The Good

Most of the group was very excited for Gamma World, specifically the guys who were familiar with previous editions.  Everyone came with their creative hats on, and character creation was a blast (just as it was with our last excursion into Gamma Terra).  We had several memorable characters in the group last night, my favorites being a Seismic/Empath named Briq, who was a mutant comprised of trapped souls inside of a brick wall from a foundry, and a redneck Plant/Cockroach named Six who drives a rusty pickup truck and opts to chew anything he finds on the ground like chewing tobacco.  Six happens to have several other charming characteristics, none of which I feel like detailing in the polite company of my readers at this time.

The other players in our group presented some strong character concepts, but I will defer speaking about their qualities until another time.

The Bad / The Ugly

Once again, character creation took far too long due to the lack of multiple copies of the rulebook.  Pro Tip: think ahead and make copies of the mutant traits and powers (I wish I had!)  Our game got off to a slow start as a result, and thanks to cramped space on the Gamma World Character Sheet a few of our unfamiliar players were waning in enthusiasm by the beginning of the actual game play.  Thankfully, we were saved by the colorful characters that had been created and started things off with a “getting to know you” roundtable that got everyone re-energized.

Here’s another tip from the trenches: spend a little time with box set prior to playing with a group.  The backstory for the provided adventure is a little sparse and there’s not a great deal of motivation for the players to actually follow the plot hooks provided in the campaign preamble.  Both times I have attempted to run this story, the group had retreated into the village for information and I was left somewhat flat-footed.  Ultimately, everyone ended up in the right place and the fun could begin.  I found a few additional clunky spots in the first two encounters, but nothing a little deft DM magic couldn’t spackle over.

Conclusions

Gamma World is fun, however it didn’t seem to be everyone’s cup of tea at our gaming table tonight.  A few members of our party are definitely excited to play more, but there were an indifferent few that will be unlikely to grace Gamma Terra again for awhile.  There were a few additional moving parts in the Alpha Mutations and Omega Tech that confused or perturbed some and excited others, it was pretty interesting to see these two factions plead their case.

As with any other roleplaying game, it seems that predispositions played a big role.  Those that were excited about the game at the beginning enjoyed it, those that were lukewarm or newcomers enjoyed it markedly less.  Personally, I love the randomness of the setting and the propensity toward creative characters that can be strongly roleplayed.  That keeps me coming back. If you want to see more Gamma World coverage, check out this great review over at Geeks Dream Girl or the positively astounding amount of material at Critical-Hits (including the mysterious and powerful Junkulator!)

More soon!

This recent revival of the Gamma World game has been a very exciting happening here in Colorado, several of my cohorts ran out and bought the box set immediately but we haven’t had the collective time to actually sit down and play it.  I am a bit of a latecomer to the party, having only picked up the box set when it became apparent that the duties of actually running the game were going to fall to me.  I visited Black & Read (one of my friendly local gaming stores), grabbed the box, ripped into it and am excited that tomorrow is the big day to finally get to experience the joy, wonder, and hilarious mutations that makes Gamma World so unique.

First Impressions

The box itself is really great, with a comic styled nuclear waste motif.  The rulebook is very concise, interesting, and lighthearted bringing a lot of the irreverent  flavor of Gamma World through.  At first look, character generation appears to be a BLAST.  In fact, it is one of the things I am looking forward to most tomorrow.  The possibilities, coupled with the urging that all character generation take place by randomly rolling on a chart is a great mechanic to me.  It seems as if it will keep the players from the urge to min/max their characters, and seems to be a very creative process.

The game takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth where several realities have collapsed into one.  This causes terrible, interesting, or hilarious mutations to occur on a regular basis and has caused the rise of both high technology and strange creatures (human-sized insane rabbits, anyone?).  The provided Alpha Mutation and Omega Tech cards provide the mutagenic variety to the play experience, and have the possibility of expansion by purchasing booster packs with new mutations and tech (this seems to be completely unnecessary, but could be fun).  Basically, it seems like this game was borne directly from the brain of our good buddy Vanir.

Gameplay is based strongly on D&D 4e and presented in a format similar to the D&D Essentials line.  The stat blocks are simplified, the box comes with both maps and tokens to represent both players and bad guys, and the whole thing just looks like a lot of fun.

Tomorrow we are going to descend on our game shop, roll up some mutants, and have at the game.  Check back soon for further impressions and stories from the front!

What I Planned

The progenitor of DM Revolution, Justin (of Wombat Cast) encouraged us to be creative and go outside the box to try new concepts.  I decided that I wanted to try to run a roleplaying heavy set of sessions that included primarily Skill Challenges in lieu of combat.  I primarily used the notion of branching skill challenges to set up my plotline for these short sessions.  For tonight’s game, I had a three sets of branching skill challenges that would allow the players to pursue different avenues and two nested skill challenges.  (You can find excellent examples of how to structure branching skill challenges and nested skill challenges can be found at At-Will.)

I have never run a session with a goal of using all Skill Challenges, nor did I know if the group would be receptive to this type of game.

The Way It Went Down

The group followed only two of the “hooks” to these skill challenges directly, however they ended up at two others in a roundabout fashion.  Most of these Skill Challenges were designed to disseminate information, and one of our characters even came up with a creative “off-script” skill to use that resulted in success.  The group readily dove into roleplay, and much of the session was them interacting with both my planned NPC characters and some impromptu NPCs that they chose to interact with.

That was the best part of this experience… the players helped to write the story.  It happened that I used the revised Skill Challenge chart to allow the group to make their own encounters as they interacted with people of their choosing.  In fact, they even went into a few encounters expecting to have to fight based on the information they received during partial successes.  Thanks to not going in guns-blazing, they were able to roleplay their way to most of the rest of the available information.

The session ended up with an opportunity for a Skill Challenge that I suspected would turn to combat and it did (bandits running away from a smash/grab job are too tempting to chase).  Just as the game shop was closing, the group defeated most of the bandits (leaving one alive for questioning).  This led them to an unexpected ending for this session, but it sets up nicely for what I have planned next week.

In Conclusion

Skill Challenges are great for encouraging roleplay.  Using branching and nested skill challenges helps to outline a plot nicely, but still allows the players for enough deviation as not to feel extremely “on rails.”  I suspect some of the players tired a little of all the roleplaying, which is why I strongly recommend having some Skill Challenges that can devolve into combat if the group wants that.

I feel like we had a session that was wildly successful with mostly Skill Challenges.  The roleplaying was fun, people were laughing and creatively using their abilities and the players helped me to write the story.  A man can’t ask for much more than that!  I will be continuing down this avenue for next week’s session, but I plan to up the ante.

• Our characters began at level 11 with a small treasure parcel of gear.
• Each DM gets to run two weeks of encounters, each 1.5 hours in length.
• Creativity is encouraged in encounter design.
• It’s open to everyone, players can circulate in and out as their schedules permit.

The Campaign So Far

The campaign started out with an escape from a prison, which was later revealed to be a floating fortress guarded by a young dragon.  After exiting the compound, we traded with some roving merchants that had docked a floating boat near the edge of the cloud fortress but before we could negotiate safe passage we were attacked by young giantlike creatures.

The merchants escaped largely unscathed, but didn’t stop to take our group with them.  After wandering around the desolate floating fortresses region and nearly starving, we came across another docked floating airship inhabited by savage traders that attempted to poison and then kill us.

We got the upper hand, and succeeded in boarding and then crashing the airship into a barn outside of Waterdeep.  Last week’s encounter thwarted the owner of the barn, which was breeding demon horses for a reason not fully known. (I missed this session, so the details are unclear).

Now it’s my turn…

Starting next Wednesday, it’s my turn to pick up this strange storyline and put my own twist on it.  Our group tends to be fairly combat heavy and I have heard some complaints that there is not enough roleplaying, so I think that I want to do something more roleplay centered and skill challenge based.  The group is a very funny, raucous group of people and I feel like they’d react well to a chance to really be in character and not have to just kill things to pass the sessions.

So let’s collaborate together!  If you’ve got an interesting plot idea based on the synopsis above or some recommendations for creating short and satisfying roleplaying encounters for a group of around 6 players chime in!  I’d love to get some creative input or some advice.

For starters, I find the Weird West setting one of the more interesting settings I have come across in current roleplaying games.  It mixes fantasy with some anachronism and references to real historical figures, and this adds up to me always wanting to read more of the mythology.  It seems that in the old edition of Deadlands (which I played only briefly in college) there were several expansion books that gave the system a very rich history that evolved over time, and my hope is that they continue to do this with the new edition.

Curiosity got the best of me in this case, and I have to say I was excited (and terrified) to find that the Prairie Tick is included in the Marshal’s Handbook.  These critters provided one of the most insane total party kills that I have ever been witness to… a small group of ticks ambushed my college adventuring party and killed EVERYONE in fairly short order.  Reading through their description, not much has changed with the new edition… unfortunately it would be metagaming like mad if my current character just toted around a quart of castor oil!

This likely won’t be the last time I write about this book or our Deadlands campaign.  So far getting into Savage Worlds has been interesting, with any luck my skills at D&D Dungeon Mastering will translate well to this new setting and system.

I played “Shady” Doug Liveaux, a New Orleans huckster.  The huckster class is very interesting and still retained my favorite gameplay mechanic of the old Deadlands game: casting spells by drawing a poker hand and assessing the result.  I don’t know if they included these mechanics in the old system and we just didn’t know it, but as the game progressed we realized that you could counteract wounds with Vigor rolls.  This significantly reduced the high mortality rate that I experienced in previous incarnations of Deadlands, and you could always use Fate Chips to shake off wounds as well.  I was pleased that despite some difficult run-ins with manitou’s during spellcasting, “Shady” made it out of the night largely intact.

I enjoy the tactile experience of this game, being able to shuffle a deck of cards and play with poker chips really increased the immersion for me.  The one-sheet campaign that our DM ran us through was interesting and helped us learn the mechanics with just the right amount of storyline to follow.  Next week we’re going to generate our own characters that will carry on into an ongoing Deadlands campaign, where we will trade off the Marshalling (i.e. Dungeon Mastering) duties.

The Savage Worlds game mechanics take a bit of getting used to if you’re as used to D&D as I am, however I found it equally easy to get ramped up and learn the basics within one session as I could in D&D 4e.  I’m enjoying the change of pace, so expect to see the occasional Savage Worlds related post (perhaps some compare and contrast) as the weeks march by.

After that, it was time for our event: Roleplaying for the Severely Disturbed.

The Panel At Large for 2010:
Dave the Game, Bartoneus, Phil, and Chris from Critical Hits
Vanir, from here and Dire Flailings at Critical Hits
e from GeeksDreamGirl
Micah from Obsidian Portal
Graham from Critical Ankle Bites

As with these sessions in the past, things went quickly “off the rails” and much fun was had by all. There were so many great quotes I can’t even begin to recount them all, but I think my favorite was Phil, the Chatty DM matter-of-factly informing us not to worry and two minotaurs making love were just “stuck in a rut.” Most uncomfortable moment was e claiming that my character was her long forgotten husband, it was one of those “blushing like crazy” moments.

What I love about this game is how it comes together relatively quickly, the plot was hardly followed, and it was a riot. Just goes to show that the “say yes to your players” method of running a roleplaying game pays off. Does your minotaur want to construct a maze out of bookshelves and desks and drop a deuce in the middle? Why yes, of course he can!

I have more to say on this topic but it will have to wait until I have a proper keyboard.

Suffice it to say much fun was had by all. Thanks to all that participated!

More tomorrow!

World Building and Player Feedback

I’ve been spending more time than usual doing world-building in my campaign, including fleshing out various aspects of the political structure of my world.  Part of this is just the process that most DM’s embark upon when a campaign reaches a certain point: for me, it’s nearing the beginning of the paragon levels and we’ve all but wrapped Act I of the campaign.  Major aspects of the campaign have begun to tie up and now it’s time to unravel new campaign threads for the group to explore.

I normally enter into Act II of a campaign by taking notes from my players.  I was reviewing some game notes that I had been keeping, and came across a gem.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I was using a random name generator for a few of my NPCs in town including one of the town council-members.  Unfortunately the name that came out of the random name generator made me laugh enough to evoke questions from the group so I had to tell it and of course, that name stuck.

So now I’ve got a town council-member named Horhand.  To quote one of our players: “You really have to make him a bigger character.  I really want to call out ‘You’ve met your match now, Horhand!’”

You certainly can’t beat feedback like that.  Now the trick is going to make organically getting to a place where that scenario can happen.  By taking minor cues from your players, you can really craft the storyline in a satisfying way that they can really interact with.  Do I know what I’m going to do with Act II yet?  No.  Do I know that Horhand is going to play a part, small or large?  Yes.  The trick now is just figuring out the how, when, and why of it all.

Friday night D&D.  We’re venturing through the Howling Warrens of the Underdark.  Our first two skirmishes of the evening were brief and painless, but the two Oni we faced took a bit more out of us.  We all survived, but we definitely needed some healing.  And that’s when the crazy set in.

(Only character names are referenced to protect innocent — or not — players.)

Tali – Have you ever thought about what a healing surge looks like?  I always think of it like this. Then she demonstrated her healing surge; it involved tense muscles and grunting, and some at the table commented that she might be giving birth instead of healing.

Atka – I always think of it like the video games.  You just glow a little and feel better.

Eaerenel (me) – I imagine little stars dancing around me until I feel better.

The guys in the group neglected to comment on their image of healing surges.

In the end, even though it was a funny sort of conversation, it did get me to think.  4E has a lot of flavor text to make the technical aspects blend with the roleplaying aspect.  It’s pretty easy to imagine — and describe — how your spells looks when it hits its target or how your sword slashes through the air to harm your enemy.  Self-healing?  That’s a little harder.

If you’re looking to add a little flavor to your roleplaying, consider one of your most basic character features.  What does your healing surge look like?  Try bringing that imagery to life with your character, whether it’s with a second wind during combat or during your five-minute rest.  It’s a great little challenge that can add a extra flavor to your game.

My Current Favorite Rituals

I’m currently playing a Bard and a Wizard.  My Bard uses the Traveler’s Chant (PHB2) to help the group get from Town A to Town B a little bit faster.  It’s a handy little trick to have in your repertoire.

But my Wizard… she’s really the ritual mistress.  She used the Tenser’s Floating Disk (PHB) to avoid floor traps we were unable to disarm.  Recently, she’s taken to the magic item creation with the combination of Enchant Magic Item (PHB) and Transfer Enchantment (AV).

Adding Some Roleplay Magic

When Eaerenel the Wizard was ready to flex her item creation muscles, I wrote a little story to describe creating my Shimmering Armor (AV) using the Enchant Magic Item ritual.  Since Eaerenel specializes in fiery spells, I decided to include fiery elements in her rituals.  So in my little story, Eaerenel uses a fire as her focus during the ritual; it’s a little step beyond the book that allow me to create a unique experience for my wizard.

It was dark except in the circle of light cast by the fire.  Kalicia dance above its flames as Eaerenel sat close by, her old apprentice robes cradled in her lap.  A quite settled over the mage and her familiar, disturbed only by the faint crackles of the flames.  Eaerenel was in deep meditation, drawing out magic from the warp and weft of the universe.  Time passed, but it was irrelevant to the spellcaster in the midst of her ritual.  After nearly half an hour, a casual observer might notice motes of magic beginning to gather around Eaerenel.  If she noticed the swirl of magic gathering around her, she gave no indication.  Soon, the swirl of magic became too dense to clearly see the wizard or her phoenix.  Eaerenel tossed several pieces of gold onto the fire, and it seemed that the magical motes followed them into the flames.  Then, she tossed her old robes into the flames, but instead of burning, the robes seemed to be absorbing the magic.  Nearly an hour had passed since Eaerenel had begun her meditation, and when she opened her eyes, she lifted her new robes out of the fire.  They shimmered with the dancing patterns of a fire and soft sparkles of gold.  Eaerenel shrugged out of her journey robes and donned her new Shimmering Armor.

When Eaerenel made some Screaming Armor (AV) for the party’s Warlord, Atka, she had to use both rituals together since Screaming Armor is only available in Hide, Scale or Plate and the Warlord wears Chain.  So Eaerenel after created the armor, she used the Transfer Enchantment ritual to move it onto the Warlord’s chain.  I took a little bit of liberty with the description (after getting the DM’s approval), and instead of actually creating the armor then transferring the enchantment, Eaerenel created a ghost of the armor over her fire, then transferred the ghost’s enchantment to the chain.  Again, it was a unique combination of elements that really let me be creative with my character.

The midnight hour was the only appropriate time for this creation, for only during this timeless state of night was the darkness and despair deep enough for creating Screaming armor.  Eaerenel sat in the light of the fire, Atka just beyond the circle of illumination, waiting in the shadows.  Eaerenel was unaware of the warlord’s presence, however, as she sank deeper in to her meditation, calling the magic to her.  The swirl of magic became overwhelming before Eaerenel tossed her bounty of gold coins into the fire, and the magic flowed into the flames.

Instead of tossing the hide armor into the fire to complete the enchantment, Eaerenel held out her hands toward the flames, as if warming them.  The hide armor in her lap glowed slightly as the enchantment took shape; a ghostly twin to the hide formed in smoky lines over the fire.  When the enchantment reached its full potential, Eaerenel clapped her hands together once, and though the image over the fire vanished, wisps of smoke wrapped around her hands.  Atka stepped into the fire’s light, and Eaerenel again held her hands out, this time towards the warlord, and specifically, her armor.  Smoky tendrils extended from Eaerenel’s hands to Atka’s armor.  The chain absorbed the enchantment, and as the ritual neared its completion, screaming faces began to appear in smoky outlines.  There was no doubt now that this armor had the ability to strike fear into her enemies, and Atka grinned a wicked sort of grin in anticipation of her first chance to evoke that fear on the battleground.

So Be Creative

It’s your character, and you can be as creative as you want to be.  You don’t have to do anything special when using your rituals, but if you want to add a little extra flavor to them to align better with your character, there’s plenty of room in there for you to be a little more creative.