Inq. of the Week: Friendly Local Gaming Stores?
Over the weekend I’ve done my fair share of video game playing, the most fun of which was easily several hours of playing four player New Super Mario Bros. on the Wii. With the great selection of new games that have come out this Fall, it seems natural that Dave asked last week about which games all of you are playing. Dragon Age: Origins is clearly the most popular with 80% of you playing it, Assassin’s Creed 2 came in a distant second with 38%, and Borderlands in third with 29%. Left 4 Dead 2, New Super Mario Bros, and Modern Warfare 2 all came in around the 20% range, and several commentors mentioned Batman: Arkham Asylum and Uncharted 2 as games they’re playing.
This week December is officially upon us, and with it comes the full force of the holiday season and all of the shopping that implies. I find it a shame that ordering RPG books online from places like Amazon is so much cheaper then it would be if I were to go to my local game store. That’s not the only problem though, unfortunately all of the stores around my area have one problem or another that makes them less than my ideal for a gaming store, if that weren’t the case I’d most likely patronize them more regularly. That being the case, I go to a game store in my area only several times in a year. I’m interested in seeing how often all of you go to your local game stores.
Loading ...Please share with us your thoughts on your local game store, what they do right or wrong, why you go there as often (or not) as you do, or even just share the name and location of the store with us and we’ll pay it a visit if we’re ever in town!
3 Rolls, 1 Check
This is a common occurrence in my game, and it might be in yours too:
DM: The Baron tells you, “I haven’t seen the Duke.”
Player 1: I roll Insight to see if he’s lying. Crap, rolled low.
Player 2: I roll then. Mine is pretty high.
Player 3: My bonus isn’t very high, so I roll to assist.
This happens for many kind of skill rolls. An idea occurs to one player, who rolls a skill, which then prompts several other players to also roll. If a check is declared, then everybody rolls who can roll. [Read the rest of this article]
Primal/Within: Showdown at the Castle of the Overmind, Part 1
(This post covers my last two D&D 4e games)
Last Friday we concluded our longest D&D 4e campaign yet, clocking it somewhere between 16 and 20 game sessions (almost one year).
In order to make posts length easier to manage, here’s the ultra condensed story.
Campaign Finale: Redux
Using a mysterious 4 part key collected all over the city, the heroes entered the Castle by some sort of hidden escape tunnel. They found themselves in an ancient Drow defensive vault where they discovered traces of the history of the Drow’s escape from this Castle 1000 years ago.
Usul the Elven Invoker found and released a ‘pocket’ of stored divine energies’ and used part of it to restore his whole group to a fully rested state. While doing so, he accidentally re-opened a divine channel between the Castle and the exiled Spider Queen Goddess. Her interest for Usul was great and he wisely let go of the power source until he needed it again.
The party proceeded to reach the Castle’s throne room. On the way, they met the Overmind, the Castle’s fragmented and quasi incoherent persona, speaking to the party in multiple voices wherever they went. In the throne room, they saw the Mind Flayer they thought to be the Overmind only to find its head hooked to some strange arcane machine that controlled it and amplified its power tremendously. The Overmind started using it to blast all players with psychic energy.
As soon as the fight started, Fangs, the Shifter Warden, exploded in a burst of gore and arcane glyphs, revealing a portal from which a Shifter Lich stepped out. He introduced himself as the Master and revealed that Fangs had always been a clone of him, acting as a sleeper agent in the party. he said that now was the time to negotiate a triple truce to destroy the Dungeon once and for all.
The Lich went to fight the guards rushing to help the Overmind while the party dealt with the Illithid and the machine. Eventually, Corwin the Halfling Sorcerer teleported the Mind Flayer out of the machine, putting an end to the fight.
The Lich, the Flayer and the heroes had a short council and agreed:
- Heroes would destroy the Castle’s Energy Focus, one of the Dungeons’ neuralgic points of consciousness, blinding it in a specific reagion.
- The Lich would bring an army of ’stolen’ monsters to invade this blind region
- The Mind Flayer would provide all the Brainwashed troops it had stockpiled and hidden from the Dungeon over the years
- The Heroes would convince the City Within to raise an army and walk with the other 2 armies
- Once the Primordial’s Prison was reached, the Lich would use his portal Lore to power a massive teleporter to send the Primordial back into the elemental Chaos (Screw the Gods’ plans. This is OUR world!)
(end of session 1)
The heroes proceeded to the area where the High Energy Focus lay, the tomb of the Spider Queen. There they met an Avatar of the Dungeon (a gigantic Stone Titan) surrounded by Stone and Frost giants. The Dungeon’s incomprehension for the heroes’ obsession in spoiling its escape plans is evident in the first few exchanges. A fight erupts and grinds most adventures down to their last resources… except Corwin who manages to never get hit.
Throughout the fight, various heroes’ experience short “mind-encounters” with either the Dungeon or, in Usul’s case, his god Kord. Throught those meetings, they learn of the Dungeon’s wish to become a God by turning the world into his new body, they are mandated by Kord to muster the recently freed Overmind monsters into a divine army and Corwin learns that he is the Dungeon’s Scion, its plan B for survival should he be beaten.
As the party vanquishes the Dungeon’s Avatar, paving the way for a full victory against this global threat, Corwin, crying defiantly “I’m no one’s pawn!” and discharges one of his remaining powers through his brain. The Heroes, their elation cut short, stand around their fallen comrade in abject incomprehension…
(End of Campaign)
I have to say… I never saw that one coming… and as the shock of the last development wears off (and the feeling of annoyance caused by a 4 hour-long fight) , I can’t help but think that it was an awesomely heroic finale.
Up next in part 2: The DMing highlights of both sessions.
Critical Bits for the week ending 2009-11-28
- Awesome #rpg #art – Stained glass d20s http://bit.ly/5SDj0S via @joruffin (via @aijalyn) #
- A good question: what would Far Realm creatures do with 31 dead goblins? http://is.gd/51Yiy #
- Explore Airspur… you know you want to. (DDI Sub Required) http://is.gd/51Yjf #
- Taste the donut: FreeMarket RPG beta available http://is.gd/52267 (via @OgreCave) #
- Bruce Glassco, co-designer of Betrayal at House on the Hill, announces a new version for Q4 2010 – http://tr.im/FD7f (via @BoardgameNews) #
- Repost: New Critical Hit: Inq. of the Week: Video Game Playing, 2009: http://bit.ly/7arBCu #
- 2009 Golden Geek Winners http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/48818 #
- "D&D Minion" A web based #dnd Initiative/Condition Tracker App, requires Google login, http://dndminion.appspot.com/ (via @newbiedm) #
- CSI: D&D http://bit.ly/8yi3mO (via @wilw) #
- Gamers With Heart http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6705387.html #
- Confirmed for Black Friday: Old Navy giving Lego Rock Band with $20 clothing purchase http://bit.ly/6JOGwB (via @joystiq) #
- National Gaming Day a massive success http://is.gd/53qnO (via @boingboing) #
Cross-Class Training II: The Teaching DM
Happy thanksgiving to all my American readers! Deep friend Turbaconducken anyone?
I tend to have a one track mind, so while I’m done teaching my MS-Outlook/Time Management class, it’s still very much on my mind.
Just so you know, things went so well that the College’s director offered me to teach another course right after he got the participant’s evaluation of my mad teaching skillz. I now get to teach 5 courses! Yay!
Earlier this week, I posted about 3 categories of skills that GMs, teachers and managers had in common. Today I want to discuss specific skills and tricks I use while I DM that came in handy during my 2 day course. It’s surprising how abilities you mastered in other disciplines help you out when you’re faced with the unexpected.
Establishing Credibility and Trust
My DMing experience has shown me that the average gamer sitting at your table for the first time will give you about an hour to win them over. During that hour, you can do whatever you want with little fear of revolt/comments/sabotage. However, that period of time is the optimal one to establish credibility and trust with the players.
Teaching adults (and probably teenagers) is the same thing. Your first impression is crucial and will set the tone for the rest of the course/session. In my course, I established who I was and what my qualifications were (but not too much). I stressed out that I was a working guy like them and that the material I was going to teach them was actually usable and practical, because I had no tolerance for Ivory Tower theories.
By the end of the 1st hour, I had 6 out of 8 students in my pocket. My nervousness was fading and I started focusing on winning the last 2 to my side.
Expectation Management
When I start a new campaign, I write a pitch for it and I present that pitch to my players. At that point, I ask them to add elements or suggest things to add to the campaign so that their expectations are met. Gone is the time where I would trust my skills and my DMing telepathy to divine what they wanted to play. At the point we are in our lives, I want to make sure that all my players get what they seek in our campaigns. So I manage expectations by checking before and during a campaign that players periodically get what they seek.
During that 1st hour of the course, I put up the course’s outline, listing all the subject that we would tackle. I told them that I would emphasis some items more (I put them in bold) and others I would cover lightly of skip altogether. I asked the class if there were subjects they wanted to see. I told them that each of them had, knowingly or not, a ‘I must learn this’ and that if they didn’t tell me about it, they took the risk of not getting what they are looking for. As expected, they chimed up and told me specific things they wanted (sharing calendars in Outlook, backup of emails, creating new calendars, etc).
I carefully noted down each request and integrated them in my course outline as soon as I got a few minutes. It worked great as all participants told me they got what they expected.
Reading the group
During a RPG session, I try to monitor the level of excitement, fun and frustration of players. Over the years, I’ve developed tricks to read other people. Body language tells a lot about a players’ state of mind. By doing regular reviews of how the energy level is, I try to make small course correction. I don’t always manage this because, like all RPG geeks, I tend to become engrossed in the activity and rules of the game at the expense of the human factor. However, when I start hearing exclamations of frustrations because a player can’t roll over 4-5, 6 rounds in a row, I start paying attention and I try to find ways to help him out.
In my course yesterday, at the end of the 2nd hours (the break) I had one student who was sitting back on his chair, arms crossed. I knew he wasn’t buying what I was saying about productivity and the importance of organization. I later learned that he had driven 3 hours to come to the class and he wanted Outlook material, which I hadn’t gotten into yet at that point (apart Outlook basics).
During the break I asked him about it and he told me what I just related. I told him that I would get into the nitty gritty Outlook stuff soon. I also told him that if I did just that, the course would be a hell of a lot drier. Finally I asked him to remind me of the stuff he needed during the class and that I would cover it.
One hour later, at lunch, he said “Hey that productivity stuff is interesting!”
Say Yes
A common heard declaration in Roleplaying games is ‘Say Yes” which is a mantra-like declaration to prevent GMs from reacting defensively to player input by saying “no you can’t” or “no that won’t work”. A very good description of this concept appears in Vincent Baker’s Dogs in the Vineyards:
Every moment of play, roll dice or say yes. If nothing’s at stake, say yes to the players, whatever they’re doing. Just plain go along with them. If they ask for information, give it to them. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If they want it, it’s theirs. Sooner or later— sooner, because your town’s pregnant with crisis— they’ll have their characters do something that someone else won’t like. Bang! Something’s at stake. Launch the conflict and roll the dice. Roll dice or say yes. Roll dice or say yes. Roll dice or say yes.”
In the last year, I’ve pushed myself past my ingrained resistances and I’ve tried really hard to become a “Say Yes” DM. I think I have achieved that. In fact I’m sure of it because it bled in my courses!
During the course, while I was describing an aspect of Outlook, some of the attendees would chime in and ask something that I didn’t plan (or didn’t think) to teach. Every time, I stopped and fought my reflexes to keep with my plan. I would then pause the course for 10-20 seconds, reorganize my thoughts, and start explaining what was asked. This ended making the course more organic and better targeted to the needs of the class. After I was done with the required subject, I just picked my outline up, looked where I was and returned to the Plan.
So you see… I owe a lot to DMing and it’s really fun to see how all the hours I invested at the gaming table are actually helping me re-orient my career! I love teaching and I may have finally answered one of my true callings.
Okay, I’m done with teaching for now. Tomorrow I get to conclude my Primal/Within Campaign. A game report will be forthcoming!
