This is another of my rails against the nature of where RPGs seem to be headed in my opinion. So if you’re not interested in reading my rant and joining in on what my horoscope says should be a lively discussion and debate, then move along, nothing to see here.

There’s been a lot of talk of late about the new Magic Item Rarity re-do by WotC and I wanted to voice my opinion too.

Let me point out first that I’m prepared for the possibility of being called a hater here. We all have our own opinions on what’s good for the hobby. I’m sure most of my beliefs are not mainstream, but perhaps there’s a hint of truth in them for everyone. Examine them closely and you may just find that I’m not as radical as you might first believe. And I have been known to laud as well as incorporate some of things some video games do right in my own RPG ruleset, so I realize that this may seem a bit hypercritical as well as hypocritical.*

But some things have been bothering me since the days of 2E. The seeds of my complaints go back a number of years and I’ve been moderately vocal about those things with my circle of friends, but the nature of the new Magic Item Rarity categorization article brought them to a head and I’m finally going to express them to the RPG public.

Furthermore, I completely understand that WotC has an obligation to their corporate interests to sell the most product and generate the highest revenue. Their motivations cannot always fall in line with what I might consider a better track for the hobby. But that doesn’t excuse them from being the target of one of my rants from time to time.

I should also point out that I left this topic alone for a while as I considered what really bugged me about the article, and after authoring this I left it un-posted for some time while I readdressed it. I think the time has come to say my peace.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Annoyances, Crpg, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Game Design, Gary and Dave wouldn't buy your game, House Rules, Imagination is dead, mechanics are golden but ignoring them is platinum, Optional Rules, rpg, rpg rules

Is that not the biggest metric we play under? Go forth. Kill stuff. The most popular computer games? Go forth. Kill stuff. A shallow interpretation? Yes. It was in the 1980′s. The media sensationalized it. Correctly.

The 1990′s and the 2000′s are the same. Each and every game I pick up seems to espouse the 1980′s metric – kill and gain power. I could make a number of different arguments about the shallowness of my thought process but in the end the game mechanics are kill and get rewarded.

Vile? I don’t think so. What are your arguments?

Tags: computer game, Crpg, Mechanics are golden, reward, rpg

Wizard 101 Quick Start Guide (click to open full size)

This is the Quick Start Guide for Wizard101 It provides the basics of how to play the game and interact with the world as you take up the role of a student wizard.

For those readers who haven’t yet heard of this game, Wizard101 is an online, multiplayer, Wizard school adventure game with collectible card magic, wizard duels, and far off worlds! The game allows players to create a student Wizard in an attempt to save Wizard City and explore many different worlds. For a detailed understanding of the basics of the game, read my blog post Wizard101.com casts a powerful spell.

For those of you who might just be starting your adventures in the spiral, I recommend printing this guide out and posting it next to your computer if you have trouble remembering the shortcut keys. I also think it would be helpful to have on hand if you’re trying to teach the game to a novice wizard.

Sure wish I’d have found this earlier and printed it out for my kdis when they were learning to cast spells and travel the realms. I particularly like that it’s a single sided page. That’s one of the hallmarks of a good family game in my book; the interface should be simple enough to describe without the need of multiple tomes. Here’s hoping someone else finds it useful as they begin their journey travelling the spiral in an attempt to save Wizard City.

Tags: Crpg, wizard101

TEN MILLION WIZARDS JOIN FORCES TO SAVE THE SPIRAL IN WIZARD101

PLANO, TEXAS (June 22, 2010) – KingsIsle Entertainment, Inc. today announced that since its launch in September 2008, more than 10 million Wizards have registered to play Wizard101. Today, the Wizard101 player base continues to grow at an accelerating rate and KingsIsle expects rapid growth to continue for the foreseeable future.

“Over the last twenty months our domestic launch has taken us from an unheard of company with an unknown product to running one of the most successful properties in the family entertainment space,” said Elie Akilian, chairman and CEO of KingsIsle Entertainment. “I am profoundly grateful to the millions of extraordinary people who call Wizard City home and the  talented writers, artists, designers, producers and engineers who have come together to create this magical world.”

While the technical and creative design requirements to create a virtual, safe and compelling online universe such as Wizard101 are enormous, it is the active and enthusiastic community of players that truly makes Wizard101 come alive.

“We are overwhelmed and honored by this huge achievement,” said J. Todd Coleman, VP and Creative Director of KingsIsle Entertainment. “We will continue our work to add exciting new content and features to Wizard101 through the launch of our next world, Celestia, and well beyond.”

As a small gesture of thanks to the wonderful denizens of Wizard City, KingsIsle Entertainment is offering every Wizard a complementary “Party Pack” and encouraging them to throw a grand celebration welcoming Wizard #10,000,001 to the Ravenwood School of Magical Arts. Each Party Pack will contain a decorative banner, balloons, a festive party hat and a celebratory cake.

To receive this FREE item set, simply go to www.wizard101.com/promo and enter the word PARTYPACK.

Tags: Code, Crpg, Freebies, Press Release, Promotion, wizard101

I had a random thought the other night about system knowledge and the ramifications it has. The origin of the idea is completely decoupled from role playing games. Instead, it based on the knowledge and insight provided by an online game. The game in question provides a pretty significant level of information to allow the players to mathematically defeat every foe. Randomness provides a bit of risk within the system but its marginal. It is possible to not only mitigate the risk directly but to also to mitigate it via secondary and tertiary actions.

Within RPGs, players tend to do the same. Odds are everything flows to specific attributes, skills, and advantages that can minimize risk for a particular system. Certainly, I’ve used ill conceived system design to my advantage. Is that bad? Hardly. The rule designers give us choices. Many of the choices can be idiotic and completely useless. So a trend to using the useful is natural.

Online games only have 1 discriminator: the random number generator. RPGs have at least two: dice and the DM. I’d add other players in there as well because they introduce a crazy factor but statistically, I’d wager that impact is marginal. The randomness of dice efficiently eliminates the random number generator.

Many of the choices we make are driven by experience and to exploit the system. Each and every time I’ve been introduced to a new system, the knowledgeable players point out a subset of choices to utilize — maximizing benefit but often ignoring the lesser choices.

More often than not, the core selection is chosen to maximize effectiveness in combat. The alternatives are discarded because they do not appear to have as much impact. Everyone I’ve played with are apt to select the high effectiveness options rather than the lower powered alternatives.

Why? The GM has to amp up the game to counteract the unbalanced options. Doing so makes the other choices even less desirable. At least in a sheer numbers sense.

Strange as it sounds, this occurs because everyone knows the rules and can mathematically maximize the benefit. Rules achieve an imbalance by their very nature. Players can also maximize benefit by knowing their GM. How he plays and rules he utilities most often.

Basically, we power game as players even if we don’t consciously attempt to do so. Evolution wired us to survive so it makes complete sense.

Are there solutions? Absolutely. First and foremost, eliminate the system power skills. If its combat, make combat less common. House rule them out if you find everyone has the same skill or advantage. Ignore the whining. In the end, it will be better.

The many options are for role play, and as game masters, we eliminate many of them by our own actions. Nix the benefit, eliminate the imbalance.

Tags: Crpg, Game Design, Ramblings of Mark, rpg

Wizard101 has a nifty feature that allows a wizard to enchant certain standard spells they have learned and create Treasure cards via this process.

Treasure cards are special, one-time use cards, that sit in a wizard’s sideboard and can be used in a duel. In order to access a treasure card, a wizard discards a standard spell from their hand and randomly draws a treasure card.

Treasure cards are acquired in various ways in the game including drops from creatures, treasure chest rewards, a player can craft them from various reagents and a card crafting station, they can be traded between players as well as being purchased in either the bazaar or any library in any world on the spiral. But the most cost effective means of building a good sideboard is to create treasure cards yourself from other treasure cards.

Creating treasure cards is a simple procedure, you combine enchantment (like keen and tough treasure cards and their other cousins) or mutate cards (which are treasure cards themselves) with standard spells. The end result is a new treasure card in your sideboard.

I’m not going to go into much further detail on this because I assume you already know how treasure cards are made. If that’s not the case, I’ll be happy to give you a rundown offline or in the game itself. – KO

The end result of this process is a treasure card that has been enchanted to:

• Do more damage by combining with Tough, Strong, Giant or Monstrous Treasure Cards
• Fizzle less by combining with Keen, Accurate or Sniper Treasure Cards
• Change the type of damage such as from fire to ice, fire to lightning, ice to lightning, etc. by combining them with various mutate Treasure Cards

And while there is an interesting amount of depth that is generated by the simple inclusion of these enchant treasure cards, I propose the following be added as well:

An enchantment set of cards that increase the duration of multi-round spells.

So, here’s the cards:

• Stretch: Enchantment: Fire: Adds 1 round to any multi-round spell
• Extend: Enchantment: Fire: Adds 2 rounds to any multi-round spell
• Prolong: Enchantment: Fire: Adds 3 rounds to any multi-round spell

These enchantments would not increase the total damage done (or total healing provided) by multi-round spells, merely increasing the rounds the spells stay active. But with the use of traps and charms, these enchantments could add a new depth to any multi-round spell.

Here’s what I mean by the total damage done/healing provided would be the same, just spread over more rounds.

For example: As you can see by the card description:

A standard elf does 50 + 210 damage over 3 rounds or 70 damage per round after the initial 50 damage.

Over 4 rounds that would be 210/4 or 52 damage per round (assuming KI rounds down in their math for these types of calculations)
Over 5: 42/round
Over 6: 35/round

I’m sure a fair number of you might be reading this and thinking, “What’s the point of diluting the damage or healing a spell does just to get it to happen over a longer period of rounds? Well, I contend that having that spell active over 6 rounds as opposed to 3 would make it more beneficial at times. A good example would be when you need to spend multiple rounds to build up the right set of charms and shields while needing to keep your opponent from shielding itself.

The nature of extending the duration without increasing the actual full effect of the spell shouldn’t cause any issues with play balance, but I believe it could add some additional depth to enchanting cards.

Finally, I chose to put the enchantments in the school fire since it’s my understanding that the nature of fire, as paraphrased by Professor Falmea, is “Damage over time.”

Tags: Crpg, spell, wizard101

What happens when you mix the general storyline from Harry Potter with a the spell mechanics of Magic: The Gathering and a dash of house building from The Sims into a MMORPG?

Pure wizardly gold, that’s what.

This post is part of the 2009 Game Cryer Holiday Gift Guide. Check out some goodies for the gamer on your holiday shopping list. – KO

Not unlike the witches of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the publishers and developers at KingsIsle Entertainment, Inc. have brewed up a surprisingly delightful game that’s cast one powerful spell on the residents of this household.

“Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,–
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”

Macbeth (IV, i, 14-15)

As identified from the Wizard101 website:

Wizard101 is an online, multiplayer, Wizard school adventure game with collectible card magic, wizard duels, and far off worlds! The game allows players to create a student Wizard in an attempt to save Wizard City and explore many different worlds.

Wizard101 offers a Free Trial that never ends! Subscribers can complete Wizard City and explore far off worlds or individual areas can be unlocked forever with “Pay-by-Area”. Sign Up and start playing right away! For more information about Subscriptions and Pay-by-Area, click here.

Sounds simple enough, but before we delve into the world of Wizard101, allow me to elucidate you on how this interesting little game managed to become a central entertainment feature in my house.

The game came to us quite innocently enough as a means of getting a bonus to another online game.

I won’t go into too much detail on this as I’m still a bit jaded over the other game and I don’t want my opinion of the one to interfere with my review of the other. – KO

But suffice to say I decided to give this game a try. I’d seen commercials on TV for Wizard101 and considered it a bit childish and figured that the images shown couldn’t really be true in-game quality. More on that later.

After downloading the install base, I was faced with updating the game to the current version. And this is where I was faced with a near game-ending event. For the record, I am a techie. I was the Senior Build Manager for a Fortune 500 Company. I have managed websites and software releases and know a thing or two about such activities. So when I tell you that it took a long time to update the game; too long for me to get started playing the game the very night I tried to start, I’m not kidding. In fact, I almost deleted the game off my computer and moved on. Why the updates couldn’t be re-bundled with the install package routinely will forever baffle me.

Note to developers and software publishers everywhere: I nearly missed this gem because of an easily avoidable technical glitch. – KO

However, once the game was updated and running properly, I dove right in and began creating a wizard to challenge this new and mysterious world. In short order I was charmed by the game on many levels. And it soon became readily apparent that this game was a keeper. In fact, I found myself justifying my playing by claiming that I was, “Testing the game for possible play by my kids.” In reality, the magic was already at work and I was rapidly becoming charmed by the game.

The game essentially plays out much like Magic: The Gathering where all fights are done in duel format and spells are cards drawn from a deck that is completely crafted by the player based on specific spell schools.

Easy to understand quickly, and with a good variety of bright, colorful spells, the mechanics are quick to pick-up, but surprisingly deep in strategy and tactics.

Spells can be categorized a number of different ways; by spell school, by cost, by type, as well as by target(s).

For example, the various spell schools are Fire, Ice, Storm, Life, Death, Myth and Balance. Each school has strengths and weaknesses. So, while Storm has the capability of doing the most damage in a single spell, but storm wizards have less health and their spells fizzle (fail to cast) more than any other school, Ice spells are more protective in nature and as a result ice wizards have higher health, but less powerful damage spells in their decks.

Each spell costs a certain number of pips that equates to the general power level of the spell. Players generally start each fight with a single pip and accumulate them over the course of a duel at the rate of 1 pip per round. Casting a spell spends pips in the duel. As with most magic-oriented games, wizards have a mana reserve that they draw upon over the course of play to cast all spells. Each pip spent is equal to 1 point of mana. Some items grant the wizard Zero level spells that allow the player to act within a duel and build up pips for higher, more powerful spells.

Players have a variety of spell types to craft their deck including damage, charm, curse, shield, and trap spells.

• Damage spells are exactly that. They deal damage to one or more targets. The bulk of the spells cast are damage spells.
• Charm spells affect a wizard by augmenting their next spell or all spells of a specific type. For example, each school has a charm that increases the damage of the next spell of that school.
• Curse spells affect an opponent by hindering their spells. For example, Weakness is a spell that decreases the damage of an opponent’s spell by 30%.
• Shield spells protect the wizard by negating a percentage of the damage of spells cast upon them.
• Trap spells affect spells cast at a specific target by increasing the damage of spells cast upon them by a given percentage.

Spells can affect a single target, all enemies, all players, or all participants in a duel. Be careful, for spells that boost the effectiveness of all participants also increases the effectiveness of the spells of your opponents.

Like most Collectible Card Games, Players draw 5 cards at the beginning of a duel and use the spells (cards) up each round, drawing from their total deck along the way.

This variety in spells grants players a wealth of depth in crafting decks that harness some strategy that suits the player’s style.

The game allows players to experience the beginning of the game with, as they put it, a Free Trial that never ends! For the record, I’ve experienced a number of “Free Trials” that were not really “Free” at all. Here Wizard101 breaks from the mold and offers a true Free Trial allowing the player to explore a section of Wizard City without ever paying to play the game further. And while limited in scope, the free trial lasted for quite a few days before I finally broke down and bought some Crowns (the in-game currency to unlock areas and buy special equipment if you don’t have a subscription.) And if I’d wanted, the free trial would have been permanent. Unlike other games with a time-limited trial, Wizard101 offers a permanent trial that never ends.

Even here the developers have done something rather interesting, players can either subscribe, or pay as they go to unlock areas. The subscriber option even allows for the option of a Family Plan with a single Master account with sub-accounts to encourage family group play. And for the “Pay as you go” player, any area purchased under an account is permanently unlocked; even for other characters in that account. And each account is allowed a total of 6 different wizards. So there’s plenty of opportunity to experience the game from different schools and with different tactics. In fact, some equipment can even be shared with all the wizards in a single account via a shared bank feature; a handy and well liked bonus to the game.

My family has chosen to be a Crowns account and play as we go with (as of this review) three separate wizards under a single account. The only drawback to this is our inability to play at the same time. But for us, it is an economical way of experiencing the game without making a monthly or yearly commitment. At $9.95 per month ($6.95 per month per account for a family account) however, as online games go, the cost of a subscription is relatively inexpensive.

Originally I thought the game would be more online card game and less actual game-play outside the card-based dueling. Much to my surprise the game plays out not unlike the TV advertisements. In short order I was hooked. The game is easy to play and quite intuitive. The quests are a mixture of “go here, speak to so-and-so” quick tasks interspersed with tasks to seek out items, craft various pieces of equipment, as well as duel different creatures. But there’s also mini-games to play, as well as PvP duels against other players. All-in-all there’s little time you’re not engaged in some activity.

What I’ve discovered that I like about the game:

• The developers have done a great job making the game quite accessible to kids and adults alike. The ease of game play/ease of understanding the mechanics is something to be noted. If you can’t figure out this game enough to have fun with it, then I’m not sure what level of game would suit you. Seriously, my 3-year old daughter likes to pick the spells and change the colors on the pets. And while she’s quite bright (in my opinion) she’s demonstrated no super-genius capabilities to date. I’ll grant that the difference between a trap vs. a charm vs. a shield gets lost at times to my 5-year old son, but the resulting difference to his game experience is negligible when he misidentifies the buffs that it’s almost not worth mentioning.
• Everyone is basically on the same leveling curve because while you might get some nifty cool stuff, you can’t really buy your way to the top like you can in some online games. Dropping a credit card on the game won’t make it any easier to play or assure you superiority over those of us on a budget. However, advancement is basically linked to time spent on the game performing various quests and dueling the creatures. I like that the developers didn’t put a limit on the time a player can perform meanful activities in the game.
• Fights aren’t decided on a single flip of a coin. Most play out over a few rounds where strategy and nuance can come into play. There are very few “this fight is over” mega-spells that can’t be countered by weaker, easily obtainable spells.
• Everyone starts a fight generally with the same strength and power. While higher levels allow you better gear and a greater selection of spells as well as higher health and mana scores, it is entirely possible that any level of player could conceivably beat nearly any other level of player (or creature for that matter.)

What I’ve discovered I don’t like about the game:

• The game doesn’t allow you to just say whatever you want in chat. Specific words are allowed and show up in white text while words you’re not allowed to say are identified in red and display as ellipses (…) to other players. I sometimes find it a challenge to convey ideas to other players in the chat, so at times it can be a negative. However, that’s not always the case (see As a Parent.)
• Spell selection in duels must be performed or forfeited due to a timer. You only have a given amount of time to select a spell or you pass for your turn. To be honest, the timer annoys me when I’m going it alone. I’d love to pause fights to deal with a real world issue rather than have to either flee or idle and hope for the best. I completely understand the reasons for the timer, and I know that a solo fight can turn into a group thing at any time so I get it, but I still wish I could pause a fight.

As a parent, what I love about the game:

• KingsIsle Entertainment has really put the concerns of parents first. Players cannot simply name themselves or their pets anything they like. Names are selected from a pre-generated set of names appropriate for the age-range and game. For example, in the game I play the wizard Kevin Fireforge and his pet firecat is Sir Kitty. Due to this I never have to worry about my kids asking me an awkward question to define something they’ve read in the game that they don’t understand… and I’m not ready to explain to them yet. Likewise the chat filter acts in the same manner preventing them from inadvertently being exposed to some foul-mouthed jerk who finds it liberating to display an expansive vocabulary while on the internet. In addition, the privacy filters allow me to set my game play experience to totally non-interactive when it comes to dealing with other players. Call me paranoid all you like, I like that idea when handling my kid’s activities online. And I commend KingsIsle Entertainment for providing me that option.
• The creatures are all bright and whimsical with actions and reactions that are humorous. My kids immediately found enjoyment watching the silly monsters and the wonderful spells.

• I also like that at times the game encourages cooperative play by challenging the wizards with quests in realms they may have difficulty finsihing alone. Not that all areas couldn’t be done solo, but that they’re more easily handled with a group. That’s important to me.
• Nobody dies – in my home, when someone’s defeated (even the player) we say they go to sleep. In fact, we’ll routinely say, “Night-night!” as we defeat the creatures. And should your wizard be bested in a duel against the monsters that roam the realms, no worries, for you shall simply be transported to the “Common” area of the realm where you regain health every few seconds while you consider returning to challenge the creatures again.
• Leveling up isn’t very efficient if you intend to grind against the creatures. Rather you gain the best experience by doing quests and helping others. This helps to reinforce the idea that helping others is the best way to deal with situations – a positive lesson for young minds.
• And finally, another small lesson that I find positive as a parent. Each area has a “Safe Zone” where the monsters can’t reach you. In most areas this is the sidewalk alongside the road. Intentional or not, this helps to enforce the idea in younger minds that the sidewalk is safe and the street is a dangerous place to be. I found that to be a highly commendable game design choice.

So by now you should be ready to download Wizard101 and start your career saving Wizard City. Here are the requirements to play the game:

• Internet: Internet Connection Required
• Operating System: Windows 98SE or later versions
• Processor: 1GHz Intel Processor
• RAM Space: 512 Megabytes
• Video Card: Best results with GeForce 2 or equivalent
• Disk Space: 5 Gigabytes
• Game Download: The game automatically initiates a download in the background when you log in to play for the first time. The process is transparent to the player. No special installation process is required. You must, however, be connected to the internet.

And to wrap-up, my overall impression of Wizard101 is this:

• A great big “just for fun” thumbs-up
• Additionally an “I’m an addicted geek” thumbs-up
• And a parental bonus thumbs-up to boot.

This game is well worth the download and should provide hours of enjoyment for you and your family. I highly recommend it.

Wizard101 ESRB rating: E10+ (for Crude Humor, Mild Fantasy Violence)

Wizard101 and all related material is © KingsIsle Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Harry Potter characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved

Magic: the Gathering is a registered trademark of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
Magic: the Gathering and all images are copyright © Wizards Of The Coast, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Sims is a trademark or registered trademark of Electronic Arts Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

Tags: Crpg, Review, wizard101

Well, Fall Convergence ended over a week ago and I’ve been wanting to do a wrap-up/post-mortem on the weekend event but have been sidetracked with sick kids. My apologies for the delay, but such is life.

As for the event, I ran a marathon session of old school basic/expert D&D that lasted nearly the entire weekend. The D&D game lasted a good many hours of playtime and was the staple of the event. Mark finished off the event with a quick and dirty Red Dawn-esque modern run that took us into the wee hours of Sunday morning. All in all, even though I was “behind the screen” the bulk of the weekend, I think it was a good time.

The module series I have been authoring and co-opted from Neverwinter Nights and modified to run as a tabletop game seemed to work fairly well, but a lot of things work better on a computer screen and in a crpg and not so well in a pen-and-paper format rpg. The setting seemed fresh to the players. Which in this crowd is a challenging task. Hopefully everyone’s willingness and desire to keep playing was a testament to the positives that the scenario brought to the table that outweighed the negatives.

We (or at least I) had a number of surprises in the session:

• For starters, apparently a handful of orcs with crossbows are the equivalent of a TPK in the basic ruleset. In the NwN game, the player is somewhat rail-roaded into various other portions and side-quests in the setting before running into the orcs. Alas, this was not the case for our heroes. Opening up all the series as one large module and letting the players decide (for the most part) where they went and what they did was probably not the best way to handle the setting. But I’m opposed to rail-roading my players; if they want to go out and get themselves killed, then that’s their call.
• Second, and a shock to my eyes when I read the description, apparently the identify spell used to sap a magic-user of 8 constitution points for the duration of the spell (which is 24 hours) … interesting that I don’t ever recall using that part of the spell rule. In fact, if this causes a mage to go below 3 Con, he will fall into a coma for the duration. As can be expected, the NPC/PC spellcasters in the game suddenly started appearing with a bit more Con than you might consider most casters would be packing.
• Third, while the NwN game allows the player to be wrapped up in the various aspects of the mystery behind Lauric and Inya’s current fate while still allowing a good hack-and-slash game to progress in parallel, in retrospect it is a bit too convoluted for the mystery to sit side-by-side with the “kill them and take their stuff” aspects that the Basic/Expert D&D game trends. I think had I to do it again I’d focus on one over the other and not try to do both. That was a failing on my part.
• Henchmen truly are cannon-fodder in the Basic rules… and a necessity to offset the probability that a PC will be the recipient of a killing blow. I think the party managed to keep only one original henchman alive throughout the entire weekend… and the cleric henchman to boot. All hail Yahsa Menen; initiate of Avok, guardian of nature, the lady whom the Gods deem worthy, and she who the dice seem to favor.

I’ll let Mark talk about his game so I’ll end with these thoughts. In the end I had loads of fun and wouldn’t change much. In fact I’d run a marathon session again for next Convergence if that’s what the players want.

Tags: Convergence, Crpg, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Neverwinter Nights, NwN, rpg

I’ve been pondering another major arc game to run at this Fall’s Convergence. I’ve begun to think the best setup for the get-together is a couple of major games punctuated by one-offs. Since Mark has already chosen the first major game to be played, namely his GangBusters Prohibition, and I’m not sure if the other attendees are going to run anything other than a short session or two, the task of coming  up with another multi-session game befalls your’s truely.

I started to think about what I really want to run. My choices are numerous since I have books and material and ideas for the following games:

• Dungeons and Dragons – Arguably the best known and easiest to do. I have tons of material and know the system quite well. Unfortunately most of the players know the material I might want to run at least as well asn I. That’s a significant hurdle to overcome.
• Top Secret – I don’t think I should run this until maybe next Spring’s Convergence when the (hopeful) return of the three core members of The Greatest TS Game the Universe has ever witnessed will be in attendance.
• Boot Hill – To be honest, I’ve never been drawn to Boot Hill. I enjoy playing it, but running it leaves me with the taste of dirt and dust.
• Call of Cthulhu – I’d do this were it not for a couple of factors.
  1. “You’re all going to die”
  2. Keeping players involved in a story arc is an inherent  challenge to the game already.
• Superhero game (DC Heroes or Marvel) – Ideas I’ve got, player buy-in? I think not.
• KORE – I could do any of the above in KORE, but I think this Convergence should be a return to known quantities, nostalgic era games.
• I could siphon off the aforementioned GangBusters game. – But I think maybe a change of pace may be in order at some point.
• I could run something very gritty, a la Battlestar Galactica, but I’m not sure that BSG pressure-cooker is what is needed in a long term story arc game. Maybe as another punctuation this would make a nice addition.

With all that in mind, I realized I had always been leaning back on the classics… it was time to admit that a good ol’ fashioned old school game of D&D was what I wanted to run. Nostalgia once again rears it’s head and I think this time I’m going to embrace it whole-heartedly. But how to do so?

I could use any of the vast abundance of modules I have for the game. But I risk preparing to run a module only to pull it out to be confronted with the classic, “Yea, I’ve run Temple of Elemental Evil a few times. But I promise to keep my knowledge from interferring” response. And I’m not willing to swap modules and try to run one without preparing first. That just leads to long periods of player-idleness while I peruse the material… not a good scene.

Sorry CT, but it really wasn’t going to work out well. In retrospect, you probably should have done something different. – KO

I don’t have the time to build something new. At least nothing with some depth that isn’t going to be a complete rip-off of something I’ve either run earlier or has been experienced by the players. What’s more, I always hate the methods to generate new high level characters for players. Characters always feel so cardboard when they don’t have history to go with their stats, gear, and abilities.

So we’re back to the question of how do I run something that has some depth, hasn’t been experienced by the players before, and yet can be quickly recalled and molded by me?

To be honest, I was stumped; baffled by this conundrum that didn’t seem to have a solution. And then this morning brilliance (or something I’ll call brilliance) struck. As it turned out, I already had a module prepared. One in which I already knew the material to a depth that I could easily run it off the top of my head with a few notes. In fact, large portions of the game had even already been played by a number of people including myself. Everything I needed to run a number of sessions was done. And as far as I know, none of my players have run through it themselves.

The more I pondered the simple solution, the more I was in GM heaven. – KO

Where you ask, did I suddenly come up with this wealth of session material? Neverwinter Nights.

That’s right. It looks like I’m about to eat some serious crow. Crpgs are about to help me ease the return to the classic pen and paper game. Fitting isn’t it?

I have 3 modules in a 5 part series already built for NwN. In fact, they’re available for download on the Neverwinter Vault here. These 3 modules should be fairly easy to convert back to pen and paper rules while the other 2 modules are already penned out in notes that should be easy to backstep into some good tabletop material. The very layout of the modular setup should help to pace the game so it can be stopped and returned to with ease at the breaking points. Of course, I’ll have to do a bit of alteration to eliminate some of the more “computer game” necessary parts, but that’s not a big deal. The bulk of the work is already done. I just need to convert it back.

In order to keep a sense of nostalgia, I considered going all the way back to the beginning and running the game from the Basic/Expert ruleset. In fact I’m still keeping that option open for now. If not, I’ll run the game in the next best option; namely the AD&D Edition rules. So everybody brush up on those THAC0 rules, we’re going back to the mid-eighties for some serious old school gaming.

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, BSG, Call of Cthulhu, Convergence, Crpg, D&D, DC Heroes, Dungeons and Dragons, GangBusters, KORE rpg, Marvel Superheroes, Neverwinter Nights, NwN, rpg, Setting, Top Secret