Are One Shots The Way To Go?

I had a discussion with a friend last Friday about gaming. He DM's the Heavy Metal D&D campaign that I played in from level 1 to 10. That campaign is still going strong. I mentioned to him that I was feeling pretty blah about RPGs. Kris responded that I should stick to one shots. Why? I'm in the zone when I'm passionate about my games or a certain aspect of it, and it really shows. When filler takes place, I'll just coast through it and play it out almost like taking care of formalities. Couple that with my extreme frustration with plot if player attendance isn't regular, it makes the thought of a long campaign seem like an ideal. The idea of doing one shots or campaigns that are done within three sessions do indeed make sense. I get to play out fresh ideas quickly. Cycle through player rosters and no one has to feel like they're giving up every other Saturday or whatever for an unknown amount of time. But the trade off... you don't get to build that level of character bond and backstory where it almost feels like you just got dumped by an ex when the DM kills your character.

Today, I go to my friends' place for brunch and we'll create characters for Mouse Guard while watching Buffy. We'll see how long we play this for and I have no clue what the scheduling for sessions will be like as only two of us have Monday to Friday work weeks. Regardless, I'm excited to get this going.

Dinner Really Does Make A Difference

Yes, it's been forever since I've posted anything on this blog but in my defense, I've been really busy at work, went on holidays last week and playing instead of writing. Knowing that bloggers like Christian over at Destination Unknown makes lunch/dinner for the good folk at his game table. I wanted to get into that hanging out while eating side of things. Now I'm not talking about snack and liquor runs before sessions. I wanted proper meals. My group at this point does not prepare dinner but once everyone gets to the place of gaming, we leave in my van and go have supper. It's been really good especially with one of our players being new to the group and we really get to know each other outside of the game environment.
A huge perk is that the games run a lot smoother. Less emphasis on snacks being an interference while playing, we seem less distracted and long drawn out rabbit trailed stories show up less and less as I believe we get a lot of the need of personal chit chat done at the dinner table. Oh and no in the middle of a lull spot where someone goes "Who wants to order pizza?" and then you lose 20 minutes to figuring out what toppings you want, looking for phone numbers and gathering cash for whoever's chipping in.

Playing Monsters Straight Out Of The Book

Do you play monsters as they're written straight out of a Monster Manual or Bestiary? I don't know what it is but since I started DMing, I never really liked using anything that was in print as is aside from you know...Kobold Minion, Kenku Warrior, etc. And if I used a stat block straight from a published monster that would be of relevance, it was always reskinned to look like something else.
This comes from my inability to leave things alone but later on, I really liked how it made metagaming harder for other players who also DM or just happen to own all of the books. I also understand their powers and abilities a bit more as I had to actively take part in selecting what would be kept, ditched and added.

Oh and if you haven't seen "How To Train Your Dragon", you should do something about it. ^_^

Are DM's Really That Hard To Find?

My good friend Matt had his birthday party on Saturday and when we were outside smoking cigars, a few of us began chatting up D&D. I realized that though each campaign were sharing a bunch of the same players from the pool, there were six or more different campaigns represented there.

A lot of these offshoots are the result of players wanting to take a shot at DMing and one player is part of a group that cycles through a different DM every session in some sort of rotation. I had seen the videos below just before I started DMing as I was looking for tips on the subject and am now wondering, among your local circles, are DM's/GM's such a rarity and are so many people that reluctant to take up the position when all you really want to do is play D&D?

I love DMing more than being a PC in most cases. Why? Because every turn feels like it's still partially my turn. How about you?

Paper Legends Wrap Up Coming Soon.

Sadly, Paper Legends has wrapped up. I know that the session notes have things stuck at 3.1 and for the sake of tying up loose ends, I will summarize what has happened in the 6 sessions that we played. Conflicting schedules were my biggest peeve and at no point did we have all seven of us at once. I began getting burnt out of D&D too with my other gaming commitments at the time. I will not be bothering with breaking things down neatly but the just of the story will be conveyed.
I will be launching a new campaign in the near future where we'll be trying to play every two weeks but in more manageable chunks of about 3 hours per session. Wrapping up between midnight and 3:30 in the morning no longer appeal to me.
The new campaign will still be tied in with Paper Legends and I'll have a new opportunity to make new paper minis in a new art style and with a different construction to handle status effect markers.

Happy Gaming!

Are People Interested In Listening To Sessions?

I was on Youtube watching Chris Perkins DM the staff of Robot Chicken and another one of the Penny Arcade crew. I'm just wondering how interested people would actually be to listen to a recording of gaming sessions? Particularly when it's not of people who are established in the industry or have some sort of "celebrity" status.
We read through session recaps on other's blogs all the time but if it's an audio file running, would it still have an appeal? When reading we can read as much or as little as we want, skimming here and there, etc. Just something that's been on my mind for a few days and I don't think I'd be interested in uploading hours of videos onto Youtube.

Off With Bonus XP

In games that I took part in, there were times that we got bonus XP for doing something amazing with our characters. It was always fun to be able to jot down some extra XP at the end of the night. If the bonus XP was a small amount, it really never amounted to anything aside from one guy having a bigger number than the other. I began to find it really redundant because most groups will generally have the consensus to keep the party at the same level. So aside from maybe a guy leveling up one session before the others, in my eyes, I found it quite pointless.

What I've adopted is a token bonus. Instead of you getting 50 more XP, I'll toss you a penny at my table. It's good for a +D3 to your roll if you miss and needed that extra boost to try and succeed. Players feel good when they get a token and they get to see the benefit of it right away but still not be guaranteed a success. In my case, I only make the tokens good for the night so that they're not hoarding these things up for a "boss" fight.

What I really like about it is that it coaxes my players to come up with some amazing role playing or narratives in hopes that I award them a token. And I don't always do it.

Happy Gaming!

"Limit Breakers" in 4E

I had mentioned previously that I had introduced a Power Meter/"Limit Breaker" mechanic into Paper Legends. It really was a double edged sword. The plus side is it keeps players paying attention when things are turning into a grind as they're anticipating when they can unleash a Daily Power with all of the perks going off. The down side, it creates one more thing to track in an already mechanic heavy game (especially if you have a bunch of effects floating like saving throws, buffs, penalties, on-going damage, etc.)

The nine circles on the upper right corner represent 1's. Each circle on the colored strips on the left represent 10's.

30+ points allows you to use Daily Encounter Powers

60+ points gives you a +1 to hit bonus when using the Daily Power

120+ points allows you to spend a healing surge and gain 1/2 surge value in hit points.

200 points automatically grants you max dice rolls for damage or healing bonuses, etc. Acquiring points caps at 200.

*The bonuses stack as you clear different levels. The Power Meter resets to Zero the instant a Daily Power is used in an encounter. The damage or healing from the Daily Power do not contribute points to the Power Meter.

Players gain points for dealing damage, taking damage, and by healing. So basically when their action actively effects HP, they accumulate points.
Examples:
*Thor does a Twin Strike with his bow and does 7 and 9 points of damage to his two targets. Thor gains 16 points.
*Bellows receives 20 points of damage from an enemy attack. He gains 20 points.
*An area of effect attack via blast or burst do accumulate. If your blast hits 4 targets and you roll, 12, 20, 14, 9 for damage, you gain 55 points on the Power Meter.
*Damage is still rolled for minions. It's not your fault that they're too weak to feel the full effects of the face beating.
*A healer will gain the value of hit points recovered by his/her healing power. Even if done to multiple allies. The recipient of the healing do not gain points.
*Popping a Second Wind does gain points for the Power Meter.
*Taking ongoing damage does gain points to the victim.
*Making an attack that does ongoing damage does not give points as the player is not actively causing the damage anymore.

Why did I introduce this mechanic into my game? It felt like something fun to do. I wanted to play D&D like a video game in a sense and a Power Meter seemed fitting. It also takes away some power gaming elements and brings a new element of strategy to the party. No first rounds where everyone unloads their Daily Powers and it also makes it harder to use Daily Powers on back to back turns by the same player.

My biggest joy from this mechanic was the anticipation of the players to wrack up all of those points in order to get all of the bonuses along with getting all emotional when they agonize over whether they should use the Daily Power that turn vs holding back as they're not far from gaining another bonus. The players had fun and it helps deter the grind feeling in the late game as they're still actively ticking away on their cards and waiting for that glorious turn when all the bonuses go off with an already more powerful than normal attack. They really make Daily Powers seem even more special and it's really something when they get to 200 points and then fudge on the roll.

Is this mechanic for everyone? Nope. Is it perfect? Nope. But my friends around the table had fun with it and that's what counts. It would also have to be scaled in Paragon and Epic Tiers.

D&D 4E - The Tabletop Video Game?

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been busy. Work, sketching, playing games, going out and to be honest, the drive just hasn't really been there as of late to blog.

What I do want to talk about is, the shift of my view on D&D 4E. I started my venture into tabletop RPGs with 4E. From what I saw skimming through books and hearing about in the previous editions - mostly 3.5 and Pathfinder references - the aspect that I didn't like were the blandness of encounters for non magic users as 90% of the time, it seemed like their only option was "I swing at him with my sword, axe, etc". This is the double edged sword. While mechanically it's boring, the responsibility of keeping one's imagination going is left to the DM and player.

I have never played an MMORPG before. My incline to 4E probably comes from the tabletop wargaming side of things. Now while I do enjoy roleplaying, I realize that the majority of the time, my experience with 4e is that of a narative encounter. And that's cool. 4E does combat really really well. Unfortunately, when I look at the mechanics that they tried to sum up for other things like skill challenges, it generally seems very very clumsy. Once again, it comes down to the story telling abilities of those at the table and imagination along with our own little house rulings in hopes to veer off from what seems sluggish to us game mechanics.

So with that being said, I've been drawing more and more inspiration from video games for Paper Legends. I intend to make it feel like a game. My players know this and have been gung ho about it. I've implemented a power meter that gets racked up as players dish out and take damage. Hand out RP bonus power ups in the form of coins and sometimes crazy stuff happens that doesn't quite make sense but we can do it because it's a GAME. While it can be a cop out for reasoning, it definitely gets the imagination flowing.

So far it's been great and with this particular group it works. All but one of them have played or are playing MMORPG's, tabletop wargames and/or Magic: The Gathering. We come together to collectively play out a story of Die Hard in a fantasy-ish setting.

I'm writing this post because awhile back I felt a bit frustrated with trying to get more story elements into our games and trying to coax a bit more of it out of my players. I got over this after talking with one of my players while going to McDonald's when I realize that I should be playing 4E to its strength and accept that most of our players were not natural actors or storytellers. I'm hoping to play to their quirks and if I put the right hooks out there, maybe they'll pressure me to come up with more plot twists.

I do want heavier roleplaying opportunities to come up and I'll let that grow on its own or I'll search for it in other systems like Mouse Guard or Cartoon Action Hour.

I Am Not Dead. Just Been Busy And/Or Distracted.

I'm so far behind on session notes or little snippets of bright ideas due to fiscal year end with work. In July, there was only one day in that month that I did not stop into the office. But I'm on salary so no literal overtime pay. I'm just going to take some Fridays and Mondays off here and there to make long weekends and not eat into the vacation pay.
So between that, being tired and playing games, it hasn't left much time dedicated to blogging. I'm hoping to remedy this soon. So I'll be putting things up this week.

Happy gaming! You'll get your fix of Kok'ed Dice soon. I promise. Serious. I'm on a horse.

Missing Players = Plotting & Getting Cool New Shiny Things

So last night, only two of us out of six PCs ended up at the DM's place. Two gave notices that they had family functions ahead of time. One made a last minute cancelation 15 minutes before we were suppose to start and one didn't show up.
Our DM wanted to try and scale down the encounters and still play but we came to the conclussion that the effort has been put down to play a proper session. So let's wait to play a proper session with the intended amount of people. We ended our last session entering a new city so we decided to plot out what kind of trouble we could get into.
We played around with some random event generator tables and tweaked it a bit to the three of our likings and flavour to fit what our characters would be up to.
After the initial disappointment that we wouldn't be "playing", the night still ended on a positive note. Skull (Holly's character) has now lit a portion of the city on fire and Memphis (my character) is on the down low as the watch are looking for him after he was conned into a shady business venture.
Details are still being penned out and we were also rewarded cool magic items which I'm still coming up with some back story for it.
What started out as a bummer still proved to be a fun couple of hours and we even got to do a little bit of trouble shooting for a cool mechanic that I am planning to implement for Paper Legends. To tell you the truth, I think that our next session will have a much richer story than what was originally planned as Holly and myself got to pull our characters from first to third person perspectives and partake in the actual shaping of the setting outside of actually playing it. Hopefully that little extra bit of depth and connection that two of the PCs have will bleed over to the rest of the party. Now to see how it actually plays out. Happy gaming even when not actually gaming.

Letting Go Of The Tracks & Tossing Them Into The Mosh Pit...I Mean Sand Box.

Last night was a neat session, we had a rather long encounter (about three hours) but it didn't turn into a painful grind and after we ended the gaming for the night, I began talking with my players about wanting to give them more of the reigns to lead Paper Legends more and more into a sandbox for them to explore. I even put the PCs on a train and had the tank engine blow up with the thing stopping before their destination to literally say "Hey, we're screwing with the railroading and to really make this OUR game". We talked a bit about where I'd like things to go and really have their input. And I even had them crash not too far from a town so that I could be forced into practicing something that I need to grow in; lots of possible NPCs for the party to interact with and for them to be memorable. Thanks Christian, your post blatantly pointed it out to me that it was an area that I needed growth in.

It was also really cool to talk to one of the players outside of the session about a neat plot twist I have in mind, and he himself blatantly said that it'd be okay to kill his character if that's what it takes to make this happen and that he really appreciated that I had discussed this possible plot turn with him to get his feedback. The funny thing is... I never said that his character would have to die for this event to take place.

RPGs have been so rewarding and fun for me. I really wish that it wasn't tagged with the "negative" side of nerd/geek stereotypes as it is such an amazing form of group entertainment. It's also pretty amazing to see one of my old classmates who has very little exposure to geek culture, play out his character. Josh is new to the whole gaming thing, and while he is relatively quiet at the table, when the cogs turn and he describes what he wants Thor Frostfang, his Ranger to do, it usually ends up sounding like something I would love to see in a movie. Many times it puts me on my toes as to how I will have to figure out how to house rule it so that he can do the amazing things that he wants to do.
I am so blessed to be able to throw dice down with these guys!

Even If It's Not Pretty, It Works!

My introduction to tabletop gaming comes from wargames. That Warhammer 40k 2nd Edition starter set sparked something that would change me. I've always been a visual person. Drew a lot as a kid, my dad got me into model kits for a bit. When I got in table top wargames, my models got a heck of a lot more expensive and I was painting miniatures. Fast forward many years and a long hiatus from the hobby and I got back into minis via the Privateer Press route.

When I started playing D&D 4E, the DM had minis, I built some sweet terrain tiles out of insulation foam and painted up a bunch of the minis that would be used for our PCs. When I started my own campaign, I drew up the paper minis or token pieces in a neat art style. I love things to be "pretty".

Well, last Monday in my friend Kris's D&D campaign, the minis were left at the store that he works at so we had to improvise. Bottle caps, glass beads, coins and laundry tokens and a deck box would represent us and our opposition on the battle mat. Pretty? Not at all. Did we have fun that night? Absofrickinlutely!

Aside from having to double check what represented what on a somewhat regular basis, the components were there. It was a great excercise in letting the bells and whistles go and setting my imagination loose.

Now I'm not saying that I'd intensionally want to play in this manner again any time soon, but it's great to know that as long as there's a good story, a good group to play with and some rum handy, you can keep on playing and have a blast. Yes, I'm aware that a lot of people actually don't use any minis at all in previous editions of D&D along with other RPGs.

Honestly, I feel that the minis aspect and grid have turn D&D for many into a combat board game. Not hating on those who are perfectly satisfied with it but I do hope that those who are pretty immersed in D&D do try to experience more possible aspects of the game to just enrich their experiences or use it to enforce why they like what already they do about it. It's always what's natural but I think it'd also be great for people who can be boxed into a label of watcher, narrator, actor, slayer, etc to intensionally try and be something else for at least one session. Who knows what different sides of you could be unlocked.

Try All Of These Great Flavours...At The Same Time!

So last Wednesday night, I went to my local comic & games store to pick up my books and say hi to the games manager as well as a couple of people who I knew would be playing in the weekly D&D Encounters that Wizards organizes. Due to a lot of people showing up, Kris convinced me to help DM a table. Well a bit later...an emergency came up which forced the owner of the store to leave and have Kris step away from the group that he was DMing in order to watch the rest of the place. When my original group was done I went from that table to the other that had been waiting for a DM for about an hour or so. At this point I felt like it was my duty to make sure that these people have a good time since they've been patiently waiting and to add to the mix, new players were in the fray.

That night, I consciously realized that the effective rule of mirroring is just as effective when DMing as they are in closing sales, building rapport, and well...life in general. Between the two groups I probably had 3 or so different ways of playing manifest. I'm a narrator by nature when I play D&D (to me if there's no narrating or role-playing, I should be playing something like Warhammer). I played my first couple of rounds as I normally would play and then after that if I could get a general idea of what the individual players were like and wanted out of the game, I would cater to their play style. Crack a joke based on their personality and you've got a friend for the rest of the session while getting a positive reaction from the rest of the table. If you're the kind of guy who just looks at stats, bonuses, penalties and status effects, I'll go straight to the meat and potatoes and give you the numbers back and if it hits, I'll tell you if it's good, ask you to roll your damage and off to the next player we go. For the new or shy players that are getting into it, I'll help and do a description of their character's actions for them and how it effects the bad guy and then try to nurse them into it. In the case of 4E with all of the power names, it's easy to get things rolling. They might just read to me the flavor text at first and then you might see them changing it up a bit with their own flare in the next round.

I do have one rule. When you cause a hit against a monster of mine that kills it (not always with minions) I will make you describe how your character delivers that killing blow. And it's extremely rewarding to see the newer or quieter players get out of their shell and have their eyes widen as they tell me how they've slain the monster and fit in as much badassery as possible.

Mirror your players as a DM, and if you do it properly, you'll notice them mirroring you at times too. Great way to see if you're building rapport, especially in a group where you weren't friends prior to sitting down at the table to play with some funny shaped dice.

Everyone Roll Initiative...

I find the Initiative Roll to be a double edged sword. Positive side, I find that when a DM says "Okay, everyone roll for initiative" that's the que for go time or the change in music just before you get into the Bos room.
On the down side...it can possibly be a big momentum breaker as everyone starts rolling and then you hear:
"22!"
"15"
"I got a 7"
"26! Fools!"

"I got a 7"
"Hold on hold on I'm still writing. Did anyone roll more than 15?"
"I got a 7"

*sigh*"4..."
etc.

Not usually a big deal but with larger groups with players ranging from all levels of experience as well as attention spans, there are situations where a lot of time has passed from the point of rolling d20's to when the first person does his/her turn.

Another thing that I don't like is when there aren't minis being placed on the table and the folks who dislike skill challenges might lean back and go "Oh great another skill challenge" before anything has even happened.

I'm planning for the next session that I DM to have a bunch of Initiative Rolls done before we actually start playing. Change up the amount of sets of initiatives being rolled vs how many encounters I actually plan to set up that night.

Plan to do four encounters that night? Make them all roll 6 initiative rolls and the encounters will be assigned out of order to how they might play out that session. My goal with this is to start fighting right away or to catch them off guard when a skill challenge is starting. For the latter, it's really a goal of mine to have people who do not like skill challenges be taking part in it before preconceived judgment can take place. It's simply "Thalos raises his eyebrow in a disgusted yet confused manner? You notice his fingers shifting on the edge of his sheath. Adam, what do you do?" And the order of initiative has kicked in, be it combat or skill challenge.

Paper Legends: Let's Get This Party Started

So the Players were found, but where to put them? I didn't want to use full fleshed out settings like Eberron or Forgotten Realms solely because they had "rules" in which I would feel like I'd have to try and follow and to be honest, I just didn't want to read up on anything. The world would be set up in a fantasy alternate Edmonton. The names of the regions would be similar and the general geography would be the same. Enough familiarity but still having the freedom to do whatever the heck I wanted with it. On a side note, it was hilarious when the answers that they had received from interrogating an NPC would mean that they should probably to go to a certain place next. One player mentioned how he hated that side of town and then another player said "Hey! I live there...but I do want to move".

The PC's would all be members of OOPS: Onyx Operative Protection Services' newest squad, Unit 23: The Firebugs. Yes yes it's my Black Water knock off that probably came to mind from watching an episode of the new Knight Rider. I really like whole idea of having them be a part of a larger organization as it gives me a regular meeting point to where I can blatantly give them a mission (through an NPC of course). So regardless of how many rabbit trails the party take, a goal or two has been set. Go ahead and build your magical super fridge, dismantle all the shelves in the office and try to make the Psion your pet, but once that's all done, they'll go set up perimeter at the museum. I'll have to really watch and make sure I don't fall into the trap of railroading the whole thing.

The Squad Coordinator. Inspector Gadget had the Commissioner. The Power Rangers had Zordon. Who could the Firebugs get? FIREMAN TIM. Fireman Tim is the Ranger that I play in the Warp 1 store campaign. He is loud, has ADD, likes to climb things, is always smoking his pipe and I like to view him as the dumbest smart person around. Well the Paper Legends Fireman is older, no wiser and has been forced to take up a desk job with OOPS much to his disliking. All but one of our PCs have experienced Fireman Tim prior to Paper Legends. In the store campaign, we've now come up with a rule that if Fireman Tim dies, he will always reincarnate in a compromising and degrading manner simply because he has to live on in order to make it to this point.

So these are the premises laid out for my first campaign. Simple, flexible but with a few key elements that help things make sense and give it flavor for us to give a damn. We all had fun so it's all good. We'll go into story soon.