This guest post was written by my good friend Leah, she’s a professional photographer, a writer and editor of many awesome RPG books. She asked me to lend my space for a cool flash fiction contest she’s running, I agreed, because she’s the coolest… and her contest looks fun. 

Hey there!

After Chatty’s recent foray into flash fiction, author Joseph Devon and I  decided to have a flash fiction contest ourselves! Winners get a signed copy of his books, Probability Angels and Persistent Illusions. See  below for further details.

 Reap What you Sew

Whether you’re writing a novel or a D&D adventure plot, inspiration can strike at any moment’s notice, from places you’d never guess. Sometimes, seemingly trivial details or entire fields of knowledge you were unaware of can have a serious impact on a story. I recently had a conversation on Twitter with author @josephdevon. While doing research for his newest novel, he picked up a book on the history of sewing and textiles and discovered that you shouldn’t store your thread next to an open fire or a heating stove because it makes it brittle (the thread, not the stove).

That’s a useful piece of information I didn’t know. I mean, who here hasn’t forgotten their spool next to a heating stove and had a problem with brittle thread, am I right? (Editor: Hmmm, sure?). I’m putting that baby on a post it RIGHT NOW.

I challenged Joseph to use this “useless” sewing fact in a story. In fact, not only use it, but make brittle thread a PIVOTAL, Chevkov’s Gun-style element which would lead the characters to the ULTIMATE SEWING RELATED FINALE!!!

Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

Seriously, it can be. Look at Snow White who pricked her finger on a spindle, fell asleep and woke up with some guy playing tongue hockey with her (Editor: Now THAT’S an expression I’m stealing.)  Then of course there’s the EPIC* Kung Fu movie Swordsman II where needles are used as a weapon. Hell, even  the Three Amigos have a quote about it, something like “Sew. Sew like the wind!”

Now – here’s where you come in, we’re challenging you to write a short story or RPG adventure hook in 750 words or less in which the final climactic scene involves sewing. That’s right. Sewing.

The winner will be judged by me and announced Friday June 1st and they will win signed copies of Joseph’s books.

Mail your submissions to : thiswhiterabbit at gmail dot com. If you have a blog or site where you want to post your story, feel free to link to it in the comments.

Good luck! I’ll be hanging by a thread in anticipation!

*Epic is a relative term.

Today, I wrote my first piece of Flash Fiction. I don’t know if it’s any good, but I’m proud of it. It’s an idea that popped in my mind as I was telling myself I should try my hand at it as a writing exercise in between freelance assignment. It’s amazing how challenging it can be to try to say so much in so little.

So here it is, slightly longer than this intro. Enjoy and let me know if I should do more.

At A Loss

A story by Philippe-Antoine Ménard

“Genny, I can’t take this anymore.” You could hear the exasperation rise rapidly in his voice. “I love you, I really do, but all of this… It’s just too much for me.” His fists were clenching and unclenching repeatedly, his stress and anxiety showing more than usual.

“Please give me just one good reason why we should stay together.” He expected to hear none.

“I’m pregnant.” Genny’s gentle eyes were brimming with tears.

An adrenal bomb went off in his nerve-wracked body. “What the fuck? Are you shitting me?”

“I didn’t want to tell you… Given the circum…”

“Don’t you dare go there Gen!” he said, his face reddening by the second.

“He’s not yours!” she shouted back before he went on his usual rant.

“WHAT?”

Genny’s distraught face was wet with tears “I’m so sorry, he’s David’s…”

His boiling blood froze. Feelings of loss and guilt overwhelmed his heart. Genny reached for him, “Oh dearie I’m so sorry…”

He raised his hand, silencing her, taking a moment to anchor himself back to reality.

“There’s only one other in this world I’d trust to raise this child.” he said, “Genny, will you marry me?”

Welcome again gentle reader to the continuation of this amazing series chronicling the exploits of the West Coast’s newest Super Hero team: Collateral Damage” powered by the all new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying technology!

Featuring

The One Man Army (AKA TOMA): A Sino-Arab mutant that can multiply in seemingly unlimited numbers. Prone to get into a lot of trouble but he has plenty of hands to handle it.

The Great Gregory: A man that can see exactly one minute into his immediate future. Bored of scamming casinos and doing clever magic tricks, he seeks a more “interesting” lifestyle as a hero.

The Magnificent Nightcrawler: Not quite the exact same lovable swashbuclking teleporter mutant from Earth-616, but pretty damn close.

Tsunami: Adorable Idoru-like water-controlling nuclear physicist whose links to her former humanity are tenuous at best.

Previously…

The members of the soon-to-be-formed Collateral Damage met in a seedy L.A. aquatic acrobatic circus where Nightcrawler and Tsunami got attacked by a band of ninjas led by the Silver Samurai. Learning to work together surprisingly fast, our heroes evacuated the place, flooded the whole theater and turned it into a gigantic Taser, making short work of the ninjas and the poor heavily armoured samurai.

As the police took the villains into custody, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in charge supervising the new team announced that they were flying to Stanford Connecticut for their official Hero training…

Scene 1: The Un-Test

Getting inspiration from the Avengers: The Initiative comic book of the Marvel Civil War era, the players were shipped to Camp Hammond where they were met with a very harried Dr. Hank Pym. He informed them that as already established super heroes, they would only need some perfunctory screening and testing before obtaining their Hero licence. You know, stuff like Superhuman ethics and General Topics on Real Estate and Infrastructure Insurance.

They also met a very unpleasant Senator Gyrich, director of the Superhuman Armed Forces and known mutant hater (of which the group had 3*). He informed them, in no light terms, that he would make sure they would fail.

Or if he didn’t say it out loud, he certainly had that in a thought bubble.

I set the scene as a physical “no super powers” military-drill-like test: running, monkey bars, jumping over walls, crawling under barbed wire, etc. What became really interesting is that the players automatically started talking about cheating in that test. That filled me with glee as we were clearly establishing the basis for a group of heroes who weren’t too concerned the how of achieving their objectives.

As we discussed how to frame the scene (we’re meta like that now), we all agreed that actually rolling dice to see if they passed the test wasn’t all that exciting, since we all assumed everyone would. What we agreed on was to have each character focus on one aspect of the test to achieve a specific character goal. Thus characters would focus that goal and also create winning conditions (by cheating a bit) to help the least physically able character of the group: Gregory.

Thus, TOMA showed off on the firing range:

Black Widow: Here, disassemble and re-assemble this assault rifle.

TOMA (Rolls a success): Here toots!

Black Widow: You left some very important pieces out you imbecile!

TOMA: Woah there cutie pie, I made this gun better. (Shoots and hits target dummy in the heart) So… you doin’ anything tonight?

Black Widow: We’ll see…

Nightcrawler decided to have the scene be about fighting against his urge to show off and ace the test (him being the most physically fit of the group). So what Franky basically rolled for is to have his character barely pass his test. Which he succeeded.

Chatty: A sense of vague disappointment permeates the large crowd that gathered to see Nightcrawler perform. In the command centre, both Dr.Pym and Senator Gyrich are scratching their heads.

Tsunami went through the test with no particular aim at standing out physically, but she did subtly make the whole area more humid and slippery… except one specific man-wide path.

Mechanically speaking, at that point there was an improved gun asset on the firing range and a “dry-track” asset. This was a perfect setup for someone whose undetectable power was oh, I don’t know… precognition?

PM: I want Gregory to make it successfully through the track not because of his (absent) physical assets but because everyone else performs miserably while he “stumbles” on the most bizarre chain of coincidences and accidents… including “randomly” picking TOMA’s tricked out gun and passing through the “dry” pathway.

Pym: It seems he’s got some strange, uncontrolled luck power.

And thus the group succeeded in achieving the weirdest of goals:

Pym: Yeah, they pass the test all right, but I’m somewhat surprised by their lack of performance. Something’s not right here.

Gyrich: You should play poker more Pym, you’d see you’re being slow played by a bunch of stinking mutants. I’ll take care of them!

Scene 2: Sentinels of Oppression

The next (and last) test we showcased was a combat simulation in a metropolitan downtown setting. There Gyrich pulled rank and pitted the 4 under-gunned heroes against 3 building-sized manned Sentinel robots with clear orders:

“I want you to break them, break them bad… these guys do NOT leave this place with a hero’s license.”

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

The combat had several cool-as-heck highlights:

TOMA multiplying himself some many times that the piled up clones it created cramped fighting quarters for the Sentinels.

The Great Gregory finding the ONE truck with its keys in the ignition, allowing one of TOMA’s clones to drive it into a Sentinel, making it explode AND break a hidden water main creating a gushing water source for Tsunami.

Tsunami growing to the size of the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man and pummeling a poor Sentinel with building-sized water fists while she teetered on itty-bitty feet.

A Sentinel trying to get a bead on a dodging Nightcrawler with a continuous energy beam, grazing another Sentinel. This caused major stress as the pilots (who WERE a couple) started bickering.

TOMA prying parts off a Sentinel and forming a chain-gang bringing “spare parts” to another group of clones building a Hot Rod.

Nightcrawler attempted one very cool action that ended up failing. His basic plan was to spend each of his attack actions teleporting inside the head of a Sentinel and snatch the pilot away from the machine, leaving the robot’s Combat A.I. in more or less bad shape to take over (i.e. inflict “mental” stress to the machine). In one of his attacks, he decided to push things a bit further by doing exactly that AND grab the pilot’s cordless headphone so the heroes could hear what Senator Gyrich was saying about them. I’m mentioning it because at the time I flailed to find a significant way to work the failure in the fiction in a cool way. In retrospect I had many cool ideas but it was too late. We ended up saying that the pilot sucessfully defended herself and NIghtcrawler popped out of the robot empty-handed.

The thing is, one of my favourite aspects of the Marvel RPG’s lies in the limitless elements and situations you can tweak based on the success or failure of a roll. For instance I could have jumped on Nightcrawler’s failure to tell him he was prevented from teleporting out because he got surprised by a mutant suppressing field in the Sentinel’s cockpit. (There’s plenty of rulesy stuff that would back such a call).

More importantly though, I got an insight after the game: Whenever a character fails (good or bad), I should ask the players around the table for ideas as to how the tactical situation becomes before we go to the next character in the initiative order. I think this is a new GMing tool I’m going to test in future session.

As for our heroes, they passed their test and I gave the players the choice of hanging around Camp Hammond to explore some of the sinister hooks or return to L.A. as full-time heroes. I told them to keep me posted.

Can’t wait to play again!

*My version of this campaign world has had the House of M event (99% of the world’s mutants were reverted to normal humans) but the remaining weren’t placed on reservations.

Here’s the email, paraphrased from French:

I love your articles, especially those where you share your game sessions. Your last series on Castle Death blew my mind. I’m the father of a soon-to-be 10 daughter and I think that she would love to play this kind of game with me.

Never having been a Game Master, I’m not sure I’d be able to run the game with just a blank piece of paper and a D6. Do you have any kits, books, maps or something similar to suggest that could help me jump start things? Since this would be a first experience, I feel it has to be very cool, or chances are it will be the only time.

That’s an interesting thing. Castle Death can both incredibly easy and hard to run. Easy that a 9 year old can run it without trouble. Hard because, once you aren’t a tweenager anymore, there’s a chance that your unbridled imagination has become strangled by decades of education, experience, issues and uncertainty. Not everyone is a good improv GM. It’s completely normal that Franky B. isn’t comfortable winging it. Let’s see how we can help him.

Simplicity Rules

The most important element of Castle Death is to keep things dead simple. Let your child decide how much details or how deep in the story she wants to go. Whenever you are short of ideas for a given scene/room, ask her what she thinks could happen, then, if she tells you something that inspires you, take on a surprised tone and tell her “How in heck did you guess that?”

Make Plans and Name Them

As for doing everything on the fly, if you aren’t comfortable, I suggest you draw your whole dungeon before you start playing. Do not, however, populate it, leave that to the dice and the whims of the moment. Then, identify various parts of it with evocative names to help you while playing (ex: The Blood Kitchen, the Haunted Cave,  the Icy Pool, the Chamber of Blades, the Mystic Throne, etc.) Perform free associations when you name those rooms. Don’t worry about realism here, let your daughter rationalize the plot holes.

Cater to Their Interests

Make sure to include elements that she’ll like. If she’s a Harry Potter fan, have her meet lost students from the local Magic Academy.  If she loves Twilight, have her stumble upon a  family feud between Vampires and Werewolves. Surf on her nascent geekyness, create hooks she’ll bite into, hooks that will pull her into immersion and create awesome game memories.

Don’t Give in to the Tyranny of the Die

Never let a  roll of “1″ create a story dead end. Make things more complicated and apparently harder but NEVER hopeless. Let “6s” be as awesome as they can be however: Magical treasures, Critical Hits,  Secret Doors found in the nick of time… All these are great examples.

As I write these lines, I gave another idea.

Pre-Made Maps

There are a tons of pre-drawn dungeons you can use. In fact my response above was influenced by Planet Thirteen’s For the Love of the Dungeon and that’s where this post’s  image comes from. If you want to create your own “areas” I suggest using 0one’s maps. If you are looking for free products, you can look at my own 2009 One Page Dungeon Codex, or any of the many many such dungeons created in later editions of that contest. If you know any other such ressources, please share them in the comments.

If you have more questions, about Castle Death or any of my other posts (no matter how old), feel free to email them to me at ChattyDM@Critical-Hits.com.

Post-Publication Addendum

@koboldstyle on Twitter (Creator of the Ennies winning Old School Hack) points out at @dysonlogos‘ website for some awesome free maps.

Creativity is a strange, untamed beast. The mental process to generate ideas is a fickle one. I agree with author Stephen King when he says, in his essay “On Writing,” that ideas are not created but rather recognized and combined in one’s mind. Ideas are as much about opportunity (being receptive and available) as they are about the  willingness to use them creatively.

The obstacles that people have when trying to come up with ideas are many and covering them would go beyond the scope of this blog post. In the technical/scientific/geek circles I travel in though, I would probably say that the greatest idea killer is “The Judge,”* that state of mind where ideas get discarded before being given a fair amount of  consideration.

Ideas have no practical values, they are just glimpses of possibilities, most of which eventually get discarded. The problem with that is that judging ideas takes a lot of “brain space”, the same space that you need to generate ideas in the first place. In essence, people who evaluate and discard ideas as they are presented to them create a creative chokepoint that slows, and often kills the creative process.

Ideas are easy for me. I like to think it is because I can stem my internal judging process until after the point where I’ve had enough time to jot down enough ideas to start moving on to the next creative stage. Also, like many other things in my life, I’ve tried to make a game out of my creative process to motivate me to create more.

My favourite one remains the “What If” game. I’ve discussed it a few times before but I thought it would be fun to explore it in more detail here.

What if You Would Come Up with Ideas that Easily?

You can create whole campaigns by just asking yourself  a few “What If” questions while letting your mind make free association that steer you to the next questions. That’s how I created my last 2 D&D campaigns: Primal/Within and Gears of Ruin.

Let’s try it now, with no particular idea seed other than “let’s create a fantasy campaign.”

• What if all the gods of a fantasy world but one had been slain?
• What if the whole world, had, for a short moment of its history, united under the banner of a just and relatively benign monotheistic theocracy?
• What if that Divine Empire split through corruption, heresies and dramatic decrease in “belief”?

So far this is pretty standard Fantasy fare…. but I ‘m not letting it go quite yet.

• What if belief was a tangible currency in the world?
• What if priests could tap in the dwindling power of belief to execute divine magic?
• What if atheists rebels had discovered other sources of power? (Psionics, Arcane Magic, Outerworldy Pacts, Lost Gods from other parts of the multiverse)

Oh this is starting to be interesting as I LOVE having clear conflicts between 2 powers.

Do I have enough? Let’s try to push this a bit further…

• What if belief in the one remaining (true?) Goddess prevented someone from tapping into other power sources?
• What if belief (or non-belief) could be somehow coerced? (Calling in the Human-as-Batteries trope)
• What if the drawn out holy/civil war was one of attrition to maintain the Empire’s access to divine power?

I would have enough to create a campaign based on that now.

Building From the What If Foundations

Of course, this opens many questions; some I’d like to address before play (i.e. Campaign Prep). Others I’d explore during play.

Here’s some:

• How would Player Character figure in such a setting?
• Would they HAVE to be on the same side initially?
• Would they be the portent of something new that could bring peace to the world (a potential campaign ender)?
• How damaged is the world? How survivable is it?
• How advanced is War Technology (Or War Magic/Divine Power)?
• Is technology different from Medieval European?
• What races are present in the setting, and how are they affected by the setting?
• What overarching story arc would hook my interest and that of my players?

Side What if Question: What if the remaining Goddess had been one of War? How would that affect current theology?

• Would it be possible that part of the clergy helps the rebellion because the Goddess thrives as much on strife as she does on believers?
• Does belief in the War give the goddess power?

Oh NOW we’re getting somewhere very interesting.

Refining Concepts to Initiate Prep Work

At this point, were I to play a D&D campaign I’d feel almost ready to pitch this to my players. I would just need to combine the ideas above into something that I would like to play. So let’s work on the elevator pitch…

As the surface world is ravaged by hundreds of years of holy wars in the name of the one true Goddess of War and Strife, a secret alliance has grown in the Underdark uniting all races under a common banner of self-defense and survival. Each race brought its own source of power into the alliance and has managed to stave off complete destruction. Explorers operate out from the many interconnected pockets of civilization searching among the ruins of the world for any kind of edge that could help prolong their survival against the relentlessness divine empire of the surface. A cache of undocumented artifacts will be uncovered that will change everything…

As I re-read I realize that I’ve unwittingly borrowed from the Midnight Campaign setting with a few twists. That is bound to happen. Creativity often isn’t about creating new ideas… but rearranging existing one in different ways and in a different context. Some parallel evolution is bound to happen as is the case in my post.

I wonder if that’s how the creators of Midnight stumbled on their ideas?

That being said, stealing other people’s ideas is not an issue if you have no intention of selling your campaign setting. They are perfectly valid fodder for your mental juggling when you prep for your games.

As you can see, what started as an undirected free association exercise has led me to a point where I would feel comfortable starting a campaign with about 2 hours of work on my side and a character generation session with my players similar to the one I did in my recent Marvel story.

What about you? What creative idea/generation tools do you use to help you create more effectively?

*From Roger Von Oech‘s seminal work: A Whack on the Side of the Head.

No actual orks were harmed during the writing of this post

Welcome back to this last post of a short series featuring my son Nico and I playing a simple d6-based RPG I created called Castle Death.  In Part 1, I described the game’s core rule and character creation. In Part 2, we started playing and created new mechanics to complement the game experience. Today we follow Nico’s adventure as he start interacting with the game’s setting more.

The Implied Setting of Castle Death…

…is nonexistent.  I made the title up as I invited my son to play the game. It could have been “The Caves of Xenu”, “The Moon Temple of the Dinosaur God” and even “Lords of the Mecha Dance Hall.” Anything that will pull a 10 y.o. from World of Warcraft to play with his old man/woman is a fine excuse. In fact I think I’ll use one of those next time.

Meet Pit Trap Mac

Chatty: Okay so you’re in a corridor that links the pillared halls of sculptures to rooms deeper in the dungeon. A very strong smell of food and spices permeates the area. There’s a big square hole that takes up the whole corridor ahead. There are doors on both side of the corridor before the pit.

Nico: Do I roll the dice now?

Well not all the time, you actually have to explore and describe what you try to do before stuff happens.

Okay, well then I’ll go see what’s in the hole. Can I roll now?

(Laughing) Sure, roll the D6. (He rolled a 4, meaning a somewhat positive outcome… that gave me an idea).  All right, so you see this smiling face with a goatee staring up from the bottom of the pit. He says “Heeeeey Buddy! How you doin?”

I’m doing fine! What are you doing in the pit?

Oh this? That’s nothing, just a temporary thing while I rest up my sprained ankle. Gee listen amigo, you wouldn’t happen to have some rope hidden in that loot bag of yours right?

No I’m sorry. I don’t. Do I know you?

Know me? Haven’t you heard of me compadre? I’m Mac, legendary adventurer®, slayer of slayables and looter of lootables!

(And thus was Pit Trap Mac created)

Nico: Can I pull him out by leaning low in the hole?

Chatty: Sure, roll for it. (He rolled a 2 or 3). Hmmm, Mac can’t quite  reach your  hand because of his sprained ankle.

“I’m sorry I can’t get you out now, but I could come back once I find some rope?’

Hey, no problem kid, that would be great. After that we could even team up and make this Castle our playground! What are you here for?

I’m looking for this ring…

Get out! So am I. This is so cool, we’ll be best of friends.

(Oh yes, Nico’s not 6 anymore, I’m hamming this up and setting trope bombs here and there)

Great! I’ll be back soon!

Take your time, I could get out myself but you know how it is?

(We added “Mac sits at the bottom of the Pit” to the Table of Truth, see Part 2)

The Slumbering Ogre

Nico: I’m entering the room with the double doors near where Mac is.

Chatty: You enter a gigantic dining hall. A table that can sit at least 20 people stands in the middle. Old tattered tapestries of past wars line the walls. At the far end of the table sits a snoring ogre. The whole table is filled with half-eaten, rotting food. Some of the meats are downright disgusting.

But for an Ork, that must be all fresh and delicious, right?

Of course Nico. Ewwww.

(Laughter) I look around, do I see any ropes? Can I roll for it?

(See how he gets into the spirit of things? I love this)

Chatty: Sure, roll away. (He rolled a 2) Oh no, the Ogre wakes up while you look around. He sees you and shouts “How dare you interrupt my royal nap?”

Nico: I offer some of my fried goblin, as a gift to appease him.

The ogre grumbles and accepts your gift as a post-nap snack.  As he chews contently, he gestures at the whole table and says, between bites ‘help yourself ork”

Oh no thanks, I’m not hungry.

Ohhhhh, Nico, I’m not sure he’s going to appreciate you refusing his offer to share the food of his table. Roll the dice.

I rolled a 1, oh no what’s going to happen, am I dead?

No, no, not yet. But the ogre is VERY angry. He gets up, takes out a knife the size of a Greatsword and points at you. “You wake me up, you feed me my own guards and then you have the gall to refuse my food? Ork, tell me why I shouldn’t kill you on the spot right now”

“What if I performed some sort of a service for you? A quest maybe?”

The Ogre calms down a bit, sits and looks at you with a pondering expression. “Hmmm, that’s a good idea…”

And thus Nico saved the life of his character and we ended the first session of play.

Chatty: Did you like the game?

Nico: Yes, very much.

Do you want to play again soon?

Yes, I wanna know what quest I’ll have to perform for the Ogre King!

Possible Follow up: How I came up with the idea of Castle Death and advice to run it. 

Whenever you wish to perform a task whose outcome is uncertain, Roll a d6. On a 6 you succeed with great success, on a 1 you fail horribly. All intermediate  results are interpreted based on the ongoing story.

The Adventure Begins

I took my pad of graph paper and flipped to an empty page.  On it, I drew a very large rectangle taking about 3/4 of the whole sheet and put a set of double doors on one side. I then added a sinewy path leading from the castle to an out-of-scale village.

Chatty: All right, Bersork makes his way to the Castle’s entry, the huge double door seems to be barred from behind. What do you do?

Nico: Can I force it open?

Sure, roll for it (he rolled a 3), ahhh I’m sorry but it apprears you aren’t strong enough to open it…

I use my axe to break it down. Can I roll again?

Nah, you’ll get the door “open” no problem but you’ll alert the whole place, are you ok with that?

Sure!

Fine. So with a few strokes of your hefty axe, you break down the Castle’s door and you see what looks like a room designed to repeal invaders with arrow slits on  both sides of the room and several murder  holes on the ceiling. You hear high pitched voices yammering behind the holes and the strong smell of oil permeates the whole room.

Okay, I run by.

Roll the dice (he rolled a 6.) Oh wow! So as you run through the room, goblins shoot arrows through the  slits, miss you… and kill each other as the arrows enter the opposed slits!

Cool!

And as you pass below the murder holes, you hear a gargled scream of pain as a very crisp, very fried and very dead goblin falls to the floor behind you.  Seems to me someone tripped on the burning oil cauldron

(Laughter) Bersork takes pieces of the fried goblin.

Ewwww, you do? Why?

Orcs LOVE fried goblins daddy!

When Nico told me this little crunchy morsel (pun intended) about Castle Death’s setting, I wanted to jot it down so I could refer to it in a later game (with or without Bersork). So I reached out, picked an index card, wrote “Truths” on it and wrote: “Fried goblins is the  finest of Orcish delicacies”.

And thus was born the Table of Truth, the game’s second mechanic. I’m pretty sure that’s how many of the “we created it as we played it” published campaign settings started.

A King’s Bounty

Chatty: After you finish packing your “snack”, you enter a gigantic pillared halls with several exits. The pillars are all sculpted to represents the last lords of Castle Death.

Nico: Okay, why don’t you roll the dice to see what’s going to happen?

(and thus Nico created the third, and last, mechanic of Castle Death)

Roll a d6 whenever you explore a new element of Castle Death. On a 1, it spells a LOT of (not lethal) trouble for the PC. On a 6 something REALLY positive is discovered.

Chatty: Okay, go ahead. Oh, a 5? Well, as you explore the room, you notice that one of the sculptures of a king has a (draws card from my Paizo pile) strange amulet around his neck.

Nico: Can I remove it and take it?

Well, you thought it would be tricky since the kings is sculpted into a stone column, but as you examine it, the king smiles and bows his head, the amulet dangling from his now freed neck.

Yay! I take it! (He picks the card up and I write “Amulet” on his character card.)

(Nico then made his way deeper in the castle..).

Up next: Bersork meets Pit Trap Mac and has a harrowing meeting with an Ogre who’s a stickler for Etiquette.

Ensnaring the Unwary

Nico: I’m bored, I wanna play something.

Chatty: Do you want to play World of Warcraft? Some Magic Commander? How about some Poker?

Nico: Hmmmm, I don’t know…

Chatty: Okay, join me in at the kitchen table then, I’ll teach you a new game.

Nico (wary, as always when I get all mysterious): What kinda game?

An adventure game. Trust me you’re going to LOVE this one.

Oh, what’s it called?

Hmmm… it’s called CASTLE DEATH!

Oh cool! How does it play?

(Hook line and sinker!)

Character Generation

Chatty: It’s real simple. We play with a pad of graph paper, a stack of index cards and a d6. Here’s a card for you…

(On it I wrote “Name:” and “Equipment:” but Nico started doing his own brand of game design…)

Nico: What are my class and race?

Why do you ask? Do you feel you need them?

Yes. You know, because whenever I make a new character, I always combine the name of my class with that of the race I’m playing.

(That’s so true, in World of Warcraft he plays a character named Shamataur)

Chatty: (Adding “Class:” and “Race:” to the index card) Okay, what class and what race are you then?

Nico: I want to be an Orcish Berserker. My name will be Bersork!

That’s a fine name you have. Okay so if you’re a barbarian, I guess that means you have…

A huge, huge axe!

Niiice. And how about a metal helmet…

With horns!

Of course and a loincloth.

Of course!

All right then lets finish this with a large leather bag to hold your loot, a torch and a lighter.

Task Resolution

Chatty: Okay so here’s how the game works. You explore this Castle. Whenever you want to do something that we’re not sure if you’ll succeed, you roll a d6.  On a 1, something REALLY BAD happens to you, on a 6 something REALLY GOOD happens to you.

Nico: That’s neat! What about the other numbers?

We decide based on the story. Closer to “1″ is usually bad and closer to “6″ is usually good.

Cool!

The Quest

Chatty: Okay so you’re about to enter Castle Death, the most evil Dungeon in the kingdoms of man. You are an orc, what could possibly bring you to this dungeon? This means we need to create you a quest to explain why you came. Usually a quest means…

Nico: I know what it means dad. I’ve been playing WoW for a year. Lets say I need to find a treasure.

That’s a perfectly fine quest. Is your character looking for a specific treasure?

Hmmm. Oh! I know! Get those item cards you have! (He means the Paizo gear cards I purchased in droves in the D&D 3.5 era).

That’s a GREAT idea! Let see… You need to recover a (draws card) magical ring that’s hidden somewhere in the dungeon

Great! Let’s start!

And so Bersork made his way from the village of Outlets to Castle Death.

Up next: Exploration begins and Bersork meets the Ogre

Image Credits: ©2011-2012 *kenartcorp (Castle Greyhawk) and Paizo (Item Cards)

Join us dear readers in a thrill ride where dangers and catastrophe are a dime a dozen. Witness the birth of a new Superhero team in the heart of the City of Angels! Collateral Damage is here to stay! Take a special behind-the-scenes tour here and don’t miss Part 1 of this exciting new series! Excelsior! Sit back and enjoy what the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game can offer. Excelsior!

Dramatis Personae

Just so you don’t have to go back to remember who’s who:

• The One Man Army (TOMA): A wisecracking troublemaker that can duplicate  himself many many times. Played by Yan.
• Tsunami: A water-controller nuclear scientist who’s slowly loosing her humanity as she shifts into a water elemental-like creature. Played by Alex.
• The Great Gregory: A two-bit stage magician and casino cheat with the uncanny ability to see up to one minute in his future. Played by PM.
• Nightcrawler: Our favorite German Mutant teleporting Swashbuckler. Played by Frankie

Part #1 Redux

In one of Los Angeles’ seedier aquatic circus shows, S.H.I.E.L.D agent Sharon S. brings TOMA and The Great Gregory to meet  Nightcrawler and Tsunami. As Nightcrawler’s plays his fake Houdini act, Ninjas prepare to attack. The surprise is foiled by a very alert Tsunami and a fight starts. Tsunami, TOMA and Nightcrawler engage the ninjas and save the confused and frightened audience. As the ninjas try to threaten Tsunami into surrendering, The Great Gregory announces the arrival of a far greater threat: The Silver Samurai!

Calling All the Shots

On Gregory’s turn, the whole theater was covered with a few inches of water. PM described that he wanted Gregory to set a trap for the Silver Samurai, dropping a whole rack of stage lights onto him (and into the water) to create a localized electric stun trap. I had him roll vs the Doom Pool, a mechanic the GM uses when a hero wants to do something without having a clear opponent. In this particular case, I didn’t want to have PM roll vs. the Silver Samurai just yet as I hadn’t brought him in the scene.

In truth, I wanted PM’s character to shine through as early as possible and test how we could make precognition work in the game (It’s a power we made up for our campaign, it is not yet in the game’s rules). PM managed to roll a decent amount but failed to produce an effect dice because he rolled some ’1s’. We later found out that his character has a few design bugs that often prevents him from having sufficient dice to achieve cool effects.

Chatty: I’m going to roll the Doom Pool now.

PM: Why, it’s not like anything’s going to happen.

Chatty: I kinda disagree. If you succeed, it still means that your power worked and that you correctly called from which door the Samurai enters the scene and at what time. Plus, I can play “1s” too.

As it turns out, I failed to beat his roll and we established that he sprung the trap just a bit too fast to catch him as he entered. Yet we had established a very important scene element: a set of electric lights were lying in a few inches of water… waiting to be “activated” as a complication or a scene distinction.

Pileup in Aisle #4!

PM: Right. It’s TOMA’s turn now.

Yan: Toma…

Chatty: Wait! What’s your Senses? Enhenced?  I take a d8 out of the Doom Pool and I interrupt your turn and have the Silver Samurai go before you.

The Doom Pool can be used for many things, one of which is interrupting another player’s turn, given that you take out a die large enough to be equivalent to a character’s Sense or Speed Trait, whichever is largest. 

So the supervillain came in the room, spotted the one obvious super character TOMA and engaged it in a duel, failing in his attack. Yan spent a Plot Point (the player’s resource) to counter attack and manage to score Physical Stress by taking the samurai down and piling up a ton of kicking, clawing and punching clones on him.

Chatty: Okay, instead of taking Physical stress, I’ll switch it to Emotional (and lower it by one level of intensity) as the villain is shocked and then outraged at having been surprised by such a dishonorable ploy. (This cost another Doom Die, I was running low).

I ended the Samurai’s turn by describing how, in a cry of rage, it got back up, sending clones flying all over the place.

The rest of the fight was very involved and cinematic. Tsunami flooded the whole theater and cranked up the electrical juice pumped into it,  creating a massive d12 theater-wide taser, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, a liability when caught in the electric field became a gun-toting asset when Nightcrawler teleported her to the lightning struts near the ceiling. The Samurai managed to score one solid hit on  TOMA… but it turned out to be one of his clones, much to the villain’s chagrin.   TOMA eventually managed to beat the Silver Samurai in submission by piling up many copies of himself over the samurai and pining him under the spotlight rail, sending jolts of high-powered electricity into clones and villains allike.

At one point, The Great Gregory, playing on one of his “I’m bored, lets make this interesting” milestone, tried to allow the Silver Samurai to flee, much to the consternation of the other players. Sadly, it failed. As things move to a close and ninjas were getting fried and washed all over the place, the nearly stressed-out Silver Samurai surrendered and was delivered to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.

Wrapping Up

Thus was the session concluded. All players agreed to form a new team of super heroes.

Chatty: So what should we name your team? Collateral Damage?

Others: Hell Yeah!

We played only once scene but given that we created all the setting elements and the milestones, we were all satisfied with how things turned up. It was evident from the ambient energy level that everyone had had a lot of fun and that a new campaign was started. I now have several elements in hand to work a story arc that should span the next few sessions.

I can’t wait to play again next month.  

Welcome true believers to a  series describing the antics of the newest super hero team: Collateral Damage!  I hope you’ve caught our special pre-launch issue where we showed you the nitty-gritty aspects of our creation process. Now get ready form pure raw action and laughs as only the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game can offer you! 

Setting the Scene

The Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game supports many playing style, from the more traditional “Game Master describes stuff, players react” to the Writer’s Room approach  where the Gamemaster (called The Watcher) acts like a comic book’s editor and the players are as much the writers and artists of the whole series as the voice of their own  characters. I really like this approach. Thus, while I get to set and run scenes, I encourage players to butt in and propose cooler ways for things to go down. It’s one of those “Shared Narrative” experience that  jargon-laden game designers like to write about. Trust me, it’s a lot more fun than it sounds.

When we finally were ready to start playing, my heart started pounding as I had ABSOLUTELY no plot prepared for the session, having decided to trust the setting elements we’d create earlier in the session and our combined creativity. I picked the index cards unto which I copied the setting elements we created earlier (see previous post) and picked the following (with ideas I got while reviewing them):

• The Circus: Something happens at the show (Nightcrawler and Tsunami are working there. This would let  Tsunami shine with her water powers)
• Sharon S: The S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison to the yet-to-be-formed team (She brings the other 2 heroes to introduce them to form the team).
• The Obsessed Scientist: Hired thugs to try to kidnap/coerce Tsunami back to Japan (Opposition!).

I had a scene. I just needed some supporting characters above and beyond Sharon.  I started looking through my list (in the Breakout Mini-event that comes out with the Basic game) for an appropriate super villain. I kept going back to the Silver Samurai and that clinched it for me.

The Nipponese scientist pays Clan Harada huge sums of money to send a band of ninjas in LA to track Tsunami and apprehend her. The scientist INSISTS that the Harada himself be there to oversee operations and get involved if necessary.

I  stated a large group of ninjas (the game has mechanics for mobs of identical minor characters) within seconds and I was ready to start.

Enter the Ninjas

I started the scene with Agent Sharon bringing The One Man Army (TOMA, Yan’s duplicator) and The Great Gregory (PM’s Precog) to the circus show. They were sitting in an amphitheater set around a pool, much like those you see at Ocean World. Tsunami (Alex’s Water controller) was sitting behind a curtain near one of the pool’s edges handling the show’s controls.  Nightcrawler (Franky’s Mutant Teleporter) was reading old magazines in his dressing rooms while people thought he was in the iron coffin dunked at the bottom of the shark-infested pool.

That’s when the ninjas sprung their attack!  I wanted to give the heroes a chance to catch the ninjas before they pulled their surprise attack on the audience and Nightcrawler. Thus I initially told Alex that Tsunami would get a chance to spot that someone had played with the theater’s electrical systems.

And this is where the “writer’s room approach” shone. Franky proposed that the electrical failure would mean that his cue to teleport back into the coffin as it rose from the water would fail, stranding him in his room.  When Alex told me that he thought that ‘finding the ninjas before they struck”  lacked a certain dramatic flair, I asked could be done instead. We discussed it and we agreed that Tsunami would get a chance to act against the ninjas first if he beat the Doom Pool.

The Doom pool is a dice pool for the GM that grows as players (not the GM) roll “1s” or when villains monologue or grandstand successfully. It represents the impending sense of danger and, as expected, doom that permeates a given event. The dice in it can be spent for many things, including creating trouble like fires and buses full of seniors (with a Stan Lee cameo, of course). It is such a devilishly clever mechanic that Ubisoft Alex nearly proposed to it during one of his raves about it, saying it was one of the most brilliant piece of game design he’d ever seen.  

Alex described how Tsunami created a water tentacle that would knock on Nightcrawler’s door while ninjas were sneaking up on him through the thin backstage corridor. He succeeded beautifully and flooded the corridor with water, dazing the ninjas and making the whole place slippery. Except for Gregory who had preemptively hidden under a decorative umbrella, much to TOMA’s puzzlement.

The Ninja mob was split in three, one group in the backstage, one in the audience and the rest in the pool, acting as reserve. Given that information, Nightcrawler tried to teleport between the ninjas and the surprised audience to protect them. Sadly, he failed and he landed in the middle of the ninjas. I used some of the “1s” he rolled to feed the Doom Pool to then create a “Confused and Frightened Audience” scene distinction.

This means that whenever heroes performed actions in which the audience might be involved, I got to add a dice to my villain’s pool because of the distraction. In return, the heroes were allowed to act directly on that scene element and fix it (hence removing it). This is a very powerful and flavorful element of the game.

Then came the audience Ninja’s turn. The group in the audience tried to attack Nightcralwer who dodged and teleported out of trouble without a care in the world. In fact, he even managed to steer the audience outside the theater, resolving the problem I had added a few minutes before.

The  backstage ninjas then tried to grandstand, trying to intimidate Tsunami…

Chatty: One ninja near Tsunami reveals his face and tells her that she must come peacefully as Clan Harada has taken members of her family hostage to ease her return to Japan.

Alex: Oh boy, they chose the wrong gal to say that. I actually don’t care about my family anymore (Tsunami is somewhat inspired by Dr. Manatthan, detached and struggling to remain human).

Tsunami  resisted successfully, but Alex rolled enough “1s” that I got what I wanted: 2d8s in the Doom Pool (which started at 2d6).

Chatty (taking both d8s out of the Doom Pool, addressing The Great Gregory): A very tall guy wearing a silvered samurai armour will enter the theater any moment now…

Having a Precog character is a great way to announce when the GM triggers events from the Doom Pool. 

Alex: Well I guess it’s Gregory’s turn then.

Oh yes, another feature of the game, players who just had their turn get to decide who go next.  This is a very powerful story tool. And it works!

Up Next: Clone Pileup in the International Food Aisle!

(Get the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game’s PDF, available now!)

Not too long ago, they approached me to let me know they wanted to go back to classic campaigns. We  spent most of the last 2 years playing one-shots of  mini-campaigns of various game systems.  When I asked what game they’d like to tackle, the answer was unequivocal:  Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. They wanted to play with heroes they’d make  from scratch and participate in home brewed adventures.

This request brought quite an interesting challenge for em. You see, the Marvel game is principally presented to play out specific events set in the Marvel Universe using pre-established heroes. These events will be based on published plot arcs like the upcoming Civil War or Age of Apocalypse. The events will mix events that occurred in the official storyline with ”what if” elements where players make decisions that may send the story in directions not covered by the original stories.

Thus, what my players requested was not something that I felt entirely comfortable doing right off the bat. Thankfully, I wasn’t without options. The basic rules provide plenty of guidance to make/adapt characters and create your own adventures. But I wasn’t sure I could pull off what they expected: a structured campaign based on my own ideas and my (still) limited knowledge of the Marvel Universe.

(Game designer aside: With over 70 years of history and 9000 characters, I’m not ever going to be a Marvel expert. I joined the team as a Game Designer and as the token “13 y.o boy who played FASERIP“)

Then it dawned on me, I have  the tools I need. All those different game systems I’ve been playing these last 2 years give me a lot of options. much like the stuff that Dave and I blogged about here. The Marvel system itself doesn’t inhibit telling my own stories.

Thus I hatched the following strategy to prepare my first RPG campaign in over year.

Character Generation

First, we’d take a whole session making characters. The game provides clear guidelines to create/adapt your own hero  but they do require a certain level of rules mastery to get exactly what you want.  We spent a few hours individually then together at the table picking Distinctions (personality traits and catchphrases players), Specialties (skills), Power Sets and, more importantly, Special Effects (ways to use powers that bend the rules of the game, like Captain America’s area attack). Getting special effects right was what took us the longest as we wanted to go beyond those found in the book and tweak/create effects that went perfectly well with each hero’s powerset.

We ended up with the following four characters:

Nightcrawler (Franky): Using the available rules, we were able to create a faithful rendition of our favourite swashbuckling mutant  teleporter.  We established that the character was not being held to canon unless Franky felt it was fun and didn’t constrain his creativity.

The One Man Army (Yan): Inspired by Multiple Man, the self-duplicating mutant seen in X-Men 3 (and X-Factor), He’s a wisecracking troublemaking ex-con who’s idea of problem solving is throwing more manpower at it until the problem vanished under a pile of clones.

The Great Gregory (PM): Inspired by Nick Cage’s character in Next, Gregory is a jaded low-end stage magician and casino cheat with the ability to see one minute into his future.  I must say that making a precognitive character was quite a challenge but as you’ll see in Issue #1, the game’s engine can support it much better than I expected.

Tsunami (Alex): A water elemental-like creature that looks like a Japanese idoru. Ami Tsun used to be a physicist who got caught in the Fukushima nuclear reactor in last year’s catastrophe. She got caught in one of the flooded reactors and developped Water Controlling powers.

Player Generated Setting Elements

In order to have something upon which to build our campaign world, I suggested an overarching setting based on the Marvel Universe. Using  my recent research for the upcoming Civil War event books, I proposed that the players could be one of the federally-backed supers teams assigned to a specific American state (very loosely based on Marvel’s Fifty State Initiative). They agreed and we chose California.

Borrowing from my own “party generation template” and Dave’s excellent Gammarizer, I asked each player to come up with one setting element (places, recent events and minor characters) linking their character to the setting. Here’s what we came up with.

Sharon S.: S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and former actress. She was to act as the team’s liaison to her organization.

Tow-Wing’s Garage and Halal Fried Noodles: The One Man Army’s work place. I apologize if you find the name culturally offensive, but Yan’s PC is named “Mohammed Chang” a Muslim born from a Sino-Arab union. We all assumed that the business was named by a socially incompetent person… Which kinda fits TOMA to a T.

Hiroito Takashima: A crackpot scientist conspiracy theorist (or is it terrorist?) obsessed with the origins and powers of Tsunami. He has been diverting his own research grants into tracking her to America.

Thomas Redgrave: A Paranoid Casino Security Consultant who once caught Gregory slipping from his usually disciplined casino cheating routine (win slowly and quit before being noticed). He lost many jobs in various Las Vegas casinos trying to convince people of Gregory’s threat. The man is on a vendetta.

Father O’Reilly: Kurt’s Irish confessor and local community leader. Recovered alcoholic,  of course.

Le Cirque: A seedy ripoff of Le Cirque du Soleil featuring a pool and scantily clad acrobats. Tsunami works the show’s controls and mechanical sharks. Yes, you read that right.

The Circus Act: Nightcrawler makes occasional guest appearances at the circus in a cheap Houdini act featuring an iron coffin covered in chains, dunked in a pool and stabbed by sword-wielding acrobats.  Of course, when that happens, Kurt is safely reading magazines in his dressing room.

Your Mutant Past Will Bite/Help You Someday: In TOMA’s recent past, he dealt with Magneto and Mystique in some undefined way. There’s a good chance they’ll be back to follow up on that.

This setting element brought another one that Franky didn’t want to assume initially but he chose to go with Canon.

Nightcrawler’s Parents: As established, Kurt was born of Mystique and Azazel.

That’s so much material to pick from to create a game.

Milestones

The last element that we needed to establish before the game started was to give  character milestones (the game’s experience system based on rewarding specific actions). According to the game, players get to choose 2 from an established list of event or character specific milestones. We took the time to generate one character-specific milestone per hero, agreeing to  make setting specific ones in later sessions. I won’t go into specifics as they”ll likely change with time but here’s a summary of each.

TOMA: Dealing with his criminal past. Bring criminals to justice and get his record clean.

Nightcrawler: Being a devout catholic. Putting himself at great risk or even exposing himself in order to save ordinary people. Possibly becoming a priest even.

The Great Gregory: Deal with his boredom by choosing ways of putting his allies in trouble and letting villains escape for a later confrontation. Might even go as far as putting a friend or himself in mortal danger.

Tsunami (To be further defined): Retain her link to humanity or chose to forgo humanity altogether.

Armed with all these, I was totally ready to  start a campaign. And let me tell you, it started with a BANG!

Up Next, Issue #1: Electric Ninja Boogaloo!

The convention was awesome, I got to see many friends again, made new ones, ran my own adventure, and, of course,  played a few games of D&D Next, the very early prototype of what the next version could be based on.

Like so many other bloggers and freelancers, I’ve signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement so I can’t discuss  specific rules. Rather I will do what I like doing best: tell stories of the games I ran, sharing highlights and special DMing and player moments during that 4 day long event.  Up first, the genesis of new heroes.

Temple of the Weeping Goddess (Spoiler Warning)

As you may know, my 1st freelance credit for D&D 4e was the publication of rules to make level 0 characters, something that some  people working on various editions of D&D wanted to bring back since the publication of AD&D Treasure Hunt adventure module in the late 80s. To supplement these rules, I also wrote a Dungeon magazine adventure featuring a group of orphans escaping a sound  trashing at the hands of drunken adventurers only to be thrust into a dangerous quest to save a lost Aspect of Avandra trapped in the Elemental Chaos.

Yes, I thought it would be cool to send pre-heroic characters to the Elemental Chaos.

Highlights of Session 1:

All players made a party of characters that seemed lifted from The Goonies . My favorite character was the dwarven divinely-touched  fat crybaby.

Fafir: “But I mean well! It’s not exactly my fault the fish market exploded last month!”

That character’s player went to town with characterization. Whining all the time and trying  make up for his many mistakes all the time.

Fafir also had a brother, Bofur, an arcane-touched human played by our very own Vanir. Yes, a human. This table was touched with the spirit of Sir Pratchett.

Fafir: I always look up to my big brother.

Bofur: Hey, no size joke, I’m just precocious!

During the first scene, while running away from the drunken adventurers, the players were discussing how to lose their pursuers. They came up with this gem:

Player: Lets lure them into a brothel!

Dragonborn: Yeah! That’s a GREAT idea.

Fafir: Oh, I don’t know guys, I hear brothels are EVIL.

Chatty: Hey, do your characters know what a brothel is?

Player: Not really… I mean, we all heard about them, this is a port city after all.

Fafir’s player: Yeah, Fafir assumes its some dark place where people drink a lot and dance.

(I love playing tweenaged characters.)

Later, the Dragonborn brute had his crowning moment of awesome. One of the bad guys was hidden underneath a fallen cupola sitting in the corner of a room.  The character climbed up the wall through the caved-in ceiling  and dove, greatclub first into the cupola, making it ring like a church bell, knocking its hapless occupant out.

At that point, I was standing up, acting the scene, hamming up each gestures, sounds and grunts. The dragonborn’s player had a grin so large, I was afraid his head would fall off.

I live for moments like these.

In the sessions’ last scene, where the young adventurers were pleading with the insanely angry and sad goddess, Fafir went to town.

Fafir (with a broken voice full of tears): You’ve got to stop blaming yourself for mistakes you did so long ago. I do mistakes all the time and I feel ashamed, but I always get back up and charge back into life, because I know I’ll get better. Please stop crying my beautiful goddess.

Chatty (stunned): Are your characters serious about loving her or are you just trying to calm her down so she can leave the plane?

Players (all nodding): Oh we’re totally honest here man, we want her to know we care for her.

Chatty: Wow, +6 bonus!

That really was a great game.

But that was just the half of it, I got to see more of Fafir during the weekend. I got served what I think is the greatest example of characterization in my 30 years as a DM.

Up next: My second session of the same adventure, some Fort Wayne stories and traveling tips!

Image Credits: Tyler Jacobson and Kieran Yanner

Like in Phil’s experience, we didn’t necessarily know the real rules (or particularly care). Some of the game play issues that would later come to bug us would be several campaigns down the road before they really became impediments to play. We played with a DM that liked to use 4d6 in order drop lowest, leading to playing fighters with 13th strength and paladins with 4 intelligence.

It was also the system that I would first run campaigns in. First, my utter failure of a campaign that mashed-up the video game Doom and D&D, or my much more successful followup that featured such unique NPCs as Lord Dort Invader, his Twelve Penetrators, and Gigantor the Great Big Robot.

From these memories of our early days, we’ve assembled a few of us who were in those games together to pinpoint what made those days of D&D so great.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2e)

• Age Range When Played: 12-17
• Nostalgia Factor: High
• Rules Mastery: Low

1. Flexibility

The O recalls those times fondly:

My D&D memories from that time have mostly been pushed out from all the cramming I had to do in school, but the ones I do remember are near and dear. My viewpoint comes directly from a novice player’s standpoint. What stood out the most to me in 2nd edition was the flexibility for both players and DMs. It felt as though the game was more open-ended, left more room for the imagination, and allowed greater room for house-ruling.

By far my favorite memories, and also my most saddening, involved my first long-standing character, Gurias the Half-Elf Wizard. Most of the great times involved our gaming group’s head DM, Abe. He was quite volatile and would quickly make rash decisions that could, to quote They Might Be Giants, “lead to excellence or serious injury.”

I recall once making Abe laugh because a couple of players were arguing amongst themselves, and I quickly ended the argument by saying, “Make half-elves, not war!” This campaign also involved my greatest failure both in D&D, and possibly life in general. Gurias was True Neutral and Abe created a magical neutrality test. He presented a white knight and a black knight fighting a complete stalemate, then asked me which I would choose to support. I chose the white wizard. I missed out on a great reward while being mocked into oblivion.

One memory, which I mention because it’s Dave’s favorite, involved Gurias’s demise. Gurias sadly died at mere level 7 and it was my first experience with character death. Remember how I mentioned the nice flexibility of 2nd edition? Well, rolling 1s and 20s with volatile Abe’s house rules were QUITE dangerous. Critical hits would lead to some heroic, amazing, over dramatized feat, while a critical miss lead to serious consequences. Our party was locked in a heated battle against an illithid mage. Gurias was at full health when said mind-flayer threw a fireball at me. I rolled my saving throw and it came up a natural 1. Abe’s response was that Gurias was blown to pieces then disintegrated by the fireball, preventing any chance of resurrection. Keep in mind that Gurias had enough health to withstand the fireball even if the damage dice rolled the maximum! I would eventually bring back Gurias in Dave’s 4th edition game, and the lore about the mind flayer’s fireball made it into that campaign.

Abe ended up giving me some redemption when my replacement character for Gurias, an evil Elven Fighter had a two-handed sword which received bonuses against humans. We were fighting a death knight and I critically missed AGAIN. This time however, he declared that the sword flew into the air, stopped, spun around making beeping sounds (as if a heat-seeking missile) until it locked onto a human character in the party (he randomly rolled which one), and stated that the sword flew at him and sliced off one of his legs. The best part? That party member was a guy named Ben… Abe’s younger brother! What ensued was a complete firefight of sibling warfare and sadness that words cannot describe. I can say that tears were shed and furniture was overturned.

2. Authority

The Main Event has this to say:

I did not know it at the time, but 2E’s byzantine bloated and vastly impenetrable rule set vested great authority in the DM. Adding to this dynamic was the fact our play group tended to have ‘older’ and ‘younger’ players… the older being somewhere in high school and the younger being in middle school. So, my first era of 2E play involved older players running games with a set of rules that was unfriendly to universal comprehension as a n00b. Rules-lawyering happened, but most of the time it was easily squashed with DM fiat. The thing is, it made for damn fun games. Rather than being hung up on the rules we were immersed and in love with the game and the game world. Part of that was my age and part of it was game design that I’d never endorse, but it was a different play experience in that era. The DM was in charge, end of story.

And you know what? With a good DM it can make for a better game and a better story.

3. Worlds of Wonder and Danger

Bartoneus recalls his first steps into D&D:

2nd Edition D&D came into my life at just the right time. I was ready to enter other people’s worlds and play a part in their stories, but I wasn’t yet to the point of wanting to create my own worlds or tell my own stories. For me my memories of 2E will always be tied to my first introduction to the planes and fantastic places like Sigil. I remember vividly the first time I had a character step out of a portal and into Sigil, but for me it wasn’t just entering “Sigil,” it was stepping into this wondrous city where the street arched upwards and kept going into the sky and all of your assumptions about the world were immediately left behind.

Back in 2E I always felt like non-weapon proficiencies were something special for my characters. I remember several instances of being encouraged as a player to sing my way out of certain situations because I had decided my Dwarf Fighter was proficient in singing Dwarven Drinking songs. Then of course there’s the instance of my first character’s death, where he was beaten unconscious after a courtroom scene involving Gigantor turned bad and the rest of the party fled through a portal to safety. When one of the players, I believe The Main Event, was asked by the DM if he wanted to try and save my character lying on the floor, he thought about it and responded, “No.” My character perished under Gigantor’s foot as the portal closed.

4. Whimsy

And finally, I recall some of my favorite characters and moments, driven by what was in the game:

The first D&D book I ever owned was The Complete Psionics Handbook. Without having a PHB, using what I could infer from the rules in the book plus half-remembered rules from convention games I had played in, I created an Elven Psionicist named “Spock.” The gaming group I tried to play him in didn’t let that fly, but I still got to play a Psionicist with all kinds of arm-stretching, weapon grafting, Id Insinuating goodness.

The second book I owned (yes, still without a PHB) was the Tome of Magic, and from there, Wild Mage easily became my favorite class. Memorized spells not coming in handy? No problem: cast Nahal’s Reckless Dweomer, roll on the wild surge table, and hope for the best. Though the results were heavily skewed towards something wacky (and not at all impactful) happening, I always felt like I had a chance to impact the situation… even if it was only a 1 out of 100 chance.

I also played a Halfling Cleric of chaos (once again using spells from the Tome of Magic) who was reincarnated into a skeleton through some chaotic consequences. Later, another curse would force his alignment to Lawful and necessitate worshiping a deity of law (I was NOT happy when that happened). There even came a battle against a powerful mage where my chaotic spells would have come in handy in scrambling his spellcasting, but all I had were law spells… except for the ones I had stored in my Ring of Spell Storing before the change. That last vestige of chaotic magic used at the right time saved the day, and my halfling would eventually revert to his old chaos-worshipping self before heading off on his immortality quest.

This is only a sampling, not even including the food mage, the berserker whose presence was announced by an organ, the bevy of characters based on Squaresoft games, the rogue who saved a gold mine and power-leveled through 4 levels thanks to the gold pieces therein, and much more. You still had the races and classes that had already become classics, alongside new and crazy options. And whether your fireball was turning into butterflies, or you were pulling a string of Christmas lights out of a Robe of Useless items, this is the edition to me that embraced some of the wackier sides of the game, for some memorable times.

Do you have any fond memories of AD&D 2e that you want to share? Please do, but remember to keep it positive.

Next week, we tackle a big era in D&D and the gaming industry: 3rd edition.

I was very intrigued with Mike Mearls vision of creating a “D&D’s Greatest Hits.” It evokes a plethora of images about modular designs and piecemeal “build your own game” elements that inspires the writer and budding game designer in me. This gave me an idea for a series of post here at Critical Hits. Some of the bloggers here have been playing various editions of D&D for the last 4 decades, I thought it would be interesting if we shared our five DMing Greatest Hits for some or all of the versions of D&D we played as dungeon masters.

Let me start with my first foray in RPGs:

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (1e)

• Age Range when played : 10-16
• Nostalgia Factor: Very High
• Rules Mastery: Moderate

As I mentioned in my RPG DNA post a while back, I discovered  tabletop RPGs when I was 10. A schoolmate invited me over to show me a made-up  game based on what he had played with his cousin (the original Red Box) over a weekend. We played for hours with hardly any rules more complex than “Roll a d6 to fight, you die on a 1, you kill the monster on a 6, we roleplay the inbetweens“.

When I showed that game to a 13 y.o. friend of mine, he came back a few days later with a borrowed Player’s Handbook he got from a buddy in high school. We played with that for months.

I bought the Dungeon Masters Guide one year later. And more or less taught myself English while reading Gygaxian prose. The rest is history…

So onwards with the Top 5 elements I loved most about running AD&D, admitting I am heavily biased by the nostalgia factor.

1. Inspiration

The AD&D core books ooze with inspiration for games, NPCs, dungeons, traps, tricks and plots.  Charts, titles (brazen trollops anyone?), random tables, weapon names, monster lore and the much misunderstood concepts of Gygaxian Ecologies.  From random dungeon generators to  monster lairs found in the wilderness, I yearn for as many inspirational aids I can get to design exciting settings, campaign arcs, plotlines, and encounters for my players.

2. Exploration

What I remember most of AD&D is that sense of discovery about almost anything as I deciphered Gary’s teachings. I wanted every stone turned, I wanted to draw dungeons that took multiple pads of graph paper (and I did), I wanted to use and create monters that made no frakking sense (Crap elementals FTW), and I laughed when  friends threatened each other by comparing their character sheets.

Joel: Oh yeah? Well just wait till my illusionist levels up and I’ll Phantasmal Killer you with images of your parents DOING IT!

All editions of D&D have this, hence my nostalgia warning. Practically speaking, as a DM I expect to be provided concise tools (tables, charts, generators, short blurb) at my gaming table (in paper or e-format) and more elaborate online resources to help me cater to my players’ sense of exploration.

3. Attitude

You’ve got to hand it to Gary Gygax, he had a very strong opinion of how his game should be played. Now, while I HATE to be told how a game MUST be played, I loved how Gary’s attitude and certitudes transpired in the pages of his books and lent them a sense of credibility that made you feel like you were invited to join a club (or attending a heartfelt lecture).

While I’d like to do away with the most glaring patronizing passages (as I ignore them now), I like engaging, authoritative or conversational tones in my rulesbook. AD&D certainly had the tone right to engage my tweenaged mind.

4. Resilience

I’ve rarely met people that played AD&D 1e with all the rules and subsystems and ENJOYED it for a prolonged periods of time. Yet AD&D’s chaotic goo of crunch could take some severe misinterpretation, heavy handed house-ruling and glaring omissions while remaining very playable. I like that in a game. Keep giving me a system that has a  simple core and allow me to eject almost anything from it without threatening its fundamental integrity as an engine and I’ll be happy.

5. Modules

The early AD&D modules were simple, had low page content and were direct.  Short intro (ex: do this quest or the baron burns you alive), dungeon rooms with minimal description… and an emergent sense of plot that arose organically through play. (I’m referring to  modules like Village of Homlet, Against the Giants, the slave lords and others of that ilk). I want more of that.

What about you? Did you play 1e? What was the elements you liked the most about it.  Please keep it positive, we all know the warts of our games, let’s focus on the awesome.

Up next, Dave and friends tackle that multi-headed beast that was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition.

In that time, I’ve further thought about what gets my blood boiling and sends my brain in a creative frenzy. As I seek to find this feeling anew among all the clutter that accumulates in my existence, I realized what makes me tick as a writer. I found it while reading a book.

A while back, I was reading Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek while I was waiting for Dr.C to finish work. I came upon his story about trading his Death Star playset vs a  landspeeder and 10$ back in the 80′s and it just dawned on me:

Will was lousy at trades. Oh wait, that’s not it.

Much like Wil realized that he was a born storyteller, I realized that was also one of the things  I liked doing most: writing stories about what my experiences with RPGs.  If you look over my previous 2 posts (here and here), my series on becoming a freelance writer (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) or all my posts about playing with my children, you can feel the energy being poured into these articles. Yet, as I recall, they required minimal effort to write. I enjoy sharing my experience through a (slightly) fictionalized account of what occurs in my geek life so much that it doesn’t feel like work to me… at all.

Secondly, as I re-read my posts about DMing at the New York Comic Con, I remembered something fundamental about my blogging experience.  My absolute best posts are and have always been those where each paragraph oozes with the bubbling enthusiasm that is a hallmark of my extroverted personality. I seem to recall someone (probably Logan Bonner) at Pax East last year telling me that whenever I raved about a new game, he would usually cut what I said about it in half before considering how true it could be.

That’s me to  T.

So this is what I want to reconnect with. I want most, if not all my blog posts to be like the one I wrote about NYCC, I want to share my insights as a GM, share my good ideas, tell a good story.  But most importantly, I yearn to talk about things that get me excited again, things I feel enthusiastic about. Be it the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying campaign I may start with my friends, the mounting excitement (albeit sans details) of playtesting the next iteration of D&D, my burgeoning experiences as a foodie geek or exploring new gaming horizons with my children and my girlfriend.

In fact, if I recalled what brought me to Critical-Hits 5 years ago, I’d say it was the enthusiasm of Dave, Danny and co. This is what this place means to me, this is what I want the place to remain.

And you dear readers have been a huge part of that. Thank you for reading.

At the time, I had no idea how successful the experience would be. As it turns out, things went quite well indeed. Read on for the “storified”  highlights of this two hour game.

Puzzling it Out

In one room I rolled “puzzle” on my trusty chart. The map showed two pools, one silver coloured and one gold. So I devised the following “simple” puzzle. The players had to take a container made of silver to transfer water from the silver pool to the gold pool OR take a gold container to do the reverse. Doing either popped a secret latch in the wall and uncovered the treasure.

I let the players experiment for about 10 minutes, answering questions, helping them learn about skill checks to obtain hints and figure things out. They eventually caught on but no one had a silver or golden container.

Rogue: Hey wait (throws treasure token from a previous encounter my way), I have this magnificent silver liquor flask. I pour out the content and use it.

Chatty: What was in the flask?

Rogue (smiling evilly) Fine Dwarven spirits…

Dwarf: No!!!!

Obligatory Level 1 Generic Critter Fight

Later in the game, the characters  were hard at work fighting  kobolds.  The PCs were in deep trouble; everyone was bloodied as the Kobold Sligner was spreading chaos and mayhem.

Drow Ranger: I swear to god, if I get hit by another shit pot, I’m going to turn that guy into a pair of boots.

Chatty: That’s a great use of the Nature skill by the way.

At that point, another player asked to join the game, I gave him the cleric, explained that Groo (the Goblin bookie that gave the quest) was worried that his investment wasn’t being properly attended to…

Party: Hey!

… And that the cleric was “insurance”

Party: HEALING PLEASE!

The cleric’s timely arrival saved the day… as were the treasure tokens traded for healing potions.

It’s Dungeons AND Dragons Bro…

The last scene we played was, by far, the best of the whole convention for me. You see, when I was prepping the game, I really wanted to showcase both elements of the game’s name. When I told Wizards of the Coast’s community manager  Michael Robles about my plans, he lent me his Red Dragon mini (sorry Mike, I still have it, I’ll bring it at Gen Con).  When the party entered the room bearing a huge circular rune, I rolled “monster” and decided to go for broke and plopped the Dragon mini on the table.

Chatty: As you enter, you see an elephant-sized Dragon covered in spiked and blood-red scales. It looks quizzically at you, sniffs around and says. “Good, treasure and lunch all at the same time!”

I decided to totally Mouseburn that scene and make it into one of those “one main skill check with many helpers” skill challenges like the one I did here.

Chatty: Okay guys, this is not a scene where you can win a fight. This thing is big and powerful, you’ll have to deal with it by interaction. One of you needs to take the lead in either negotiating or bullying the dragon in not killing you all.

Dwarf Slayer: I’ll do it! I’ll intimidate the dragon!

Chatty: Anyone opposed to that?

Party: Nope, all good.

(As they were saying that, all the players were placing their minis behind the dwarf, it was hilarious to watch).

Chatty: All right, before you start roleplaying your dwarf”s attempt at intimidating, everyone else can chose any of their skills and try to help you out. Everyone gets to describe what they’re doing.  You’ll get a +2 for each helping PC that succeeds and a -1 for each failure. Are you cool with that?

Dwarf: Hell yeah!

The paladin pleaded with the dragon that everyone knew that dwarven meat was foul tasting and out of fashion. (Diplomacy, failed)

Dragon: Ha! If it wasn’t for your armour and the artificially sweetened taste of goodiness, I’d be munching on you right now Paladin, stand aside.

Drow Ranger: I want to sneak behind the dragon, and knock an arrow while standing  right behind its head. I stand ready to whisper some kind of Batman-ly threat in its ear. (Success)

Chatty: This is very cool! If this ever degenerate into a fight, you’ll be first to attack.

And so on. In the end, the dwarf had to roll a in the mid 10s to succeed. The player played his swaggering and blustering dwarf  beautifully, earning himself some generous bonuses. As he picked the d20, everybody was sitting up straight, eager to see the results.

The dice rolled… and rolled….

… And settled on a 3. (Fail!)

The players looked expectantly at me.

I made a pained expression.

Chatty: The dragon scoffs… and in a lightning quick strike, bites the dwarf’s heads off.

(Pause for effect)

Chatty: The dwarf ‘s soon to be lifeless body remains standing up… blood spurting from it’s mangled torso.

Chatty: The dragon, chewing contently, looks expectantly at the rest of you. What do you do?

Everybody else: WE RUN!

I looked at the stunned player who was, up until a few seconds ago, playing a dwarven Slayer.

Player: That… that… was the MOST AWESOME D&D GAME EVER!

I don’t think I need to add much more to that.  Many weeks later, I still share this player’s enthusiasm for that session.

That’s why, to this day, in spite of all the other fun games I’ve discovered these last 2 years, I will always remain a fan of D&D… whatever incarnation or name it takes. I plan to keep teaching it to players, old and young for as long as my inner flame remains. I’m convinced that this is the BEST way to grow our community.

Dear game designers and publishers, keep innovating and bringing out new games and material, because that’s how you keep my inner flame alive.

As for the formula? It works like a charm. Feel free to borrow it and have fun with it. I’d love to hear about the experiences you had with it.

Thanks for reading.

I played 3 such games and they each were incredibly entertaining. I recounted one of them here.

In the last game I played, I wanted to create a dungeon crawling experience with absolute minimal prepping in advance. More importantly however, I wanted to be able to play without floundering for ideas whilst in the middle of running the game. As I pondered my options, I came up with a formula for running a quick 2 hour game. I’m sharing this with you because I think you might find it useful.

I started with the Red Box , including the dungeon battlemap packaged with the game. I then took a fistfull of glass beads (which I dubbed “treasure tokens”) and wrote the following table:

Roll a d10
1-2 Empty Room, Treasure out in open
3-4 Trap
5-6 Puzzle
7-0 Monster

The idea was to have the treasure beads distributed in various rooms of the dungeon and roll on the table whenever the party entered one such room. I’d make up an encounter based on the result using nothing but the list of monsters in the Red Box’s DM’s booklet and the mini-Rule 42 found on the booklet’s last page (the DC for level 1 adventurers and a damage chart for hazards). If I rolled “monster” I’d make a level 1 encounter on the spot based on what made most sense or was cool.

With only a 40% chance to face monsters (combat not being the only outcome even then), I thought this distribution to be ideal for fostering exploration and creating the classic “poke with a stick” experimentation that I fondly remembered of my early D&D games as a tweenager.

Turns out I was right…

Armed with these, I got a group of 4 players and we created the setting for the game by having them answer these questions:

You are adventurers that banded together recently. Tell me what your last adventure was about. More specifically, tell me one good thing that happened to you and one bad thing that requires you to return adventuring in dungeons.

The wizard player (sensing an exploit) said “I found a very powerful staff”

I answered “Ha! Sure, no problem… But since this is a one shot level 1 game, please work in your ‘bad’ stuff how you lost that staff… even if only temporarily.”

The Dwarven Slayer piped in: “I know! I spent all of the party’s loot from our last adventure on ale and whores… I even pawned the wizard’s staff!  I’m so sorry guys, I’ll make it up to you!”

Everybody was laughing their heads off, the game was already a great success.

Chatty: Okay then, well the dwarf knows this Goblin “Bookie” called Groo that specializes in booking high risk, high paying, no-questions-asked forays into vaults, catacombs and other subterranean locales in exchange for a very fair share of the spoils.

Dwarf: Oh yeah, he’s the one who spotted me the money for the staff.

Drow Ranger: You are so not leaving our eyesight, ever again!

Dwarf: Oh come on, I told you I’d waive my part of the treasure until I paid you all off!

(The guy was so funny…)

Chatty: Okay so Groo tells you that the thieve’s guild has had one of its minor vaults run over by monsters from the Underdark and were ready to sign off the valuables stored as a “business loss”. Groo bought back the “content” of the vault at 1 silver piece to the gold crown and wants you to recover as much from it as you can… he promises to let you keep 50% of whatever you recover.

I pulled out the Red Box’s Dungeon map and handed out a pair of glass beads to every player.

Chatty: Okay each of these beads represents a small generic treasure pile whose worth you’ll evaluate once you leave the dungeon. You’ll alternate turns placing these tokens onto the dungeon map, representing in what room treasure can be found. Whenever you enter a room with one of those beads, I’ll play on my little table here to see what you meet, it won’t necessarily be monsters.

The players started placing the beads commenting on some of the features appearing on the map, like braziers, pools and ominous runes on the floor. It reminded me that these were all new players or players who hadn’t played in decades. It dawned on me that I had a very important job here: present one of my favourite games to these players so they could taste how awesome playing D&D is.

Chatty: Okay, before we start, here’s one last thing about the beads. Since they are generic treasure, it’s possible that they could be useful for you in a given situation. So at anytime that you need a particular tool or object, you can “spend” a token and tell me “Oh but I have this doohickey that’s great for disarming traps” or “Oh look, here’s the key to that locked door” or better yet “Hey guys, what does a “healing potion” do?”

They loved it.

In hindsight, they mostly used them as healing potions as things got HARD, but I love this mechanic and will use it for all the “unattributed treasure parcel” I keep struggling with to this day.

The game was a huge success, Up next, I’ll share the  highlights of the game. It turned out to be among my great D&D games and certainly one of my most successful convention games ever.

As awesome as 2011 started (getting published ROCKS), the second half of the year has brought turmoil and uncertainties beyond what my strengthening psyche could manage without help. Brutal changes have rocked my life leading me to move into a new apartment, deal with the always unsatisfactory compromise that is shared custody of my children and deal with the unbridled joy (and distractions) of newly found love.

All this, coupled with keeping up with my client’s projects, has led me to slip out one of my best established habits: blogging. As I let this slide, my “need” to write online receded  and I stopped rationalizing why I didn’t feel the old compulsion to write as I have for so many years.

As I write these lines, I realize that “needing” is fed by the act of doing.

As I floundered in moving boxes,  struggled with deliverable and dove into awesome dates with the one I have been affectionately calling Dr. C, I realized that I more or less sat on the  achievements I worked hard to unlock after implementing the plan I successfully hatched, nearly 3 years ago,  redirecting my life. As a result, I need to take back control of my creative life. I need to start writing again.

Scratch that. When I hear people around me bemoaning their life, my inner coach wakes up. “I should” and “I need” are poisonous inertia-fueled guilt-trips. I need to think and speak action words!

Let’s try this again shall we?

I want to take back control of my creative life. I will start writing again.

Okay Chatty… how are you going to do this then? How about this?

Let’s go back to basics and tackle less ambitious subjects. Let’s start working on blog posts that I can write and edit in less than one hour (hence this post’s name). This column, being public and read by so many people, remains one of the best instant feedback soundboard there is out there. It forces me to pour a little bit more of myself in the text than if I was writing to my “Document” folder.

Plus, you all know how much of an attention whore I am.

Also, let’s ask Dr. C, my coach and muse, to add a ‘writing’ element to the  ”getting  life back on track” game we’ve been playing. In it, I get rewards for doing exercises and eating better.  Thus, I’d also get rewarded to do something that I fundamentally enjoy doing: writing.

I’ve been at it for about 40 minutes so far  and I’m already about to hit the 500 words count.  This is a good sign as I type noticeably faster when I enjoy myself… and I totally am right now.

That’s EXACTLY what I was seeking.

What about you, when you need to be creative and have let the habit slide for too long, how do you get back in the groove?

Looking forward to hear from you. I miss reading comments!

On October 2011, I started my move into my new apartment and was sitting alone and dejected, waiting for people to deliver my new furniture.

(Yes I am recently separated. Everything’s fine now, including the kids.)

I picked up my smartphone and sent a call out on Twitter for some entertainment.

Chatty: Spending day alone in new unfurnished apartment, awaiting for new furniture and services. Keep me company plz?

That’s when my good friend FDL, sent me this completely unexpected response:

FDL: Ok. you see a grue. What do you do?

(I was thinking: “Hey cute joke…. Let’s see how it plays out.”)

Chatty: Wave torch

FDL: As you wave your torch, you set your furniture delivery guys on fire. Game over. Restart? [y/n]

(I fell down my flimsy beach chair onto my hardwood floor laughing. This could become fun.)

Chatty: LOL yes. Talk Grue.

FDL: The grue says she’s your upstairs neighbor and she hopes her noisy Angry Birds parties won’t bother you too much. What next?

Chatty: examine exits

FDL: There is only one exit, a hangar bay door.

Chatty: kick door

FDL: Door says “Ow!” and kicks back. Grue looks at you in disgust.

(Very funny man… At this point it was clear we had a Parsely text game going. The fact that it worked so well on Twitter was awesome. People had started reading it and reacting to it. I was having fun, my woes forgotten.)

Chatty: Apologize door.

(I was still playing it old school with 2 words)

Chatty: Inventory

FDL: This game uses the Diablo II inventory screen, so assume that you can’t find anything useful, ever. Assume your hands are empty.

(Har har har…)

Chatty: Exit room

FDL: The grue locks the door behind you. It is very cold outside. And you forgot to say “wear pants”, didn’t you?

FDL: It’s Friday. You never wear pants on Friday. Lord knows you said so on Twitter often enough.

(Smartypants, stop reading my Tweets.)

Chatty: Scoff about need for pants.

FDL: As you exit the apartment pantsless, you run into your other new neighbors who wanted to welcome you. All of them.

(*Facepalm*)

Chatty: Do dance of pantless pride

FDL: Neighbor’s kid takes a swing at your pantslessness with +5 Vorpal Steeltoed boots. Rolls a natural 20. You’re in ER.

(That was a low blow FDL)

Chatty: (ouch…) summon nurse

(There was a missing, untagged tweet here about a nurse casting Cure Critical Wounds and an Orc lying in the next bed, a Battleaxe embedded in its forehead, smiling at me.)

Chatty: Examine room

FDL: Well, it IS an examination room, so you sorta have to do that, yeah. BTW, the Orc says: “You pretty!”

FDL: BTW, the grue called and said you missed your cable guy. He rescheduled your appointment for March 14th, 2177.

(Sigh, it’s funny because it’s almost true)

Chatty: Ask orc for battleaxe

FDL: Orc smiles (toothlessly), hides battleaxe behind his back and says: “You no say magic worrrrd, pretty one!”

(Sigh… time to test the parsely engine.)

Chatty: Smile sweetly and tell orc “give me the (censored) battleaxe you (censored) or I’ll (censored) your (censored) (censored) please.

FDL: Orc hands you the battleaxe and says: “You not gotta be big meanie, hurt Ogg-Bogg’s feelings!” Nurse frowns at you.

Chatty: Kiss orc on forehead and say “I was speaking Bromantic Orc you dummy” then find pants… Any pants.

FDL: You put on clown pants. The clown you take them from looks pissed, until he sees your battleaxe and your Orc.

Chatty: Search clown pants pocket for clown car keys and go out into parking.

FDL: 12,000 evil clowns pile out of the car and squirt unholy water at you with their lapel flowers. Roll saving throw.

(I gotta hire this guy for my next adventure)

Chatty: I’m wearing a  gown, clown pants, a battleaxe and an amorous orc with a splitting headache; I make the damn save.

FDL: OK. Just in the nick of time, the Orc dives in front of you to take the Unholy water blast. He dies with a smile.

(Nooooooooooooo…… Ogg-Bogg, our bromance was too short.)

FDL: And then the grue swoops by and steals you away from the angry clown mob. You’re back home, safe. You win. 5000 XP!

That was a great little game. It helped me pass the time and I thank FDL for having taken some time and invested significant creative effort in doing this.  So you see, Twitter can be used for parsely games after all (and others too). Provided both parties are willing to play some give and take for entertainment value.

Also, if you haven’t tried them yet, give Jared Sorensen’s Parsely games a try. They are a great way to pass time in between games.

Special thanks to Dr.C., the new special someone in my life, who safeguarded this exchange so I could make a post out of it.  Also thanks to Tangent128 who made the TwitRPG logo back in 2008 when I played my first RPG game on Twitter.

But that’s never stopped me before.

So after asking my Twitter readers for inspiration (thanks Christian), I settled on a question that’s been on my mind for a long time:

Given no limits in ressources, time and talent, what would you design?

Hmm, that’s an easy one; I’d design something along the lines of the “Young Ladies’ Primer” found in Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. The Primer was a nano-computer with one main function, to act as an interactive smart-book that taught children through a long interactive storygame.

So when I say I’d like to do something like that, I’m not thinking about an actual book-shaped computer made with nanotech (although it would be cool), rather I’d like to do something that could, eventually, evolve into just that… with a tabletop RPG spin.

Here are the basic pitching points:

• An application for a tablet PC like the iPad or the equivalent
• The app features a richly illustrated (animated?) adventure story aimed at tweenagers, I’m thinking 8-12.
• The story progressively  becomes fully interactive as a CRPG with elements such as dialog choices, character sheets, conflict resolution mechanics and character growth (XPs).
• The game should last between 5 and 10 hours depending on side-quests completed.
• A simple, yet complete set of tabletop RPG rules that allows readers to continue the adventures of the characters of the story
• Stats for all main characters for the story and rules to make new ones.
• A primer to teach parents how to play tabletop roleplaying games with tween-aged children, complete with advice on preparing new stories, inserting educational content (if needed) and letting the creativity of children drive the show.

The tabletop game would most likely be narrative-driven.  So far,  the mechanics that I envision fitting the most with what I need is  is John Harper’s Lady Blackbird as it has just the right amount of rules element (fitting on a demi-page) to make it into really enjoyable roleplaying game for people of all ages.

I don’t know if the technology is there yet or if parents would be interested in this, but as a customer, I’d snag such a product (and pay more than once for different stories) in a minute.

What about you? Do you like the idea? What elements would you like to see in such a app/story/game?

More importantly, if you were asked the same question I was, what would you design?