RPG A Day 2022: Day 30--What Should #RPGaDay Do For Its 10th Anniversary Next Year?

Something to think about. I think coming up with more interesting and thought provoking questions should be on tap for next year as almost every year we start to run out of steam by the end. I'm sure coming up with 31 prompts isn't easy. I did like and appreciate this year's full prompts much better than the one word ones of recent years. I felt like I told some of my stories before. It would be interesting to find out if I did and compare my memories from today to how I remembered it before, but I'm not about to do that. No matter what #RPGaDay decides to do as long as I'm alive and well with computer and internet access, I'll be up for it. 

RPG A Day 2022: Day 29--Who Would You Like To See Take Part in RPG a Day?

 Hard to say. Maybe a celeb or another semi-famous TTRPG commentator from YouTube, but nobody really comes to mind. On the other hand, RPGaDay has led to me subscribing to commentators who are less famous. It is surprising to me how controversial TTRPGs are both now in years past. You can't even tell people to "relax because it's only a game" without at least one person vehemently claiming it's a "self-improvement engine" If you know, you know...and that's why I say let's get the semi-famous, infamous J. Scott Gribay onboard for RPG A Day. He would have the wildest off-the-wall/bad takes on the most innocuous questions. 

#RPG A Day 2022: Day 28: Favorite Cover Art.

 Gotta be the easiest one of the lot. This is one of my favorite recent covers. Classic Zorro. 

Bonus of Bugs--is he a harengon?--showing his favorite cover. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 27--How Has Your Character Changed?

This will be the shortest one yet. We're still talking about Navi Brightheart, the Green Ryuujin from the TTRPG Ryuutama. Navi has maxed out, so she has a lot more powers, artifacts, life points and spell slots. Note that I have put her into my 5E smash-up campaign and though I haven't had to tweak much of what she can do, some of her powers aren't prudent to the 5E mechanics. The best thing I can say is that when the characters were low-level, she had to help out a lot. Now that the characters are higher level, her powers aren't nearly as impressive as they once were. That's the way it should be as the PCs are the stars. 

RPG A Day 2022: Day 26--Why Does Your Character Do What They Do?

We're still talking about Navi Brightheart--the green Ryuujin from Ryuutma. In my current campaign, Navi is trying to help the people of Haven by raising up a group of heroes to help rescue the long missing Silver Princess. Again, this is my take on the infamous classic module 'Palace of the Silver Princess'. There is a vague mention of 'Protectors' in at least one of the versions of this module. These Protectors are largely powerless to help the PC's but they do get the party together and help them to bypass a curse that has kept most other people out of the Silver Palace. I just made my Ryuujin to be one of the Protectors. She's more powerful and proactive than the Protectors in the module--and probably more than most Ryuujin. I let her take the party to the fey world of Nonestica--of which the land of Oz is a part. Most Ryuujin are content to gather stories of the party they are a part of which they in turn record and tell to larger 'Seasonal Dragons'. Once the Ryuujin has maxed out her level, the 'Seasonal Dragon' will have grown up and left the nest. The Ryuujin can then leave her charges, find a new group, or stay with her party and and maybe raise a new 'Seasonal Dragon'. Navi maxed out a long time ago, but she still wants to see the people of Haven get their fairytale princess back, so she'll try to stick with them until she sees it through. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 25--Where has that Character Been?

 Still talking about the Ryuujin, Navi Brightheart. She's been to the past, she's been to Haven--the home setting for 'Palace of the Silver Princess, which is the module I'm allegedly running, but you wouldn't recognize it--and back to her homeland of Nonestica--the world of Oz. 

We could just end it right there, but the most interesting place this character has actually been is inside the minds and bodies of missing PCs. When in Haven, Navi takes possession of a marionette that serves as her avatar. This puppet is her first form as a Ryuujin and--at earlier levels--the only means of interacting with the PCs physically. When a player was absent from a game, I had the puppet sit with the missing character and "strings" would come from the marionette and enter them. Navi could then control the character but it moved in a perky-jerky fashion like when Freddy controlled the puppet kid. That character couldn't talk and could only perform basic actions. This worked well in Haven, but now that I have missing players when the characters are in Nonestica/Oz with the pixie version of Navi beside them, it doesn't make any narrative sense. I usually just say the character with the missing player now has Flutterbudgets and is too nervous and freaked out to say anything or move. So here and there characters are going in and out of a catatonic state. Oh, well. 

RPG A Day 2022: Day 24--When Did You Start Playing This Character?

We're still talking about Navi Brightheart, my Ryuujin GM character taken out of the Ryuutama TTRPG to my current campaign. I started playing as Navi back in November. That said, I played a similar Green Ryuujin named Kira Kira in an actual Ryuutama campaign some years ago.  The Ryuujin themselves are a gimmick. Like any character the way I play the personality is up to me, but the mechanics are the same. If I wanted to play a blue, red or black Ryuujin instead, there would be a bit of a difference in mechanics and supposedly tone of the campaign that it is a part of, but for me the green ones were more appealing. Also, on this subject, those in the know say the average campaign only lasts for like six sessions these days. My campaign be 30 sessions deep this Sunday. 

I used this one as Kira Kira's human form. She may be a famous anime character, but I didn't recognize her.

RPG A Day 2023--Day 23--What Situation is Your Character Currently In?

Navi Brightheart--the Ryuujin I've brought over from Ryuutam and wrote about yesterday--is currently leading a party of five adventurers through her home world of Nonestica. Nonestica is one of the Feylands. The most famous location within this world is the land of Oz. The PCs with Navi at their side are investigating strange plague that causes the victim to lose its shadow. The end result is this shadowless victim fades into non-existence. Possibly worse yet is that some victims have their shadows taken over by demonic beings. These shadow beings control the bodies they have taken over and make their hosts do many wicked things. The party is making it's way toward the Yellow Brick Road and has just met TikTok the clockwork soldier--one of many Oz characters that can be used as NPCs  or pre-made characters. 

This setting is from a KS project I backed. The physical books are on the way and possibly already available at the FLGS or online. 

https://www.doublecritical.com/games/adventures-in-oz-5e-rpg

RPG A Day 2022: Day 22--Who is Your Current Character?

 I run more than I play, but as I mentioned yesterday, Ryuutama does offer the special Ryuujin character and mine's name is Navi Brightheart. I make her like her namesake from The Legend of Zelda and have her say, "Hey, Listhen" every chance I get and she does retain an extra fondness for elves. The Ryuujin has  three main forms that interact with the PCs. There is a small form that hangs around with them that could be anything that keeps turning up. Navi is a small marionette in this form. The second form is her real self. For Navi that is the green pixie from 5E. Finally, there is the dragon form which for Navi is a green dragon. The Ryuujin is like a permanent NPC, but once one is maxed out, their usefulness to the party vs. the usefulness of the high-level PCs tends to fade--which is probably as it should be. Navi is no "Mary Sue" saving PCs all the time--in fact, NPCs are technically, mechanically better than her at this point in my campaign, but she can still help out here and there, and I like playing her. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 21: Setting Sunday: Share an Intriguing Detail From a Game Setting You Enjoy

How much shorter can the answers get? A couple from the "setting" for Ryuutama. The Ryuujin--a DM/GM character in the system--has several meta powers once they are full-level. If someone rolls a natural 1 a bucket of water falls from the sky and lands on their head. It causes light damage, but the character gets to keep the bucket. Also, once per game, if a player is talking aloud and speculates on something like--With our luck the gold's probably fake--it will actually happen. It makes the players be careful about what they're saying. The Ryuujin decides when it happens, so usually that means only the bad stuff. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 20--How Long Do Your Games Last?

Super-duper extreme short entry for today. My games usually last three hours. I try to err on the side of coming up short rather than going over. As to campaigns...I may well be in the longest campaign I've ever been in right here and now. I started November 7th 2021, so nearly one full year of playing almost every week with these three hour sessions. So far the most we've ever missed is two sessions in a row. This Saturday/Sunday will be #30. That's pretty good when the average campaign is said to be six sessions. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 19--Why Has Your Favorite Game Stayed with You?

I'll tweak this one again and answer why has the hobby of playing TTRPGs stayed with me. You can look at some of my rants from RPG A Day 2021 if you want to read my feelings on the "culture war" that we find ourselves in these days. You may agree with me and you may not. Almost every one of my hobbies: TTRPGs, movies, cartoons, comic books, toys, video games--and even professional wrestling have gone soft...WOKE if you will. The owners of these IPs toss out the built in audience that has supported them over the decades in order to pander to those who for the most part don't actually buy the product, but I digress..we're staying positive. What makes TTRPGs different is that the table controls the narrative. Although I don't agree with the parent companies putting their message in the books, said message never has to make it to my table. When Star Trek goes WOKE and I don't like it...for the most part all I can do is choose not to interact with the product at all or else watch oldies. When my favorite TTRPG goes WOKE with the narrative, I don't have to follow it. My game can be just as 'offensive', 'problematic' and 'dangerous' as it has always been...and not a safety tool in sight. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 18--Where is Your Favorite Place to Play?

Since the Wuhan Flu hit I've only played in person once as detailed in an earlier entry this year, so by default my favorite place to play is online. There are some advantages to being in an online game: huge pool of potential games and players, no travel time, no clean up time and for the most part no ramifications for flaking out or ending the campaign. I do have to have a place to physically be while running online and right now I work in the school library. It's the perfect place to play because it's empty during my game time, it's quiet, and I don't disturb my wife and daughter if I happen to get loud and they don't disturb me if they wake up early.

...and I do have a much earlier account by the way

RPG A Day 2022--Day 17--Past, Present, or Future? When is Your Favorite Game Set?

It was set in the future...then for a while there it was the alternate present...and now it's in the past...

It's Cyberpunk 2020 and 'Night City' along with its various precursors and derivatives. If you want to get technical there is 2020 which is still the most famous along with the first version which took place in 2013, so those are in the past for sure, but there is the current version of the TTRPG called Cyberpunk Red which is in 2045 and the video game version that I talked about yesterday that takes place in 2077 so as to keep the main settings in the future even if it is like Max Headroom--20 minutes into the future. 

In many cases the games predicted what actually came to be and may yet come around...most of the predicted technological advances are still well in development, they just aren't up to the standard/common place that the fictional year 2020 presented them as being. There are some cases in which the real-time counterpart actually surpassed the fiction. However, in all cases the settings are familiar enough to easily get invested in because they are grounded in reality while still being imaginative. This is vastly different from the typical sword and sorcery of D&D and even from the similarly themed Shadowrun which introduced fantasy elements into the cyberpunk genre. I can't get enough of it. The Cyberpunk setting is one of the few that I can watch live play throughs and though it's a few years old now, the Playstation Access crew's mini-campaign remains a favorite. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FlU6p9KKzU&list=PLLUkxbIkknLuQJJRwEbV5z2WFt6hs9Rxy

RPG A Day--Day 16--What Would Be Your Perfect Game?

 Hard to say. I think my perfect game would be something like the Cyberpunk 2077 video game except it would be completely immersive, multiplayer and not as glitchy. For a long-time fan of the Cyberpunk series from R Talsorian Games the video game version from almost two years back was amazing. I put in over 100 hours in that game and I still didn't see it all. Just seeing all the locations that I imagined and saw pictures of in the source books for so many years brought to life was an incredible experience. The story was top-notch, and very nearly exactly what I wanted...unfortunately, it was too glitchy and the actual video game gameplay  wasn't everything people hoped it would be. That said, I loved every minute of it. I'd like something like that except completely VR with the ability to run with a group just like in the TTRPG except truly living it. The tech isn't quite there to give us that holodeck/Matrix yet, but I think it'll be great once we get there. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 15--Who Would You Like to Gamemaster for You?

 Another short one today. I guess everybody knows the Mr.Rogers DM meme, and as one who grew up watching him, I think that would be a legitimate good deal with him using models of everything and even LARP if you wanted it. I'm not so sure I'd be completely sold on playing in the Neighborhood of Make Believe. I'd also think Jim Henson would be pretty good as he had a pretty good sense of humor yet could go dark here and there too. I don't know that any of them were avid players or not. Nowadays, and since I've been binge watching 'Better Call Saul', I'll bet Vince Gilligan could run a pretty good game if he were inclined. All that said, a Cyberpunk game run by Mike Pondsmith might be the game I'd really like to play in.  

RPG A Day 2022--Day 14--Suggest a New RPG to Try

 Well, we're supposed to roll 1D8 + 1 and tag that many friends with this suggestion. That's not gonna work for me. I don't have that many TTRPG playing friends to tag...and no real suggestions of new games for them to play. Instead, I'll briefly mention a few games I'd like to play:

1. Carbon 2185--It's a cyberpunk game running on the 5E engine

2. Birthright--A TSR D&D setting from 1995 that I've never been able to play.

3. Alice is Missing--a big deal from last year or so. It's a murder mastery played silently by text. 

I would like to give any one of those a shot. As an aside I notice that I come across a lot of 3rd party games that run on the 5E engine. There's a much better chance to play such a game since so many players already know the rules. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 13--How Would You Change the Way You Started RPGing?

Super short...I wish in the first go at it that I had known what was a D&D starter set and purchased that  vs. the supplement that I picked up instead--whatever it actually was. In the second go--the proper start--I wish that I would have pushed to play more with my mom and dad. If I knew the rules of the game itself better or had the skills with which to run general games better, it would have been more fun. However, it's just not possible to get good--er, passable--at a thing unless you start at the bottom and work your way up. Also, generally speaking, I wish I had run more games with family and friends than investing time on solo pursuits like video games and watching TV shows. 

This is the artwork I always imagine when I bought the "kit" rather than a proper starting set when I first tried to play D&D...but it couldn't be as this one was much later in the product line. Some mysteries I'll never solve. 

RPG A Day 2022:Day 12--Why Did You Start RPGing?

 A really short one today to be sure. As I mentioned previously that Dungeons and Dragons cartoon from the 80's looked cool. I thought it would be fun to play a game that was like that. I already enjoyed fantasy from He-Man, The Wizard of Oz movie and Hobbit/Lord of the Rings cartoons. There was just something about it that clicked for me. That first try at D&D--as previously stated--was a bust. I got into comics more and more in my teens which led to thinking the Super Hero RPGs would be fun...and they were. One big thing that brought me back around to D&D and fantasy that I may not have mentioned in RPGADay before was the video game RPG, 'Wizardry'. I got that for the original NES in 1990. I was really into it and bought a strategy guide for it and everything. If you know this game then, then you know that you really had to use your imagination to play just like a pen and paper TTRPG as the gameplay/graphics were almost non-existent. After that, I got the itch to play fantasy TTRPGs again and found what would be my "main" group in 1992. As an aside, I also got into other genres like sci-fi, horror (Vampire), Wild West (Deadlands)  and my beloved Cyberpunk around this time. You really could play anything during that time with all kinds of different gaming mechanics. The group was also playing card games, board games and war games. As things went on and the open gaming license came out, the interest went away for a bit as things felt too samey. As a group we avoided falling into wanting "the latest and greatest" versions of everything we were playing. We were smart enough to see those money grabs for what they were back when the market was being oversaturated, but we weren't smart enough to keep playing our old stuff, and instead pulled back on everything. As previously documented "life" happened for me then and I didn't get interested in the hobby again until Pathfinder and 4E were released. Then, group funding, VTTs and 5E came around and the rest is history or more likely current events with several games of differing mechanics coming out on a regular basis just like the good old days. 

RPG A Day 2022: Day 11--If you could live in a game setting, where would it be?

This one's easy. It starts by not choosing the setting where you wish to be, but rather accepting the setting in which you are--Cyberpunk Dystopian. 

I've trained most of my life for living in a Cyberpunk Dystopian world...unfortunately, the cybernetics aren't as widespread and sadly we don't even get to watch any Rollerball match-ups, but quite a bit of what was predicted in CP 2013/CP 2020 and Bladerunner came to be and I'm here for it. 

Style over Substance, mass media overkill, corporate owned political representatives, designer drugs, body modification, chimeras, out of control political correctness, virtual/enhanced reality, mass disparity between the social classes, varied plagues--many of which lab based, my favorite girls' hairstyle, pollution, transportation and infrastructure collapse, nations against nations within nations--even serious talk of secession in certain states are all clearly present in our real world. All in all, great times. Just institute more roller-based sports for me ASAP, and I can wait a bit on the bionic implants. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 10: When Did/Will You Start Gamemastering?

I'll use this entry to summarize my DM/GMing career as I remember it today. Hopefully, it doesn't contradict the entries from previous years too much...at the same time, I hope I'm not rehashing a previous entry.

If you've been following along with the past several entries, you can put it together that I was the DM/GM right away as I was the only one in my family with any interest in picking up the hobby and I didn't have a close circle of neighborhood kids to hang out with. In my first failed attempt with the D&D product that I can't remember, I would have only been running for my brother. The second attempt with Marvel Superheroes and my Dad's...er, non-conformity...would have been me running for my Mom, my Dad and my brother. The parents humored me with that one and maybe a couple more sessions before it went to just running for my brother and eventually one of his younger friends named Matthew. Even these memories are suddenly 30+ years ago, so I'm forgetting exact details, but I recall running for my brother and his friend from around '89 until about '91 or '92. I graduated high school in 1992 and would eventually hook up with the 'main group' of my youth later that summer. I never ran during those years which lasted for quite some time. I played a lot then and had semi-regular gaming days between TTRPGs, Card Games, and War Games. At some point though...I finally needed to "grow up". I hated it, but I caught on that things change. There is a window of time wherein you are deciding who you want to be. It's cute buying toys and playing games all the time in your late teens and early 20's...it's something different to still be doing it when you are approaching 30, still living at home, have no girlfriend and no prospects. 

I pulled away from my gaming friends and decided to acquire a girlfriend/spouse. I spent two years in the search and courtship and finally won my wife over. We had to be one of the first online romances out there as I used my Sega Dreamcast and Library computers to correspond with her. I couldn't even get a hold of a scanner to send her my pic and had to go with snail mail. I was using phone cards to call her up long distance multiple times a week. As it turned out she wasn't--and isn't--much of a gamer, and since I eventually made the decision to go back to college, I continued to have no time for gaming. This was the situation for five years full of ups and downs. As a newly minted--yet, already 35 year old--licensed teacher with no teaching experience in the thick of the so-called 'Great Recession' I found myself going overseas to work. Taiwan was my first stop and there wasn't much English being spoken out there. I tried to run a zombie survival type scenario for a bunch of 7th graders in my "club" using candy for a reward, but they were far more interested in the candy than the gaming. I never found any colleagues or enthusiasts that wanted to play so Taiwan was a bust and not just for gaming and I left them behind after only year of employment.

My next teaching gig was in the UAE and it lasted for nine years. I've documented before that I played more during that time than possibly any other time in my life. I tried to run using various board game versions of D&D including DragonStrike and Castle Ravenloft...along with full game version of 4E and Ryuutama. There were varying degrees of success, but at least I was running. I mention here that I somehow missed all of D&D 3.0 and 3.5 during my time away from gaming and didn't even know about editions and the like until this time. For a few years I ran virtual games via Roll*20 which slowly, but surely developed during this time period. I'm fairly sure I was once again in on the ground floor. Around year seven I found what I call my 'UAE Gaming Group'.  I ran Cyberpunk 2020, Curse of Strahd, and an Al Qadim game for them. Again...varying degrees of success. By the time of years eight and nine, I had gone back to primarily being a player. I wouldn't call any of those games flops, but they were definitely learning experiences. 

Finally--and not a moment too soon--this lands us right here in China and my current teaching gig. I was a player in a local group the first year I arrived, but did no running. When the Wuhan Flu hit and that group went our separate ways, I started running on Roll*20 again. I did a one shot of a KS project I backed called Heckna! in Halloween of 2020 and I've been running my current campaign--D&D 5E Hardcore Mode/Ryuutama mash-up--since early November 2021.

There it is my entire gamemastering career--possibly a reimagining of an early entry for all I know. I will close saying that if you haven't been DM/GM yet, you should give it a try. It's a lot of fun and it's like running your own character except so much more. You may have to go through a lot of weeds with the whole WOKE vs. OSR thing going on, but you can search YouTube and find several useful channels to help you run a game including Dungeon Craft (Dungeon Professor), Runehammer, and Seth Skorskowsky.

RPG A Day 2022--Day 9--What is the Second RPG You Bought?

 It'll be a short one today, but if you consider the Marvel Superheroes Advanced Set to be the first RPG I ever bought--having previously purchased a D&D character kit some years before which didn't give me enough material to play or run a game--then, the second RPG I bought would have either been 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness' or 'Heroes Unlimited'. As you can guess, I was really into comic books at the time. At some point I also would get the old D.C.Heroes RPG with the wheel--if you know, you know. There is a possibility that some of the Palladium Books are still floating around my home base in Georgia in the States, but I'm not too sure. I had one of those purges just before I got married  nearly two decades ago now wherein I got rid of a a lot of my stuff. I really wished I had kept it all, but to what end? I have an entire treasure chest of material in the Philippines, a book-shelf and closet of various materials that survived the culling still sitting in the States, and my current books that made the trip with me to China, and none of them--not even the ones that are here with me--really get the use that they deserve. That said, I'll never have another culling. I always regret them and I guess when I die, my daughter can donate the things to Goodwill if she doesn't want them or if I'm not survived by any of my IRL gaming friends. 

 A few words about TMNTaOS and HU then...both were by Palladium Books and more or less used the same mechanics as I recall. Again, that memory is really getting to me...not sure. I remember both were very crunchy to play but a lot of fun. Of note, I  recall one of my original heroes being a homeless man with speed powers like the Flash, flaming like the human torch, and a sonic scream like Banshee. I didn't want him to be overpowered, but rather just a dude screaming while he was running at high-speeds while on fire. Unfortunately, giving him even the lowest powered versions of these abilities were still far too powerful and complex a build. He had a partner which my friend made and whom I may have mentioned in an earlier RPGADay entry. This fellow was a pimp who ran so many ladies that he had two bandoliers, a belt, and several different holsters field with electronic pagers--it was the early 90's after all--and on one unfortunate night all his girls called in at the same time...twice?...three times?...Who knows? Eventually, the batteries did run out, and when the man that had once been, finally crawled out of the wreckage, he would from then on be known as the Vibrating Pimp. This pair defended the streets of Atlanta for many a year--actually we only played one session. I love superheroes, but a sustained hero campaign has always been pretty tough. I remember TMNTaOS also being fun--especially the 'After the Bomb' follow-up--but I don't have any stories or characters that I remember. 

 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 8: Who Introduced You to RPGs?

 I have some Mandela Effect memories going on now at age 48. From earlier this year I mentioned watching the D&D cartoon during its first run and how that was my first interest in the hobby. That cartoon started in 1983 when I would have been nine years old. I distinctly remember trying to buy some kind of something D&D that may have been a thieves character kit--of course, you couldn't play the game with just that so it was lost to me. Looking it up online the one I remember getting early was released much later, so I'm wrong there somewhere. Nevertheless, there was one attempt early on that didn't quite click, but the interest was there. 

I have memories that can be confirmed of reading the 'Choose Your Own Adventure" and the 'Time Machine' books that were reader directed novels. Those apparently came out in '84 according to the Google. Later, in 1987 I encountered books with even more gaming elements involved with the 'Fighting Fantasy' and 'Wizards, Warriors, and You' books. I was living a very disastrous year in Alabama at the time so I distinctly remember those books being a help in getting me through it. I also recall other peers in grade 7 playing in D&D groups allegedly, but I was never a part of them. 

The next part gets a bit hazy. At some point after the family's return to Georgia, I got to go to Dragon*Con in Atlanta. It was during one of these Dragon*Con visits that I picked up the TSR 'Marvel Super Heroes' Advanced Set. From that time I really played and for the most part never looked back in one way or another. There were two older guys at a table in the dealer's room that sold me on buying it. I can give these unknown dealers the credit of really introducing me to the hobby proper. I remember my younger brother being with me, but I'm not sure if mom and dad were with me at the time or not. I did play with them later in an infamous game of Marvel Super Heroes that I related in a different RPG A Day blog entry back there somewhere, but what my dad did as the Hulk would have surely gotten him cancelled today. 

It was like this but a whole lot more...let's say politically incorrect. Hulk lost a lot of Karma points that day. 

RPG A Day 2022: Day 7 System Sunday--Describe a Cool Part of a System that You Love.

 I don't think a year has gone by in my participation with the RPG a Day experiment that I haven't talked a little about Ryuutama. This system is a traditional rules lite fantasy TTRPG coming out of Japan. It is whimsical in tone and described as Miyazaki meets Oregon Trail due to its focus on travel. The feature that I'm going to talk about is the GM character called the Ryuujin. 

The Ryuujin are small, lesser Dragons in this setting that are raising what are called Seasonal Dragons. These powerful Seasonal Dragons grow by hearing the Ryuujin tell stories about the adventures of the party. The Ryuujin come in four colors: Green, Azure, Crimson, and Black. Each color has its own features and also gives a hint to the tone of the campaign. Greens are general, Azures are love/family, Crimsons are action, and Blacks are sorrow/death. 

Many TTRPG commentators will tell you that the DM/GM should never have his own character as a part of the party. I can see that--especially when it comes to leveling up a DM/GM character alongside the other PCs--as these types of characters potentially steal the spotlight from the players. What's more the GM/DM character knows all the secrets if GM/DM wants him to. The Ryuujin is a bit different and works to put the spotlight on the PCs. I would say they are about as helpful as 'Dungeon Master' in the old D&D cartoon except they do level up--on their own scale--and the powers that they have can help or hinder the party...whatever makes for a more interesting story. 

I've taken to using the gimmick in every campaign I run. Having a Ryuujin in a fantasy setting fits seamlessly, but even in a setting like Cyberpunk, having a similarly powered permanent NPC embedded in the group gives the GM/DM a voice within the narrative that is distinct from his role as arbiter and lessens the burden of coming up with a parade of NPCs that just happen to be there right in time when the players need them. 

RPG A Day. 2022: Day 6--How Would You Get More People Playing RPGs?

I think the interest is there, but as "big" as RPGs have become--specifically D&D in the States and Call of Cthulhu internationally--they are still niche and small potatoes. Generally speaking, people have neither the time nor the desire to read books that are over 200 pages long. If they have a life with responsibilities, they probably can't play any more than three hours a week--if they're lucky--whether they desire to do so or not. For all the 80's and beyond 'Satanic Panic' and today's Culture Wars that show supposed evils in the hobby, the one constant and true "evil" is that our hobby is a time sink. It can be a money sink too, but that's up to the individual. There are enough options these days to play for free and legally. It's the time and lack thereof that is the biggest deterrent to regular, sustained play. What should we do?

1. Explain the rules in a simplified way: You should be able to explain the rules as if you were giving an elevator pitch in a movie. As I mentioned yesterday, if you don't have time for a session zero, that one shot  can take a good ten to fifteen minutes to get the rules and general concept communicated to newbs, and they'll get lost no matter what you say, so it's better to get right on it. Say something like:  "It's like playing cowboys and indigenous peoples, but we roll dice when the outcome of an action is in doubt"

2. Choose a rules light system: Several games I've played lately could be considered 'rules light', but they're not 'kiddie' strictly speaking. In fact, I've found a few "kiddie" games in searching for an easier entry-level game for my young daughter that had more "crunch" and high-concept rules than she would ever be able to play with.  The stories and settings may be kid friendly, but the rules sure weren't. I choose games like ICRPG, Tiny Dungeon, Ryuutama and the Deathbringer supplement are all easy to get into. Any system that is D6 based like 'Tiny Dungeon' is going to infinitely easier to the beginner just because we're all familiar with the D6 dice. I haven't played Deathbringer, but I understand it is only pamphlet sized.

3. Choose basic race/roles/class: If I want more people playing--and staying at the table--I have to follow K.I.S.S. procedure. Letting an inexperienced user play some crazy race, advanced role or class--Magic User (fantasy) or Netrunner (cyberpunk)--won't be good for the players or the DM. There was a reason why D&D had basic and advanced versions way back when. In the case like the Netrunner in cyberpunk, it would be better to regulate that to NPC only no matter how interested the player may be in running one. You don't want any gimmicky race or class slowing down the game for the others at the table while you deal with them.

4. Keep the sessions shorter:Err on the shorter side for the session and leave the players wanting more. YMMV but for me and wanting more people to play means making the session shorter. I normally play at three hours max and we have managed to have a weekly game for the most part since last November. Once in a great while we may run over, but my goal is to always finish under. It's hard to clear out even three hours for the Average Joe on a consistent basis nowadays. Those 8 hour marathons from our youth are out of the question--consistently. If you want to play regularly, it has to be a short session. The creator who's able to create a system that can provide satisfying results after one hour of play could make a mint.

I'll end it here to practice what I preach, but in summary, if we can simplify the rules and run quicker games, more people are likely to get into playing and keep playing.   

RPG A Day 2022:Day 5--Anecdote Alternative

 Couldn't really think of any specific reasons why anybody would like to play in the hypothetical "first game" we've been talking about other than some of the general info already in the blog entries. Either they'll like it or they wont. The fact is, I don't have too many anecdotes to tell either. I find that strange as I'm sitting here wracking my brain trying to come up with a decent story to tell...let alone coming up with people to tag...that I have plenty of hours in at live tables, across many nations BTW--love my VTT groups but even the ones that are closest to becoming real friends are gaming friends only and I have no 'real' knowledge of their personal lives, so what can I tell you? I'll summarize a recent play with a lot of rookie players that I was a part of.

The most recent live game I've been a part of took place among teachers after school at my current place of employment. This particular school has an activity called "Sharpen the Saw" wherein the teachers should take in an afternoon activity--about an hour--that some would call mandatory fun or a team building exercise. One of my colleagues decided to run a one-shot of D&D and it was approved, so naturally I signed up.

The first problems was what edition to run. I suggested he go with 5th because it is easier and most likely current players will be expecting that one, and it's better for rookies--my Pathfinder Beginners Box is stuck out in the Philippines, but that's another story.

Then, the next problem is that there is just no way one can run even the most bare bones one-shot in an hour. There is no session zero so we just have to jump right in. Should I attempt to do the thing next year, I'd try to be in touch with everyone by email in the weeks leading up to the event just to get everyone on the same page. As it stood he went with pre-gen characters to save a little time. I lessened that burden by bringing my own character, but in the end we still wound up being short a character leaving one of the experienced players scrambling to quickly generate one for himself. That led to the next problem of having rookies and experienced players at the table. If I remember correctly, we ended up with three rookies--the only girl was a female Chinese colleague with the English name 'Hamburger' who didn't speak much English--and three experienced players along with the DM. That would have been a bit unwieldy for me. Personally, six players is right at my max, but I prefer 3-5. Our DM carried on. 

This mix of newbies and oldies brought us to the next hurdle. The experienced players tried to help the first timers, but it was a bit of a clown show. I can't speak for the other guys, but coming in directly after a day at work means my own brain was already mush.  I'm not completely shy at the table, but I'm also not the most vocal either, so unless I'm the DM, I'm easily drowned out by more verbose players, and the later it gets--the more quiet I become. These factors made the game run more slowly than it should have and we were already pressed for time. It's such a fun hobby, but so difficult to explain to the true first timer.

We managed to get our feet in the door with a set-up. There was a little bit of role play there and I got to try a spell, but all the magic wasn't working for some reason. We then went literally down a rabbit hole for the adventure. The DM decided to run a world using creatures from the Final Fantasy video game series. It didn't really matter in the end, and personally, I never critique someone willing to run as it gives me a break, but I think if I were in charge of it, I would have stuck with more traditional monsters. There needs to be something for the newbies to hang their hats on. The FF series has a lot of weird stuff going on and that's cool, but for rookies? Since we were already running under time constraints, it takes less time not having to describe these off the wall monsters. To make it less of a burden I'd just throw some goblins out there and call it a day.

Text messages started coming in at around the 45 minute mark of our scheduled hour, and fifteen minutes later when we actually were an hour in, a few already needed to go. I think Hamburger hung in there for a little while, but eventually she left too. I'd have liked to sink my teeth into that Hamburger...but I digress. We ended up having two combat encounters--one kind of introduced the crazy creature we were fighting and the second had us fighting a pack of them; can't remember exactly but they were either snails or some living plants of some sort.

It was around the 90 minute mark right at the end of the second encounter when we decided to go ahead and wrap everything up. I remember that there were four of us that stuck around to the end--DM included. We had one real rookie standout--the P.E. coach. He was really using his imagination and pushing what his character could do. He tried to come up with something unique on each turn of combat. Of course, that's not sustainable and the DM was letting him get away with murder--er, that is--encouraging creative game play :) but he showed a lot of potential to continue with the hobby. We all agreed that we should meet again and run a live table right at the school. 

That was either in April or May of this year, and in spite of all our promises to schedule a real gaming time, you can probably guess that we have yet to meet up again for another session. I have my VTT weekly game and the reason I have it is that I push myself to get up and do it...even when I don't feel like it. The DM in this story forces some gaming from his wife and kids at times, but hasn't fully pulled the trigger to game with me in spite of us living in the same building. Scheduling is just a pain in the butt and the bane of all would be TTRPG groups. When we go back next year--which is to say in September--we may give it another shot. I'm thinking to run 'Alice is Missing' for them, but they'll need to commit to 2hrs if they want me to do it. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 4:Where Would You Host a First Game?

 A lot of simple answers for the 2022 campaign...so far. I would host a first game at my house preferably at the kitchen table away from the TV. I would like to have snacks and music. I'd like it to be at a time when no one was sleepy or otherwise distracted. Unless my wife and daughter wanted to play, I'd prefer them to be doing some bonding outside of the house. It seems proper and the way things were always don. Unfortunately, this has been impossible throughout the Wuhan Flu years and I don't see that changing any time soon. Nowadays, I host using Roll 20 VTT. I usually leave the house and run from the school library where I work. Again, it keeps me away from distractors like my wife and daughter. I live in Beijing and wake up very early while those to time thieves are still in bed. My current run has been a good one having started back in November of 2021. For those in the know, it seems that the average new campaign only lasts for six sessions--we've well surpassed that, and have no plans on stopping anytime soon. 

RPG A Day 2022--Day 3--When Were You First Introduced to RPGs?

 It would have been the 1980's. I can tie my initial interest to the 1983 cartoon which I saw in first run. I would have only been nine years old at the time. In an earlier blog on here somewhere I probably mentioned having a try at playing back then, but not really knowing what to do. I tend to remember having a thieves kit, but when I look up the kit I remember it was far later--damn, Mandela Effect. I am also old enough to have played 'Cowboys and Indians' with my little brother and later having bought into LazerTag all of which can be considered LARPing and some of which may get a person cancelled or possibly shot by accident today. I wouldn't do my duty if I didn't mention the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' style books that were like gateways to TTRPGs and much more manageable for the pre-teen me. My brother and I would later make a simple game using the old M.U.S.C.L.E. toys along with dice to hold many a match and tournament. There was also an official G.I. Joe board game that used the actual toys on bases and worked like a war game for total beginners, but of import to us it introduced a story where the dice decided what happened. Then, there's HeroQuest, but everyone already knows how awesome it is. So many things conspired to make me the TTRPG hobbyist I am today, but to recap the answer is somewhere in the 80's.

RPG A Day 2022: Day 2--What is a Great Introductory RPG?

 Short answer--Pathfinder Beginners Box (1st edition). I haven't played the second edition box at this point--living in China I find that I cannot trust the things that I order to get to me, and thanks to the Wuhan Flu I haven't been able to travel home in four full years, so I haven't had a chance. That said, the first edition box has everything one needs to start playing right away. The rules have less crunch than the full edition. I only wish Paizo had supported this easier system a bit more. It comes with a couple of "bells and whistles" apart from the standard dice set and pre-get characters including a selection of  PF cardboard minis and a double-sided map. Oldskool players don't necessarily need the fluff, but for beginners it provides a "pop" to help them learn to play. It's been a while but I remember the pre-made adventure was pretty decent and at least one of the players at my table complemented it as such back when I ran it. I'm not sure if it's cheaper or more expensive nowadays what with the 2nd edition available, but I still think it's worth a spot on your shelf.