It's all starting to come together now...

Stupid Ranger and I are finally getting settled into our new home! Fortuitously, as if by some divine plan, I received a sales email from the guys over at Geek Chic lauding their new demi-Sultan table that will be released to the masses on November 23rd.

Cursed Consumerism!

This just threw a healthy splash of gasoline on the fire for me to plan my new gaming sanctuary at my new home. While I might not be able to afford the Sultan (unless their big reveal is more economical models!), I certainly would like some sort of a custom gaming area to inhabit with my motley band of adventurers.

The space itself needs some finishing, so once that is done I am looking ahead for some good multi-purpose ideas for using that space as a gaming/recreation area. I'm thinking a big, home-rolled whiteboard would be nice both for drawing encounters or keeping score for the ol' dart board. A more high tech solution might come along depending on how my research into multitouch surface technology goes... that may take a back burner until warmer months when I can comfortably build things outdoors again.

Other necessary components, aside from a place to rest one's butt:

• A food/drink/alcohol dispensary of some kind.
• One to many book containment units
• One to many miniature containment units
• Some sort of music system to provide some mad roleplaying tunes
• The all-important ambiance factor, meaning a place to display the ample Lord of the Rings prop/sword collection
• Some sort of glorified display for my autographed OD&D sourcebooks, perhaps with mini Gygaxian Shrine (seriously not a joke here people, I want this!)
  

I will provide updates as they develop... or when the guys at Geek Chic finally get the hint and drop ship me their newest model for... uh... review and testing purposes. Heck, I'll even take their slightly loved used equipment off their hands!

As I return from dreamland, feel free to shout out whatever random stuff that comes to mind when you think about your ideal gaming space. Coolest ideas I haven't thought of already will likely get you hugged if we ever meet IRL, and have a distinct possibility of being implemented in the final Roleplaying Dungeon!

Continuing to fly your roleplaying flag...

Amid the hail of boxes and packing paper, I found a few minutes tonight to catch up on reading the comments to last Wednesday's post on your right to be unique. Comments on that post are certainly a fascinating read and spawned off enough material to warrant another post on the matter, since many of you seem to have some valid points.

Humility replaced with shame/bravado

One of our commenters, Marty Lund, pointed out quite correctly that humility isn't something that comes commonly in our culture. This is cutting very close to exactly the point I was trying to articulate... you can take ownership of your nerdly leanings in a humble way and not defaulty replace it with shame as many of us do.

When I am approached by someone at work that notices the d20 on my desk or my "Chewie is my co-pilot" sticker in my cube, I usually just tell them plainly that I enjoy roleplaying games (yes, like D&D) and I let the conversation unfold. Usually they don't throw holy water on me and cast my demons out, nor do they laugh and tease me... in fact, most folks that I work with have at least tried roleplaying or know someone that is into it well enough to have some context, and it turns out to be a good conversation.

I will admit to being a little pumped up from watching a certain president-elect speak when I wrote the last post, but I really am not advocating you jump up on your chair at work, cite page 32 of the OD&D sourcebook, put on a towel as a cape and run around your cube to show how much you're into the roleplaying nerd genre. In the end, I'd just be happy if we fought a little bit against that common (but not universal) reaction to self-deprecate.

That being said: I really wouldn't MIND if you did the things I mentioned above. :)

For the record: yes, Anonymous, I am married. To Stupid Ranger (the person, not the site) and luckily she's as much of a nerd as I am!

Thanks to everyone who commented on the last post, the intelligent discourse was certainly refreshing!

Visiting the Archives: Travelling...

This Behind the Screen piece was posted in a much simpler time before Stupid Ranger and I were cast across the country for my day job. We are in the process of unloading boxes at the moment, so please feel free to sup at the banquet of this post while we figure out which drawer gets our silverware and which one gets our character sheets.

Enjoy!

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originally posted by Dante on 10/13/2007

This weekend the StupidRanger crew is heading out of town and that got me to thinking: how does everyone handle traveling long distances? I would like to recount one failed attempt on my part and open up the floor to obvious criticism and comments.

Rollin', rollin', rollin' (wheels, not dice!)

In one of our recent campaigns, the party was tasked with traveling across country to locate pieces of an important artifact. It was all fun and games for awhile, I had a few episodic encounters put together for them to experience along the way and I augmented that with a few random encounters.

Even though the encounters fit into the landscape (feral wildlife and whatnot), eventually both the players and I tired of the encounters. They still had a long way to travel, and having already established this as a "dangerous" territory it didn't stand to reason that they would be able to travel unmolested for a week or more.

How not to see the coastal plains on just three gold pieces a day.

Eventually, I ended up giving up and in the best interest of the players I handwaved a fair portion of the rest of the travel. I wasn't very satisfied with this as a DM, I felt as if I should have come up with a more interesting way to transport them across hill and dale without just nixing the "dangerous" aspect of the terrain. The group ended up getting from Point A to Point B and things quickly picked back up once they were wired back into the plot, I suppose a good solution would've been not to establish plot points half of the coastal lands away.

Has anyone else run into this difficulty before? If so, how do you quickly move your group without having a random wizard show up and teleport them where they need to be conveniently?

You have the right to be unique!

I have recently arrived in my new office environment here in Colorado, and there have been more than a few introductions and "getting to know you" type of moments. I am constantly amazed at the number of people that charactarize themselves as being "kind've a nerd" in a given hobby or interest, and the associated sheepishness or shame that comes along with having interests.

You have the right to be unique!

This statement can apply to so many different areas... but you have the right to be unique in your roleplaying or gaming interests, in your choice of characters, even in the systems you play or the modifications you made to said systems. That is one of the lures that makes the roleplaying game space so interesting to me... it is almost always up for interpretation and modification.

Why do nerds always feel ashamed?

It is your right and duty to engage in your roleplaying games, video games, systems, friendships, and interests in whatever way you desire, and it has constantly puzzled me why gamer nerds have this near universal shame that goes along with their interests. I've even seen it spill over into professional areas like computer programming and graphic communications. People seem to want to distance themselves from their passions and skills and I have never understood why.

Me? I'm a nerd and I'm proud of it. I like roleplaying, computer programming, and Heroes. I think it is time that we collectively stand up and embrace our nerdly leanings!

Who's with me?

Visiting the Archives: The Evolution of Your Character

Today is my first day living in Colorado for good, and as a result I got to experience the opening of a new chapter in my own life. For these reasons and more, I decided to look into the archives to find discussion on growing and evolving ones character so I could relate all of this real life change with the changing "life" of your roleplaying characters.

I found this excellent piece written by our very own Stupid Ranger on exactly that topic, I hope you enjoy it! Stupid Ranger and I will be undergoing a significant amount of change over the coming weeks, and as we get adjusted we will augment our new content with some of our favorite archived posts, of which this is one. Enjoy!

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Originally posted on 8/28/2007 by Stupid Ranger


As your character gains experience and continues to explore the great wide world, you may notice the need to evolve. Not to worry, it's completely normal for your character to evolve. There have been many, many campaigns in which I developed a character only to realize that some facet of my character doesn't fit with the group dynamics.

Evolution for the Good of the Many

I originally intended for Skythorn to be more of a background character, there for the battles but nearly invisible during NPC interactions. However, the realization that Lumbar had a tendency to make things more... chaotic meant that Skythorn had to take a more hands-on approach with some NPC's to ensure the party survived the interaction long enough to actually accept the quest. Skythorn did became more of a negotiator and spokesperson than I had originally planned, but she didn't go out and introduce herself to everyone in town or seek additional attention. She evolved for the good of the party without betraying the underlying Skythorn-ness that made her unique.

Evolution for your Own Sanity

Recently, I found myself in another situation in which my original character concept was in contrast with the rest of the group. We started a new campaign, and I build a multi-class Fighter/Cleric since most of the rest of the group were not combat-types. I didn't have a lot of time to develop my backstory , so I fell back on one of the classics: country bumpkin. Silvia was from an unknown outlying community, brought to the group because she could offer support in battle and with healing; she didn't appear to be highly educated and seemed very naive. Unfortunately, the rest of my group all hadbackstories placing them in wealthy families from town or other lines of nobility. My country bumpkin just wasn't working out, and it was making life difficult for me to keep Silvia on good terms with the rest of the group. So, when we were dismissed from our meeting with the king's representative, I dropped the hokey accent and explained to the rest of the group that while I was from a small community, I only played the "simple country lass" around the authority figures to avoid having to deal with their stupidity. She now has two personae: one for the bureaucrats and one for the group.

Evolve Modestly and Logically

If you're having difficulties with something about character after a few sessions, try examining the problem. If it's just that the guy across the table has decided that his character will be in perpetual conflict with yours, nothing you do will change that. However, if your character's personality could be tweaked for the better good (where better good = you having more fun), start identifying a few small steps that would improve your character. Once you've decided on a change, don't just stand up and announce your intentions; find some in-game roleplaying opportunities to introduce your newly evolved character traits.

I do believe, however, that you shouldn't change just for the sake of changing. Evolution doesn't just occur because everything is going great; some catalyst sparks change for the best. Examine the circumstance. Review your character's personality, backstory, profession, race. Take a look at everything carefully before deciding if you really need to change. Then, if you feel that a slight evolution would be for the best, start planning how to implement that change. Remember, this is all about having fun, and if you're not having fun, maybe it's time to change.

Visiting the Archives: Roleplaying Pitfalls...

Last year, our good buddy Vanir created a truly excellent thread on Roleplaying Pitfalls. I would like to present the first installment wherein he examines schtick and its effect on your roleplaying experience.

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Originally Posted on 10/7/2007 by Vanir-

In a lot of gaming groups I've played in, it's not an unusual occurrence for eyes to roll and mumbles of "damn it, not again" to be overheard when somebody decides to roleplay. Frequently, this is because the would-be roleplayer has decided to do something stupid and/or outrageous in the name of roleplaying. Having put much more emphasis on roleplaying in the last several years, I think I've figured out a major reason why -- and how to minimize its effects.

Schtick
When some people roleplay, it's more like they're following a list of unchangeable rules they've established for their character. They're dedicated to "fighting evil" and that's what they do no matter what.The worst example of this is the dreaded "attack on sight" mentality.

I've also seen a lot of people who think a particular concept would be funny and that's their character's schtick for the whole campaign. For instance, their character is afraid of rats so they'd make a big five minute deal about checking for rats under every snowbank if they were in the middle of the Arctic tundra. These kind of characters seem to me like the player is telling a joke that takes six months or more to tell -- but the punchline still makes everybody roll their eyes. It wouldn't be so bad if this was something this character does somewhat regularly in the course of roleplaying, but when it happens without fail, even during battle, it is murder-inspiringly annoying.

You've probably figured out by now that I'm not crazy about this particular brand of roleplaying. Either the characters just get irritating or the players do things that cause things to go horribly wrong "because that's what their character would do". Like charging a dozen orcs all by yourself with a first level wizard.

Of course, there are always the characters that you didn't mean to end up this way. These are the ones that you've honestly set out to roleplay fully, but either the concept didn't work out as well as you'd hoped or the setting changes or doesn't allow you to do what you had planned. And you end up doing the same thing over and over and over and getting bored. Bat Loaf is a very good example of this -- he was a ton of fun to play for the first 5-6 sessions. The problem with Bat was that there were many, many roleplaying opportunities well-suited for him in the beginning and it was fun because his misadventures would spill over into what the other players were doing and vice versa. As the story progressed these roleplaying encounters dried up in favor of Major Plot Events -- but there was still an inn, booze, and women in every town we'd travel to. Eventually the cycle of "go to inn, get drunk and find chick, run away, occasionally Inspire Courage +2 in combat" got old. For everyone, since it meant splitting the party pretty much every single session. And it just got boring for me.

Intentional or not, the problem with schtick is that it eventually gets in the way. One-trick PC's are either a direct hindrance to the game for everyone, or they just aren't fun anymore after awhile.


The Cure

I think schtick comes from three sources: lack of imagination, laziness, and an inability to sense danger. A little effort goes a long way when making your character. And the reason the other players get irritated when a Schticky player does things is because he's not playing the same game they are anymore. He's playing his own and doesn't care about the consequences for everyone else. Which makes them want to hurt him.

Here's a few ways to avoid personal bodily injury:

• Well-Developed Characters
  Well-developed backstory and character motivations and schtick don't mix. They cannot exist together. A well-developed character with a frequent quirk is fine - it's just a personality trait and doesn't define the character. The difference? A one-trick PC is that same quirk armed with a battleaxe.


• Acknowledge That Your Character Has Intelligence
  Your character REALLY hates orcs. Your character is also, in most cases, an experienced warrior. They know it's dumb to face a dozen orcs alone. Instead of attacking them all, think of strategies. You might even use (gasp) TEAMWORK. Or decide that you could do more damage later if you live to fight another day. Most one-trick PC's are roleplayed as if their INT was about 6 or 7. Their INT scores are probably much higher, which means they wouldn't think in such simplistic terms as "ORC! BOB SMASH NOW!". Act smarter than that, and make your PC's act smarter than that.


• Change Things Up
  Nothing says your PC can't change if it's not working as planned. Hell, an emotional crossroads makes for a good roleplaying excuse. Incidentally, that's how I saved Bat Loaf from one-trick PC hell -- I married him off, got him some new abilities, and had him start a bardic rock academy / militia. All of a sudden the old boring stuff became backstory for me to build on and he's fun again.

Hopefully, this will significantly decrease the number of eye-rolls at your gaming table. Have you had problems with Schtick in your gaming group? We'd love to hear them, and how you deal with it.

In the next installment of Roleplaying Pitfalls, I'll talk about another issue plaguing today's modern roleplayer: the dreaded Spotlight Hog!

Until next time....

<evil laughter>

Oh wait, wrong column. My bad!

Constantingly spiraling to new heights...

The weather is starting to turn cold here in Central Illinois, and on a slightly brisk walk out to my car I mused for a moment about how great it would be if I didn't care about what the weather was doing. We happen to be in an area that constantly gets hit by tornados over the summer and we tend to get several bad snowstorms a year that are generally quite inconvenient.

Constantly heightening...

For no particular reason, I started thinking about weather effects in the D&D campaigns that I have ever been in. In the sessions that I have run, I tend to like to use weather to color a scene and not generally as the main focal point of a game, however I have often run into the problem of how to introduce weather as being significant when it hasn't been to your characters up to this point.

This problem is compounded by the fact that as characters get higher and higher in level, they tend to be less and less concerned about environmental factors to their adventures. You could always cop out and make some sort of "killer storm" crop up that does 20d6 lightning bolts, but that just seems a little tired and obvious.

The only sessions that I have been truly impressed by the use of weather as a plot point happened to be a seafaring adventure that we did. The DM essentially made a terrible storm that just hung around and kept getting progressively worse, until it spawned elementals for the group to do battle with. The combination of setting, urgency (if we didn't get off the ship, it was going to sink into the middle of the ocean), and appropriate use of weather-based creatures made this scene a real winner in my mind.

I would love to hear some other success stories where DMs (or players) have used weather to augment a story in a organic, meaningful way. I tend to struggle with this as a DM, hopefully the comments will generate some great new ideas!

Dealing with dramatic stress...

As a side-effect from our relocation proceedings, I have been One Stressed Out Dude. Last night as I sat on my couch waiting in vain for some of Fox's Animation Domination to be funny, I was thinking about stressful situations and how they play out during your standard D&D campaign.

The Dramatic Stress

The first stressful situation I would like to discuss is that of the dramatic stressor. The dramatic stressor is any scenario engineered explicitly to be stressful for the characters. This could be a dramatic plot moment, a tough decision to make, or some other storyline element that requires the players to choose between A and B. (I usually pick A, as a general rule.)

With this approach, you must engineer a way to foster roleplaying as a foundation for the stress and the decision making process. I have had several DM's employ a DECIDE NOW! mechanism of compelling overly thoughtful players into making a snap decision, but I find this approach only limitedly effective for keeping the storyline moving.

Yes, that's amplifying the stress levels felt by the players, but in reality there is a certain amount of thought that goes into your standard character response as it comes from a player. "What would Randor the Magician do in this situation? Wasn't his mother eaten by boars and wouldn't being commanded to feed the pigs be very offensive to him?" and so on.

Stress can help build a cohesive group.

If you can engage your entire group in the decision making process, the dramatic stressor can really turn into a teambuilding experience for your roleplaying group. It is a tool that can be used effectively quite often, so long as you're not forcing your characters into making a decision that they won't benefit from in some way. Keep in mind - plot advancement is a benefit, sometimes as much as treasure or experience!

I'm giving away the big secret!! (Steal this idea.)

During a recent discussion with my lovely co-host Vanir, we got on the topic of the exceeding amount of "regular life as relating to roleplaying" posts that we've done over our time in our tiny little corner of the Internets.

I find the process of relating roleplaying to other areas of life a pretty natural fit. In fact, if you sit back and think about it pretty much all roleplaying decomposes into social interaction and imagination... two cornerstones of most of our lives. I think that in part this realization gave rise to the Great Roleplaying Blogger Boom of 2007, bringing you such greats as Critical Hits, Musings of a Chatty DM, DungeonMastering and others, but it also provides you a very useful all-purpose tool for improving your pencil and paper roleplaying experience.

Step One: Think about the social or creative dynamics of your life.
Step Two: Think of an aspect of your roleplaying game (could be anything, really).
Step Three: See how #1 and #2 interact with one another.

This will lead you to some interesting notions about how to make better characters and build better (or more believable) roleplaying settings, and might even inspire you to take up the digital pen and write your own thoughts.

Good thoughts, like good tape, stick together and if you are so compelled to share your insights with others you might quickly find yourself interacting with our very own blogging community and sharing your own perspectives!

So there you have it. This is a fair measure of my creative process that I use to write my posts every other day, the big secret is out.

Allow me to pose and then answer a few questions:

Q. Does that mean I'm going to change my process?
A. Maybe, but probably not for awhile.

Q. Does this mean that I will cease writing posts using this formula?
A. Heck no, it seems to do pretty well for us so far!

Q. Will you link me if I do steal your idea and start my own blog?
A. Probably, if your stuff is any good (and linking us back too would be nice).

I seriously enjoy considering roleplaying games and how they can impact and be impacted by the way we live our lives. I am historically bad at starting trends like this, but it would be kind've neat if any of my inspired blogging cohorts give this process a try and link back to your resulting post (preferably in the comments for easy tracking).

I'd be interested to see how others interpret roleplaying as life!

Meeting a new cast of characters...

This week was my first week at my new job in Colorado, however we are not entirely moved out there yet. Most of this week was steeped in the pleasantries of meeting new teammates, managers, and hangers-on and it offered me a unique opportunity to reflect on how these interactions play out both in real life and in roleplaying.

First impressions matter.

The words you choose to introduce characters to one another can really influence the dynamic of their first interaction. If a given character selected slightly more threatening words or a passive tone of aggression, they might be welcomed differently than they would if the person was overtly friendly.

I found that in my (boring ol') Real Life, the experience I have in roleplaying really helps me identify when my impressions are getting colored by the words people choose and the tone that they take with me. This doesn't prevent me from making my first impression, it just helps to give a little additional perspective.

You can't underestimate that 'click'.

As I began interacting with my new work team, a few people instantly 'clicked' with me. The intangible connection that you feel with some like-minded people can really go a long way if you don't resist it in your roleplaying games. Some good advice I can give to prevent artifical damaging of those inherent connections is not to typecast your NPCs.

Let them have shades of grey and personality quirks that will endear them with the players. Capitalize on those connections as they occur and don't resist them just because you had a certain idea in your head when you made that character. Let them grow and evolve just like player characters and they will serve your storytelling much better than the alternative railroaded NPC.

The main takeaway from this discussion is to let characters be characters, regardless of who is running them. Let their interactions and first impressions occur, and then evolve as the characters grow. You'll end up forging some strong character relationships that will serve you all throughout your campaign!

Behind the Screen: Memento Mori...

Memento Mori is a Latin phrase that means "Remember that you must die." It has been used since ancient times to remind people of their own mortality, and I recently ran across this discussed by the always beautful Cory Doctorow in reference to a pinhole camera made from a human skull featured on BoingBoing earlier in the week.

Mortality is an important part of your campaign.

As a Dungeon Master, I really don't like killing my players that much. It is, however, a required aspect of a good campaign... mortality should be a very dramatic thing. This could spiral off into a discussion about how balanced or unbalanced raising the dead is in D&D, but that's not what I'm after today.

Today, I want to talk about various ways to remind your players that they are mortal.

The trick is simply to kill, poison, or otherwise terrorize them.

You can use disease, curses, or even temporary death (he's only MOSTLY dead!) to reinforce that your Level 3 players are not immortal gods among men. Gravely injure them from time to time. Make them walk around with their arm off looking for someone that can restore the damage. Give them a particularly nasty poisonous creature to deal with. Kill them once in awhile, preferably in a way that they would be somewhat satisfied with (for example, no fighter wants to die by getting hit in the head with a rock after winning a battle.)

The beauty of the D&D rules is that most of these things are not permanent, unless you wish to make some special rules to make them so. Restorations and resurrections are only as common as the characters that have the skills to cast them. If used sparingly while the player characters are too young to resolve these issues themselves, you can get all of the drama from a system designed to make these devastating events temporary.

Why is this important again?

Because, quite simply, drama is what makes good campaigns. If you are dead set against giving your player characters setbacks, you can apply these rules to some NPC that becomes close to the players in some way, but they must be VERY invested roleplayers in order for this to make much of a difference.

If you spare the pain and suffering, your campaign will quickly be like playing a video game cutscene. Even if the building blows up, you know the next level hasn't loaded yet and the game isn't over, so something will happen to make the player characters be ok. If you bail them out every single time, they will start taking ridiculous risks (sometimes subconsciously) because they know you'll bail them out of it.

This takes skill and guts to pull off correctly, so best of luck to you all. Memento mori!

Non-Transient Adventuring?

All this talk (and effort) surrounding moving has made me think about the transient nature of adventuring. It seems that in all of our campaigns, our adventuring parties are travellers that must seek out pieces to the puzzle, explore mysterious corners of the world, or otherwise save the world.

The Reasons, they are many...

It turns out that I am fairly lazy when it comes to planning my sessions. On the occasion that I do plan, crack a sourcebook and research a setting, I find it difficult to come up with street level maps, tavern names, a local government, and the like.

This is why I stick close to impromptu world-travelling type campaigns. I only need a few key facts to make those scenarios work, and I don't get stumped by the unplanned questions that come inside of a city setting. Is there a bank? Is the mayor's wife hot? Is there a place I can research Guatemalan insanity peppers? and so on.

Aside from online tools to help flesh out this type of information, what tips do you use to plan a city-based or non-travelling campaign? Is there any thought processes that you go through to drum out some of these obvious questions, and how to do handle it when your players want to go somewhere "off-script" that you haven't accounted for?

In the past I have attempted to keep a general "city campaign ideas" notebook to capture episodes of city-based content that could be dropped in, but I tend to rope myself into a certain topology that tends to prevent me from executing these ideas. Any advice would be appreciated!

Regarding pointless grinding...

As previously mentioned, Stupid Ranger and I are preparing for a cross-country move. As a result, I've been forced to burn a few of my precious, precious personal days to prepare our current home for sale. The last two days of my life have been consumed by pointless repetitive tasks.

As a result, I decided to write for a few moments regarding the process of doing pointless repetitive tasks in games as a means to build skill, earn rewards, and roleplay. In many video games I have played, this process is known as grinding.

I might be biased, but I hate this.

In my case, I am grinding not to gain experience but for a monetary reward and to advance the plot of my life. The nicer the house looks, the faster it will sell, hopefully for more money. In roleplaying games, I have played in several systems that rewarded grinding a certain task to build skills (like fletching, masonry, or forging) or to gain rewards (sweep the floor one thousand times and you get a pass to join the thieves guild).

The particular game I'm talking about here is a MUD that I used to play named Gemstone IV. I loved this MUD, however I fell quickly out of love with the fact that many of its systems are built on grinding a task and then resting while your experience absorbed (the time at which it would actually be applied to your experience total). As the years went on, they attempted to tweak their system to allow much more of a constant flow of experience and skill building, but it grew too much for me.

How to avoid this

In my games, I tend to do a few things when tempted to present my players with a long task to "build character". Firstly, don't do it. Make discrete tasks equal rewards whenever possible, doing a certain task one thousand times is just going to be annoying and tiresome to the vast majority of players. Secondly, if you must force your players to grind make it a skill challenge. That at least gives some interactivity and randomness to their success.

Finally, if you are bent on forcing them to do a task in a repetitive manner give them the opportunity to roleplay while they do it, or do a cinematic storytelling moment where you explain that your players spent the next two weeks sweeping the floor and on the other side they are tired, weary, and have their invite to the thieves guild.

If anyone has experienced a satisfying experience grinding a task, please share your experience with us in the comments. If you hate it, let's hear from you too, I'd be happy to spearhead the International No More Grinding Society. Maybe if I gave that name more than three seconds of thought I could've made a cooler acronym.

Oh well, I've got painting to do. *sigh*

Gaming with too much baggage, epilogue...

Last week, I lamented my position of having too many old gaming books and paraphernalia laying around. We ended up with a box full of loot that we needed to dispose of, and I was none-too-picky about what we got out of it.

No Longer Trapped in the Closet

I made a cursory trip to my local game shop, Gamers' Sanctuary. The nice lady behind the desk informed me that they would be happy to put up a "FREE" sign on my box of loot, but I could probably get a little bit out of it on their used rack. She recommended that I come back later on to speak with another team member who knew how to price things appropriately and they would help us.

So yesterday, SR and I made the trek back to the game shop, lousy with our box of old 3.0 D&D books, my previously mentioned and unfortunately maligned Deadlands, a Mage: The Awakening sourcebook that was never played (sadly), and some miscellaneous Gamecube games that hadn't seen the light of day in a long time and the system to play them on (replaced with a Wii). Amazingly, they did some math and gave us $71 in store credit!!

I informed them I would be spending that store credit RIGHT NOW and picked up the new Forgotten Realms sourcebook for D&D 4.0 and two boxes of Against the Giants miniatures. Stupid Ranger practiced her awesome skills in divining cool gaming stuff and we pulled a Fire Titan out of one miniatures box, pretty neat stuff!

So whoever provided the advice to take my stuff down the FLGS, THANK YOU! We converted a whole box of crap that we never play with into a shiny new sourcebook and miniatures that we certainly will play with. We also reduced one box down to almost no cargo space, so that will help with the reduction in stuff initiative!

There is still the matter of what to do with the Magic collection, but I'm going to save that topic for another day. The jury is still out!

Gaming with too much baggage...

Stupid Ranger and I have been emptying out old college boxes, closets, etc to offload excess garbage. Several days into the assess and pitch cycle, I have been made painfully aware that I have a lot of baggage. In this case, by baggage I mean "stuff" not "emotional problems." The latter is a topic for another place and time.

Trapped in the closet

In boxes that have been lodged in my closet for the four years that we have been in our current home I found the likes of gaming magazines, old sourcebooks, promotional HeroClix (which I don't collect), comic books, DC comic cards, Magic: the Gathering... the list goes on. If anyone has any bright ideas how to archive, accurately price, and sell a large set of Magic: the Gathering I would love to hear it, since that is one of my main collections that I would just as soon do without.

While we were preparing for this year's GenCon, we even found a few bags which had some items purchased on the sales floor last year, pristine and unused. About the only thing that I have identified that I can't find and want to are wire blast radii that we purchased from a vendor two or three years ago. With the advent of 4e and its miniature centric battle rules, those would come in handy.

How does everyone else handle the clutter of gaming lives past? Do you give your stuff away, sell it, just keep it on a shelf longingly dreaming of games unfulfilled? Do you go through an internal evaluation process before buying something new to enhance your gaming? Once again, inquiring minds want to know!

My evolving stance on miniatures...

As previously mentioned, I have had some difficulty mixing miniatures into my gaming experience. My arguments were varied, usually focusing on my own nature toward perfectionism but the fact of the matter remains: Fourth Edition is more easily adopted with miniatures in tow.

This has forced me to change my stripes a bit and have another look at minis and their role in our gaming experience.

Best shown by good examples

Thanks to our good buddies over at Critical Hits and one Chatty DM, I had a very positive experience playing D&D with miniatures at GenCon this year. Phil did a great job at weaving them into the campaign setting and made a very good move at pre-selecting miniatures that closely matched the player characters that he rolled up.

Obviously, utilizing the abilities in 4e that dealt with range, spaces, and areas of effect were much more easily executed in this manner versus a descriptive, non-miniature fashion. That's what the new system was designed to do.

Combine that good experience with the fact that the new set, Against the Giants, has some way cool huge miniatures and I was sold. I picked up my first booster and got a Death Titan and a Young Adamantine Dragon, both of which just plain rule. I don't know how often (if at all) I will actually play the minatures game, but I will certainly start to find ways to use them in my campaigns from here on out.

My advice to those against miniatures: find someone that uses them effectively and ask them to run you through a one-off to show you how much faster and more intuitive a game can be with them! If that doesn't turn you on, just have a look at them! What self respecting gamer can go without a small replica of a beholder to put on your desk? I KNOW I CAN'T!

Does anyone know good resources for buying/selling miniatures and the rarities in each of the WotC sets? Inquiring minds want to know!

Behind the Screen: Loving the one you're with...

While at GenCon this year, I got into several conversations about the breadth and concentration of new gaming options on the sales floor this year. As in past years, offerings ran the gamut from new pencil and paper RPGs, board games, video games, and even a few non-RPG games as well.

I was tasked with selecting a game for one of my coworkers in order to introduce his kids to roleplaying style gaming, so I opted for Atlas Games' "Once Upon a Time" which aims to introduce storytelling gaming via a card game where players attempt to use the cards in their hand to devise a storyline. I figured this would be a conservative, non-threatening way to get the kids into free-form storytelling and it should act as a gateway to more traditional roleplaying style games, but time will tell.

An Abundance of Options

As I was searching for this card game, it struck me that it is easy to experience option overload. So many games, so many modules, so many additions... it is great to have options, but as I have mentioned in the past our group is somewhat change resistant so I tend to stick with a familiar system and setting for our games.

It is for this reason that I usually don't leave the convention each year with a truckload of new games, modules, or other miscellanea. Chances are fairly good that we just plain won't make the leap into a new setting consistently enough to justify the expense, which is also the reason that I don't really frequent our local brick and mortar gaming store as often as I should. I have most of the materials that I need to game with and don't need to purchase much extra to keep the fun times a-rollin'.

One oft-cited example of the change resistance of our group is our limited attempt at a Deadlands campaign. I played this game while in college for the first time and was enamored with the spellcasting mechanics (which used a poker hand to determine success) and the alternative history Western theme was interesting as well. It only lasted a few sessions in our current gaming group, they just didn't feel it as much as I did.

The moral to this story is twofold: be sensitive to the enjoyment level of your gaming group as you introduce new games, and do a cost to benefit analysis before you go buying a ton of new gaming supplements at a convention.

If you have a group that is able to switch focus to different games, how do you pace the introduction of new stuff? Do you do a one-shot session and build on it if the group likes the game? Inquiring minds want to know!