My Five Step Campaign Creation Process

So, I'm a brand new GM. I never GM'd a long-term campaign at all. It's something I wanted to do for a long time, but I never really got the chance to do. Part of it was a lack of time. And part of it was a lack of confidence. Not about ideas.I always have those. I was more afraid that I couldn't get the characters to interact with the plot that I wanted.  I had always heard that players will inevitably marr the story that the GM wants to tell, so I decided to abandon this idea and work with my gaming group to develop a story that was based off of the characters wanted to make. These were the steps we followed, and I thought it has turned out smashingly well.  

The Sharn Codex: Thoughts on Character Improvement

First off, I want to thank +Jacob Poss for being such an accommodating game master today. I had a personal matter which came up unexpectedly, and he was cool when I told him I wasn't going to be able to make it. Thankfully, the issue resolved before play finished, and Jake allowed me to jump in for a fun time. 

A Tribute to Season One of MonsterHearts

The ongoing MonsterHearts campaign +Seth Harris runs is currently on hiatus as season 2 is being set up. I've got to say, MonsterHearts has been a really rewarding experience for me. There's a couple of different reasons. 

First, Rueben is probably the most dangerous character I've ever played. He's obsessive, he's manipulative, and he's fun to play. I don't know why, but I've been having a lot fun getting into his head.  Probably one of the reasons is that I've been playing totally against my personality. And I have to say, being the nasty guy is kind of fun.  

A Game is a Game

So, it's Superbowl Sunday. Just like almost everyone else in the Greater Baltimore Area, I'm pretty excited about having the Ravens in the game. It's a chance to unite behind something and just enjoy the spectacle.  I can't believe the last time they were in the Superbowl, it was my senior year of high school.  God, I'm old...

By the way, check out the always awesome
Sheldon by Dave Kellett

To be honest, though, my interest in football is just a social thing.  It's a way to connect to my dad and my brother. They're both far more into the sports thing than I am. So, while they're wearing jerseys for specific players, I wear my custom jersey that I had made for Poe, the Ravens mascot. Literary reference and football solidarity in one move. I dig it. 

A lot of my friends who are nerds who are nerdy have no interest in football. Some are interested in other sports, like hockey or disk golf. Some are apathetic to sports in general. I totally get those sentiments. Sports is the realm of the dudes who beat us up in between third and fourth period, after all. Let us stick to smashing imaginary mosters in Dungeons and Dragons, and they can stick to smashing each others out on that hot, stupid field. 

But the reality is we're really not terribly different--we just have enthusiasm for similar things portrayed in different ways. And it comes down to an idea I've had for a long time but have never really codified. 

Every single game, no matter what form it takes, is a narrative. Be it told on a gridded map or a gridiron, it's still a story.

A lot of games tell elemental, binary stories. It boils down to who wins and who loses. But we attach bigger meanings to it. A great example of this is the card game Gloom, where the players create a narrative of bad stuff. The winner is the person who can make their family of characters suffer the most. You can find out more about it in the following video.

Other examples of win/lose games take on other forms. Games like Risk, Chess, and Warhammer 40K are supposed to represent military battles. Other games, like Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride, have a socioeconomic bent. But they're still about who comes out on top. RPGs can combine a multitude of themes into the game. Killing the dragon and take it's treasure works as an introductory quest because it has both the military aspect and the economic factor, and it's pretty easy to delineate the winner and the loser (the party versus the dragon). Things get more tricky when you start adding in character motivations, but player versus player in RPGs is another post for another time.

The iconography here is incredibly potent with story

At first glance, football is a win-lose narrative. Simple. Clean-cut. But that's only what happens on the field. There's so much more when you think about it. Add in the factor of the people who are involved in the Superbowl XLVII, and you have a really amazing story.

Just as an example, Ray Lewis. Far and away, he is the player who is associated with the Baltimore Ravens. He's flamboyant, charismatic, widely considered one of the best to play his position. But he's also old. He was the second player to be drafted by the Ravens after they moved from Cleveland, and he played his entire career for Baltimore. Earlier this year he announced his retirement. So today is his last game ever. What's he feeling right now?

Another story that's attached to this particular game is the passing of the Ravens original owner, Art Modell. He was a loved man in Baltimore, loathed in Cleveland, and his passing just before this season began provided a strong well of emotions.

The Ravens are playing the 49ers, and that's a really cool story right there because the coaches are brothers -- John and Jim Harbaugh. Not only that, but Jim Harbaugh was the quarterback Ray Lewis got his first NFL sack against. And he later served as a Raven as their quarterback in the 1998 season!  Imagine how hard it would be to lose your first Superbowl appearance (assuming the Ravens win) to a team you used to play for. The brothers aren't the only reunion, though. Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice and 49ers Right Tackle Anthony Davis were teammates at college.

These stories are not things I really went looking for. It's just stuff I knew from keeping track of local news and looking at friends' Facebook posts. But it's really neat to see this kind of thing. It gives me even more investment in the game.

I realize that some people aren't into football. Conversely, I understand that my own interest in table top gaming is something others won't get. But I do think there is common ground. We're looking for a story. We're looking for something to connect to. And that human need is even more important than the game.

Announcing Future Awesomeness

So, while this is still going to be my personal space, I wanted to share with you about another project that I'm really excited about.

Last year, I began talking to my friends and gaming group about starting my own campaign. I had been reading a bunch of narrativist games, like Fiasco, Microscope, and Apocalypse World, just to name a few. So I wanted to take those more narrative based games and apply some of the techniques that they introduce. But I still wanted to  take them and apply them to a "traditional" campaign using a ruleset familiar to most of my group, the excellent (and free!) Mini Six.

To add on top of that, I had the hubris to think that this would make a good topic for a podcast. So I bought an audio recorder and asked my friends' permission to turn it on. After some thought, I decided to name the podcast "Bone Throwers Theater." It's supposed to be a play off of the concept of dice being similar to a diviner's fortune-telling bones.

We recently began recording, and we've got a nice buffer built up, so I can feel comfortable announcing that the release date will be Friday, March 1st.

I'm really excited about this whole experience -- probably a little too excited. But I'm enjoying it for the time being, and it's letting me put my audio editing skills back to use (I love editing audio). I made a little one-minute promo announcing our release date, which you can listen to here. I hope you enjoy!

 

Beware the Lightsaber Lens Flares

Have you heard? There are a lot of rumors floating around about whether or not J.J. Abrams is directing the new Star Wars movie. Personally, I like Abrams's work but I don't think I want him directing Star Wars. There are a few reasons why. To lay them out quickly, it comes down to variety, variety, and variety.

What? Too vague? Ok, I’ll go into a little bit more detail.

I’m not going to go into the Trek vs. Wars arguments. I like them both. Star Wars a bit more, but that’s beside the point. I’m more concerned about the quality of both franchises. If you have one person masterminding both creative universes, then they’ll burn out. This is precisely the same reason why I don’t want Joss Whedon directing Ep. VII either. He’s doing fantastic stuff with the Avengers. Let Abrams and Whedon do what they’re doing and enjoy the gratification of watching quality projects.

This brings up something that I’m incredibly afraid of in terms of fandom in general, anyway. There’s a trend towards a homogenization in taste. Abrams and Whedon have become the two largest faces in nerd cinema. Christopher Nolan would be the third in the triumvirate. These three men are the trendsetters in geek film. And, where film goes, the rest of geek culture follows.

When it comes to concepts and storytelling, homogenization is anathema. It is staleness. It is ad nauseum.  If fear is the little-death that brings obliteration, homogenization of thought is the big-death that brings submission to mediocrity.  Where is the forward thinking in genre these days?

Yes, all three are talented craftsmen. But I would argue that their better work is in the smaller vehicles. They have their own motifs and agendas (in the case of Abrams, vagendas), and I would argue that an artist's vision works out better in their own worlds than it does in a licensed world. In my opinion, Super 8 is a much better movie than Star Trek. Serenity beats the pants off The Avengers. And Memento is more moving than the entire Batman trilogy (which, aside from the first, fails because of its own hubris). This sentiment is mine alone, though. I think it's because I'm moving more towards favoring stories that are about smaller, character driven situations rather than stories that are about Big Idea. 

So, if not Abrams, and not a big name, who would I like to see to direct Star Wars Ep. VII? Honestly, I don't know. It would be nice if they could honor the tradition of the original Ep. IV and bring in a director and actors that no one knows. It doesn't have to be a director who isn't established, but it should be one that people haven't heard of.  If I could have my way, I think I would have either someone from Hong Kong or South Korea direct at least one of the new movies. 

It seems like a bit of a stretch, doesn't it? But I don't really think so. Think back to the roots of Star Wars. A lot of Lucas's original inspiration came from a Japanese movie called Hidden Fortress. The Force has strong Buddhist and Taoist overtones (I once heard the Jedi described as Buddhist monks running around with laser swords). It would make sense to take visual aesthetics from that part of the world  and apply them to a fantasy universe that tries to combine both Eastern and Western sensibilities.

Of course, Hollywood isn't about what makes sense, and it's not about making art. It's about's making a buck, which Ep. VII will deliver. 

Fate Core: The Sharn Codex pt 1

This game is turning out to be a lot of fun. First off, I love that I'm finally getting to learn how to play FATE. I'm the kind of guy who will read the gaming books and just kind of sit there scratching my head. Rulebooks are abstract, nebulous things to me. I've got to actually see some kind of demonstration to understand the rules, and play is what really solidifies the system to me. 

If you haven't looked into FATE Core, I'd highly recommend it at least throwing a dollar at it, just to read the book. It's actually pretty crazy to watch the crowdfunding happen for this project. The kickstarter is going gangbusters. Yesterday, Evil Hat announced that, if they hit $400,000 (!) dollars, they'll release a new, condensed version of their Dresden Files RPG.  They're currently over the $314,000 mark with 6 days to go, so... I think they have a chance.

Another cool thing for me is getting to play a different kind of fantasy game. I've played Dungeons and Dragons for a long time. Like a lot of gamers, it's what I cut my teeth on. But I typically play in more science fiction games. So fantasy for me feels like D&D quintessentially  It's ironic to say this, but this Eberron game feels more awesome than most D&D games that I've played. 

First of all, my character, Sim Delvoor is a beast, absolutely killer when it comes to social situations. In both our introduction session and this one, I was able to use my "contacts" skill to rally a group of people to help the group win the combat sessions quite handily.  He also wasn't useless when I decided to have him swing a sword, which is nice. 

Of course, Sim's not the paragon of charismatic charm he thinks he is. Part of FATE's main aspect is the ability to compel the characters. Basically the aspects can both be positive and negative. The game master can compel the characters by offering them fate points (in-game currency) to have something happen to their character. The group failed to interrogate a character. He said "no" to Sim. My character got angry and went to extremes. He made it so that this non-player character could never say no again. 

(This brings me to another thing I've learned recently about roleplaying -- making the Bad Choice can be more interesting from a story perspective than being the Bad Ass. I'll have to write something up about that at a later date.)

In the process of cutting out this poor goon's tongue, Sim developed in personality. He earned the aspect "Loose Cannon." Sure, he may be a smooth talker, but the guy has anger issues. I have to figure out which aspect I'll swap out with that. Which is hard, because I really like his character aspects. But mechanically, it's helpful because it will help me learn more about FATE's advancement process.