ne of the things that still bewilders me after nearly 30 years of RPGs is how many of us insist on following specific conceits that were rarely, if ever, hardwired in the rules. For instance, what’s with having such long campaign lengths and the necessity to stick with the same PC as long as it remains alive? I’ve talked to so many people online and during cons bemoan that they can’t try a new class or a new RPG because ‘we’re playing this one epic campaign, maybe after…’ Say What? Why must so many campaigns be these epic tales lasting x amount of actual real life years? Why is it so important to ‘get to the end of the game’?
Pax East (and Chatty projects) Update
As for the rest of PAX I plan to play some D&D Dark Sun and Encounters. I hope to play some Magic drafts with friends (it’s been 2 years!). I also hope to meet Wil Wheaton face to face and exchange a few funny remarks while he signs the books I’ll stack in front of him. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to say hi to Jerry and Mike (Tycho and Gabe). Finally, I plan to crash Chris Tulach’s and Greg Bilsland “Save my Game” seminars so I can ask some really funky “what if” questions that will drive everybody nuts :).
Gears of Ruin: The Phantom Rails, Part 3
There they learned of a pact made between the Gith seeking to eradicate the Elemental Chaos influence on the world of Sikarra and Melora’s Eco fanatics who were unable to channel the power of their Nature god to avenge this dying world. The Gith brought a large artifact, a Psi-Crystal so powerful that it could channel power sources throughout a world to a select few. The artifact was mounted on Sirrakas highest mountain range where a fighting monastery was built.
Gears of Ruin: The Phantom Rails, Part 2
As the party schemed, hidden behind a pile of Warclank (i.e clockwork mechas) spare parts near the gigantic pile of humanoid corpses, the ghouls and blasphemes continued their Dance Macabre, the ghouls trying to snatch pieces of relatively fresh “meat” from the pile while the reconstructed undead kept them at bay with beams of death-laced energies.
Friday Chat: Bits from the Past
The most important ingredient in any campaign is a skilled DM who has the time and the energy to carefully design and create his world, and the talent to communicate his setting effectively. The next most important ingredients are willing players who share common goals with the DM. Players interested in hack-and-slash adventures should not be matched a DM interested in careful plot structuring and detailed mystery solving.
Fall Seven Times, Stand Up Eight
I find it interesting that I made the exploration of failure in RPGs such an intense interest of mine because I’m currently living with the consequences of failure in my own life right now. Don’t worry, nothing major, but important enough that it may affect “The Plan” if I don’t play my cards more carefully from now on.
Gears of Ruin: The Phantom Rails, Part 1
The one rule I gave myself was “Shape the adventure based on the questions your players ask you” and “When in doubt, ask for a skill check”.
It worked wonderfully. So much so that my first true sandbox dungeon adventure probably felt like a seamless linear adventure narrative to my players who probably thought they were just following the path I had made for them.
Friday Chat: Are You Watching the Interweb?
In the last few years, as I gravitated to jobs with extremely lenient web access policies (and absent monitoring) and started blogging, I found myself drawn just a bit too much. You know, the kind that makes you spend just a little too long catching up with the Questionable Content archives, or fall for link-baiting to a website that will ruin your life.
What? You want to Sleep here?
I don’t like random monsters. On the other hand, the idea of having players sweat for their extended rest could be worth exploring once or twice in a campaign. This is especially true if your group chronically blows their wad of dailies in the first encounter and then just assume they can take an extended rest wherever they please. So, what if you said ‘Yes’ to resting in a dangerous area (like in the middle of a freaking dungeon) but did it with a twist?
Gears of Ruin: The Ruiner’s Gambit, Session 1, Part 4
The Titan Clank hit by the Avenger’s abjure undead power was eventually bloodied. In a cloud of greasy smoke, it stopped functioning and let out a badly battered undead humanoid made of mismatched stitched parts! It was wearing some sort of military leather harness filled with poisoned knives!
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