My first 40 years as a role player

Today, I turned 51 years old. And, as I've mentioned on numerous previous birthdays (and probably numerous "how did you get into gaming" posts), I got my Mentzer Basic Set for my 11th birthday. So I've been a D&D and other RPGs player for four decades now. 

For the first decade, 1984 to 1994, I both ran and played BECMI with my friends and family. We also ran a lot of Star Frontiers. We also played some AD&D of both the 1E and 2E variety, but not that much. And occasionally we'd play, or at least make characters but never get around to playing, lots of other games. Gamma World. Star Wars d6. Cyberpunk 2020. TMNT and Other Strangeness. Marvel Superheroes. I'm sure there are others we tried or at least sampled that I'm forgetting. We played a LOT of BECMI D&D though. Tales of this decade are labeled as The Old BECMI Group, obviously.

For the second decade, 1994 to 2004, after a bit of interruption in RPG play due to Magic: The Gathering and not wanting to associate with the campus Gaming Guild who embodied most of the negative gamer stereotypes that were out there at the time, I got back into gaming with a group that played a mix of 1E/2E AD&D. Then I went to Japan, and by the time I got a group to game with, 3E had just come out. So we dove into the world of the d20 system, playing 3E D&D and a bit of d20 Modern and d20 Star Wars. The final few years of this era, I had moved to a different part of Japan, and started gaming on RPOL.net since I hadn't found a group to play with there. These tales are under the Evansville Group (1E/2E), and Toyama Group (initial 3E stuff) tags.

From 2004 to 2014, I got in with a group playing in Tokyo. Again, we mostly played d20 stuff, including 3E, d20 Modern, and d20 Conan. But through this group, I also got to try a variety of Forge-style story games, and also it rekindled my love of old school D&D. I also got involved (finally) with some local gamers, and we played some Abberant (an obscure White Wolf game), 3E, and old school D&D. We also developed Presidents of the Apocalypse, which I know I've mentioned many times before, but no, it will probably never get released because it's so scattershot. In the middle of this era, I moved to Korea. For a few years, the emphasis was on board games, but eventually I got some old school D&D going, using the house rules that have by now evolved into Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins. I also got to try 4E and we sampled a few One Page and microlite RPGs, played a bit of Gamma World (the 4E D&D stuff AND classic GW), Pathfinder 1E, and a few other games here and there. I continued to game on RPOL, and also got to sample various OSR offerings through online realtime play (Google Meet, when that was a thing). I also developed, play tested, and released Flying Swordsmen. You can find these stories in the tags Ebisu and Yamanashi Gamers for the Japan era, and Busan Gamers for the Korea era.

My fourth decade, 2014 to today, coincides with the release of 5E D&D, and I've played it a fair amount. As a player, it's fun. As a DM? Not so much. So I've mostly stuck to my TS&R old school D&D rules as a DM. And I've been running my d6 Star Wars game for many years now. As a player, there have been a wealth of games and game systems, that are face to face, online realtime, and play by post. While I've mostly given up on 5E (except for a really good game on RPOL), my TS&R game and SW d6 game are both going well. I've sampled lots of OSR and micro-games, both in person and online. I've recently started both a Gamma World and Star Wars game on RPOL. And very recently, just joined a game of RECON. I developed, play tested, and released Chanbara, and have recently finished up releasing everything to make TS&R a complete game that others can play. I've been too busy to post about that. These last few years of gaming can again be found under the Busan Gamers tag, as will most games I post about going into my fifth decade of gaming. 

The first 40 years of gaming have been on the whole really good. I'm excited for the next 40 years!

Gaming as an Ex-Pat Part 2 Addendum

I originally was going to post both this and the main "part 2" post together, then decided not to. Somehow, I just saw, Blogger posted the draft backdated. So if you've already read this, apologies.

Gaming in Japan Addendum: Miniatures

I forgot to mention this part, which was one of the cool things about living in Japan. I mentioned that in my first location, there weren't a lot of places to get gaming material. In the second place I lived, Yamanashi, I was able to amass a sizeable miniature collection in interesting ways.

As I mentioned, Yellow Submarine in Tokyo had Reaper Minis, so I did buy a small number of minis there. But Japan has so many other ways to get fantasy/sci-fi minis that work for gaming.

First of all, there are random collectible miniatures that you can buy in many stores, including most convenience stores. In the years I was there, they had several series of mythological creatures, both Western and Eastern. So I have rubberized plastic minis of dragons, griffons, chimera, unicorns, pegasi, and Greek/Norse gods that work well for giants from the Western mythology series, and bakemono, tengu, oni, and so on from the Eastern series.

There are also series of figures based on games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy and Pokemon, comics like Devilman, and things like that that I picked up over the years. You can find them here in Busan, in limited numbers, at places like Art Box.

Then, there are the cola promotion figures. Every now and then, there are promotions to sell Coke or Pepsi, where they have a randomized figure in an opaque cellophane package around the neck of 500ml bottles of soda. Back when the Star Wars prequels were coming out, I collected lots of Star Wars bottle toppers. The ones in the stores were from the Prequels, of course, but if you collected enough of the inserts and payed a small fee, you could send away for sets from the original trilogy (which I did, although I wasn't able to get all of those sets). In other years, there were Final Fantasy VII and VIII figures, Lupin the Third figures, Dragonball characters, and even Lego minifigs. I collected many.

If that weren't enough, in my town there was this resale shop. They'd buy just about anything for pennies and then sell it for dollars. Clothes, books, CDs, sports equipment, toys, games, and of course they had a section devoted to all of these sorts of little collectible minis I've been describing. I'd go there fairly often and add to my gaming collection.

I also got into HeroClix, and would buy lots when I was home on vacations, so if I ever want to run a Marvel or DC supers game, I've got the figures for it!

Oh, and one more thing! Daiso (those of you in Busan are familiar with the chain, it's from Japan) in Japan sells (or sold, at least) little green army men, and also similar sets of pirates, knights, cowboys & Indians, ninja, construction workers, police/fire/rescue figures. Have sets of all of them, as well. They work great as NPC figures.

So while I don't feel like minis are a necessity for RPGs, I do enjoy using them, and Japan was a great place for collecting a variety of minis for gaming.

Gaming as an Ex-Pat Part 2

I lived in Japan from the summer of '98 to the spring of '08. I didn't get into gaming until 3E came out, though. That's when I found some other teachers were also gamers, and we picked up the new rules and gave them a go. This was in Toyama prefecture, pretty far from the big cities (about 4 hours by train to Osaka, 5 to Tokyo). I picked up the brand spanking new 3E PHB when I was in the States over the summer, and used my 2E books until I was able to order the other core books from Amazon. There wasn't anywhere to get stuff locally, although some boutique shops sold polyhedral dice. I'd occasionally check in second-hand bookstores for Japanese RPG books, but never found any.

Oh, and there was this little bric-a-brac shop that sold airsoft equipment and collectible figures and stuff. I found a pack of vintage Grenadier "Knights of the Round Table" minis there and snatched them up. Still have them. For the most part, we were limited in what we had to game with to what we ordered from overseas or could access via the internet. One of those internet goodies was a free pdf game WotC released called Dragon Fist (fantasy martial arts RPG using the 2E rules). We played that a few times in addition to 3E.

In 2001 I moved to Yamanashi prefecture, just an hour and a half outside of Tokyo. Again, it took me a little time to get into the local gaming scene, because I wasn't sure who gamed and who didn't, and people were still kinda reluctant to bring up gaming in casual conversation. But gamed online with some of the Toyama guys about once a month. We tried d20 Modern and the d20 Star Wars rules, along with D&D 3.5.

Then, I got invited to a group playing White Wolf's Trinity around 2003 or 2004. After the Trinity game ran its course, some of the same gamers ended up playing D&D with me. We played a 3E OA game that I ran for a while.

Through the WotC message boards, I came in contact with a couple of guys in Tokyo and we formed a group. One of the Toyama guys was now living in Chiba (also near Tokyo) so we invited him, too. A few other players came and went. We'd meet once a month for marathon 6-10 hour sessions, mostly of 3.5, although I ran a successful d20 Future game set in the Aliens/Predator universe.

Gaming in Tokyo was great, because there's a chain of hobby shops called Yellow Submarine. They had minis, dice, rule books, modules, Dragon and Dungeon magazine, plus board games and other related stuff. Whenever I had time before or after the sessions, I'd usually stop by because the bus or train from Yamanashi pulled into Shinjuku station, and a Yellow Submarine was just around the corner.

One of the Tokyo guys was trying to develop his own Story Game RPG, so we play-tested many versions of it. And from the Forge message boards (once the home of story gamers online), he got interested in playing Classic D&D again, which got me interested. And so I discovered the OSR (Old School Renaissance) just as it was kicking off.

Before Steve got transferred back to the States, we played a few games of old school D&D. And I got my Yamanashi group to play it, too. And it was pretty fun. I also tried a bit of Star Frontiers with them.

Oh, and my buddy Paul and I developed our own "story game" type rules light system, Presidents of the Apocalypse. This became our "someone in the group is leaving, let's go out with a fun game" game. We're still not 100% happy with the rules, but eventually we plan to publish it in some form or other.

The OSR back then was all about making "retro clones" that were rewritten versions of the classic games, released under the d20 OGL. So OSRIC is basically AD&D 1E, Labyrinth Lord and Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game are Classic D&D, and Swords & Wizardry is original D&D. I remembered having fun with Dragon Fist in Toyama, and started thinking about how I might make a retro-clone of it. But then my wife got pregnant, and we decided to move to Korea to be near her family...

Double Feature: The Murder Machine/The Apes of Wrath

Got to play games on G+ both Friday and Saturday night this weekend.  My wife was in a good mood.  ;)  Here's a double feature summary of events.

Friday, Jeremy ran a game set in Eberron using his own simple Microlite/Risus hybrid 2-page system, Super Simple 20.  [Jeremy, you should update your blog with your recent pictures and your system!]

Playing were Dean as Bumblesnick d'Sivis the Gnome Illusionist, Adam as Nurzhanbek the Wand Wizard, and myself reprising my old Eberron PC from the Ebisu Group 6 years ago, Ysberir d'Medani the Half-Elf Ranger.

We were sent to Thrane to investigate a series of murders.  The victims were all human, with no apparent links to who they were or where they were murdered.  We did our best to track down clues to the murderer's identity, and were sent on the path towards a heretical cult of the Whisperer in the Flame (for those not familiar with the setting, Thrane is the home of paladins who worship The Silver Flame, and don't take kindly to thoughts of demon worshipers worshiping their sacred fire).  Also Bumblesnick had a wine-induced dream of small creatures in the sewers worshiping giant albino cockroaches.

A helpful paladin sent us on the trail of the local cafe-lounging wizards.  One of them was making creepy racist remarks at Bumblesnick, which freaked him out and sent him back to the guild hall early.  Ysberir and Nurzhanbek followed the younger wizards to a frat-party style bar, where after drinking contests and head-butting contests (I won the drinking, Nurzhanbek lost the head-butting), the same creepy wizard led us to a goblin information merchant named Scuttle. 

At Scuttle's, we learned some information about the cults, and then Ysberir noticed something hanging from a wall above us.  It was humanoid, with a pale bone-white face and six eyes.  We fired on it, with Nurzhanbek's spell causing it to fall.  It landed heavily.  Ysberir (his bow string again broken - Steve, laugh away!) hit it with his axe.  It took the hit and didn't flinch.  Then it just stood there examining me.  Nurzhanbek blasted it again.  Ysberir tried his longspear, but the creature snapped it in half.  Nurzhanbek started running, and it started following, making only a brief pause to once again examine Ysberir only to find too much Elf in the Half-Elf to bother killing.

It chased Nurzhanbek to a Paladin Temple, where the priests and monks thought he must be a crazy drunk.  And that's where we ended things for the night.

____________________________________________________________

Last night, we continued our Vaults of Ur game, Justin of course is the DM.  We had a big group: Jeremy as Ripper the Resurrected, Tedankhamen as Digger the Orc, Alexei as Maya Culpar the Elf, Dean as Elder Karl Cleric of the Great Bear, and myself as Thidrek the Sleestak.

Our previous adventure to resurrect Ripper left us indebted to the Priests of the Great Bear.  They asked us to investigate and exterminate a pack of giant carnivorous apes.  A renegade heretic priest of the Bear had thought to use them in a power play, but instead released them on the city. 

Scouring the ruins southwest of the Obelisk, we encountered some relatively fresh bodies of three adventurers.  They seemed to have been rent by animals as well as slashed by blades, within the past 48 hours or so.  Following a blood trail south through the ruins, we came to a warehouse that was still mostly intact.  There was one door, no windows, and the blood went right up to the shut doors.  On the roof, Thidrek noticed some holes in the wood, and looking in, saw a pair of boots.  Calling down, there was a cry for help followed by someone muffling the voice. 

Wasting no time, Elder Karl used his stone fist to blast open the door.  We rushed inside, through the door we thought led to the people.  There were three battered humans with two trussed up and unconscious Orc Magi.  Not sure who were the good guys and who were the bad guys, we struck to subdue, and soon knocked the three humans out.  Searching them revealed Spiked Circle necklaces, so we quickly trussed them up.  The Orc Magi were adventurers from Fort Low, companions to the three we had found earlier.  The Spiked Circle set upon them and captured these two.  Then the Spiked Circle were set upon by the apes. 

We thought we'd make sure the building was clear then rest there before heading back to Fort Low (the orcs wanted to high tail it out right away).  Karl and Maya's torchbearer went to repair and lock the front door.  Thidrek stayed with the orc magi to guard the prisoners.  Ripper, Digger and Maya went to the next room, and found a giant spider, which they quickly dispatched.  The door secured, Karl joined them in the third room.  This time, a gigantic beetle attacked from under the floor.  Karl got pulled half under the floorboards and bitten several times.  Thidrek and the orc magi finished off the Spiked Circle guys and Thidrek rushed to help as everyone stabbed furiously at the beetle to save Karl.

Thidrek (thanks to a natural 1) also fell in with the beetle, as did Digger.  One chicken from Thidrek's bag later and the beetle decided it had taken enough punishment and had enough to eat in the bird, and turned tail.  Last minute strikes from Elder Karl and Maya dropped it, and a natural 20 on the corpse allowed Ripper to decapitate the dead bug in one swing. 

Thidrek and Karl explored the beetle's tunnels, and found a bag of gems and a scroll case (but no dead halflings wrapped in mithril coats - Elder Karl's holy grail of treasure).  Following the tunnel to the surface, we used the stone fist again to close the hole.  That's when we noticed the building surrounded by apes.  8' tall apes!  Backing away, Elder Karl made some noise, and the apes were on us.  Karl used the stone fist one more time to knock a wall over on them.  We screamed and yelled to attract the attention of the others.

With Karl and Thidrek in melee with the five apes, and the others peppering them with arrows, we took down two and the other three turned tail.  We followed them a bit, but they seemed to be calling for help from more apes, so we retreated to the warehouse, gathered the orc magi and a barrel of very nice wine we found in the spider room, and headed back to Fort Low.

The Luau of Death

Last night we played in Justin's Vaults of Ur game on G+.  Our cast consisted of myself as Thidrek the Sleestak, Jeremy as Ripper the Orc, Dean as Elder Karl the Cleric (Dean, you need a blog), and Alexei as Maya the Elf.  My buddy Steve, of the old Ebisu Group and now the 3d6 blog, came to observe a bit, but since he was at the in-laws', and was maybe having connection problems, he didn't stay long.

Steve, I hope you liked what you saw, even though it was mostly just the pre-game firing of projectiles at feces.

We opened the game the next morning after our last session.  Ripper came to the Hive after his carousing with Oogliata's Amazonian Orc Legion, and we hashed out plans to deal with the Red Men/mercenaries.

After much debating - MUCH debating - Thidrek's plan of a pre-emptive strike on the mercenaries in the wee hours of the morning was shot down.  We decided to go out into the ruins in case the mercs did come out, so we could ambush them.  And if they didn't come out, we would return with stories of how we totally looted the hell house they told us to go to, and that there was more treasure waiting - and that we'd invite them to our celebratory feast where there would be plenty of wine, women, and exotic lotus powders (the Luau of Death).  We figured one or the other of those stories would lure them out.

So we camped in the ruins.  And waited. 

Some lizard men approached.  Ripper and Elder Karl presented themselves, and the lizardmen attacked.  We managed to defeat them, but Elder Karl went into negative hit points.  With some Hive healing goop, we brought him around, but he was weakened from being so close to death.  We heard fighting to the south, back toward the Hive, and when we investigated we found some Spiked Circle thugs fighting some Red Men.  We intervened.  Elder Karl used his stone hand to good effect, crushing lots of the Spiked Circle guys with stones.  We also managed to capture one of them.

The Red Men wanted the captive, but we insisted that he was our prisoner, and took him to Forager.  We interrogated him, and learned that the fresco images we'd seen under the Hive, of portents in the sky, demons and diseased men fighting heroes in Ur, etc. is connected to their demon lord, Harkon.  The Spiked Circle are capturing people for use in sacrifices to provide souls for Harkon's return.

We took our prisoner up into the heights of the Hive to the "great minds above."  They turned out to be super-intelligent spiders (sorta like Aranea from the Isle of Dread).  They read the prisoner's mind while we poked through their collected stuff.  Maya found some spell books, and got a sleep spell and maybe one more.  Thidrek and Elder Karl looked out the window, and saw some places of interest for future adventures.  Ripper got a new bug claw axe, similar to Forager's, and Maya took a new spear to replace the one she broke fighting the lizard men.  Oh, and one of the spiders kept asking Thidrek if it could dissect him, as they'd never met a Sleestak before.  I declined their offer.  Maybe next time.

Anyway, the brain probe left the goon in a poor state, but we learned that just before the attack, three Spiked Circle members went into some sort of tunnel.  Seems important.  We're sure they're up to no good.

So we've still got the mercs to deal with, Forager's political power play to assist in, and Spiked Circle shenanigans to figure out as well.  Who knows when we'll ever get our new headquarters sorted out, and get a chance to explore the Observatory we spotted north of the Zoo, or make our way towards the Golden Pyramid in the center of the city.

I've gotta say, though, the sandbox game can really pay off in a good way when things like this happen.  We're all really enjoying the story that's developing, and our characters are evolving as it happens.

Something else

Enough with promoting Flying Swordsmen.  Over 250 people have downloaded it in the past four days.  That's really cool.  Now to talk about something else.

There are a couple of new blogs to promote!

Lee B, who did the cover and character sheet layout for FSRPG is working on a very light fantasy RPG system he's calling Argots & Armor.  It's looking to me like a mesh of Classic D&D and maybe something like The Fantasy Trip (a system I've only heard about on other blogs).  Really cut down, flavorful stuff though.  Check it out at The Plateau of XOLGMOD.  Lee also plans to do some character/monster illos for Flying Swordsmen in the future.

Another blog to check out is that of my buddy Steve, from my old Ebisu Gaming Group in Tokyo.  Steve was our "Tarrantino" DM.  Going by the internet alias H-Town, he's got a new blog appropriately titled 3d6 (why no one grabbed that name before now is a mystery!).  He's working on both a "D&D Mine" system, and a campaign world with some interesting stuff in there.

Pathfinder game begins

Just got back from the first session of our new Pathfinder campaign, run by Brian.  It went well, although the venue was a bit noisy, especially toward the end of the evening.

When we first started up, things were sounding familiar to me, and by the time we got to the dungeon and Brian mentioned the name, I realized that yes, this was indeed the adventure I'd partially played way back with the Ebisu Group in maybe 2006.  It didn't play out the same way as before, of course, and while I did remember some things, I didn't remember enough to avoid a trap or two. 

And in fact, we covered more territory tonight than we did before with the Ebisu group, at least as far as exploring the tomb dungeon.  With the Ebisu Group, we spent a lot of time in town, fixing up the shack we were using as a home base, and committing and hiding the murder of the town's sheriff (who was Evil and had it coming).  Today we spent only a modest amount of time in town, and then hit the dungeon and explored quite a bit of it.

There wasn't much combat, but what combat there was went fairly fast and easy.  We sprang some traps, gathered evidence, and solved a few puzzles.  Gained some loot along the way, too.  Next session, we'll try to get the magic items identified, fence the loot...I mean pass the historical objects on to the sage who hired us, and get a bit better equipment, then head back to explore the rest of the ruin.

No deaths, although I was down to 1 hit point due to a Use Magic Device malfunction, and Jeremy's Warforged Fighter got taken down to negatives by a water elemental who was luckily evil so I was able to smite it to its watery grave.  A heroic untrained Craft skill check by Greg's juvenile delinquent Half-Elf Rogue, aided by my Paladin and Robbie's Sorcerer, brought the Warforged back into commission, and some magical beds healed up the rest of us, more or less.

Definitely looking forward to the next session, probably in three weeks.

Another game I'd like to run someday

Scott over at Huge Ruined Pile is going through a very cool thought experiment to create a campaign starting with only the Moldvay 81 Basic Set, B2 Keep on the Borderlands, and the inspirational reading in the back of the book at first, only adding Cook/Marsh Expert (and other resources) when a character reaches 4th level.

It reminded me of this idea my friend Steve came up with that we never got to play. Unfortunately, his company decided to move him back to the States before we got it off the ground, and there went the Ebisu Gaming Group.

Anyway, I don't think Steve will mind me posting this here. It's long, but it's got some good stuff in it.

November 28, 2006
Steven Stewart January Game Day Pitch –starting point
THE IDEA
Inspired by Rich Forest/Ben Lehman’s post on the Forge (www.indie-rpgs.com) under actual play. Loose setting that follows the Rules as Written for Moldvay ’81 Edition of Classic DnD Basic and Expert. The setting will be created in play by both the players and the GM. Primarily inspiration for the setting is based on teasing interesting setting details from the rules themselves. Here is the process that Rich told me from an email from him,
1) establish a core point of reference (D&D Moldvay ’81 or ’83 edition)
2) establish a setting detail (arcane magic = evil)
3) play
4) notice setting detail in play (hey, we've never seen X, or only seen X)
5) search for an explanation.
6) viola, new setting detail! (New point of reference)

Now here is where it starts to get a bit interesting. Based on this process when we start with level 1 characters, it instantly gives the goals of the characters, get lots of loot. However, a big point of difference between DnD and DnD 3.0/3.5 is that most of the rewards “XP’s” is from the actual gold itself, very little from the actual act of killing monsters. Gold = Victory Points.

But wait what if I don’t want to play a tomb raider? Well here is the kicker, like in the post we use the old Judges Guild Rules from First Fantasy Campaign, where you don’t get XP for gold until you spend it, and spend it on non-equipment (i.e. buying a magic sword no, spending money on beautifying your armor that you already have – yes). It will be your choice on how you spend it, and that of course is the context for “victory” in the game. It is also the point where you can start to develop the character in the classic lit sense of character development, what you choose to burn gold for tells the other players at the table a lot about how you see the character.

Following Rich’s example as well the players contribute directly to the setting details, so we will keep a setting log sheet as we play for what gets ratified. Also, what you choose not to play will become just as important as what you choose to play (e.g. in Rich’s game no one played an arcane spellcaster, therefore Arcane spell knowledge is evil).

THE CREATIVE AGENDA
Now the Creative Agenda can’t be realized except through play, but this is what I am pitching in regards to what our priorities are at the game table. I think the creative agenda for the play of this game could be threefold, but can be summed up by “explore the setting and characters through the system” or “discover who the character is through play rather than explore the situation by an established preordained character”. In case it is not already a given, since this pitch starts with basic DnD the first adventures will start outside the entrance of the Dungeon, all the traveling between towns and stuff is not “in game”. That comes later when we get to expert.

1) At its heart “gamist”, meaning that the fun comes from facing a challenge and overcoming it. The context for victory is of course your (XP = gold). How you measure that “step on up” is upto the players, one might like the creative ad hocing to avoid combats, while others enjoy the strategy challenge of overcoming a foe. The other context for victory in this edition is not just in maximizing character effectiveness (i.e. how you play your character’s skills/feats/powers), but also in how you as a player deal with the challenges through negotiation with the DM. There will be a lot of “ad hoc” negotiation at the table for overcoming obstacles, so the game really revolves around (A) trying to come up with a way to get the gold without putting yourself in danger (B) knowing when gamble on the dice when (A) lets you down.

2) All games are about exploring the shared creative space, but this one I see stressing two aspects – setting and more importantly setting in the context of the rules as written, as well as character development. Basically character creation in Basic DND is a cinch (more on this later) there are three decision points (what class am I playing, what alignment am I, what equipment do I choose to bring with me). So I don’t envision a lot of backstory, basically just one or two sentences for each character as to who they are, and why they are together. Then through the constraints of (A) the rules (B) the fact that you are a “party” (C) the situations they find themselves in and actual play – you create the character personality and development along the way.

3) WARNING: this requires a few things upfront, the most important is that neither the GM nor the players develop an elaborate backstory, or an unbreakable vision regarding who or what they will become. That is not to say that you can ‘t have ideas of what we as players want, but we should be prepared for actual play to alter that outcome. We should stop and discuss when we think this happening and get everyone on the same page before moving on.

So in summary the social reward is overcoming obstacles, and the story itself is formed from these events and give the basic context for victory. There will of course be a lot of “exploration” going on as well, in terms of the setting (asking questions about why is that this way?) and characters (I wonder why “character x likes to spend all his money on wine women and song” and “character B tithes all his money to the church” – what is the common bond between them that keeps them together?).

Personally, I don’t see the above as negative constraints, but rather positive constraints. So point four of the proposed creative agenda is:
4) The reward of coming up with interesting ways to rationalize x to y, and have that make good sense and an interesting story. i.e. don’t see this group working as a “party” as a negative story obstacle, but an opportunity to come up with something cool.

THE SYSTEM
I would propose to use the ’81 Basic DND edition, provided it is available, failing that falling back to the boxed sets of ’83 (which I believe Dennis has). I propose the following for character creation:
RULES
(1) Use ad hoc negotiation between player and DM when possible for things outside the rules. If discussion goes on too long, then roll dice. Generally this will be an attribute check according to the rules as written. This part of the fun of the game, the game gives the freedom to do what makes sense. Mostly “roleplaying” rules will be handled by the actual players (i.e. bluff is not a roll of the dice but the player actually trying to come up a reasonable bluff that the NPC will buy). DM will make every attempt to reward creative roleplaying. Ad Hoc may take the form of
saving throws as well as attributes. Remember a saving throw is basic DND is “you should’ve been hosed but this gives a chance of a mulligan” not the “reactive stat” that it is DnD 3.5.
(2) Slight modification on the rules as written. Players can generate 4 sets of 3d6 as per the rules, meaning in order. They can off course use the attribute swap contained within the rules. They take whatever two they want to make a character. We will be using the rerolling 1-2 rules for 1st level hitpoints, so each character will start with a minimum of 3.
(3) Every two levels the character can raise an attribute by one to a maximum of 18. This would mean each player is playing two characters. That means you get an attribute point at 3rd level, 5th level, 7th level, 9th level. Once you reach name level you no longer get the attribute bonus. So over the course of your adventuring career you can get 4 more attribute points.
(4) Use the rules from First Fantasy Campaign, gold is only converted to XP when a character spends it. We will keep track of what (generally you spend it on). What you spend it on will impact some ad hoc interpretations according to the rules (e.g. if you spend it on wine women and fair weather friends, in many social situations you can bring that up, if you spend on it tithing to the church it can show your character is religiously devout). (Eventually in ADnD the training rules would appear, but I like this version a lot better, gives the player a lot more freedom for character development).
(5) Meld the weapon rules, so while we use the (optional) rule for different damage for different weapons (base DnD just used D6 for all weapons), no weapon will be below a D6. This is due to the leathal nature of Basic DnD.
(6) Players may be asked to justify how their actions are in accord with their alignment, but not constrained by that, in the spirit of the gamist agenda, alignment won’t restrict you, but is more an “indicator” of your character. The DM may ask you to change your alignment if they perceive your alignment is not in accord with your actions.
(7) (Note sure about this one) In terms of some NPC interactions, some groups will only speak with a leader, the person in the party with the highest charisma is the automatically the leader.
(8) (Note sure about this one) Intelligence bonus gives you a “secondary skill”. This is some profession that you know like “scholar”, “trapper”, “armorer” or whatever that helps in ad hoc discussions.
(9) When a character dies, (as will happen depending on how much risk you are willing to take), the next character will be based on however much XP already banked the previous character had. Additionally, the DM can choose to give that player an extra roll for hitpoints and take the highest one for that character. For each level, the player writes a sentence or two regarding that character (but no more than that – generally how did they get there and what did they spend their gold on).
(10) Fudge Points – I won’t fudge dice, instead what I will do is put a number of counters in the middle of the table equal to the number of characters. This is a pool for the “party”. Players can spend a fudge point to allow someone to reroll a die during the game (it can be a DM roll or a player roll, any roll whether that is initiative, surprise, morale, damage, to hit, etc.). This doesn’t take the gamble out of the game, but helps take out some of the sting.

ROLES
(1) For the NPC’s I would suggest using the actual details from the character classes. For example, someone who fought in a war is a veteran,(this also means most lords are name level). I will look up what level a veteran fighter is, and so on. In practice, most dungeons will be “as per the rules for the party level”. That means I will try to pull stuff off the charts that correspond. But please remember that this stuff is all deadly in this game. It is not set up like DnD 3.5 which is based on attrition, in this game a single roll can (and will) kill your character. The nice thing is a character takes about 10-15 minutes to make.
(2) All rolls will be made in the open, this is I trust that everyone can separate themselves outside their character good enough that if you fail your find traps roll you can separate character knowledge from player knowledge. If you don’t think you like that, or it binds the gamist agenda too much into a sim agenda, then I will roll the dice in secret if you wish. But combat roles will be made in the open.
(3) Ratification of setting facts. As much as possible, I would encourage discussion about setting stuff between GM’s and players, and group ratification. I suggest we use the threshold of credibility rule, which basically says everyone has to buy into it. However, also we understand that there are some things the DM is going to have to do in the game to make up the challenges, some of these won’t require ratification (e.g. I’m not going to ask if it is ok to put skeletons in the dungeon, I will just put them there, what we can do is discuss in a group why you think they are there) but some of them will (such as the fact that there is a dungeon here, and the nature of the dungeon itself).
(4) History etc, will be given through NPCs and Books, therefore it is subject to some change as it is a perspective, not cold hard fact (e.g. a priest may have a world creation myth, but an ancient book contains a different one, which one is right? Who knows).
(5) We can take breaks and discuss, at least one break halfway through the day where we go around the table to discuss (A) setting facts (B) things that are bothering a person (C) how we can make things better.
(6) Based on what Pete is saying, I think we can make this a long term game. So we can work it towards expert pretty fast, but I do think we should start at first level. I will do everything I can to advance us quickly through the lower levels (probably by adding 200% treasure to the first dungeons.
THE FIRST SETTING DETAIL
I would propose to use following interesting tidbits to build the proto-setting.
(A) Common – everybody speaks it, why? This implies something about the political structure
(B) Strongholds and Namelevel – When a character reaches namelevel they can start to build a castle or stronghold or some type (thieves guild, temple, wizards tower, castle, or demi-human stronghold). This implies something about the social and political structure of the kingdom?
(C) Only humans have clerics, and elves and humans have arcane magic, but humans can’t wear armor and cast spells and use swords, but elves can. (implying at some level something about magic and differences between humans and elves)
(D) Clerics all have the same spell list and have to prove themselves to their god before they receive magic, and have the same taboos, but can be of any alignment. Turning undead is a big part of being a cleric. Clerics can’t use bladed weapons, but are clearly warriors. This implies something about religion, myth, and the church.
(E) There are a lot of unexplored places that have lots of treasure in them (and with the 200% rule for beginning treasure even more so). This implies something as to the history of the world, why are there so many dungeons and such around?.
I think these 5 points can easily build two to three paragraphs of setting material. Again I don’t think we want pages upon pages, just a few facts to start that we ratify as a group. I have some ideas of what these mean, but I want to hear what you guys think first.
Last thing, what kind of dungeon do you guys want? Or do you want that after we are making up the character? By dungeon type I am talking about color, it is an ancient elven tomb, is it an abandoned castle, is it a humanoid stronghold, it is abandoned dwarven mine (moria!), barrows of ancient dead kings, something alien and bizarre that just appeared overnight, a your call. Tell me what you want and that will be the first dungeon and the first bit of established fact that will allow us to riff off into more setting relationships.

WRAP-UP
Ok, so that is the pitch, I think I have hammered out what the game is about, but maybe not. Interested in (A) do you think this sounds like fun to play out as a group (B) if yes, any specific points that make you go “ugh…I don’t like that or any points that make you go “wow, way cool”

Finally before writing off the system please check out this post and this webpage:
http://robert.infogami.com/Classic_D&D especially the bit about thief skills
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=12288.0
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=22161.0

I think this game pitch is a desire to try and hit everyone’s priorities (note some of these are at the technique level but seem important based on the emails so far) (A) context for victory and winning and an opportunity for winning to be acknowledged (B) opportunity to emphasize exploration of setting and character, more importantly pulling the story out of a single person’s hands and into the group (I think we all liked making up a setting together) (C) context onto which people make their decisions regarding what is most important to them (through how they spend gold for XP) (D) small social frintprint (E) potential for long-term campaign (F) removing the skill roll as a mechanism for determining every outcome (G) Fantasy setting.

Finally if for some reason this is not what the group wants, I would suggest that a similar type of pitch be made by other players with the same level of though into “what is this game”, including as a minimum the type of characters, the emphasis of the game and creative agenda, and the “system” not just the rules but the whole thing about roles of players at the table for the game. I have absolutely no problem if the group says, no I don’t want to play that, I know they aren’t banging on me, but rather saying that particular games doesn’t sound like fun.

I'm not sure if those links of Steve's are active. This was written nearly 4 years ago, and I know Robert Fisher isn't using that old infogami site anymore. The Forge stuff may be long gone as well.

Motivation Emerging from and through Play

I had some good, thought provoking comments to my Klondike Bar post the other day.

When I said that I think for D&D a character only needs a desire to explore the world and get rich through looting tombs/battling monsters, I do only mean that as a part of character creation.

Once the dice hit the table, characters should begin to be fleshed out by actions that happen to them within the game, choices the players make for them, and goals the players set for the characters themselves.

A few examples from past experiences I've had, both good and bad.

1. My first D&D character to make it to 2nd level, Gwydion (hence my internet alias), about the time he hit 5th level or so, decided his goal was to purchase a longship and crew so he could return to the Isle of Dread any time he felt like it. The first time we played the module, we didn't have any ships among our characters, so we used one of the provided hooks of a loaned ship. I wanted more IoD fun for my character, so my short term goal became to save enough for that.

2. My brother Tim's main character was a Dwarf named Larry, and when one day he rolled up another Dwarf as a replacement character for one that died, he named him Gary and said the two were brothers. Because of the TV show Cheers, where the rival bar was Gary's Olde Towne Tavern, Tim decided that the Dwarven brothers were going to open their own inn rather than build traditional strongholds when they hit name level. If one other character hadn't died, we might never have seen that brother appear, and this all never would have happened.

3. In a mixed 1E/2E game with the Evansville group, I was running a Dwarven Fighter/Thief. Due to very poor rolls by me in combat, compared to very good rolls by certain monsters, my guy was always getting knocked around in combat to comic effect. I ended up changing the way I roleplayed him because of that--originally he was a gruff but honorable trapspringer. He ended up being more of a willey, dastardly anti-hero just because he'd learned that fighting fair didn't work for him.

4. In one of the many short-lived 3E games with the Ebisu Group, we had one game where we started at 10th level with 2 characters each. I'd written up linked backstories for my two characters, a Half-Orc Rogue and a Human Ranger, who were half brothers, sons of a famous human Bard and members of the same Thieves' Guild. The first encounter with giants and a Pit Fiend sees my Ranger biting the dust to some uber save-or-die spell, and there went all that hard work within 30 minutes of starting the game.

5. In Paul's BECM game with the Yamanashi group, I rolled up a Magic-User who had all scores average or lower, except an Int of 13. I took Charm Person as my first spell, and lots of various equipment for dungeoneering. Using those scores, I made him an offensive braggart (low Cha) named Valentio the Pungent who lorded it over all the other characters how much smarter he was than any of them (because a slightly above Int was all he had to work with!). I never would have come up with a character like that if a) we'd been playing with a high rolling method like 4d6-L, or point buy, or whatever, and b) the way things went in the first adventure, when I was using some smarts and gear cleverly in ways most of the other players, who hadn't been playing as long as me, never thought of.

Another take on Gamer ADD (and my 100th post)

Reading about Gamer ADD makes me rethink my own games for the past 15 years or so.

Of course I suffer from Gamer ADD. Back in the day, we had D&D and Star Frontiers, and we just played either when someone had a dungeon or adventure ready. We had two long campaigns that lasted from late elementary school into the early years of university summer vacations. 10 years for D&D, 8 for Star Frontiers. We'd try out the occasional other RPG, usually during the summers when we had lots and lots of free time. But the only ones we stuck with were the above.

Then, after I graduated, with the Evansville group and every group I've had since, the big problem with Gamer ADD was NOT that the DM wanted to switch systems or campaigns.

The problem has been (and still is) that EVERYONE WANTS TO BE THE DM.

Too many chiefs, not enough Indians. Especially in my current board game group, there are always one or two of us dissatisfied with whatever is being played, so the usual response seems to be to offer to DM a game the way you like it as a player (which of course then makes someone else want to DM their way).

On another note, I've got the Character Creation rules for the Flying Swordsmen (Dragon Fist retro-simu-something) RPG finished. Character creation basics, classes and kits are done. Next is the martial arts maneuvers and combat section.

And this is my 100th post. Huzzah!

We're getting the band back together

I've got Josh and Alex confirmed for tomorrow night. We're finally getting the Maritime Campaign going. Dave may not make it, but he said he'll be there if he can.

So I'm pretty pumped about that, and I'm going through all my stuff to make sure I've got enough prepared. I never do, but at least I have enough that I can make it look like I do...

Anyway, getting back to gaming with the guys has gotten me nostalgic about my old gaming groups.

The original group: Todd (best friend #1), Ben (best friend #2, and 2nd cousin), Tim (little brother) and myself were the core. Bridget (my little sister), Josh, Adam & Jacob (Ben's brothers) and the occasional other friend would sometimes play. We grew up in the country, so it wasn't unusual for a 'game session' to be just one DM and one player. We mostly played BECM (Ben had Immoratals Set I think, but we never did more than look at it), and Star Frontiers.

Magic the Gathering and some members of my university gaming guild who were the stereotypical gamers you don't want to game with kept us from playing much in college, but after graduating I fell in with Tim (not my brother), Kenny, Jason and Steve. Tim and Jason were co-workers with me at Circuit City, Kenny was Tim's roommate, and Steve was a friend of theirs. We played a lot of short lived campaigns that were a mish-mash of 1E and 2E AD&D, including me running a game set in Feudal Japan for a few sessions. This is the Evansville Group.

Then I went to Japan, and after a couple years 3E came out. A few other teachers had also played, and we were all curious about the rules so I picked up the PHB when I was at home for the summer and ordered the DMG and MM when they came out. With the nature of the expat life, we had a bit of a revolving membership, which included Billy, Chris, David (he's Puerto Rican so it's pronounced Da-veed), Nick (who was actually the exchange student at the high school I taught at), and Gene. This is the Toyama Group. We played 3.0 D&D.

I moved to another part of Japan, and Billy, Chris, Gene and I tried gaming online with voice chat and OpenRPG, but it didn't go so well. We did get to try out d20 Modern and d20 Star Wars though.

After a few years, I got to talking with some other gamers in Tokyo on the Wizards message boards, and we formed the Ebisu Gaming Club. The members were Steve (not Steve from Evansville), Pete, Gene (from the Toyama group, he'd also moved), and toward the end Tim (number 3). We met once a month at Steve's apartment in Ebisu and played marathon 8 hour sessions on Sundays. We played 3.5 D&D, d20 Modern, d20 Conan, and tried out several Forge Indie games including one Steve was working on himself.

Concurrent to the Ebisu group, I fell in with some local guys who were playing a game of White Wolf's Trinity. This was Paul, Brent, Tanya, Mish, and another guy whos name is escaping me at the moment. The other guy was frequently absent, so they asked me to join up. After that game ended, Brent, Tanya and Mish all left Japan, but Paul and I recruited some other friends and formed a second group.

This second group was Paul, Atley, Josh, Jacob, Michelle, and Mark. Later, Lauren, Rick and Renee joined after Mark left the country and Atley lost interest. We started out with a d20 OA game that I ran, but then switched to a Classic D&D game run by Paul. Another guy named JD also ran a 3.5 game with some of the same players, but I was too busy to join them for that. Collectively, this is the Yamanashi Group.

And then I moved to Korea and fell in with my current Board Game Group.

Tarrantino, Brooks, Gilliam

A few years back, when I was in Japan, I was part of the Ebisu Gaming Club. Founding member, in fact. It wasn't as pretentious as it sounds, actually. I came into contact first with "GMSteve" and then "Angryman" on the WotC message boards. They both lived in Tokyo and wanted to game, I was close enough, as was my friend Gene. So the 4 of us would get together once a month on Sundays for 7-8 hour game sessions, mostly of RPGs (and primarily d20 games, as we were into them at the time) but board games or other things too. A few other people would join on occasion, and Gene finally moved back to Canada and a fellow named Tim took his place.

We went through lots of short RPG campaigns. We'd start off with a bang, then fizzle out shortly. d20 Conan ended on the 3rd session when Pete (Angryman) got drunk on mead while DMing and suddenly poison-weaponed Picts were swarming everywhere and TPK. Our Eberron campaign died after one too many too-tough encounters nearly wiped the party of characters we were heavily invested in and didn't want to lose. My d20 Future Aliens/Predator game was meant to be short, and we actually completed it and then moved on to other things. We tried out a "narrative" game Steve was working on, in several incarnations, but it never seemed to go right.

By the end, just before Steve found out he'd have to move back to the States for his company, he was heavily into the Forge's creations but also jonesing to get back to some BX D&D--which finally broke me of the d20 craze and made me realize that BECM was what I really wanted to play.

Anyway, we often discussed just why we had so much fun but couldn't keep at one game/campaign/system long enough to really get into it. One day, Steve offered the following assessment:

Steve's gaming style was Quentin Tarrantino. He liked it cool, edgy, and violent.

Pete's gaming style was Terry Gilliam. He liked it weird and funky.

My gaming style was Mel Brooks. I liked it odd but humorous.

Yes, my Aliens/Predator game was filled with some of the most tense moments in our gaming, but also with the most silly and gut-busting funny ones, too.

I think I've lost that Brooks charm lately. I think I need a bit more "Stupid" in my "Retro."

So anyone else out there got a style similar to a movie director?