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 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.