Questing for Answers Episode 1
Added 2019-05-31 21:32:37 +0000 UTCIn our first episode, I got some of the online RPPR cast (Bridget and Birk) to answer some questions in our first segment and then got Caleb, Tom, Aaron, and special guest Baz to answer questions for the second segment. We tackle everything from gaming advice to suggestions for bad movies. We didn't get through all of the questions, but we will try to get different patrons for our next episode.
Music: Selections from Rotti by Mere.
Comments
Ashen Stars is def a space opera. Slipped my mind.
Ross Payton
2019-06-21 21:46:35 +0000 UTCThis is a great concept for a Patreon bonus. Excellent questions and discussions. It was amusing how many of the Springfield crew questions ended up as "Don't." - but sometimes that's really the best advice. I was really surprised how often Exalted came up on this one. I tried really hard to learn and run Exalted and my advice is also Don't. As Ross said, don't try to adapt it one to one, either. At most, adapt the very broad things that appeal to you about Exalted. I did that a while back by taking the plot ideas I had for an Exalted campaign (weak government, powerful supernatural pirates, underwater gods) and ran them in Dungeon World instead. It worked great! My players all really enjoyed it. But I made no effort to work in Solars, Lunars, or the like. I've actually seen a lot of attempts to more directly convert Exalted to other systems, and they are rarely completed or satisfying. Describing RIFTS as a hoarder house of ideas was perfect. Ross: Do you consider Ashen Stars as something besides Space Opera? I was a little surprised you didn't mention it for that question. I think it was Laura B asking about being a more mean GM - Greg Stolze has a fantastic section on this in Unknown Armies 3, in the GM book. In brief, you get your mean GM on during the prep phase and come up with all the worst possibilities for your players. In the session itself, you're on their side again - but they still have to overcome those challenges. He describes the difference in thinking very well between the two phases. Stolze's document on "How to GM" is also a good refresher even for experienced GMs, in my opinion. On the 4th Ed question: This is the sort of question that comes up a lot at game convention panels. And Robin Laws, for instance, will gradually check whether the players want to play a mystery focused game or if it's just the GM. Because, yeah, sometimes that's the case. Sometimes people will agree to a game and then realize it's not their cup of tea. There's a lot of resources for 4e, but if things like a cheat sheet for combat and status effects, and Power Cards don't make a difference... maybe it's not the game for your group. 13th Age keeps some of that fun though it involves less book-keeping. Ross mentioned Strike! which deliberately sets out to be a rules-lite 4e type experience. But yeah ... maybe Dungeon World or something similar is the way to go. Personally, I am shocked when people talk about their players actually reading the books. My players generally don't, but they bring a lot of enthusiasm and share their time for the games themselves. And the plus side is that players who don't read the books will almost never argue about rules with you - it's just not where they're invested. And we're still playing Eclipse Phase, but I've been rolling the rules out gradually. We didn't start with full hacking rules or burst fire versus semi-auto versus full auto. We got there after doing basic rules and setting. That kind of incremental approach can work, too. Finally... you might just have to do chargen for them. Character Generation is a set of very specialized rules that come up once and often have unclear costs/benefits. For homework averse players, it's the least fun part of RPGs*. You can ask what kind of character they want, make it for them, and get to the actual fun at the table that way. * I know that for homework-enjoying players, it can be one of the most fun parts. Looking forward to more of these.
Ken Ringwald
2019-06-17 16:38:00 +0000 UTCYeah, I played in a Living Campaign type world that had an overly involved Wiki as well, for multiple years. I do not recommend it. They sound like a lot more fun than they actually are. The fact is, players will come and go, and it has the side effect of sticking new players with dozens to hundreds of pages of reading off the bat. That's not fun and then most of it never comes up again, as Bryan Rombough says. It also runs the risk of making new players feel like their contributions aren't important, compared to a decade of previous play. A good GM can get around this, I suppose, but anyone who is doing a Living Campaign and keeping a Wiki is probably pretty obsessed with their past sessions. With a fair to bad GM, it's just going to feel like homebrewed 90s style metaplot and that the PCs aren't actually that important to the world. The kind of emergent living world that RPPR has (Darlingtons, Burn the apartment down, etc) is much more player driven and I think that's way more fun.
Ken Ringwald
2019-06-17 16:17:54 +0000 UTCJust remembered: that Traveller campaign even had a wiki for a while.
Bryan Rombough
2019-06-05 12:19:15 +0000 UTCThat “Living Campaign” question is interesting. I know the idea definitely appeals to some folks, and it seemed to be the default way people assumed D&D and other rpgs were to be played back in the day (remember the old D&D rules for building strongholds etc.?). But I suspect that more people like the idea of a living campaign than actually enjoy it when they try to put it into practice. I was in a gaming group which had a very long running Traveller campaign which I think fit Trekkie140’s definition of a living campaign. They had been playing it on and off for about a decade when I joined the group, and they continued playing it after I left. When I joined, the GM gave me two binders of campaign notes to read (I think I may still have one of them), filled with write-ups of the party’s adventures and “Traveller News Service” bulletins -some of which were fluff & some of which were potential plot hooks. Most of the players who had been with the group from the beginning however, had no interest in following up on any of the adventure plots they had found over the years. When a customs inspection turned up a bunch of artifacts (plot hooks) in hidey-holes on the party’s ship, the first reaction from all of the older players was to try to get rid of them!
Bryan Rombough
2019-06-04 20:54:57 +0000 UTCOn that D&D 4e question, I’m with Caleb. If the players can’t get through character creation, I don’t see how they’ll actually have fun playing in the campaign. I have a personal rule that if I can’t get through character creation, I just won’t play that rpg. The times I’ve skirted that rule, I’ve ended up regretting it. Though I’m a little surprised to hear that those players had played Exalted but couldn’t hack D&D 4e. I’ve played Exalted 1e & 2e and D&D 4e and I just can’t reconcile being able to play the former and not the latter.
Bryan Rombough
2019-06-04 13:04:10 +0000 UTC
