The Liberation of Geoff

 It has been way to long since I’ve sat down at the kitchen table with a bunch of friends and rolled some dice. I’ve been playing a lot of Magic but the itch to run a game is becoming too great to ignore. Since I’ve been on summer break I’ve had time to start brainstorming ideas and trying to plan out a campaign. As I put pen to paper I was reminded of one of my first D&D memories. I’ve probably previously written about this somewhere on this blog of playing in the “Steading of the Hill Giant Chief”, and of how my character, an ineffective illusionist, who turned invisible during a massive battle in the main hall of the Steading. Since then I’ve always wanted to run or play in the “Against the Giants” trilogy.

I love this cover!

Much later, when I finally started roleplaying on a regular basis a friend of mine showed me the Liberation of Geoff book. The cover of that book still to this day evokes a feeling of fear and wonder in me. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Monte Cook said that this is what good D&D book covers should do. They should provide a sense of action and adventure, a promise of what awaits those that delve into the world held between those covers. I love how those two characters are either getting ready to ambush those two giants, or they are hiding from them know that if they are found they are as good as dead. I almost prefer that it be the latter. I feel like in some ways “Against the Giants” is more of a series of infiltration and spy missions than hack and slash combat ones. But then I guess there’s nothing wrong with opening a can of whip ass on giants either…

Long story short, I’ve been planning a D&D 5e sandbox campaign in the Lost Lands of Geoff (The name of the former Grand Duchy still makes me cringe however). As I went through my old note books I even discovered that I still have ideas written down from 2008! Furthermore, I’ve been following and very impressed with Simon Forster’s “Against the Giants” campaign that’s now at session 214! You can read all about it at his “The Sky is Full of Dust” blog. This campaign was started in 2012 and is still running 4 years later! So clearly there is lots of adventuring to be had in this part of Greyhawk. I love the idea of the characters taking on the role of resistance fighters. One of the ideas I had was to modify the liberated city of Hochoch and make it more like Osgiliath in “Lord of the Rings” movie. The liberated portion of the city would be a highly defended and rebuilt area on the East Bank of the river, while on the West bank would be city ruins infested with bandits, monsters and other hazards. The basic hook is that there is little fight left in the people to take back the Grand Duchy. Even if there was, there is even less money to finance and support an army. Instead, Grand Duke Owen I, has sent out word to bands of adventurers across the land. Letters of Mark are being given out to help liberate the lands. Great rewards await those adventuring companies brave enough to strike out into the dangerous wilderness and help the brave people still trapped in slavery behind enemy lines.    

How I envision the City of Hochoch in my campaign.

2015 I'm making you my Bitch

Aint that the truth.

2014 is coming to an end. I started this blog in 2011. I haven't been as diligent at posting as would have liked but hey thats life and gaming took a hit with all the other stuff going on in my life over the years.

Since that time I've been laid off, learned a language, finished high school, got a new job, and am now preparing for my second semester of college.

Theres been almost no roleplaying going on these days which blows goats. However I've been playing Magic a lot and even winning a few local draft tournaments. Plus a bunch of us have embarked on learning Warhammer Fantasy miniatures. ORCZ FOR DA WIN!

A new gaming store has opened in my town and its amazing. The staff and people who hang out and play are all great people and it promises to be a great new year for gaming. I just wanted to thank those that stop in and read my blog from time to time. I will make an effort to put up new material and finally update some of my blog projects.

Happy New year to you all!

Wisdom From PLANET ALGOL

I finally found the blog post that I was talking about when I referenced the idea of an Ultimate Forgotten Realms campaign. That blog was of course the most rad and greatly missed PLANET ALGOL blog the blog post can be found here.

On a similar train of thought I've been writing up some notes on an Ultimate Greyhawk. The idea being that this is a reboot of the Greyhawk Setting. One of the campaigns I've always wanted to run was the classic Temple of Elemental Evil,  Against the Giants, and Descent into the Depths series of modules.

One of the things that often happens is that as I gear up to run this I get so obsessed over canon that I just give up. However now that I allow myself to be unshackled from the chains of canon I can just run with it and really make it my own campaign.

So I started with the village of Hommlet. I have the beginnings of some actual notes that take the village in some very radical directions from what Gary wrote. But you know what I think that's what Gary would've wanted. For us to take his toys and run with them. To make them our toys, to make it our game and play it anyway we felt was the most fun for us.

Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep

Written by: Phil Vecchione, blogger from gnomestew.com 

Published by: Engine Publishing

Format: 132 Digest sized black and white pages

Verdict: Totally Fucking Awesome!

How is it in the in the history of roleplaying we only now have a book about how to go about the process of prepping to run a game? I mean we a have a shit load of books that cover important advice that you should consider as a GM, but almost nothing on how to take all that raw material and process it into something useful during a gaming session.

This is a book that should be read at least by every GM at least once. It doesn’t pretend to be pretentious and tell us how exactly to prep for a game, but offers system neutral guidelines and tools to become a better game master. Its a short read, but jam packed with useful information. It identifies the stages of prep, why their important, and how you can adapt them to your preferred gaming style.

I found myself really identifying with the author. He answered questions I've long struggled with about what I need to work on and how in order to maximize the limited prep time I have available. Really thats what this all comes down to, time management and prepping what you need in order to feel comfortable at the game table. What that is varies from person to person but this book really helps you be introspective and figure that out.

For example when I ran my Arkham Heat campaign, despite having a rules light game engine I still suffered burn out from trying to keep one session ahead of my players. I felt like a failure and that perhaps I just wasn’t cut out to GM. In retrospect I think the problem was that I was focusing my time and energy in poor and wasteful ways. In addition with so much of my time consumed by my real life responsibilities I felt like I was never going to have time to actually run a pre-written campaign, never mind prep something from scratch. But this book shows you how to go about managing your time as well.

So to wrap this up, amazing book. Insightful and utile. Defiantly something I will be incorporating and experimenting with in my future game prep endeavours. I don’t care what game system or genre you prefer “Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep” should be mandatory reading for every GM worthy of the title. If I ever meet it's author Phil Vecchione in real life one day I will totally buy him a beer. In the mean time, thanks Phil for giving me the tools and insight to become a better GM!   

Revisiting Skills & Redefining Failure

Previously I wrote about some of my thoughts on the differences between how 3e and 4e approached skills. Today I read an excellent article on Gnome Stew called How To Make Skill Checks Not Suck. It was a great read and pretty insightful. If you’ve never read Gnome Stew before all I can say is, DUDE! Go now and check it out. Seriously, there is way better material for you there in just a handful of articles than on this entire crappy blog of mine.

Anyway to sum up what that article was trying to say in a nutshell was this:

 1. No Mundane tasks, a skill check should add something interesting to the story .

2. An interesting check will move the story forward regardless of success or failure.

3. Something should be at stake and riding on the success or failure of a check.

So what does this mean?

1. No Mundane tasks, a skill check should add something interesting to the story .

Not every bloody task requires a roll. Recently when playing with my group I have encouraged them to be more descriptive about exactly what and how they’re trying to accomplish something. Specific beats general. If a player tells me they are looking for a specific clue or item, I don’t require a roll at all. If however they are just trawling for random clues then I make them roll, and then only if it doesn’t matter. I’d rather over load my players with info, than frustrate them with a lack of it. In the end it’s what they do with that information that’s most important.

2. An interesting check will move the story forward regardless of success or failure.

When a player succeeds at a check it’s meaning is pretty obvious, they succeed at accomplishing the challenge. Failure is where we tend to run into a problem. This is the part where we need to redefine what failure means. Failure at a check shouldn’t be a roadblock that can only be bypassed by requiring additional rolls till someone succeeds. Instead it should be a mitigated success that’s tied with negative consequences. You succeed but not as cleanly as if you had succeeded the check. This creates friction and drama that drives the narrative forward, rather than grinding everything to a sudden boring and unproductive halt.

3. Something should be at stake and riding on the success or failure of a check

If nothing important is ridding on the success or failure of a check then why bother rolling in the first place? What’s important here is that the success should provide a benefit to the player or group, and a failure some kind of penalty.

The WALL

This is a blog post in response to The Happy Whisk's question of  what I've been up to in my comments section.

It's been 5 months since this blog went dead. Or something like that. I had a little bit of momentum going, I was picking up some followers and then SMACK. I hit the WALL. If your a blogger, or a writer, you know what I mean when I write of the WALL. And no, not the Pink Floyd variety either.

When I first started blogging the intention was to get my writing chops in shape. I wanted to be a writer. One day I was going to be the next Stephen King. Yup...My Balls were that big.

First I was going to write that gaming supplement. Just for shits and giggles. Because hey RPG's were my first love, the thing that gave me hope of breaking into writing for a living. But the blogging thing was taking up all my time. All the writing projects I wanted to do were being pushed to the side because I needed to blog every day. Of course during the break, some how sitting down to write everyday fell by the wayside. Apparently I have the drive and willpower of a 5 year old... So depressing.

In addition, this was a gaming blog. The reality is I don't really game all that much anymore. I still dig it, but it is no longer at the center of my universe. My family has taken front and center, and that's how it should be. So with no real gaming going on, and no real writing going on, I decided it was time for a break. I just didn't imagine the break being this long. Mostly I feel like a failure, and the desire to write anything has been pretty much non-exisitant. Serisouly, I'm pretty envious of all those guys in the OSR blogsphere who have put out some top notch material. Regardless of the production values, anyone who has written and published something should give themselves a big pat on the back. They do what all proffesionals do. Make it look easy. So the tip of my hat to all of you, and you all know who you are.

As for the future of this blog...I dunno. I'm no game Guru. I dont keep up with the game news anymore. I dont give a shit about what edition of D&D people play, or if 5th edition is on the way. I dont care about the endless debates on whats old skool or not, or if thats what Gygax would have wanted. But mostly I don't really feel like I have anything useful to add to the community. There are a lot of fine bloggers out there, people who actually have something to say, and are saying it better than I ever could.  

On the flip side, my gaming group did just recently finished up our steam punk mini-campaign using the Cyberpunk rules. I  have taken ahold of the GM reins again and am now getting ready to run a Call of Cthulhu campaign, nominally called Arkham Heat. So there will be some dice chucking goodness to report on in the near future. I dunno, I just don't really have the drive to do it anymore. Mostly it comes down to time. Can I make the time? Sure, but theres just so many other things that seem to be demanding my time these days it a little over whelming.

So If I do get back to blogging it will most likely be only a few times a week. More if I feel like I have something to say and have the time to say it. But I do hope that the stuff I wrote in the past was interesting, useful, or enjoyable. If you did miss this blog and there was something you liked about it drop me a line in the comments and let me know. Perhaps, it will help me get past the WALL.

If Jeff Rients Told Me To Jump Off A Bridge I Would...

Because when Jeff says do something I do it! You can now create PDF's and printer friendly versions of my blog posts now by clicking on that new nifty little button at the bottom of each post I make. I just tested it out and it works great! Thanks to Jeff and Matthew over at Rended Press who started the whole ball of wax going in the first place. That's a gold star that was well earned.