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"Robobrains!" by LudvikSKP

So this past Saturday I finished up the first arc of a campaign my friends and I dubbed Spacemyspacebook, what was supposed to be a lighthearted romp through a somewhat comical futuristic spacefaring society ended up taking a series of turns toward grimdark, and the finale was definitely of that sort. Examining my GM style as it has progressed really makes me realize that yes, I tend to make things dark. And gritty. There is occasionally humor, but the humor mostly comes from players' lighthearted interactions with the depressing and overwhelming things I throw at them.

The Spacemyspacebook game was also my first test of the HeroQuest 2e ruleset, and despite my enjoyment of its flexibility, there was a consensus around the table regarding its potential for min-maxing and vagueness regarding applicable skills. I may also have been partially at fault there, as I tend to offer everyone a chance to do something in my games, and HeroQuest is really a system that focuses on giving individual characters the spotlight.

In any case, running through what was essentially session 3 of FATE made me realize that FATE is a super complicated system, prep-wise, and I need at least the better part of a year before I jump back into the saddle with it. I also need to make some kind of FATE 'primer' for my players, so they actually know what they're supposed to do beyond just rolling skills and spending FPs to reroll or boost.

In the meantime, my Iron Kingdoms Thursday game shows little sign of slowing in interest or impetus, the players are having a wonderful time overcoming my small hurdles and jumping head-first into larger plot complications. It's even inspired me to continue with the painting of the 200 or so points of various Warmahordes models I have sitting around either unassembled or partially assembled, and I've fallen back into my true love of miniatures, which turns out is basing. Who knew?

What I really need to do is think of what to do next.

I'm thinking Savage Fallout, as I had a great time running a few sessions with players in that ruleset/setting, and I know the Fallout world like the inside of my eyelids, and I recall drawing some really kickass isometric map segments for that game.

In the meantime, either Susan or Scott are going to take the reigns of Saturday games for the time being, until I have enough material to run either Fate or Savage Worlds.

Of course, now looking through my library of 'tags' I can see a bunch of games that I should be plotting or running...c'est la vie, I suppose.

Also, whatever happened to Prehistory Fantasy? Like all of you, I have no goddamn idea.

Actual Play: IKRPG Campaign Episode 3

Well, I seem to have gotten this week's game out on time. Huzzah for me! Another solid session tonight, though I did weaken and break one of the cardinal rules I'd laid out for myself in the IKRPG, and that's to have more than one session pass between major combats. This game, we started with some good roleplaying, followed by a pretty long and drawn-out combat, but at least the players were enjoying themselves.

I do have to say, though, that when I receive compliments about what happens during a session or campaign, it is rarely a grateful expression towards a combat experience, so that's another incentive to either figure out a way to shorten the fight scenes or find a way to make them as engaging as the entwining plotlines that the players are creating with me.

In any case, the party has left Merin behind and is moving forward to a plot point that intrigues everyone, which is the great Gatorman ceremony. They really seem to want to 'do well' in it, which is good, because I haven't exactly plotted out how I want it to go, and their roleplaying and intentions have been building it up significantly, so when we reconvene in two weeks (I know, I'm sporadic, but I'm gonna be in Southern California next week, and gods know I have good reasons to be there and good people to see.

In any case, look forward to the next session; with any luck, I'll be able to make it entirely role-playing and non-combat, but with serious tension and player satisfaction.

Cheers.

IKRPG Session 3: Luxury Cruise



p.s. I'm also debating uploading an mp3 of my players chatting about the various conspiracies that are combining and conflicting in the background. They've woven a story that is both intriguing and believable, and hell yes I'm going to steal some of the plot threads they've created out of their own perceptions. I'm just not going to tell them which guesses they have were right all along, and which ones were better than the ideas I had myself.

I will never tell them that last one.

Actual Play: IKRPG Campaign Episode 2

Back again, and once again a week(ish) late posting last episode of IKRPG: Ord. What we're experiencing, mostly, in this session is a combat in the Khadoran Embassy, followed by that time-honored gaming tradition of new parties where they look at anything not riveted or welded to the ground, trying to pick it up, and carting it off.

It seems like the group had a decent enough time with the session, despite most of it being combat; as GM, I'm definitely in favor of keeping these combat-intensive sessions few and far between; even if spacing them out doesn't give the players a constant learning experience when it comes to the battle mechanics (not Battle Mechaniks, totally different thing, there.) of IKRPG.

What I'm mostly enjoying about this last session is that, despite handing my party a serious advantage in any future combat they may figure into, it's also technically handing them a serious liability. I'm finding in my now-thirties, that I'm able to look beyond the superficial acquisition of 'desirables' and really focusing on the cost behind such choices. My players are absolutely obsessed with shinies (shinys? shiny's? ...iunno), and they seem to either not notice or not care that they are digging themselves into holes that they may not be fully capable of getting out of.

Of course, the point in putting your players into holes is to emphasize the direness of their choices to them, and of the consequences of their actions, and so the best thing a GM can do at any time of their day when they aren't consumed with work or sleep or loved ones is to imagine how they can create situations that will make their game groups lives both terrible and exciting.

I should probably figure out a blog post to do on that one.

Sometime.

IKRPG Session 2: The Red Scare

Actual Play: IKRPG Campaign Episode 1

Well, finally catching up here. Last night (a Thursday), I once again brought my good friends and players into the Iron Kingdoms, this time to play a full-party game in the city of Merin, in Ord.

Scott returned as Gork, newly modified as an Intellectual Gobber Investigator/Pistoleer, but still retaining his penchant for stealing other people's drinks from their tables in crowded taverns.

Aidan returned, but due to events from her prelude Stershan was forced to change his name to Belisar . He remains Trollkin Gunmage/Soldier, and still manages to kick all kinds of ass. Good times.

Returning his appearance in the Fools Rush In system test is Russell, playing Rhulio the Dwarf Warcaster/Field Mechanic from...Rhul. He's as good at naming characters as Abed, apparently. Thus far, Rhulio is an abrasive tee-totaler.

Lastly, new to the IKRPG table is Joseph, playing Tiberio Antelero, Ordic Arcanist/Explorer, a respected author of exotic travelogues, penny dreadfuls, and bodice rippers.

They meet with Tiberio's patron, Padri Duranti, in the Broken Drum for a job offer, but soon are embroiled in a confounding series of violent eruptions by Merin's Khadoran population. Soon the party discovers that they are in a race against time to resolve a plot for bloody vengeance, pitted against an elderly and disfigured one-armed man whose deadly grudge against the Northern Empire may be all-too justified.

IKRPG Session 1: The Evils of Drink

Actual Play: IKRPG Campaign Prelude (Stershan and Gork)

Well, a few weeks late with this one, the Actual Play was recorded two Thursdays ago, but I suppose I need to post this one before I post the second one.

Ever since my good friend and GM Susan over at EpicMiniPainting ran a nice, lengthy IKRPG campaign, I've wanted to run my own, bringing more and more people into the world of Caen and, specifically, into the region of Western Immoren.

This session I had some players cancel, but two were able to make it in, and so I had the distinct pleasure of running a prelude for my buddies Scott and Aidan, who were more than thrilled to come back after I'd previously run Fools Rush In, which also featured them in the pre-gen party.

All the action in this session takes place in the 'officially' Cygnaran city of Fellig that has been long-since cut off from the Cygnar mainland by Khador's southward expansion.

Scott is playing Gork, a Gobber black marketeer and drink-stealer from Merin, while Aidan is playing Stershan, a Trollkin gunmage deserter from the Cygnaran Army who is also the only survivor of his platoon of Arcane Tempest Gunmages.

They become involved with an Ordic military officer who is troubled by his mistress' seeming recent coolness, and hires the gobber and trollkin to follow her and see if she has been 'stepping out' with any other men.

Is everything as it seems? Find out in today's episode of Crit This! Presents...

IKRPG Session 0: For the Love of a Good Woman


Mechanical Errors:

2:18:00ish Gunmages do indeed cast their Rune Shot spells immediately before firing their weapons: they do not need to keep a list of imbued Rune Shots. They do, however, still need to make their bullets beforehand.

2:28:00ish Combat actions in IKRPG are Move, Attack, Quick action. There is no specific order in which you can take them; this is in contrast to the wargame, where one moves then attacks.

2:48:20ish Stat rolls cannot be boosted, only trained skills can be boosted with Feat Points.

Itemized Expenses in RPGs

We've all suffered from under the thumb of GMs who have made us account for every copper spent, every arrow shot, every ration consumed (every half-elf prostitute back-alley murdered, GTA-style), and I'm sure a lot of people are exhausted of the concept of all-consuming accounting when what players most want to do at the table is have their characters shoot arrows into shady fantasy hookers while making it rain and eating the D&D equivalent of filet mignon and then seamlessly move on to ever more glorious acts of simulated sociopathy.

As a player, I tend to agree with the above. As much as I treasure Chargen, I feel that when I sit at a table in front of a GM, the only time I should have to break out the calculator app on my phone is during new character generation or, very occasionally, after a milestone level up is achieved. Having to deal with the minutiae of everyday expenses is tedious enough in the real world, and on those few occasions I actually have the bravery to look at an itemized credit card account statement I feel like the child that is eternally decomposing inside my now-adult psyche just sloughed off another layer of ability to feel pure, unadulterated joy.

That said- and it may come as a surprise to people- but there are players out there that might seek to take advantage of the fact that very few tables tend to enforce even the barest sense of bookkeeping at the table. They purchase expensive weapons in low-money campaigns and fire hails of bullets cast from silvered plutonium. Their materiel expenses per-round can rival a city's yearly operating costs, and they get away with it, too, either in the name of narrative or because we, as GMs, just don't really care to call them on it.

Whether or not this constitutes a problem to you depends on the type of GM you are, and there are all types out there.

Lately, I've become more of a stickler GM. I've begun to sweat the small things, and I've started calling out situations in games where established rules would make some player actions impossible, according to the mechanics of the game.

I'm not saying this to start some kind of discussion over whether or not games are meant to be run RAW (rules as written) or RAI (rules as interpreted). I'm pretty sure those are the proper acronyms...

Actually, quite the opposite. I'm thinking of attempting to figure out a way to ease the burden of bookkeeping so that a middle-ground can be reached. I am reminded of the Pendragon system- possibly due to the fact that I am playing in a weekly Pendragon game- where every year, an accounting phase occurs, called the Winter Phase. It is organized, there are sheets, and charts, and everything else needed to accommodate this potentially-tedious game phase. I am thinking of pirating that line of thinking for my own purposes; definitely not to the extent of the manner that Pendragon does, though.

Rather, what comes to mind is the creation of a sort of itemized expense sheet. Form-fillable, consisting of the monthly cost of room and board, equipment upkeep (included ammunition expenses), and miscellaneous expenses (too many potential draws on income to list here, but also good ways for players to inform as to what they end up doing in their downtime).

This would also be an appropriate location to put in miscellaneous income, for those characters that might have professional skills, in order to offset the drain their expenses come from. This would create a final tally, whereby players know exactly how much surplus money they have each month for carousing, or splurging on equipment; it also means that if their expenses result in a deficit, it shows how much reward/loot money from in-game plot quests they actually accrue.

This would create a simple form that would only need to be updated in the event of a significant character upgrade (in either equipage or status), but would also give the player some sense of bargaining in systems where they were unfamiliar with the value of their currency.

For example, in the IKRPG, an average room in an inn costs 1gc for the night, and each meal at that inn costs 1gc. This may seem high or low or inconsequential (depending on how one is doling out monetary rewards in-game), but it informs that a player living at this level would expect to be paying 120gc for room and board each month in an average living situation. Now, imagine that player's GM were to offer them a job that would take them more than two weeks to conceivably accomplish, but only pay them, say 150gc for it. That might seem like a decent offer, until one realizes that 150gc is to be split between a party of four players.

Suddenly players actually know what their time is worth, GMs know what kind of rewards are actually appropriate towards their players' party, and as such they know what kind of jobs, and the danger associated with those jobs, is likely to be on offer to them.

Just some food for thought. Appropriately enough, I'll be broaching this topic to my IKRPG players hopefully this week, and perhaps we'll see how they take it.

Actual Play: Scrolls and Swords

Scrolls and Swords RPG (larger)

Well, after getting linked by my good bro Larkins at the Esoteric Order of Roleplayers, how could I resist actually posting the thing that he, himself, posted?

Indeed, this game, called Scrolls and Swords, was the result of a last-minute decision to play a RPG the day after my birthday, when I had no prior campaign or core game, or one-shot scenario planned. Thus, I found Scrolls and Swords during a rousing game of Scrabble with the family (that I seriously underrepresented at, due to my serious reading of the above rulesheet, and trying to come up with interesting and hilarious takes on classic D&D monsters.)

I actually had a really great time prepping for this game, which involved ten minutes of learning the rules (so easy), and another hour and a half drawing up a hex map, of which the players experienced three locations, but I was happy to hear that Jade was particularly tickled by the concept of the Smorgasfjords, so we will likely be returning to my Scrolls and Swords world soon!

There is much more to fill in on the map, and I have some great character sheets to upload during later sessions, along with potentially more hexes filled in on the above map!

Players: Jade, Russell, Scott

GM: David Schimpff

Enjoy!


You can download the episode here (right click, Save As).