Intelligence and Behavior (Monsters)

Hey game fans, we’re going to briefly discuss something that cropped up on the twitters today (again, i blame TerminallyNerdy.com) We’ve got a DM Tip that Intelligent monsters should be played intelligently, and if they are, then they are way more dangerous than the sum of their stats and abilities. This is very true, but Intelligence is a spectrum, and creatures at the other end of the spectrum are equally interesting tactical challenges for players and DMs alike. Let’s take a look at one of the key things to remember when deciding how a less than intelligent monster is going to potentially behave.

Lakeport Campaign Outline Part 1

So today i am going to take a few minutes and jot down the outline of a starter campaign for Lakeport. This outline will detail some of the major players that the characters will interact with along their journey and should give you an easy campaign arc (session count will depend on how far out you want to stretch things) that gets characters to around 5th or 6th level. The Story starts out in Lakeport proper, and if you want to refresh yourself on that, check it out here. The adventure starts out, as all adventures in Lakeport do, on the first day of summer.

Wednesday Wisdom: Tinkering with Backgrounds (and how you can borrow from the best)

Hey game fans, i know we talk a lot about a lot of stuff for games and today is probably not going to be a surprise for any of you. Today, we’re going to take a look at how to borrow elements of your favorite thing (TV show, book series, movie, music) and mash it up into something that you can use to make a character for an RPG. This project is the backstory for the Cleric i play once in a while, and he has some non-standard rules (don’t panic, they’re not helpful to him), and i’ll cover those at the end.

Savage Metaverse (Thoughts and ideas)

If you were keeping up with last week, you know how much of a fan we are of Masters of the Metaverse (a fine RPG show on Hyper RPG’s Twitch and Youtube Channels), and the underlying concept that it runs with.  For those that aren’t familiar, the idea is that the player characters have the ability to hop into the bodies of people from parallel worlds and can take control of them to interact with their world for a variety of different reasons.  The tagline for the show is that it’s sort of like Quantum Leap and Sliders had a baby.  

Test of Honour (some deeper thoughts)

This is a reaction to the package that had my Cavalry bases for my Test of Honour mounted troops, and the bonus i was sent by the fine people at Warlord Games.  I received the Geisha Spy, and the Unarmoured Samurai clampacks (along with my 12 cavalry bases, thanks Andy). I’ve looked at the stat cards for both figures (and i am really impressed with the idea of the Unarmoured Samurai being an upgrade card, with a figure) and this started my mind working along two parallel ideas that i thought were interesting.  If you’ll put up with the rambling path this is going to take, see if you can follow my logic tree

Battletech (The Company You Keep)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with an idea about one of our favorite games around the office, Battletech.  It’s a wonderful board game (with customizable pieces and a depth of units so big it has its own website) of giant robots fighting on futuristic battlefields across any of the thousands of inhabited worlds in the future of the human race.  Often described as Game of Thrones with giant robots instead of swords, Battletech has much more to offer than just the Succession Wars.  With 30+ years of books and stories written about the universe and computer and video game adaptations, there are a million different stories you can experience playing Battletech.  

However, that depth of information can be crippling for a new player to get into the setting.  So how does one get into the game?  

Well, there are a host of ways you can dig into the setting, but if you want to experience the tabletop game, i suggest 3 purchases to get started.  The Battletech Introductory Box Set (if you can find it), has all of the basic rules you need to learn how to play the game and gets you a collection of giant robots of your own to get started.  From there, the new BattleMech Manual gives you the rules you need to play more complex games with the units you have and scales up the rules to add more complexity and variety to the game.  Finally, the new Technical Readout (TRO): Succession Wars will greatly expand the units you can play with on the tabletop.  Once you have played some games and had some fun with it, change up your units a little and see what works for you.  This is a game that offers virtually unlimited options and choices for combat units, so you could literally play for years without exhausting the potential.  

Plot Traps Addendum A (World Building: Myths and Legends edition)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with another article in our Plot Traps series.  Today we’re going to take a look at Myths and Legends and how they can help you shape your world. We’ve got a buddy who runs a channel on Youtube called Terminally Nerdy who posted a video about this topic which you can find here.  One of the most important ideas he reminded me of is that you can make your myths and legends as big or as small as you need them to be, and they can work in just about any Genre of gaming (or storytelling for that matter).  Be sure to check out the video, (and like, subscribe and favorite stuff, if you found it as helpful as we did), and we’re going to dig into some thoughts and ideas about what you can do with Myths and Legends in your game.  

Plot Traps: Bad Guys Part 5 (Antagonists)

Hey Game Fans, we’re going to keep on keeping on with our discussion of Antagonists and how to get the most use of them in your adventure writing.  Every Antagonist has a specific role to play in the narrative you’re putting together. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of them gives you a leg up in finding the spot to put them and how to utilize them to maximum effect.  We’ve talked about Minions, Specialists, and Lieutenants in previous articles, so today we’re going to finish up with a discussion about Antagonists.  These are the end bosses, masters of disaster,  or world breaking tyrants.  In some cases they are background elements, like an evil overlord whose minions constantly threaten the neighboring kingdoms.  In other cases they are personal enemies that have to be dealt with in some way.  We’ve written these articles technically backwards, because we really do think you ought to start with your primary antagonist.  Once you’ve decided who or what it is, you can design the overarching scheme and figure out what lieutenants, minions and specialists you can use to build their encounter, adventure, story arc, or complete campaign.  

Plot Point 10 The Connections

I’m changing some things up with the blog and looking at a variety of new and old ideas in gaming.  I’d like to spend part of today talking about some recurring tropes and ideas that crop up in fantasy storytelling and how they can be used (and abused) in an RPG to some sort of effect.  Today’s volume is going to feature The Connections phenomenon.  There are a variety of ways this idea can be used to great effect in a fantasy rpg.  Let’s take a look at how that can work.  Further, we’re going to spend the next few weeks examining other supporting elements that characters rely on in a typical role-playing game.  As always, we hope these help you out with setting up your own adventures, campaigns and stories.

Plot Traps Volume 4

I’m changing some things up with the blog and looking at a variety of new and old ideas in gaming.  I’d like to spend part of today talking about some recurring tropes and ideas that crop up in fantasy storytelling and how they can be used (and abused) in an RPG to some sort of effect.  Today’s volume is going to feature The Hero’s Journey phenomenon.  There are a variety of ways this idea can be used to great effect in a fantasy rpg.  Let’s take a look at how that can work.

 

Op-Ed (Don't be the socially mal-adapted children you want to be)

Op-Ed

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“That’s not how that works”

“You’re rolling your dice wrong.” 

“Who the hell taught you how to play this game?”

“Your Fun is Wrong and you should feel bad for doing it that way.” 

How many times have you heard one of those thoughts escape from someone’s mouth?  How many times have you said this to someone at a shop, or your gaming table, or any of the myriad places you might end up catching a game?  Now we’re not saying there aren’t valid times and rationales that mandate correcting a mistaken rule, or checking with someone to make sure they understand the mechanics of a system.  However there are very rarely reasonable justifications to self-insert into someone’s game to “Fix Them.”

Terrain Suggestions for Multiverse Gaming

Terrain Suggestions for the Tombstone range for Multiverse Gaming Terrain

The question came up this weekend about what terrain pieces i think were missing from the Tombstone line.  After taking a look at the line, we’ve got 5 or so suggestions that will help flesh out this western town.

Thoughts on Measuring Success in the Games we play

Thoughts on Success (and the mechanics of proving it in Gaming)

 

All right Game Fans, we’re about to look at some deep thoughts about what success is as it relates to a couple of different ideas.  The first half of this we’re going to talk about how success is measured as an outcome in terms of game play.  The second half we’re going to look at the underpinnings of the statistical basis for why those are good metrics for success (unless they are bad metrics, and if they are we’ll look at why they aren’t good metrics.  Finally, we might just take a look at how similar the underlying components of game design and educational theory might be.