After this post there are 5 remaining to struggle through, and then it’s over for another year.
Let’s get on with this thang!
I’m taking the easy way out on this one. What do you need to play an RPG?
Some-one to be the DM/GM
Players
A copy of the rules for the system you are playing
Pencils and paper
Character sheets
Dice
That’s the bare minimum. Everything after that such as:
DM/GM screen
Miniatures
Terrain and scenery
Battle map
Published adventures
Additional rule books
Tablets/laptops
Speakers and background music
Are just icing on the cake so to speak. They aren’t necessary but they do enhance the experience.
It’s even possible to play for “free” or more accurately very cheaply if you take into account having to purchase dice. WotC make the basic rules free to download for D&D, along with pre-made characters. Get the free Matt Colville adventure The Delian Tomb that he created in the very first Running the Game video. Watch the first three Running the Game videos whilst there for running the adventure.
If memory serves me right several other systems have free getting started adventures that you can download to try them out. The Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 A.D. had one. These usually include a stripped down version of the rules, pre-made characters and a short adventure.
The next step up from these are starter kits. They usually have cut down rules, an adventure, a set of dice, and pre-made characters as a minimum. After that they might have maps, cardboard standees, a cardboard DM/GM screen, and cards. I want to say these are inexpensive but that’s a relative thing. But usually fall in the £20 to £40 range. And a great way to try out RPGs with your friends.
It’s never been easier to play an RPG, pick a system/theme you and your friends like, get the starter kit and play!
Today the latest campaign book for the Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 A.D., The Judge Child arrived. Along with the Rogue Trooper one shot collection.
I do love how EN Publishing are doing the major Judge Dredd story arcs. In the near future we will be getting the Apocalypse War. Which naturally will cover block wars.
I’m also hoping that EN Publishing will also release a one shot collection for Strontium Dog to complete the set for the three 2000 A.D. characters covered so far.
In the meantime let’s read today’s hashtag post…
“Welcome to my nightmare I think you’re gonna like it I think you’re gonna feel you belong A nocturnal vacation A necessary sedation You wanna feel at home ’cause you belong Welcome to my nightmare” Alice Cooper Welcome to my Nightmare
Is how I feel about my homebrew campaign.
There is always a bit of self doubt, insecurity nagging away that the players won’t like the way the campaign is going or the particular session.
You hope that they like it. After all you gave them options to choose from for the campaign setting. They chose the one they wanted. You gave them a one sheet about the campaign for the session zero.
But still there is that nagging sensation in a dark recess of your brain telling you they don’t like it, they aren’t having fun, they don’t feel part of the world you are weaving together.
It’s hard to overcome that feeling of imposter syndrome.
If only they knew your doubts and insecurities as they chuck their dice.
That DM screen hides so much more than just your notes, dice and miniatures.
This morning three people gathered to duke it out on the battlefield with their chosen commanders.
It was a casual smack down using WotC Commander precon decks. I had all the precon decks from 2017 to now with me (except the anthology decks) for us to play with.
Gavin was using his own precon, while Diego and myself chose from the recent D&D ones. My precons were “naked”! I have 3 years worth of precons to sleeve. Which is a lot of decks, and I need to find the funds to purchase the Dragon Shields to do the job.
Here are the commanders we played.
Me – Vrondriss, Rage of Ancients (D&D precon)
Diego – Galea, Kindler of Hope (D&D precon)
Gavin – Adrix and Nev, Twincasters (Strixhaven precon)
Early on Diego established himself as a big threat. His Commander with a couple of nasty bits of equipment that gave it +10/+10 and double strike was scary. One hit death to Commander damage if it landed. Thank god there was no trample added to it.
I was way behind both of them on the land drops. So I was happy for Diego to be the big distraction as I tried to catch up and build up a winning board state (see the photo above). All I needed was to be able to chump block if attacked by him.
Luckily there were very few answers for them both to stop my flyers chipping away at them or stop me using direct damage to control their board state (ie remove potential blockers or sending Diego’s Commander to hell). It was also lucky that Diego wasn’t able to give his equipped Commander hexproof. That would have made life extremely difficult.
But in the end the dragon horde prevailed and won the game.
Next up was a learning game of Vampire the Masquerade: Rivals.
We played using the pre-constructed decks. I gave Gavin and Diego first choice and I played what was left. Below is who played what.
Brujah – me (rival was Gavin)
Toreador – Gavin (rival was Diego)
Ventrue – Diego (rival was me)
After a poor explanation of the rules and picking our rival we started playing.
Our first play was definitely a game of two conflicting experiences.
Gavin didn’t enjoy the game at all. He was polite and put it down to the cards he drew, and there being little he could do to make use of his clans abilities. I don’t think the poor rules explanation helped either.
I’m sure there were more rule misplays than the one we had. Well technically it wasn’t a misplay more missed rule! We missed that you could discard cards during the torpor/mend stage to heal vampires. Which would have kept Gavin in the game instead of seeing me win it. Thanks Diego for spotting that after the fact and casting a shadow over my glorious victory.
The Brujah deck I was playing was probably the simpler deck to play compared to the Toreador deck Gavin was trying to play. It is the Rivals version of a MtG aggro deck. Which is definitely one of the deck archetypes I like to play.
When Diego played Long-Term Investment I got a distinct Netrunner vibe and reminded of cards like Kati Jones.
Like Netrunner there is a lot of jargon to get used to, especially if you are not into the whole Worlds of Darkness thing. Which can add to the confusion and make the learning curve a bit more steeper than it already is.
So while Gavin won’t be playing Rivals again Diego and myself will be. I need to play the other decks. And then want to get into deck building.
But once again it was great to be playing in real life again. Especially when I win. Plus there is more gaming to look forward to at the end of the week.
We are entering the last week of this hashtag thingy bob. The home straight so to speak.
Here is today’s words scrambled up into nonsense.
One thing I recently found out was that the four books that make up “The End of the World” RPG books by FFG were “based on El Fin del Mundo, an RPG line originally created by Álvaro Loman and José M. Rey for Edge Studios.”
I have two out of the four books available, Alien Invasion and Zombie Apocalypse.
I’m tempted by the Revolt of the Machines. But the Wrath of the Gods doesn’t grab me. Although having the set does appeal to me. However one major obstacle to this is the fact that these books are “between printings”. Which means that if you can locate a copy they go for a premium.
It’s funny that these books may have been transferred to Edge Studios as part of the Asmodee restructuring of FFG, and the moving of the FFG RPG stuff to Edge Studios. Who it would appear are the RPG power house for the Asmodee empire now. Although nothing has been said about these books and whether they will be getting a reprint.
What attracted me to these RPGs was first the themes. I love the apocalyptic setting, and that these focus on one particular cause of that apocalypse, such as zombies or aliens. From there we get four different scenarios that each give a different set of events that caused that scenario.
Finally I love that the system is a rules light d6 system, where the players play themselves in whichever town you all live in. I love, love that a players starting equipment is the stuff they have on them at the table or can find in the room they are playing in when the session starts.
I’m glad these got translated into english and hope that Edge Studios keep them around.
I’m spotting a pattern with my purchases recently. Not in what I am purchasing but in being totally unprepared for how much bigger than I thought they were.
The most recent such example of this was a new dice bag I bought to store all the dice, tokens, and life counters that may or may not be needed whilst playing MtG.
I wasn’t expecting such a large dice bag. It’s nearly as big as a football! It could be a hat or wouldn’t look out of place hanging in the end of stick used by a hobo.
My new dice bag for MtG
It’s way too big for using at store tournaments or when table space is at a premium. But damn it’s great having everything in one convenient place.
As you can see in the photos above I have a few spin down counters. That’s despite giving some to Gavin. The 16mm white d6 will grow in number soon. I have 120 in the post somewhere.
But enough of this, let’s get on with the hashtag.
Memory is something I’m going have to make good use of in the coming weeks. In particular when it comes to remembering where we were in our campaign.
Luckily I won’t have to rely solely on my failing memory. I have some great ramblings on here in my session planning and post mortem posts. Which I will be revisiting to refresh my memory. I have notes in the GoodNotes app on my iPad that I can also go back to.
I also have burnt into my memory the over arching story arc, and a couple of future plot points that could be hit.
As a DM I’m grateful now after such a long hiatus that I built into my routine note taking and recording my thoughts for the campaign. But even without a global event enforcing a long break, what I did in writing the posts here, or making notes in GoodNotes is good practice. I then have something to refer back to in between sessions to aid my memory and future planning.
Well I had fun with my guilt free gaming yesterday, and you can read about it in the previous post.
Heeeeeere’s today’s hashtag…
For me there is no substitute to gaming in person (you can read my thoughts on streaming here).
And I can not stress how much I am looking forward to it being a thing again.
Our gaming group is holding a test event next Friday at our regular hosts The Luxe. Depending on the outcome and how things are progressing in the real world we will hopefully be starting regular gaming sessions back up. And this means only one thing at that point our D&D campaign can start back up.
After last years forced hiatus due to obvious world events happening the annual Jeff’s Birthday Gaming Bash was back.
This years big game saw the return of Twilight Imperium 3, which was last played at the bash in 2018 (joys of recording plays in the board game stats app).
I’m a fan of Twilight Imperium, I own the fourth edition plus it’s first and currently only expansion. Although yet to play it with the expansion due to the fore mentioned world events. The thing with these big games is if you get to play them once a year that’s good going. Anything more than that is amazing and unusual.
Before hand via the messenger group Jeff shared which optional rules would be played with the base game to “enhance” our experience. Which you can see below in the included screen shot for those interested.
TI3 and optional rules played
As you can see in the collage below the tile layout used was a two galaxy one, with Mecatol Rex in the middle, plus a dual worm hole tile by itself.
Who got what race, and was positioned where on the map was decided by the cards. I pulled the ace and got to choose first. My choice was position on map or race, whichever choice I went with would mean I’d be last to choose for the other. I went with position on map.
Below is how the races were spread out between the two galaxies after the selection process.
The Mentak Coalition – me (Galaxy alpha)
The Xxcha Kingdom – Katie (Galaxy alpha)
Sardakk N’orr – Gavin (Galaxy alpha)
The Emirates of Hacan – Diego (Galaxy beta)
The Clan of Saar – Jonas/Gerry (Galaxy beta)
The Winnu – Jeff (Galaxy beta)
Before play commenced an end time was agreed by everyone. I had the time constraint of I had to leave by 6pm. So it was agreed that at 5pm the current round would be completed and that would be the end of the game, highest score at that point would be declared the victor.
I had decided to concentrate on production and technology to make use of the “aggressive” nature of my race. During the whole game I only got to take a trade good twice from another player. The swines kept spending them so I couldn’t help relieve them of the pressure of storing those trade goods.
The beta galaxy compared to the alpha galaxy seemed a lot more peaceful, and more interested in trade deals and alliances! In the alpha galaxy it looked like an arms race. Gavin upgraded his pds units so they could fire into neighbouring sectors. Which meant I had to too.
I did warn my fellow alpha galaxy companions do not attack me, retribution would be swift. And that retribution was swift indeed. Katie decided to attack me. However between my upgraded pds unit and race ability to have a free attack by two destroyers before combat started, her aggression against me was stopped before it started. I was going to be vindictive and retaliate by destroying her home world. But pity got the better of me, and I didn’t want to totally ruin her first experience of the game.
While we in the alpha galaxy were duking it out, the beta galaxy occupants were busy clocking up objectives and victory points. It was a good two rounds before I even scored an objective.
In a game like Twilight Imperium it’s individual moments that make the day memorable. Like when I lost a carrier, 4 ground units and a cruiser when they flew into a super nova! How everyone did laugh at my mishap. I admit it did hurt. But I could live with it as it sealed off a worm hole, and added a barrier between me and Katie, helping to seal up my borders.
Top three photos taken by Jeff
Gavin had one in the last round when he took out my War Sun with a single point of damage by playing an action card that destroyed a ship he did damage to. Getting a War Sun out was a personal target I had set myself. I knew I was out of the running for victory. So getting that out on to the board was a personal win. Sadly it was too late in the day to do any real damage. As was my final arrival in the beta galaxy. But I got there!
The final two rounds were basically team Jonas/Gerry jockeying with Jeff for completing objectives and victory. Which allowed Diego to sneak in and steal second place. However team Jonas/Gerry were the victors, and Jeff falling into third spot.
Lunch for the day was once again homemade curry made by Jeff. Which as usual bloody amazing.
The only drawback on the day was once I got home. Mum had not had a good day looking after Nan. So I need to look at how to get some help/support for her while I’m out for something like this. It also impacts if I can go see my son for a couple of days or UKGE next year.
But it was a great day otherwise. Looking forward to next year!
Well I’m sticking to the plan for some guilt free gaming today, as this post was written yesterday.
Here it comes, today’s hashtag thoughts…
I like things to be simple. It’s so easy when preparing for the next session to over complicate things. To spend lots of time on stuff that just doesn’t get used.
That’s why I became a practitioner of the Way of the Lazy DM as prescribed by Sly Flourish (click HERE for the YouTube playlist going through the steps).
Basically by using the 8 steps described by Sly Flourish to prepare for a session you are concentrating on the activities that will most benefit you whilst running that session. It’s not a ridged you must do all the steps, you do what works for you. It’s about giving yourself the confidence that you are prepared for that session.
There is a companion workbook full of useful tables and 10 generic locations that can be dropped into any campaign.
Sample pages from the accompanying workbook (taken from the Sly Flourish twitter feed)
Mike aka Sly Flourish has even got the process down to 15 minutes! Yep if for whatever reason you hardly have no time at all to prep by using just 3 of the steps you can be ready.
Click HERE for the blog post by Sly Flourish on this subject.
What I like about this approach is the simplicity, and that it’s applicable to any RPG system. It really is a life changer.
Feeling smug I wrote today’s post yesterday! Which means if I write tomorrow’s post today, I can enjoy my friends birthday gaming day guilt free.
Let’s see what I wrote today…
I’d love a RPG based on the classic Asimov Foundation series of books.
I’ve not read the books in decades, but I loved them. I have fond memories of reading them in the late 80’s and early 90’s, and having my mind blown when Asimov linked the Foundation series with his equally awesome Robot series of books. They are the same universe and one big story! OMG!!
Naturally I don’t need to wait for a publisher to create a Foundation inspired RPG. Generic systems like Genesys RPG or the Fate system could be used to run a campaign in the Foundation universe.
Luckily with the books, audiobooks and the soon to be aired Apple TV show there is plenty of source material to refer to, and inspire.
I’m not saying using the generic systems will not require a lot of work to get something players can explore. I think my preference would be the Genesys system. With the Expanded Players Guide and it’s “refined” rules for creating adversaries, vehicles, skill trees and settings the work gets a little easier. The Space Opera setting notes from the core rulebook make a good starting off point. Plus when it eventual comes out the Twilight Imperium: Embers of the Imperium source book might have a lot of useful stuff that could be “borrowed”.
Maybe if the Apple show becomes popular we will see an official RPG for Foundation produced (That seems to be the way of things these days.)
By that I mean I’ll be making more muffins. I’m going to try modifying my basic recipe so it becomes white chocolate and raspberry muffins.
Coffee and a nice muffin are one of life’s little luxuries that help make those me time moments special.
They also make a great treat while running a game session. Sadly for my friends and fellow gamers there hasn’t been an opportunity for them to try them since I got back into baking.
Let’s look at today’s hashtag theme…
Theme for me is just as important a factor as system when choosing an RPG.
If the theme doesn’t excite you then why are you playing a RPG with that theme? It’s why I have no interest in the upcoming D&D campaign/adventure Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos. I wasn’t a fan of the Harry Potteresq setting in MtG. So doing a D&D setting with it, it just isn’t for me. Which is fine. So I won’t be buying it or playing it.
Very often the mechanics of the system you are playing support and help bring out the theme of the RPG you are playing. A good example of this is in the Alien RPG with the stress dice and it’s stress mechanic.
Free League have done a really good job of using the Year Zero engine to bring out that element of stress to the game. Each player has a stress level which determines how many stress dice they roll in addition to their normal dice to make a skill check. They can even opt to take on stress to add a stress die to the check. More dice rolled increases the chances of getting a success. However there is a risk. Roll a 1 on one of those stress die and they have to make a panic roll. If the combined value of their stress level and panic roll is 7 or more then some sort of negative impact affects the player. Which could be as simple as increase their stress level, or at the extreme end make them catatonic.
Naturally being a fan of the Alien movies and comic books from the late 80’s/early 90’s, the theme attracted me. But what sold me was the stress mechanic. It struck me as being really cool.
So themes that are likely to get my interest are the usual fair, such as fantasy (D&D, Realms of Terrinoth, The One Ring), cyberpunk (Cyberpunk Red, Android: Shadow of the Beanstalk), sci-fi (Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 A.D., Paranoia, Alien), post apocalyptic (The End of the World) , and alternative history (Twilight 2000).
