RPGaDay Continues, also some game notes

Running Feng Shui in a while and need to take a couple of notes, but first:

Your Best Source of Inspiration for RPGs: My favorite source of inspiration is the players. I love collaborative games where we get to design elements of the setting together, for a couple of reasons. One is that I'm getting older, I don't have time and spoons like I used to, and that lets me offload some of the work on the players.

But the other reason is that if we design a setting, and you come up with a particular faction or tavern or magic form or whatever, I know damn well you're gonna remember it if I use it in play. It's one thing to ask the players what they want, it's another thing to let them design the shit they want and then hand it to you.

And now, my Feng Shui players should stop reading, but everybody else can come along.

Night's Black Agents: Discussion, then Explosion

EDIT: Forgot I was behind on my #RPGaDay2016 posts. Let's just slot that in!

What Game is Your Group Most Likely to Play Next? Why? Ooh, I like these questions. Well, I have several groups, but the one that's likely to be switching up is my Monday group. Presently we're alternating between Feng Shui and Marvel Heroic, but Michelle is going away for a few weeks soon, so I don't want to play without her. So I think the plan is: Play Feng Shui tomorrow and end our current story arc, play Marvel Heroic for the next two weeks and finish that Event up, and then play...something else for three weeks while she's gone.

But what? I had been thinking Chariot because I need to review it, but I dunno. I need to read it and see if that's something my group would enjoy. Iron Edda is another possibility because it's Fate (which my players know) and it's a lot of fun; I played it at Origins and it worked really well as a one-shot, so we could totally make it a three-session game with no trouble.

What Makes a Successful Campaign? Collaboration. Games, campaign or otherwise, don't work unless everyone's invested. That means everyone shows up, pays attention, contributes, gives feedback, and keeps up with the events of the game, not just defaults to "my character, my character, my character."

Your Dream Team of People You Used to Game With: Oh, wow. It really depends what we're playing. I've had some fantastic players who couldn't figure out mechanics and didn't try, but were amazing roleplayers. But I think I need to pick a game before I can pick a dream team. Let's go with Misspent Youth, just because it's something my players from back in the day would have found fun. Picking five people from people I'm not currently gaming with, I'd want +Jacob Green, +Tom Trent (that's a bit of fudge, since he's local and plays occasionally, but he's not in any of my ongoing games), +Chris Horvath, +Kimmaree Horvath, and +Carrie Harris. That'd be a fun game, I think.

GenCon 2016: There Isn't Really a Theme

First thing's first.

What Gamer Most Affected the Way You Play? Ooh, good question. There are a lot of possible answers here. I think I've gotta say Harvey. Harv was a guy I met in Toledo, and I would up playing in his weird-ass World of Darkness homebrew thing. My buddy Mike played a werewolf, I played an elder vampire (I mentioned Nehemiah a couple of posts ago), another guy played a reformed Progenitor clone, there were a couple of mages, a dragon, a Gaki vampire...it was wild.

But the takeaway here was the value of patience as a GM. Harv was willing to let the world unfold as it would, to let players' plans work (this is huge, guys), and to play his NPCs appropriate, but with an eye toward how the PCs' arcs worked. Also, he shut up and listened while the players were talking in-character.

Right. And now, GenCon.

Tuesday

We left on Tuesday. I don't have any pictures. We drove separately this year; I drove the big honkin' Uhaul truck and +Michelle drove the car with her boys. Driving, nothing much to report. 

Wednesday

Now we're talking! Wednesday was "set up the freaking booth" day. 

But first, Patachou.

Setting up the booth was easer with help, and we had a bunch of IGDN-ers and their respective spouses, partners, and so on to help us unload the truck, get the gridwall up and lashed together, and so forth. 

Here's one "larval-stage booth" shot.

So that took a few hours, and then once that was done, we had to skeddadle over to Loughmiller's for the annual IGDN social. Fun fact: This is the first time I've actually attended. The first year I was hanging out with +Renee Ritchie instead and the second year I was running a Chill game. This year I was there from the get-go...only to have POTS flare up and render me largely unable to talk for a lot of it due to brain fog. Fuuuuuuu

So anyway. 

I just like this picture of She-Hulk.

Thursday

I spent a lot of time in the booth this con. Ordinarily I work a few booth-hours at GenCon, but I keep my schedule a little freer to restock stuff as it sells and otherwise put out fires. Due to a couple of last-minute drop-outs from booth staff, however, I wound up in the booth more than I planned, which is actually fine. I like working the booth, I know a lot of the games IGDN sells (because I run 'em to review 'em), and it means that folks who want to find me have an easier time of it. 

All to say I have some booth-working-pictures? I do not. Here are some gnomes. 

This game is called Oh Gnome You Didn't. I'm not making that up.

I did get to play in my one-and-only game (as a player) on Thursday, too! My homie +Jonathan Lavallee was running Critical! Go Westerly. I've had a copy of Critical! for a while; I think I even read it, but to really get a sense of a game you need to play it. It's a fantasy game that lampoons a bunch of standard fantasy RPG tropes (we found our quest from an old wizard in a tavern, f'rex). I played a dwarf named Ulrist Axebeard, who's tall for a dwarf (and thus his family armor doesn't quite fit). Our hearty trio (me, a wizard, and a thief) went off in search of ingredients to make the young duke's birthday cake. In the process we set fire to a rich person's mansion and I wrote WANKERS on the lawn in burning peat. Good times. My grade: A

Our hearty, blurry, band of brothers.

Then I had to zip off and run Chill. I ran Black Diamond, which I'll write up for the site one of these days. I had a full table, mostly full of people who'd played older versions of Chill, which was fine, except for one little issue. 

I bring pre-gens for Chill (chargen takes too long to do at the table at a con), and normally I shoot for gender parity; three men, three women (I do have a nonbinary pre-gen character who shows up in SAVE, incidentally, but they weren't a good fit for this scenario). Anyway, I was playing with the lineup for this game and I screwed up the parity and wound up with four women and two men. This by itself isn't a huge problem, I wouldn't think, except that my table of mostly men would make comments about how many "chicks" there were on this mission. I finally had to tap the X-card on the table and say "look, there's a word for female humans, and it's not 'chick.'" I think I probably took a couple of the dudes aback.

But the game itself went pretty well; this particular scenario lends itself to a little intra-party tension and infighting, and they picked up on that. In the end, no one died, they escaped with their lives, and everyone said they had fun, so I'll call it a win. 

Chill Third Edition: On sale now!

And then I went and hung out with Michelle and Nicole, and immediately started to feel sick because I'd been sitting for eight hours and POTS can go fuck itself. Fortunately, that would be the last time during the con that it hit me. 

Friday

Friday morning I was supposed to go play in a game of TimeWatch, but I was still feeling off from the night before and I had a bunch of booth-things to take care of, so I skipped it. If you're the GM, sorry about that, I really did want to play. 

That left me with a little free time, though, so I could do booth-stuff at leisure, buy a pack of wet-erase markers (since I forgot mine), and get ready for my afternoon game of curse the darkness. Before that, however, I saw a woman cosplaying not just as Leela from Futurama, but as two-eyed Leela from "The Cyber House Rules." 

By the end of today, one of us is gonna have one eye.

Anyway, I don't run curse the darkness often anymore; pretty much just once a year at GenCon. But a couple of the folks playing were fans, which made me very happy. The setup this year was interesting; the characters were in Alaska and were trying to find out what happened to the community there; they'd all up and disappeared. More of a horror setup than I usually run, but it fell together nicely. 

I also gave away the last of the t-shirts. 

And then we headed back to the hotel to catch a shuttle over to a tapas restaurant. While waiting we saw some fun Peter Pan cosplay:

Please clap.

But then tapas, conversation, ranting about shit with Danielle and various other awesome folks. And then back to the hotel for sleep. 

Saturday

Now, this was weird. Saturday I was free. Like, I had a panel in the morning but otherwise no commitments, so Saturday was shopping day. I got up early and went to the Bee for coffee...

Which, like most business in Indy, knows exactly what side the bread is buttered on.

The panel was "What is Dark Eras?," referring, of course, to the massive book just released from Onyx Path. I was the project coordinator, so I basically herded the cats on the book. The panel was fun; we got to talk about research and the new anthology of fiction based on the book and +Rose Bailey announced the Dark Eras 2 project, coming sometime this year in Kickstarter! I didn't get a picture, however. 

So then Michelle and I went shopping, and I caught a couple of superheroes...

Great power, etc.

And Space Ghost!

MY NAME IS BRAAAAK's head.

We bought a bunch of stuff that you can see in pictures below. Past that, it was time for the IGDN dinner, which is a bunch of us eating and talking about games and books and whatever the hell else. And after that, Michelle went back to the room, but I went on to the JW for the annual "let's gather together and drink until we're not allowed to anymore" hootnanny for OPP folks. 

I saw this unicorn on the way.

That was a lot of fun. I did not stay until the bar closed down (I am far too old for that kind of nonsense, and I didn't want to risk POTS kicking in while I was out without Michelle), but I got to hang out with friends that I don't see often, got to meet some awesome new people, and got to kiss Neall, so that's fun. 

And a very fetching hat!

Sunday

I was in the booth from the time it opened to tear-down, so that was pretty much my frickin' day on Sunday. 

It ends as it began: A sweaty mess. 

We don't try to drive back on Sunday because that way lies madness, so instead we got dinner at Mikado and then went back to the room and watched soccer, awash in the fading memories and surrounded by books. 

Monday

We got breakfast at Patachou (it's worth doing twice) and then headed home. Indy was desolate and empty, a mere shell of the madness from the day before. 

Ghost town.

But: Swag pic!

Books!

Not-books!

RPGaDay Catchup

Been lax on this, but now I have a little time.

Most Impressive Thing Another's Character Did: Wow. Lots to choose from. OK, not that I want to give +Matthew Karafa a swelled head or anything (since one of this moments showed up on +Michelle's list, too), but the finale of Edge of Midnight was fucking superb. That was a long and really awesome game, ending in a totally noir way with Karafa's character shooting another dude in the head and letting his body fall into the swamp.

What Story Does Your Group Tell About Your Character? Oy. I don't have a character; I play occasionally but mostly I run games, I have several different groups, and I don't think anyone tells a particular story about my character. I'm sure Dylan, my kinetomancer professor in Michelle's Dresden game, could develop a story or two, given time, but at the moment I'm gonna have to take a pass on this one.

Most Amazing Thing a Game Group Did For Their Community: You know, it's a few years old at this point, but the Haiti bundle on DriveThru RPG that raised six figures for Doctors Without Borders was pretty awesome.

What Aspect of RPGs has had the Biggest Effect on You? Well, they've been my career since 1997, with varying degree of emphasis. I was full-time from 2001-ish to 2006-ish. I'd go back to writing/developing full-time in a hot minute if I thought I could pay all my bills that way.

Hardcover, Softcover, Digital, what's your preference? I'm not particular about hard vs. softcover; hardcovers are nice and sturdy, but they're heavy. I prefer to have a digital copy available for actual play; much easier to search.

Beyond the game, what is involved in an ideal session? Focus. My ideal session involves everyone putting their goddamn phones away and paying attention. (I was saying the same thing before smartphones were a thing, though, just with books.)

Largest in-game surprise you have experienced? I think "surprise during a game session" has to go to +Jessica, but I don't think that's what this means. Let's see. A loooong time ago, I ran a Chill game which involved a story arc with a character and his wife-turned-vampire. When I finally ran the game that ended that arc, all of the players showed up dressed in character. That was pretty cool.

Feng Shui! Biff! Pow!

But first.

Best Game Session Since August 2015: Holy shit. Gotta check the archives. I think I gotta choose this one, the finale of our Monsterhearts game. I'm cheating a little, since the game was the closer to a really great series, but it was a pretty emotionally impact-ful game on its own, too.

Character Moment You Are Proudest Of: Oh, geez. Um. I played an elder True Brujah a looong time ago (you have met Nehemiah, if you ever read Sins of the Blood). He once developed a relationship with a Euthantos mage in a truly screwed up mishmosh WoD game that my friend Harv ran, and chose, at one point, to pursue an enemy instead of protecting her, figuring she could handle herself. He regretted that; she wound up losing a bunch of Willpower dots and becoming a kind of shell of her former self (but Nehemiah did kill his enemy).

Right. Now, Feng Shui.

We pick up at Ronnie Meyer's ranch. Johnny is hung upside down, by his feet, and some dudes in robes (including Leon and Ronnie) are standing around him. Doc Norris, Harrison, Lasso Daniels, and Russell are there, too.

The characters, having been alerted by Wildfire, sneak in from the south. Tang moves among the herd of cattle, invisible, but Celeste, walking with the other two, accidentally discharges her gun and alerts them. The battle is joined.

Several of them shoot at Wildfire (in his wendigo form), and Harrison goes pretty much berserk when he sees the monster that killed his friend. Leon flies up into the air and tries to use a Dominate spell on Wildfire, but fails. Tang, seizing his opportunity, flings a cow at Leon and smashes him into the house.

Bai jumps in and kicks a knife out of a cultist's hands; Johnny swings on his rope and catches it to free himself. Celeste dispatches mooks with her whip. Lasso grabs the rope on Johnny's feet and yanks him to the ground, and Ronnie tries to stab at him. Apparently figuring Ronnie has this under control (which he doesn't), Lasso tosses a lariat around Wildfire's neck. Wildfire takes a bunch of damage, and very near has to endure a Mark of Death, but manages to catch a mook and literally eat his head, replenishing health (yay Blood Drain).

Leon returns, throwing fire and domination. Celeste tosses up some powder that counters his dominate spell, and Tang teleports up into the air and smacks him with his parking meter. They land, and Bai appears, using his flame-style to set Leon on fire.

Doc Norris, somewhere in here, sees all the magical craziness and leaves. Lasso, likewise, whistles for a horse and runs; Celeste tries to stop him, but only ends up losing her whip in the process. Russell, having taken out two mooks himself by throwing knives badly (seriously, I kept rolling terribly for him), leaves, too, and none of the characters begrudge him that.

Johnny, never quite getting his feet untied, manages to knock Ronnie out. Tang stabs Leon through the chest with his parking meter, killing him, and that just leaves Harrison.

Harrison stabs Wildfire repeatedly, unwilling to die. Celeste, however, comes up and shoots him, dropping him unceremoniously dead.

Ronnie wakes up hung up by his feet. The characters bring in Ms. Carlisle, the woman who runs the boarding house, and she makes it clear that he's stepping down as mayor; he agrees. The characters attune his feng shui site, and then head back to the worker's camp to talk to Hei, which we'll handle next time!

Feng Shui Prep/RPGaDay#1

Hey, it's August! What does August mean?

Well, I was born in August. So that's exciting. I'm turning 42 this year, so I get to be the meaning of life for a year.

Also we go back to school in August. Booooo. (I mean, I know the parents reading this are rejoicing, but screw you guys, I only get 10 weeks off and now I have to work again! Pity me! Ow! Stop throwing things!)

But also, RPGaDay.

You know, there's a lot of toxicity in this hobby. I don't know if that's the nature of a hobby that encourages tribalism and human contact, or if it's somehow unique to this community. I do, however, see people throwing up their hands in despair or disgust and leaving it. And I don't fault those people; I have no idea how I'd react if I got half the shit that a lot of folks (mostly women, let's be honest) get. But I'm staying in, because even if I suddenly got so frustrated with the people who are loud on the Internet that I couldn't interact with them, I love gaming too much to let it go.

With that in mind, #RPGaDay post numbah one: Real dice, dice app, diceless, how do you prefer to "roll"?

I've never used a dice app, and barring an accessibility issue for a player, I wouldn't let players use one at my table. I like the dice hitting the table; it keeps everyone honest, and frankly I don't want my players staring at their fucking devices more than they already do. Diceless systems are fine, of course; I'm playing one right now and I wrote one.

Right, Feng Shui players read no further.

Board Game: Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture

Whee!

The Game: Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture 2
The Publisher: Parker Brothers/Hasbro
Time: An hour+
Players: Me, Michelle, Sarah

I enjoy games I can play on the couch. 

Game play: Trivial Pursuit is kind of a mainstay; you've got a little wheel (in this edition the wheels are replaced by cute little figurines; I had a record, Michelle had a gnome, Sarah had a boot) and you roll a die to see how far you move. Land on a colored space, answer a question of the corresponding type (the categories here being TV, Movies, Sports & Games, Buzz, Fads, and Music). If you get it right, you go again. Land on one of the six spoke-ends, though, and you hit the button for the DVD, which asks you a question with a visual clue (and gives the other players an opportunity to steal the answer). Get it right, get a plastic "pie slice." Once you've got all six, you have to land in the middle by exact count, the DVD asks you one final question, if you get it, you win!

The quest begins.

Opinions: So, you either like trivia games or you don't. I do like them, but I like the more current ones just because I'm more likely to know the answers. I've played earlier editions where the questions don't reference anything more current than the 70s, and not only are those questions really out of my wheelhouse, the answers on the cards are more likely to be wrong. As it was, we found a mistake on one of the cards; the question was looking for the first American woman to win a Best Director Oscar, and the answer on the card was Sofia Coppolla. This, of course, is false; Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker, and I knew that. Makes you wonder what else they screwed up.

The DVD element is gimmicky, but it's fun and it breaks up the game a bit. I've played in Trivial Pursuit games that just drag on and on forever because no one at the table knows enough random shit to get the pie slices, and then I've played in other games that are basically "wait for Michelle's turn" (or whoever the "knower of random shit" at the table is; sometime it's me but the sports category trips me up).

In any case, Michelle won this game; I came in distant third. I would point out, however, that both Sarah and Michelle got games questions on the "Sports & Games" pie, whereas I kept getting "who played 8th base for the Wibberville Flooberbats in 1986 before he fucked off to become a millionaire frog-stomper?"

Keep? Sure.