Episode 2: Preparing for your game & Gen Con 2015 reflections.

Opening day Gen Con 2015
Opening day Gen Con 2015

In episode 2 we discuss the prep work than can go into your game. Also included in this podcast is an another recording about our experiences at Gen Con 2015 that we initially planned as a separate podcast.
Special thanks to Ghostmice for allowing us to use their song “Critical Hit”.

 

Listening To Learn: Using actual plays to improve your game.

For beginning players or game masters, learning the ins-and-outs of role playing can be a daunting task.   While the book is an obvious good place to start, simply reading the text doesn’t completely prepare one for stepping into the role of a player character.  Sure, the player or GM might have a basic clinical understanding of how to play or how the rules system works, but nothing prepares a person for what happens when player characters are introduced to the mix.  While there isn’t a substitution for genuine experience, would- be players and game masters (and even experienced gamers for that matter) can learn through the experience of others through actual play podcasts.

 

Actual play podcasts are simply recordings made of a group’s game sessions. In researching for this article, I couldn’t find a great deal of information for when actual play podcasts became a thing.  As best that I can tell (by typing in “when did actual play podcasts begin” and going through 4 pages of results) some of the first mentions I found date back six years ago to 2010.  Since that time the recording of game sessions appears to be fairly widespread and cover a large variety of games.

 

Actual play podcasts are entertaining and educating.  Listening to a good actual play podcast is like listening to a good audiobook:.. Much like a with any other work of fiction, you find yourself liking and rooting for the characters while at the same time learning about the players themselves.  The table talk that goes on during actual plays allows the listener to glimpse into how that player plays the character, which essentially models how to roleplay in general.  The lessons once learned sitting around a table with more experienced players can now be replicated on a morning commute to work.  

 

Game masters too can pick up a few pointers from actual plays.  Game masters unsure with a particular game system can listen to actual plays to see how more experienced GMs handle certain aspects of a game.  For example, if one is having trouble understanding how the chase rules function inside Nights Black Agents, finding an actual play where the rules are being applied can further clarify the application.  Other benefits can also be found in how podcast GMs handle pacing, create atmosphere, and sculpt an enjoyable experience.

 

Being exposed to different game systems in actual play podcasts can expand upon a group’s game experience.  There are a lot of lesser known indie RPG games out there that people are unaware of.  While there are certainly a slew of podcasts out there devoted to Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder, there are also podcasts that play lesser known games like the noir game A Dirty World or the superhero dungeon crawl experience found in Base Raiders.  Listening to actual plays can inform a group to many possible options and future spending decisions.

 

As any educator can tell you, there are three types of learners: auditory learners, visual learners, and kinesthetic learners.  Learning is greatly improved when two or more of these domains are touched upon.  While many of us have learned how to play tabletop rpg games through readings the rules (visual) and playing the game (kinesthetic), further comprehension and retention can be had when listening (auditory) to actual play podcasts.  Listening has allowed me to develop both as a player and GM.  I recommend it to everyone, especially those looking to get into the hobby.  Besides, they are a great way to spend your time while driving to work or mowing the yard.

 

Contributed by Adam T.

The Mechanical Museum: How rules affect the story you want to create

I started role playing when I was a teenager: as usual to most neophytes for the medium, I started with Dungeons and Dragons, specifically fourth edition (which was new at the time). It was a fun game, but it wasn’t really what I expected when I thought of role playing games: I’d always been told that tabletop allowed for more creativity and off-the-wall solutions to weird problems. D&D played like a turn-based strategy game with cut scenes: we’d punch the monster good, and gear would come out like some sort of gore piñata. Not really my idea of a good time.

I didn’t really know any better, though, so I stuck around: I tried running my own game based on the weirdo setting that got me interested in D&D in the first place, Planescape. It didn’t work with 4e’s mechanics, and I didn’t understand why: everyone knows Dungeons and Dragons is the tabletop game, shouldn’t it be able to work as advertised? What was I doing wrong?

Time passed, and I gave up on that campaign: I ran a few more D&D games in my own homebrew settings, but they all fizzled out. There was something wrong: I couldn’t get the mechanics to hit the right notes for the setting. Too much emphasis on combat, or the rules for social interaction fell flat. It wasn’t until I found Don’t Rest Your Head that I realized where things went wrong.

D&D is a great game for what it does, and what it does is very specific: you wander a fantasy setting and you kill things for their stuff. You get better at killing things and taking their stuff as time goes on, until you become so good at killing things and taking their stuff that you need to move on. The narrative is a window dressing to the killing of things and taking their stuff. Meanwhile, the Planescape setting is very cerebral: it’s a game that should reward solving bizarre puzzles or dealing with knotty moral problems. A player character in Planescape isn’t a bad ass because they’re good at killing things: they’re bad ass when they can manipulate the world, affect the powers and mechanisms that run the setting. That’s not a good fight for a game based on tactical combat.

Don’t Rest Your Head is also a great game for what it does, and it is also very specific: You fight nightmares with your own insanity, and it wears you down. The more worn down you are, the stronger you get, until you’re too worn down, and you die or something worse happens. It is a game that is about the death spiral, and it weaponizes that death spiral: the farther along the death spiral you are, the better you are at holding it off for a few more moments.

This is silly, but I hadn’t really thought of these sorts of games as separate systems: I didn’t really understand that rules affected the way games are run. Learning about DRYH, and then countless other indie games made me understand that each system has its own strengths and weaknesses, and made me rethink how I run games. Instead of trying to fit the stories I wanted to tell into a specific framework, I started looking for the systems that would let those stories flourish. A fantasy game based on combat can use D&D really well: a fantasy game where you try to talk your way out of problems and has no violence at all does much better with Dying Earth. If I want a scary game where nothing matters, I can switch between Kult, Call of Cthulhu, or Unknown Armies depending on how I want nothing to matter. If I want a goofy fun game, I can always lean towards Dungeon World or Monsters and Other Childish Things or even Risus.

The role playing hobby is full of cool, fun, weird, and crazy ideas: if you have an idea for a story that you want your friends to mess with, there’s probably a few games out there catered to your specific ideas. Shit, there are games based on Rocky and Bullwinkle and the Jim Jarmusch film Ghost Dog. And even if your idea is new and unique and utterly strange, there’s always someone out there willing to help make it a reality. You can hit me up any time.

Contributed by Chris Hamann