RPGaDAY 2015: Days 29-31 / Wrap-up

Day 29: Favorite RPG website / blog

The Happy Jacks RPG forums. I spend a disturbing amount of time there.

But other than there, I recently been loving to read the AndryGM rants. They are wonderfully ranty, and a very excellent mixture of both frustrating and hilarious. And more importantly, contain a surprising amount of insight.

I want to be good about reading Gnome Stew, it looks awesome, but it's just my inherent laziness. Everything else is touch and go, and I haven't gone far down any path.

Day 30: Favorite RPG playing celebrity

I'm really liking Chris Hardwick. It's just that way he unapologeticly uses D&D references whenever. Also the TV show: At Midnight. Pretty fucken funny. It's a little pseudo game show with comedians on, where all the questions are riffs or comments on internet meme type stuff.

Day 31: Favorite non-RPG thing to come out of RPGing

I've heard great answers on this one... things like world building, and cartography, and research.

But mine's pretty shallow: T-shirts. I love my tees. It's your little advertisement to try and capture relevant parties during daily transit. A little opener. An invitation for conversation. And ever since I got back into gaming, I've added the relevant RPGness to my collection.

There are classic examples out there, such as the Choose Your Weapon shirt. There are also more esoteric designs, such as this lovely GoPlayNW con shirt (which also serves as such a great Seattle souvenir shirt).

However, in the end I've had to make some of my own. I would love to pay the artists for their designs, but unfortunately Larry Elmore or Erol Otus just aren't in the business of printing out shirts, and thus I've had to buy my own iron on transfers (specifically those ones that print on dark shirts such as this), and my own shirts from American Apparel (or wherever), and DIY. But man am I happy with my shirts.

Wrap up

And with that, the month ends. I did all these as a little test for myself, to see if I could journal through it all, and get in the habit of writing all this junk (for myself if nothing else). 

But I also started posting this on the Happy Jacks forums, and have found many cool responses from others. So, thank you, #RPGaDAY2015. Perhaps we'll see you next year.

RPGaDAY 2015: Days 25-28

Day 25: Favorite Revolutionary Game Mechanic

Gaining experience when failing a move (skill roll) in Dungeon World. 

Dungeon World and Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) games already want rolls to only be made when they mean something, but this mechanic gives a little more drive to the GM to make that happen. Otherwise players can abuse the situation by rolling for anything, and getting more failures = more xp. I'm serious. I've got a min-maxer who was ready to roll all the time, because he knew that for the most part he couldn't "lose". He knew SUCCESS = win and FAILURE = xp.

For me as GM it was another impetus to learn to only ask for the rolls when they mattered. And it helped me drive up my game with roll failures which were more than just "oh, you missed. take 5 damage."

A disadvantage of failing rolls in some games is, such as some traditional D&D, is that just means you "missed" and now have to wait for the table to cycle before you can do anything else. One of the great advantages to this PbtA mechanic, however, is that there is always a silver lining when you fail, as a player... you get an XP! And it's only like 8 or more xp to level. So that's big too.

Day 26: Favorite inspiration for your game

Music. The track Hyperspace by Faust and Shortee, which inspired me with the Star Frontiers game.

Actually, there are more than a few tracks on that album I like for gaming. I love looking for good tracks that work in the backgrounds, especially if they have a certain beat or cadence which inspires the mood for the scene (but without distracting from the conversations in the foreground).

Day 27: Favorite idea for merging two games into one

Some good choices here. 

It's been said before in some of the other RPGaDAY posts, but shit: Dread. Jenga + RPG = excellence.

In recent times, one of my favorites is the Star Frontiers conversion for Savage Worlds, just because it's taken a setting I wanted to use, and converted it into gaming "Esperanto" so that everyone can play it. It isn't really a merging of two games, but more of a conversion of one into the system of another, however check out the amazing job they've done with these:

• Player's manual: www.savageheroes.com/conversions/sfplayers.pdf
• Referee's manual: www.savageheroes.com/conversions/SFreferee.pdf

If you remember, or have, the original Star Frontiers rules, you'll see they basically took the book and layout, as is, and scraped out the text, and just replaced it with Savage Worlds-related text and mechanics. It's artfully done.

Day 28: Favorite game you no longer play

Probably Battletech, purely for the memories. I loved walking into a pond and having the heat sinks in my legs cool me down, and jump up in the air and shout "death from above!" But alas, no one I know really plays it. I did get to play a short skirmish at the local con last year, when someone helped my friend Howie and I run through a quick combat (I think they were trying to promote the re-released box set. Howie then went on to buy it, but we haven't played since. And to be honest, I want to play a mech pilot, but I don't really like war gaming in general (too crunchy).

And that's why I'm sort of excited for this game: ATLAS RECKONING by Stras Acimovic. I got chat with him up at GoPlayNW, and he showed me some tidbits... a character sheet / playbook here and there. And it looks awesome, like a little bundle of Robotech and Pacific Rim and G-Force and whatnot all rolled into one. Not sure if the link'll work, but here's what I got re details: plus.google.com/+StrasAcimovic/posts/dp26DHBzxFL.

So hopefully this will go from a favorite game I no longer play, converted into a newer game I do.

#RPGaDAY2015

RPGaDAY 2015: Day 24: Favorite House Rule

Day 24: Favorite House Rule

My house rule was in Savage Worlds, where I like to use bennies - in addition to the generic re-rolls and damage soaks - as a pseudo fate chip. You can use them to change the course of events in some (relatively minor, but possibly important) way.

In by Distress on Life Liner 928 (Star Frontiers / Savage Worlds) game, because the game often has to end due to time constraints, I have the players spend bennies, back and forth, to get their agendas met (or not met, depending on who's got more bennies). This allows the game to be tied up in minutes, since it becomes all narrative at that point, and has led to some fun player vs. player moments. It also means that players get to spend all their bennies by the time the game ends, so it never feels like you wasted them, which is an additional bonus.

End game: You can see Kurt (the Vrusk next to the right escape pod) has run out of bennies, but Julia (the Sathar next to the left escape pod) has 3 left. Guess who lands on the planet surrounded by Slither beasts? And guess who floats in orbit and is saved by her Sathar brethren?

RPGaDAY: Day 23: Perfect game for you

Whew... getting RPGaDAY fatigue at this point. Gotta... power... through...

Day 23: Perfect game for me

It starts at 8am. I wake up from a restful sleep. I walk from the hotel room down to the meal area, where they serve fluffy eggs, perfectly cooked thick smoked bacon slices, grill roasted tomato, and those farmer market fresh fruits that take me back 35 years.

I get a call from my wife telling me what a great time she's having with our daughter, and how I should have a great time.

After a pleasant breakfast with gamer buddies, bantering about things that only we would find interesting, I head to the convention game rooms. (Yes, a convention, because that means I'm not at home dealing with home shit.)

Some of us get together and play a fun GM-less game we've never played before, run by a the game designer, who's motivated, fun, and plays right along with us. No one outshines anyone else, laughs are had, and a great story is told.

Lunch time, as good as breakfast.

Afternoon game is a LARP, but one in which the planned session is half the fun, and what all of us players bring to the table is the other half, and makes it all worthwhile.

A nice break for dinner with good friends, drinks, and a pleasant walk in the cool air.

And then the night game. Something horror. With investigation. And competing character agendas. And madness. And more than a little drinking.

And then back to bed for a great nights sleep.

RPGaDAY: Day 22: Perfect gaming environment

Simple, the right set of people for the game in question.

RPGaDAY: Day 21: Favorite RPG Setting

Reading this heading, I'm somewhat at a loss. Most of the games I've run are for systems that are setting-less, for the most part. I'm more used to world building around the stories that we're going to tell. I also haven't read too much into existing settings, and again maybe that's because I traditionally created them myself. The biggest exception would probably be Star Frontiers, but even that we just sort of made up as we went. The recent game I've set based on this isn't very setting-dependent.

As far as favorite games, I've been leaning towards the GM-less and world building type games, recently, and those sometimes have a guiding concept (and sometimes not), however don't really have a setting.

So, with that said, I wouldn't say any of these are my favorite per se, just that I've enjoyed playing or exploring them, in the limited fashion I've done:

Paranoia

I've only played one game of Paranoia, at a local con (run by Ed Murphy at Strategicon), and it was excellent fun. It feels a little dated at times, and mostly that's a good thing as far as flavor. 

Want to feel the love? Watch some excellent Paranoia mission briefings on youtube. One of my favorites is Mister Bubbles Mission Briefing:

Another great is Paranoia DRK-DNG-NSS Sector (Jack-I-CHK-3 Wants You To Kill Commies!), created by Kurt of Jackercon fame for a game he ran online:

Dark Sun

The Dark Sun D&D setting is set on the world of Athas. The basic concept is that magic takes a toll on the surrounding environment (especially if you want to do it the easy way), and hence mages have ruined the world. The setting is dark, with various wastelands, the rule of sorcerer kings, and cannibal halflings (can't get darker than that, right?) I got to play a few games in a friends campaign, and absolutely love the concept, especially in the context of D&D, which traditionally had a very high fantasy feel for me. If I had to play D&D (which of course, I don't), I'd prefer playing in this world.

Shadowrun

Again, dark and gritty, but this time with a little magic and technology crossover, spiced with hackers and corporations. Never played, but recently have loved listening to the Neo-Anarchist Podcast, which takes you through a bit of history in the Shadowrun universe, in the local dialect

RPGaDAY 2015: Days 17-20

Day 17: Favorite Fantasy RPG

Dungeon World. This is the D&D-style adaptation of the Apocalypse World engine. Just so accessible and easy to run.

Day 18: Favorite SF RPG

Star Frontiers. Only cause it's the only one I've ever really run or played back in the day. I haven't played Traveller, or The Last Parsec, or others, so can't compare. I know that Star Frontiers as an original system sucks, but I just loved the setting (in all its somewhat pulpy glory). And because of the Savage Worlds conversion, you don't have to worry about fiddly early 80's d% mechanics and tables.

Day 19: Favorite Supers RPG

No opinion. I just haven't played much or any supers. Big gap in my gaming background. Fate is the closest I've come to this, and specifically a game of Atomic Robo, and it seems to work pretty great for it.

Day 20: Favorite Horror RPG

Dread. I love me some Cthulhu, but have just played so many good Dread games, and it really lends itself to some awesome PvP action in a way that works really well, since really, someone's gonna have to drop.

RPGaDAY 2015: Days 14-16

Day 14: Favorite RPG Accessory

Oh please... you know.

Day 15: Longest campaign played

Played? I don't think I've ever played in a campaign. Maybe 2 games in  a row, once or twice?

Shit, that's something I gotta fix.

Day 16: Longest game session played

It was Gateway 2012, my first game convention in roughly 20 years. We played 2 games on Friday, and we were on our third game on Saturday. My mind was beginning to be mush.

We were about to start an 8pm Cthulhu game. We get to the table. There are 7 of us playing. The GM was Robert Curtis. He starts with "So, the game is scheduled to run for 4 hours. However. I'm happy to go all night until we get it done." That sounds like a good start!

7 hours later, 3 am, we finally wrap up a very long and beautiful Cthulhu game. Longest game I've ever played.

RPGaDAY 2015: Day 13: Favorite RPG Podcast

Winner!

No doubt, by a parsec: Happy Jacks RPG Podcast, for which, not 2 weeks ago, I dedicated a happy birthday message (they turned 6!).

If I only had one RPG podcast to listen to for the rest of my days, this would be the one. Many compare it to hanging out (or more appropriately, drinking) with friends.

However, sometimes you just need something else... maybe for variety. Or more than likely because you've caught up on the voluminous backlog of HJRPG episodes.

Honorable mentions

So, let me give some honorable mentions:

• Savage Worlds GM Hangouts Podcast: Jerrod ‘Savage Daddy’ Gunning and crew meet weekly Wednesdays to discuss Savage Worlds specifically, but GM-ing issues generically as well. Mix of hosts, great mix of topics (and they stay very on-topic for most shows). Much more consistent length-wise, around 45 min to an hour, as opposed to the rambling size of the HJRPG 'casts.
• Fear The Boot:  Not too dissimilar to HJRPG, listening to these guys is listening to a bunch of people hanging out. The GM knowledge is vast, and the advice is often solid, and comes from a good mix of rotating hosts, so you get good variety as well.

I've listened to others, but they've have either fallen by the wayside, or are just occasionally used.

RPGaDAY 2015: Days 10-12

Day 10: Favorite RPG Publisher

I had a hard time with this one, cause I don't really have a favorite publisher. I feel like I'm a little too new on the scene, and also that the publishers that I do know, I don't really know. But then I have been starting to meet a few designers at a very few cons, and although exciting to see the different work that's coming out, I still have no favorites.

So with that, I went googling. And I like Stephanie's answer (which was Evil Hat Productions), so I'll leave it here for people to read.

Cause I got nothing right now.

Day 11: Favorite RPG Writer

Jim Pinto (just so I can sound even more like a fanboy). I like his writing style. It's a little abrasive, and has a little attitude. And he uses stellar fonts.

Day 12: Favorite RPG Illustration

Wow, this one is so very hard. I started with the Basic D&D red box that was graced by Erol Otus, and loved many of his other works:

How much time did I spend staring at this image?

And then of course I loved Larry Elmore's stuff, including this lovely Star Frontiers cover from it's box set:

I really wish he'd done a few with Vrusks and Dralasites, but they only got the black-and-white cheesy shit, in the manuals.

But if I had to choose one piece of art, it'd be the WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING (from the 1E MM):

That's some scary shit when you're 9 years old!

Jackercon VII: Distress on Life Liner 928

Jackercon

What is it? Jackercon is the free, online role-playing game convention that rears its beautiful head every couple of months, when a certain D.T. Pints (an active member of the Happy Jacks RPG forum community) gets motivated enough to whip it into shape. It's an extension of the rabid fan base of the Happy Jacks RPG podcast. 

To date, Jackercon usually appears about once every 3 months or so (sometimes with longer gaps). It is scheduled for roughly a week, and relies on the HJRPG forum members to just up and volunteer to schedule and run games using G+ and Google Hangouts.

The best place to get current information about Jackercon? Probably the G+ Jackercon community.

Attendance

Current attendance is not particularly high, and suffers from the usual problems whenever anything is both online and free. It is all too easy to "commit" to a game and then flake out (mostly as a player, but every so often as a GM). This happens with some amount of regularity, unfortunately.

But there have been Jackercons where the attendance was higher, and D.T. Pints has made it known that his mission is to get more participating (which is surely a simple task, as he works on an Alaskan fishing boat, and recently became a new father).

Themes

Each Jackercon has had a theme associated with it. Sometimes the theme is conspiracies, or TPKs, or space madness. For instance, some previous thematic titles include:

• JACKERCON VI: AND SO THIS IS DRIZZTMAS!

• JACKERCON V: "In Space No One Can Hear You..."

• JACKERCON 2013 PART DEUX: "WRATH OF THE PANTSLESS"

  ...and so forth. That said, adhering to the theme is hardly mandatory.

Jackercon VII

The 7th Jackercon in the series occurred the July 18-25 week of 2015. Although I've gotten to play in 3 Jackercon games in prior years, this was my first time running a game.

As far as con games go, the games I've run thus far are my Lego-driven Savage Worlds games, and I didn't really plan on going any different this time around. But how to run a game with lots of physical props using an online medium?

Running Distress on LL928, online

Distress on Life Liner 928 is a Star Frontiers / Savage Worlds / Lego mashup, which up until now I've run a half dozen times (at cons and for friends). This was the game I wanted to run for my fellows in the HJRPG community. 

Originally I was considering using tools like Roll20 (which plugs in very nicely into Google Hangouts) to create a space ship for my game, with suitable PC and NPC tokens.

I knew Roll20 allowed the use of audio tracks (which is also a big part of my game). Roll20's plug-in for music is connected to Soundcloud, which initially I thought might be a stumbling block, but I was able to work around it for the most part. (Although I couldn't upload all the tracks I wanted, and unfortunately it doesn't come out at all in the Google Hangouts On Air recordings, so you don't get that flavor in the actual play recording).

However Roll20 did have its downsides. I couldn't quickly figure out how to use the "fog of war" components to hide and reveal rooms, and I just didn't have the time prior to Jackercon to up-skill in the technical know-how.

So, I resigned to what I initially thought was a second-best course of action... and which turned out to be the best course of action: Use a web-cam to give the players almost the exact same view they would have in a physical game.

And so, for your viewing pleasure, here is the Hangouts on Air recording for Distress on LL928. I will warn that if you plan on ever playing this, don't view the whole thing, as there are spoilers. The first hour or so is character generation (which is definitely a little slower online than in person), and spoilers aren't really an issue. You can also skip around just to get the flavor of the game.

Special thanks goes out to Kurt (D.T.Pints) and Jules (kaitoujuliet) who played in the game, and definitely Kurt for making Jackercon happen, over and over again. I definitely hope to play in the next one, and maybe run some more goodness.

RPGaDAY 2015: Days 7-9

Day 7: Favorite Free RPG

Lasers and Feelings: onesevendesign.com/lasers_and_feelings_rpg.pdf

OK, I haven't actually played it yet, but I did listen to one actual play, and I've read the one page worth of rules.

It's not often you find a game with just one stat. And I love the scenario generation.

Day 8: Favorite appearance of RPGs in the Media

Whenever Chris Hardwick makes off-hand D&D comments in shows that aren't about RPGs. Like when he's talking about the Walking Dead to just normal people and mentions things like "alignment" or mentioning characters in the show as "The Paladin, The Fighter, and then here comes back the Ranger", as if everyone should just understand what those words mean.

Day 9: Favorite media you wish was an RPG

To be honest, kinda had a hard time with this one. Ghost Writer. From where this gem comes:

Seriously though, it's a bunch of young teenagers solving crime Scooby Doo style, but with a ghost that must be communicated with through writing, and which can help them. My daughters been watching it ad naseum, and it'd make a great kids RPG.

RPGaDAY 2015: Days 4-6

4. Most Surprising Game

I'll say a game I played at GoPlayNW: Forget Me Not by jim pinto. (No, I don't know why his name is always lowercase, but he's a level 20 Font Master, so maybe that has something to do with it.) It was the most surprising because I thought I wouldn't enjoy it, and it ended up being one of the most entertaining games I had played that weekend. So lovely I bought the card deck and plan to run it with friends, and maybe at the local con here.

5. Most recent RPG purchase

Got to be The Warren, as the Kickstarter just finished successfully a few days ago.

6. Most recent RPG played

I'm going to assume the word "played" is important here (as opposed to GM'd). For me, that'd be The Carcass, also by jim pinto. 

I was playing this with my usual gaming group, which includes my friend Howie, and we have a tendency to try and break jim's games, so we decided instead of running the game as intended (as members of a post-apocalyptic tribe where the leader has died), we'd run it right as the apocalypse was occurring. 

The premise: We are all members of the Caltech Spelunking Club, currently in some tunnels under Los Angeles, as the city is succumbing to some unknown apocalyptic situation after a large explosion. The neutral tribe: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The hostile tribe: The Mexican Cartel that has been using these tunnels to transport drugs and guns around the city. Started well enough, but collapsed under some player confusion and fatigue.

RPGaDAY 2015: Days 1-3

RPGaDAY

Per Dave Chapman of the Autocratik blog, which I heard about through Stephanie Bryant (fellow gamer from Strategicons) of the Mortaine blog, #RPGaDAY is a RPG hash tag-o-thing.

It's supposedly to celebrate GenCon and August, but for moi, it's more appropriate for Strategicon here in LA. Especially because by early-August GenCon is done and dusted, but this builds beautifully to Strategicon which is just after the end of this month (and which I am keenly looking forward to).

The idea is that you blog or write or twitter some RPG related Q&A thing every day, and here's the graphic that describes these questions:

The blogging thing is fairly new to me, and a little goal of mine (for now), so why not...

1. Forthcoming game you're most looking forward to

It's funny, but for some reason, The Warren, described as a game where "players take on the roles of intelligent rabbits trying to make the best of a world filled with hazards, predators and, worst of all, other rabbits". It just sounds like a game that could either be so very kid friendly, and yet also so viciously dark and grim.

2. Kickstarted game most pleased you backed

As far as card / board / party games, I really love the Worst Game Ever by Jeff Siadek. But if I have to stick to RPGs (which is, I guess, the point of this exercise), I'd go with Jim Pinto's Protocol games. I missed his GMZero kickstarter (although I've purchased most separately), and still like those games more, but regardless I just love supporting his particular brand of RPG design.

3. Favorite New Game of the last 12 months

Been playing Dungeon World for probably just over 12 months, so that can't count, by a hair. I'll go with Microscope, because it's just something I'd like to try and run for others, and I think it might be more generally accessible to casual role players (of which I interact with more than a few) than some other GM-less games.

...and what about you?