’s even easier with the release of the 4E Test Drive, a collection of downloads that contains everything a gaming group needs to try out the D&D game for the first time, for free. The gaming kit, which is available on the Dungeons & Dragons Web site, comes with the following:
- The popular Keep on the Shadowfell adventure, revised with the latest rules and updated, action-packed encounters
- A set of pre-generated characters for quickly jumping into the game (or create your own character using the Character Builder, free for levels 1-3)
- A downloadable set of Quick Start rules
You can check it out for yourself by going to http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4dnd/dndtestdrive
All right, I know this news might be taken left or right by the various people debating Wizards recent business decisions or the relative financial health of D&D 4e, but here’s how I like to see it.
With the Quick Start rules, the Character Builder demo going from level 1-3 and Keep on the Shadowfell, D&D 4e now has a complete basic game that includes character generation. If you combine this with the 19$ Starter game, you now have a full roleplaying game that includes many monsters, dice, Tokens, tiles and and extra adventure.
It does imply that someone needs Internet access in order to get all this, but I suspect that Wizards’ target audience is the online 12 year old+ market that are well acquainted with the Web.
So I see this as good news.
An alternative to D&D insider?
My friend Yax of Dungeonmastering.com has been hard at work to create some D&D 4e tools that allow a DM to create monster cards, templates, encounter and trap cards (with Power and Magic Weapon cards in Beta).
It’s completely legal since the tools do not have any 4e information in them when you create an account, you still have to enter all the numbers of your favorite monster/trap etc. However what it does for you is create nice looking cards with the now familiar 4e formatting. You can print out these cards or export the code to either your Obsidian Portal campaign wiki (the Tools were created to be easily integrated in Obsidian’s structure) or any other website.
Of course, this service is not quite free. Yax calls it freemium, an expression I see cropping here and there in web-based businesses. Still, with the basic account, you’re allowed to create unlimited trap and power cards and you are limited to 10 monsters, 3 encounters and 10 magic items cards. That’s enough to decide if its worth the 7$ monthly (57$ yearly) fee.
So give it a try!
All right, tomorrow I’ll be posting the weekly update of the one-page Dungeon contest, in which Chgowiz and I will be answering 4 questions about the template in our own way.
Take care!
Origins Awards Nominees 2009: Picks and Commentary
icv2 has published the list of Origins Awards nominees. The nominees are decided by retailers at the GAMA Trade Show, and then attendees of Origins vote on the winners, and are announced at a ceremony on site (which we’ve covered two years in a row now).
Opinions vary on the validity and choices made by both the nominating parties and the voters themselves, but they still remain the premiere awards that cover the entire adventure game industry, not just one sub-set. Plus, while it might not matter much to the average gamer who doesn’t attend Origins, it’s still an immense honor to the game designers and publishers to be recognized by the award. (Some day I shall have a Calliope of my own!)
Here’s the categories I know a good amount about the nominees, and what I think will win in each. [Read the rest of this article]
Video Game Design – an opinion piece
LeBreton is the lead level designer for Bioshock 2. He gives a pretty good opinion piece on some of the issues surrounding the past and future of video game design. Here is an excerpt:
As of 2009, the game industry seems to want two fairly contradictory things:
- Make games, using proven mechanics from the last 20 years, that sell millions of copies.
- Give people a broad range of experiences that affect them as powerfully as those found in other forms of art.
We can debate whether encompassing a broader range of human experience is indeed a goal of importance, but if even a God of War game feels the need to have scenes that evoke strong emotions, you might at least concede that it’s something many developers seem interested in furthering.
You can read the piece in its entirety here.
Primal/Within: Some Factions, Sectors and (one) Citizen
You might notice that my empty speech bubble in my blog’s header is no longer empty. Thanks to Eric Maziade, I now have a little plug-in that lets me write quotes!
This week is session #2 of my new campaign (if we don’t count the awesome prequel session in the Crypt of the Thief-Prince). My players should finish exploring the Font of Sorrows, so later this week I may post about how I’m revising all remaining encounters to avoid a repeat of last week’s grind.
Today I thought I’d share with you some of our Primal/Withing setting notes. Yan and I started a little Wiki and every so often we write snippets of setting background to add some more fluff on our campaign concept. I’ll give you some details about The City Within’s factions, boroughs and one NPC that have appeared in our game.
The Builders
To those uninterested in the City’s politics, The Builders ARE the City.
They are the main faction behind the city’s power.
Originally an industrious group of stone cutting and masonry clans (Referred to as the Erathians), they developed a strict devotion to Erathis, the Goddess of Civilization, following the realization of several divine prophecies. One such prophecy led the original clans to explore and reclaim large parts of the Primal Dungeon, along with the vast riches found within it.
Using their new found resources and influence in the nearby dwarven freeholds and mines, they set upon the task of bringing civilization to the dungeon by building a city within it.
Since then, The Builders have always pushed, politically and literally, the limits of The City Within.
Although originally a Dwarven clan, it has since integrated all kinds of like-minded individual from all of the natural world’s sentient races.
Design Notes:
I think that Yan wanted to have a faction around which most of the activity of the city (and possibly the campaign) revolved. He’ll likely chime in the comments of this post to expand on this or tell me how full of it I am.
I like this faction’s central role because they provides the campaign with a stable, friendly patron that PCs can always rely on for adventure hooks. I’m already having fun trying to poke holes in their sanctified status!
The Erathians
A grouping of various dwarven clans of crafters such as masons, stone cutters, jewel smiths and miners who were followers of the Erathian Prophecies.
Believed to be the true founders of The City Within, the Erathian are widely believed to be the predecessors of what is currently known as The Builders.
Design Notes:
When I was working on the Crypt of the Thief Prince, I started exploring the past history of the Builders and I wanted to have a proto-faction that predated the City. Tying together the concept of a divinely-inspired city, the prophecies of the Goddess Erathis and dipping in good old David Eddings Mythos, I came up with the Erathis.
The Foundation
Not much is known of The Foundation.
The average citizen of the City believes that The Foundation are remnants of the Erathians who didn’t join The Builders when the city was founded. It is said that they went on to become the secret guardians of the City as willed by Erathis.
That’s why several households have little shrines dedicated to what’s called Foundation Angels to preserve them against the inevitable decay caused by the Dungeon’s proximity.
There are recurrent rumors that the Foundation have complete copies of the Erathian Prophecies including chapters that go beyond the time of the city’s foundation.
Design Notes:
While working on Thief-Prince, I started brainstorming with Yan to find a shadowy but beneficial faction that would work behind the scene to protect the City, away from politics and laws. I suggested that his Deva character, Jaiel, be part of that organization.
As he was warming up to the idea, we started musing about the organization’s name. I started shooting many in a row, faster than Yan could comment back on them, until I stopped on “The Foundation”. The sheer number of meaning that ‘foundation’ could be used in the context of a City-based campaign blew us away and we both agreed to keep the name.
As Math mentioned after reading the Crypt-Prince reports, The Foundation may very well be our campaign’s Men in Black.
Builder’s Terrace
The largest Burg of The City Within, Builders Terrace is a multi-tiered section of the city occupying it’s Main Cavern.
Housing the keeps of many crafter’s clans associated with The Builders, the burg contains access to the City’s main Quarrys and Constructions yards.
Material is transported through Teleporting portals whose secret is jealously guarded by The Builders.
Designer Notes:
We don’t have a map of the city, and we’re not sure we’ll ever need one (except if I publish this thing) yet as I create adventures for the PCs, I get the need to define an area of the city where they meet NPCs. Builder’s terrace occupies, in my mind’s eye, the best real-estate of the City Within. A mix of marble manors, artisan studios and gigantic quarries and construction yards, Builder’s terrace is the City Within’s downtown.
Riceburg
Also known as Delve # 7, Riceburg is a an ancient mine shaft connected to various natural and dug out galleries lit into perpetual daylight by permanent magical globes suspended everywhere. The floor of these caves have been leveled, filled with earth and flooded to grow a various crops, including large quantities of a rice-analog grain which is easier to digest and tastes a lot better than the various fungi found in the underdark.
Riceburg is the wheat basket of the City Within, as Burgomaster Dawnchaser will remind anyone he talks to. The Sector also produces the usual fungi, ferns and fruits that makes up the vegetarian portion of the city’s Diet. A large part of the lower city’s water supply also enters the city in Riceburg and is stored in humongous Cisterns dug under the sector.
Designer Notes: One of the design assumption of our City Within was that the city needed to be believably self-sufficient. When I created the adventure hooks for the Font of Sorrows, I made up this burg to be the one suffering from the tainted water coming out of the Elemental water temple. I’m not sure if it will ever feature again, but I’m going to use the NPC that represents it again…
Kelian Dawnchaser
Human Burgomaster of Delve no.7 (AKA as Riceburg). In charge of overseeing food production and proper water supply for the fields of rice analog crops grown in the irrigated caves surrounding Delve #7. Gruff and always blowing things out of proportion, he never wastes an occasion to remind people how important the ‘Bread Basket of the City’ is to its overall survival.
Fluff quotes
- I tell you If we don’t something about (insert problem of the day), food prices will soar and the city will collapse upon itself!
- Mark my words, the city works only because we keep its belly full!
- I have cousins in the Builders I’ll have you know!
Designer Notes:
Ever since D&D 4e stopped caring about combat stats for non-belligerent NPCs, I’ve rediscovered the joy of creating NPCs. This one came out naturally as I envisioned a typical country mayor, clamoring for more attention and always bemoaning how no one cares about what his burg does for the City. I’m going to reuse this one for sure! I also like how fun it is to make little quotes to help me roleplay them.
There you have it, our first batch of setting material to back our current adventure. I plan use/create some more for our future adventures!
I hope you enjoy these little behind the scene tours of our current D&D campaign!
The Subtle Empowerment of the 4E Wizard
I’ve been reading through Arcane Power for the last couple of days, and I am pretty sure Wizards has tried to pull a fast one on us! What’re they trying to pull? Making the Wizard class just as powerful as the other classes in 4th Edition. It’s not really a crime, I know, but I really don’t think many people have noticed yet and I’d like to open up some discussion on the topic.
Arcane Power introduces the Tome as a new implement for arcane spellcasters, but Wizards are the only ones who can use it without taking a feat. Most people who have read or reviewed the book most likely skimmed the new magic item section for Tomes because it’s only two pages of the book and it seems to be the same thing we saw in the PHB2 where Totems were introduced without much fanfare. What I’ve noticed, however, is that Tomes are a pretty big deal. [Read the rest of this article]
Critical Bits for the week ending 2009-04-25
- MM2 Preview: Frost Giant and Stone Giant stats
- DDI Update: Ecology of the Deva
- Penny Arcade For the Vin!
- Scott Rouse talks about the direction the D&D brand is heading in the next two years
- Fallout: New Vegas being made by Obsidian Entertainment (not a sequel to 3)
- Left 4 Dead Survival Pack out
- The big news is not that there will be a LEGO Rock Band. The big news is that it includes “The Final Countdown”
- Guide to Gaming DVDs revised
- “Starting a new player out with Tomb of Horrors is like introducing someone to Rock Band with Green Grass and High Tides.”
FLGS Chronicles: My Store's Fauna
What’s this? I’m not sure. I’m flirting with non- fiction. Don’t know what it will turn out into. I think that I’m slowly getting ready to write a novel.
Sometimes, before my Friday night games, I saunter on to my Favorite Local Gaming Store in the north end of Montreal and I sit down with my laptop and soak in all the nerd energy that surrounds this place.
Like many stores in these hard economic time, it is cluttered, dirty and in dire need of paint. It’s filled with obsolete games and spiffy Wizards of the Coast books and boxes on spiffier WotC racks.
Oh, and it contains way too many Games Workshop boxes.
The front half of the store is made up of gaming tables and mismatched chairs in various state of repair. The store’s manager and his employee are usually sitting there, painting Warhammer miniatures
When I’m there, I usually sit at one such table, my laptop open, connected to the store’s Wifi by the good graces of the Manager who enjoys having me around, kinda like a regular veteran sprinkling the endless nerd debates with nuggets of unsolicited wisdom.
Oddly enough, people usually listen to them. It must be my graying temples, I’m easily 10 years older than all other regulars (which brings the question, what the hell are you doing there Phil?).
Yet there’s something morbidly fascinating about the people here. I have many theories about the gamer mind and observing them (and myself) gives me more material to chew on.
The Staff
The manager, Didier is in his late 20s. He used to be the store’s only employee until he got ‘promoted’ when the last manager got fed up and left without saying goodbye. The poor guy is rapidly learning the harsh lessons that all fun vanishes when you get behind the counter of a game store.
Still, he forges on, trying to keep afloat a business whose existence is sadly threatened by web stores and online secondary markets like Ebay and Cardshark.
His only other employee, Marc, was most likely hired because he was willing to work at minimum wage and, more importantly, is the most socially adept of the store’s regulars. Marc’s an arts major and has the dubious honor of hosting the week’s Friday Night Magic the Gathering tournament where people use 100$ decks to win 2$ cards every week.
At least both guys are friendly and laid back. Having been a client of this store since it opened in the middle of the Pokemon craze a few years back, I’ve seen my shares of surly and sometimes downright hostile store managers.
I suspect that the gamers that form the fauna of this store is the same we find all over. Here’s a few of these odd birds.
The Off-Shift gamer
He’s overweight, he’s loud and he works dispatch for some sort of placement agency. He has weird hours so he spends most of his day in game stores, following the different leagues. Here, he plays Blood Bowl, but I’ve seen him playing Magic drafts and D&D minis at other places.
He spends all his money in the latest Collectible Game (right now its World of Warcraft minis) and he always fails to recoup his money, although he says he will someday. He’s a belligerent nerd, always raising his voice when someone takes too long to play or argues rules with him. Oh and he always, always complains. About his job, about his (lack of a) life and, of course, all games!
I tried to be friendly with him, and I actually got him into D&D miniatures a few years ago. He’s an okay guy, but his complete lack of social graces and inability to listen to another voice than his own has made him fade into the background noise of the store.
The One-track mind gamer
One Friday where I was off from work, I came into the store when it opened at 11h00 AM. I stayed there the whole afternoon, planning my evening D&D game and playing some pickup Magic the Gathering. All this time, there was this guy sitting besides the manager, talking about one thing and one thing only: House Rules about the store’s current Warhammer Fantasy campaign.
It was downright scary to see how much energy the guy poured into this. Had I written down all the proposed rules he wanted to implement, the store would have had a 50 page booklet of campaign rules by the time I left.
When I read about prophets in fantasy novels, I think of scribes sitting around such a guy, scribbling all the gibberish spewed by the illuminated soul whose mind is focused like a laser for hours on end.
Yeah, I’m sometimes like that too. Sigh.
History Majors:
I don’t know if it’s a Québec thing or if it’s because they have evening courses, but my gaming store is overflowing with History Majors. When they aren’t part of the staff, they sit around arguing about Hitler’s strategies or how Communism failed because it wasn’t properly implemented.
Always ready to launch into a diatribe about provincial roman governors or the factors leading to the Second World war, these gamers are often penniless and hang around the store instead of working on end of semester assignments. Most of them are great orators and some of the debates, while always overly simplistic to my jaded cynical mid-thirties ears, are great time wasters.
Pity only one out of 5 of them will ever actually land a job teaching history. I used to love history, and I probably would have majored in it if a High School director hadn’t told me to drop my History and Biology electives to pick Chemistry and Physics instead.
Life’s funny like that sometimes.
But you know what really strikes me about all these people lounging the hours away in a Montreal game store on a Friday afternoon?
Most of them aren’t actually gaming while being there!
They argue, they eat, they talk… but unless you take out a pack of Magic, they’ll sit there, more or less expecting someone to start something for them to join.
Is your gamestore like that?
