The RPG A Day 2016 Blog Day 10

August 10: What was the largest in-game surprise you have experienced?

I'll go back about twenty plus years ago for this one. It may be a standard story that you've played through before, I have no way of knowing, but if so just skip to the last paragraph. 

My good friend, Don Tibbitts ran a session of AD&D for me and our mutual friend James R Howard--look for them on Facebook. Our characters ran into a sad Ogre sitting on an old tree stump. He was forlorn and in no mood for a fight, in fact he wanted to hire us to do a favor for him. Nasty little goblins showed up in the middle of the night and quickly stole his club and all of his treasure. He could not pursue them because they were able to sneak into small places that he simply couldn't get into, and he had no weapon to fight them with in any case. If we would take the job and bring his treasure back, he would split half of his gold with us. We took the job, and long story short we were able to get the treasure chest and the club back to its proper owner. The ogre thanked us, promptly used the club to break the lock off of the chest and then opened it up. He pulled an enormous set of false teeth from the chest and inserted them into his mouth. He then reached in and pulled out his one gold coin and bit it in half. He gave the 1/2 GP to the two of us along with his undying gratitude for our help. SURPRISE!

So, it turned out to be a one shot game for the pair of us. I've run a similar scenario a few times, and I'm surprised that nobody has ever picked up on what is about to happen. If you want to try I would suggest to keep it short and funny, so that the players don't get upset for 'wasting' time on the joke. Don Tibbitts is currently all about the board games and he has a YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5v8uRCMdzHXgEOZC4rtbXg

A lot of funny playthroughs and unboxings, but no too many viewers. Give him a look. 

James R. Howard is a freelance comic artist that you guys may also enjoy:

https://www.facebook.com/Frankenart-animation-275284909179829/?fref=ts

Enough of that I'm just showing the 14 or so of you who have read my stuff that these people are real. :)

The RPG a Day 2016 Blog Day 9

August 9: What things are a part of your ideal session, other than the actual game?

At a live table the first thing I need since I live out in the remote area of the Liwa desert in Abu Dhabi is a venue that is relatively close. There was a time when I was travelling six hours every weekend just to play. It was still worth it to me but I knew it would be something that couldn't be sustained. Three hours up, a three to four hour session, and three hours back does not make for a happy non-gaming wife. Beyond that the ideal session needs to have pizza and soda. I find that my groups really don't drink alcohol too much during sessions. It's never been banned or anything as a house rule and we will have beer and wine access from time to time, but it doesn't seem to turn up so much. I like having lots of room with little distraction. Although "the game" isn't the only thing we do each week, we are friends and colleagues and we all like to shoot the breeze about real world stuff for a bit, but gaming is the main reason that we are there. We only have around three hours max each week, so we really do push to fill most of that time with gaming. Personally, I prefer sessions that keep the non-player visitors to a minimum. Observing friends are fine if they are tying to learn to play or just getting some entertainment out of our antics, but I'm not as fond of people milling around watching TV or having deep conversations while the game is running.

My online sessions have slightly different requirements. I prefer to play in groups that don't use webcams. I currently play with guys that use text chat only, but I can go with voice only if needed. By choosing this option I can sit and play in my underpants, and no one will be the wiser. It's just like when I type these blogs. I like to get up extra early in the morning while the wife and baby are asleep. Crying baby and nagging wife can ruin a game. I play my favorite 80's and J-pop from the youtubes and I make lots of coffee and eat lots of snacks. If I'm lucky and quiet enough I don't have to share with anybody. My books are all nearby in case I need to rules lawyer and clean up is quick and easy. That'll do for today. 

#RPGaDay

The RPG a Day 2016 Blog Day 8

August 8: Do you prefer hardcover, softcover, or electronic books? What are the benefits of your preference?

It will be a short one today. My preference is hardcover. Hardcover books are in it for the long haul. They are durable and I like being able to flip to a certain section quickly. I like using physical book marks and post-its. It just has a better feel for me. The downside is that they are heavy, expensive and take up a lot of space.

Softcover comes in second place for me. They are lighter and sometimes cheaper, but I find that they take up just as much space and are less durable. There are occasions when a full-sized softcover is very nearly the same price as a book with a nice hardcover.

Last but not least, electronic books. I don't like them as much because I'm old and like the feel of physical copies in my hands. I find that it is still easier to flip to a section in a printed copy than it is to scroll through to a particular section. The device has to be charged and sometimes that charge doesn't last as long as you would think. If you change devices, you have to transfer all the data, and that can take a while. There is always a chance that you can lose data as well...or the files might be corrupted. On the plus side, most downloads are going to be cheaper...at least they should be. You can bring many volumes with you on a tablet or smartphone and it's easy to access out of print materials. Anything that can help to lighten the load and lessen the paraphernalia can't be all bad.

...and that's all I've got for today.

The RPG a Day 2016 Blog Day 7 #RPGaDay

What aspect of Roleplaying Games has had the biggest effect on you?

For day seven--and this has been one quick week to be sure, two more weeks of vacation and then it's back to work for me--we have a very interesting question. My response is that roleplaying, among other things, has taught me to be more open to making new friends. This goes both for online and in person. If you want to play you need to have players, and preferably one of those players needs to be GM. I'm going to paint with a broad brush here, but quite a few of us RPG enthusiasts are naturally introverts. That makes it a lot harder to get a new group together. As a kid I ran games for my brother and his friend. I later latched on to a gaming group right after graduating high school. These were friends of friends that eventually became friends with me--but in every case, I had never gone in "cold". My friends and I played for years and years when our schedules meshed up well enough. Some of the guys were more outgoing than others, but for the most part we were a closed group, and nobody got in...especially not girls, and nobody wanted in...especially not girls. I was well into my 20's before I got over my shyness and most of the credit for that goes to my wife. Surprisingly, all the guys have been married at least once at this point, but it was touch and go there for a while. As an aside, I'll never bad talk RPGs. I've been playing literally 30+ years now, but if there is one drawback to playing, it is that even today for the most part it's all male. So, single guys need to beware and single girls need to recruit more female players. I intend to teach my daughter to play as soon as she's old enough. To go by the nightmare stories that I've read in blogs, I've been lucky with new people. There has been only one encounter wherein a friend of a friend brought a guy over to a session and he was totally racist. I'll never forget him because he looked like the lost Ramone and he was just going nuts. Slur after slur, and not in a locker room "this guy's a jerk, but he's kind of endearing" kind of way either. He was ugly both literally and figuratively, but we're going to talk about positives.

I teach English to ESL high school boys in the United Arab Emirates. I won't go into great detail about this because we are, as I said, trying to stay positive--two weeks and they drag me back in!! You can probably guess that among my RPG playing group of friends I was the only one who decided to seek his fortune abroad. When I arrived I had a hard time finding anybody to play with. My fellow newly arrived teachers wanted nothing to do with it, and weren't even open to giving it a go just to humor me.I did try to play a little with my students; small group of guys, interactive storytelling and interesting dice to roll? We had a shot, but they were more for roll playing instead of role playing. Once they were bored of the polyhedrals I had to drop it. I still wanted to play, and I knew it would mean going in 'cold'. I remembered that it was the internet age and I started looking there. I was surprised to find that right here in the middle of nowhere--relatively speaking as Abu Dhabi and Dubai are actually world renowned, I'm the one who lives in the sticks--that there was a very active group of players on Facebook called the Gulf Roleplaying Community. It turned out to be a very diverse group with expatriates from many different countries and even a few locals. It was shocking. I've been a member of the group for five years now and it hasn't ceased to amaze me that so many from the Middle East are engaged in RPGs that aren't rocket propelled grenades.Even more shocking is that there are a fair amount of female players and even GMs. This past May I played my first live table with a female GM. She went all out with terrain and everything. These are friends that I would have never met if not for a shared love of RPGs. Love of playing > Fear of strangers.

Isn't this the way we all learned how to RPG...or was it just me?

The RPG a Day 2016 Blog Day 6

A little late with my entry today as far as United Arab Emirates is concerned...but better late than never. I hope to answer every question this year, so on with today's entry:

August 6: What is the most amazing thing that you know a game group has done for their community?

On a weekly basis the best thing that my group does for the community is to be absent from it for three hours. Reports of deviltry and debauchery drop at least 20% between the hours of  5 P.M. to 8 P.M. each Sunday while productivity throughout the community increases.

There is a big group that does a lot for kids called generation On http://generationon.org and right now until August 19th you can support them  and get a My Little Pony/Dungeons and Dragons mash up T-Shirt:

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/dungeons-dragons-teams-my-little-pony


It's something you can do and you can get a nice shirt....but you have to hurry.

The RPG a Day 2016 Blog Day 5 #RPGaDay

August 5: What story does your group of players tell about your character?

So, we're into day five and I get to tell you about another character. Probably my favorite player character is my female, gnome bard named Nissa Fumblebuck. Originally I created her for a Roll 20 13th Age one-shot, but I liked her so much that I brought her into my D&D games as well. I have run her in two roll 20 games--including one I'm in now--and I did my best to recreate her in Neverwinter for XBone, but she had to be a halfling rogue in that one. I don't know if any of my online friends tell stories about her or not, but from the start her gimmick was to sing anachronistic songs for her magic attacks...many lols were had at the expense of one Mr. Justin Bieber. Fortunately, for the other players and the DM these were text only affairs. This and her name seem to go over well whenever I play her. 

I eventually got to play as Nissa with a live table. The DM had me sing one time--extra exp I couldn't say no--and that was enough for everyone involved. The guys at the table remember Nissa most for her pet white rat named Baldric (named for the Black Adder character). All forest gnomes can talk to small animals, and Nissa had the rat because of the street urchin background. Whenever we came to an impasse the whole party allowed Baldric to be the arbiter. The DM was good with it, so I'd roll a % die and the stronger he felt about which way to go or what to do from the options that Nissa gave him we'd all follow. Now those sorts of situations pop up in the current campaign the guys wish that Nissa and Baldric were there.  

The RPG a Day 2016 Blog Day 4

Day 4: Best thing another player's character has done!

I'm going to continue talking about the campaign from yesterday, and the character of Akemenos. Akemenos, a male, tiefling wizard, had--and continues to have--a hard time in this campaign. The party found two potions and a ceremonial blade in an altar to Lolth. At that time my character, Krusktina, the newly female half-orc/drow hybrid that I mentioned yesterday, showed great interest in all of those items. Akemenos wisely tried to keep them from her. The only other party member present for this exploration was a male, half-elf rogue named Fox. The two dwarf fighters had yet to join the group.As a half-elf Fox immediately distrusted Krusktina, but for whatever reason both he and Akemenos felt that she should accompany them back to the surface rather than leave her behind.

The next morning at camp Krusktina went off to perform a ritual to Lolth while Fox tried to catch some fish. This left Akemenos alone and he decided to investigate the loot...rolls a successful check on the white potion which he learns is a potion of life...rolls a '1' on the black potion and collapses. Krusktina beat Fox back to the campsite. She took all of the items, but poured the black potion down the wizard's throat. <she didn't know what either potion did so we rolled random and black was the choice>. This potion left Akemenos somewhere between life and death. A little bit like the old Weekend at Bernie's movie. When Krusktein went bats and left the party to become an NPC (as detailed in yesterday's post) she took the ceremonial blade and white potion with her. Akemenos was thought dead, so he was buried in the town cemetery, he had to dig his way out of the grave, and in doing so he nearly gave the human undertaker a heart attack. Eventually, the reformed party--including my new character set out to find Krusktina and the white potion which Akemenos knew to be a potion of life. 

Krusktina was tracked to an old dwarven mine which had long since been infested with trolls and other beasts. Akemenos eventually found himself in a wizard's study and began to experiment with some of the equipment...rolls a '1'....the DM essentially gave him a mulligan because a fumble with this equipment would cause an explosion that he couldn't survive, so you know....he rolls a '1'...fate of dice and all that...Akemenos is blown to bits and all of the skin and internal organs are burned from his body. Yet, because of the potion he is still in a state between life and death. We took his skull and carried it around for a while trying to find a new body for him. The skull could still talk and cast verbal spells. We were eventually able to get his skull grafted into the body of a slime...and that's where he remains to this day, but he's still holding out hope for an upgraded body soon.