14 August, 2016
Ah, nostalgia! Now I haz the feelz.
If I could put any group together to play, I think I would cobble together a group of my two main gaming buddies from high school — Jim and Eric — and combine them with humorous and very creative team of gamers I had from 2011-2013: Matt, Susan, James (whose Jack MacMahon remains my standard for dumb but useful brick), Joe (of the Jerry P Neimann infamy), and Paul.
Hell, even the just that last group, alone, would be delightful to have back together.
13 August, 2016
That’s a hard one. I’ve had several good, successful campaigns, and one phenomenal one that ended this year. What made them good or great? Honestly, in some ways it’s hard to say — just like good and bad art can be the matter of a bit of shitty editing, there’s alot of things that can go right and wrong at the same time.
First, and most importantly, you have to have buy-in from the the game master and the players. They all have to be interested in the game for longer than a one-off, and they have to be committed to the idea of playing regularly.
Second, play regularly. I can’t stress this enough — if you let a game dangle for a few weeks, the momentum is gone, and often the group won’t even hold together. People are busy and there’s always something that can take you away from the table — work, travel, kids, sickness, school…there’s always something. So if you’re going to commit, commit to a schedule that you can maintain, even if it means that every once in a while, someone has to play someone else’s character for a session or two.
Third: Have a consistent vision of the universe and the story you are telling. It’s going to change due to character action, losing or gaining players, and the longer it goes, the more chance that you will deviate from the original concept or story. This isn’t necessarily bad. The first few sessions really are more like a pilot episode of the TV series, to set the tone, world, and get people interested. Then comes the hard work.
You can half-ass the metaplot, like X Files or Lost, or you can have a consistent view of the story that might need to wiggle about to finish close to the mark, like Babylon 5.
Tied to that is the fourth point: Consistent characters, and this is where the players come in. Good characters might need a bit of tweaking until you settle into them. It’s rare you have a game where the characters are “right” at the start, much like TV shows. (The most wonderful example of this not being the case is probably Firefly, where the characters — even when they were changing and growing — were amazingly consistent and well-rendered.)
Another point about the characters — they should have some kind of connection to each other. It doesn’t have to be direct, but there should be web of why characters A, B and C are working together. Some campaigns lend themselves to this. A military, police, or espionage-themed game gives you the ability to throw people together because their skill sets jibe, or they simply were the guys that drew the short straw.
For example on a non-military campaign: our current Hollow Earth Expedition game features several characters that might not ordinarily work together or move in the same circles. Lady Zara is the money — she needed help finding her uncle and hired Gus Hassenfeldt to be her African guide. Simple. Dr. Gould came in a session later. He was a doctor with the Spanish that were harassing the White Apes Zara’s uncle found, and I tied him to the Atlantean background the city the apes inhabited. Now he’s a plot device and driver of the story, but still in her employ after they escaped Africa. Later, we added Hunter, a Terra Arcanum overseer/agent, who was sent to protect the Atlantean blooded doctor and prevent the secrets of the Inner World from exposure to the public (and more importantly, the power-mad men running Germany and the Soviet Union.)
So Zara binds Gus and Gould through employment, as well as other concerns, and Gould binds Hunter to the group through the Atlantean angle.
Your characters should have some kind of connection. Maybe they were old service buddies, maybe they’re related, maybe they work for the same people, or their goals are similar enough to pull them together. There should be something besides meeting in a tavern to “adventure together” to pull the group together.
With characters that have a connection beyond “we want to play”, a consistent vision for the world, and a commitment to play regularly, I think you’re halfway there.
Now you just need to catch lightning in a bottle.
12 August, 2016
Right now, we’re into a good campaign of Hollow Earth Expedition, but there’s a few games that are on the back burner for the near future.
Atomic Robo — this is more pulp goodness, but this one tends to focus more on Science! and big robots. There’s a few things i was thinking about doing with it, not the least being tossing the comic books’ “canon” and just borrowing the stuff I want. The stripped down Fate system is much faster to play than Ubiquity, which powers HEX.
Unnamed system X — Black Campbell Entertainment is going to be releasing it’s own system, and that means playtesting. I have an idea for a near future dystopia game, as well as an espionage story, that I want to use to test the system.
Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition — I haven’t played fantasy for 30 years and with good reason: it always seems some derivative Tolkein pap. I have an idea for short campaign that I’d like to play in 5th Ed. simply because it reminds me so much of a slightly improved version of AD&D from when I played in high school. (So it’s probably a nostalgia kick.)
The one most likely to get played, I suspect, is Atomic Robo, but who knows..?
11 August, 2016
Well — everyone showed up! We were going to do a movie night, but instead, our intrepid band of explorers continued their adventures in the Interior World.
Having fallen in with alleged Atlanteans, the group were whisked away in their flying saucer, only to have the thing crash due to — it seems — Olga’s effect on magic and psychic powers overloading the crystals that powered the machine. They fought off a trio of allosaurus, then were discovered by a small group of cargo cultists that took them to their “Sanctuary” — the wreck of the SS Great Pacific, a double stack passenger liner that wnt missing in 1893.
Led by their “captain” and the last remaining member of the crew, Hollander, they have been combing the waters and beaches for goods and artifacts from the “Outside World.” Taken before the captain, they learn their Atlantean friends are actually Vril — either a servitor race or debased descendants of those great people. They still hail from Atlantis, but outside of Emperor Mot, they are not who they once were. Lord Amon, it turns out, is the ruler of Ultima Thule, one of the vassal states of Atlantis. He was responding to the pirate king, Chua Te, who had offered Gould up for ransom.
Through a series of arguments and conversations, they find out that Atlantis has been steadily losing its way. The people cannot understand or use much of the technology, save for the emperor, and that the connection to the Outside World is tenuous, like a soap bubble. Amon was hoping to use Gould to overthrow Mot — a plan that, listening to others tell their tales of the dictator — may be worthwhile.
They meet Uncle Zek, a crazed inventor who has crafted his own flying machines from the remains of other craft, and who is aided by a “mind machine”, some kind of damaged and incomplete robotic companion he wears on his back. He is willing to help them repair Aruna, their saucer, for the salvage of the damaged crystals which cannot run the saucer, but could run his machines.
An added wrinkle is a strange woman, Ivora the Magnificent, a massive fat woman who lives in the blimp over the Sanctuary, and who the Vril do not trust…she was once a ruler in Asura be Shahar — the City of Demons — before she was ousted. She is not to be trusted.
About this time a fleet of ships, led by Sea Serpent, the seven-masted war junk of Chua Te, arrives looking for sanctuary after San Antonio was destroyed by the Vril. Hassenfeldt argues for allowing them sanctuary and trying to forge an alliance between the peoples of the Interior World to fight Mot, but the others aren’t so sure that’s going to work. They decide to first repair the saucer, then proceed from there, but while sleeping they are attacked by pirates from the fleet.
We broke with the group under attack from a dozen pirates, including the massive African warrior Tongo with whom Hassenfeldt has grappled before.
(Oh…and Zara found her lost monkey, Rigoletto…on the should of Chua Te’s consort!)
11 August, 2016
We’re working diligently at Black Campbell to get our first adventure for Hollow Earth Expedition, Fate, and Savage Worlds ready… Interior artwork and the writing is done, the editing and layout is about to begin, and comic book artist Bill Forster is working on the cover for the module.
Here’s just a taste of the “mangani”, or White Apes of the Congo!
Art by Scott Rhymer, copyright 2016. Using it? Give credit where it’s due and don’t use it in any product without getting permission first…anything else would be a dick move.
11 August, 2016
This isn’t a tough one. I’ve had a couple of really long-lived groups over the years, but the one that was a constant for 18 years of those was my ex-wife. I’d already had a pretty good handle on my gaming style — cinematic in how I structured adventures and scenes, I had a certain patter already, but playing with her in the group before and after marriage for that long, she was the main driver of how I play, simply because she always being in the group.
As an inveterate romance novel reader, I tailored stuff to address that aspect of her personality. Where before romance was mostly off-screen, it moved to front and center. Similarly, play moved from PG to R (and occasionally X)…that’s what the audience wanted. At the same time, the games that we were playing tended to showcase that sort of play — Victorian sic-fi like Space: 1889 and Castle Falkenstein, where social drama can drive a session as well as a punch up or mystery.
It colored things deeply enough that, even though we’ve pulled back from the extremes of that style of gaming, adult themes, romance and/or sexuality, still permeate play…and that’s alright: my players are all adults. If you can’t handle some blue scenes, you should probably stop gaming and go get laid.
10 August, 2016
Mine take on this is going be be different, I suspect, than many folks. The biggest surprise wasnt’ an event or a monster or any kind of plot hook, but rather a character so well played and crafted, that he took over an most of a session and had everyone laughing and enjoying themselves that no one wanted to bust in on his groove.
We were playing a Supernatural game, in which the Vatican had gotten a pair of priests that were part of a “secret service” handling exorcisms and the like. In the process of tracking down what would turn out to be werewolves in New York City, they enlisted the aid of said character…who needs to be described in detail:
Jerry P Neimann is the son of an Air Force colonel and a schoolteacher who grew up in East Orange, New Jersey. He was a fat, introverted kid who binged on sci-fi and Lovecraftian horror, and is a gamer. Smart, catastrophically lazy, he got an MS in computer security and has become a moderately successful computer security guru, who is legendary in the northern Jersey RPG and comic communities for his toy collection. On the side, he “ghost hunts” for his YouTube channel (and claims that SciFi screwed him out of his pitch for Ghost Hunters.)
Jerry is a 300 lb., red-heaired, pink sausage of a man who is nearsighted, has a “neard” (a neck beard), and is obsessive about the wonders of Android over iOS, Linux over everything else, and open source whatever.
You’ve met this guy.
Jerry discovers the werewolf infestation while ghost hunting in the abandoned train tunnels under Manhattan, and is the pot device for getting things rolling, but it was only once he got on a tear about werewolves, SciFi’s blatant theft of his idea, computers, the Church, his bunion, and a few others things that Jerry P Neimann managed to burst forth from the inestimable Joe LeConte’s head and completely derailed the night. In a good way. He was so damned funny, no one wanted him to stop.
I’ve seen great gamers, but I’ve never seen a 6’3″ black Irish kid from Boston turn into the stereotypical red-headed stepchild gamer and computer geek so fully, and amusingly, as to simple steal all the air out of the room.
It was delightful.
Miss that guy.
9 August, 2016
While our group definitely gets together to game once a week, for most — if not all — of us, it’s a reason to get together with friends. Sometimes, we just simply do a board game, or watch movies, or still and chat. But mostly, we game.
A good session is aided, for me, by the side banter. i know there are a lot of gamers and groups where out-of-character talking is discouraged, or you have to throw up your little handsign to show you’re not in character, but most folks with a modicum of social skill can normally figure that out. It’s the fun — the laughing at a good joke, or a humorous moment int he game, or an exciting or embarrassing moment for the characters that we can all enjoy. It’s being together with friends in a comfortable environment (I’m talking a home or a good play space…but a game session relaxing in a seaside bungalow in the Maldives probably counts, too…) and enjoying each other’s company.
Add in some decent food — I and another gamer tend to do most of the hosting, and we both like to cook and entertain, so if we’re at his house, it’s several course meals; at my place I tend to focus on a bit pot of something tasty. Booze is a nice addition — I’m a sucker for mojitos and ginger martinis, but a good cider or beer will do, as well.
The game’s only as good as the people you game with.
8 August, 2016
Welcome to my birthday post…
PDFs and other ebook formats have really revolutionized publishing. The cost to produce and distribute is much reduced, thanks to e-publishing, and its nice to have an entire library of (game) books in your tablet or e-reader. Despite the convenience, and when publishers aren’t screwing you over by charging full print prices (you know who you war, and shame on you!) the thrift of e-books, print is still king for game materials — or at least core rules sets and larger splatbooks.
Why is this? Simply put, unless you are adept at bookmarking your e-books, a printed book is often easier to find things in. You can visually and tactilely index to a portion of the book you know is where a certain set of rules is located in. Sometimes, they are easier for folks to read; even a good media consumption form factor like the iPad or Kindle just isn’t working for the old eyes. On really complex layouts or heavily graphic intensive books — and many in the industry are now addicted to full-color interiors with loads of art, fancy watermarking, in 300+ glorious pages of stuff that pads the price out to $50-60 a book — a pdf or epub file can really blow up your memory on a tablet and leave the thing scrambling to try and render your pages fast enough to be useful.
And this is why, while I like having digital copies of books that I can tote with me easily, I still prefer print for rulebooks. (Adventure modules, on the other hand, seem perfectly suited to the e-pub model.) I tend to prefer my fiction books, which I rarely reread electronic, but for research material and non-fiction, I prefer a physical book — it’s easier to index, easier to find pictures or maps, and there’s a certain delight to the feel and small of a book. They look great lining your walls, too.
When it comes to the printed rulebook, I like hardcover more for the longevity of the format, but softcover works well, too. My old game books for the systems I played were mostly softcover — DC Heroes might have a box, but the books were softbound. James Bond: 007 was all softcover, and by today’s standard very lightweight with a page count of 130 pages or so for the core book and maybe a total of 50,000 words. Castle Falkenstein‘s main book was a (partly) full-color, hardback, but all the splatbooks were softcover and grayscale inside. Atomic Robo is softcover, and so is most of the Evil Hat stuff, but most of my Cortex stuff is hardbound. Exile Games does great, high-quality stuff, hardbound, but is it necessary?
This question has actually been pretty forward in my mind as Black Campbell Entertainment is ramping up its product line — how much of this trend to full-color, hardcover, “big” book is superlative? Is it better to have 300 pages of full-color with loads of artwork to evoke the mood of the game, or is it better to keep the interior layout simple, uncluttered, and simply push the information you need to the players as simply and clearly as possible. (I’m leaning to the latter…)
So hardcover or softcover, my answer is: As long as the binding is done well, it probably doesn’t matter. Once a group learns a game, there’s usually a lot less flipping through a rulebook, which means its lifespan increases. Is hardcover nice to have? You betcha. I have the faux leather Space:1889 book — that bit of excess is utterly pointless; the usual hardcover, or a softcover would do just as well, but that particular setting has real sentimental value to me for many reasons, so the fake leather is pleasing to me. But ultimately, I’m still a print guy for rule books.
7 August, 2016
Easily, I have been most affected by GMing games. From the beginning, living in a small town with a small gaming community, I was often the guy that was willing to pick up the baton and run the game. I was nearly always able to come up with something on the fly, I had a good grasp of scene beats and purpose from having been a film buff from an early age, so I was the guy that ran most of the games. That didn’t change in the intervening 30+ years; others would take up the reigns, but almost always dropped back to playing because they didn’t like the preparation for the game.
It’s what I like to do best. And because it requires retooling plots, characters, and ideas on the fly, or in the hours after the players upended your apple cart in the play session, I learned how to edit on the fly. The ability to plot, to create realistic settings and characters, and to toss what isn’t working, now matter how much I liked the material, had the effect of making me a fast, excellent researcher; a good editor with little worry about axing things that didn’t work; and a solid storyteller.
My desire for verisimilitude — from the early days of running spy-fi with James Bond:007 RPG, to knowing the history of the Victorian period for my Space:1889, to ’30s America for the Hollow Earth Expedition game — much of my professional life has been guided by the interests my gaming has engendered. I went into intelligence because of my love of the genre. I studied history because it’s a writer’s medium ( it really is a genre of storytelling; it’s not a social science — sorry, folks, but we’re just novelists with pretensions to truthiness.) I focused on the late 19th Century, then my doctoral studies mostly revolved around technology and society in the interwar period of the US.
I’ve gotten jobs because I was a gamer and the guy hiring was a gamer, and understood what I meant when I talked about how game prep made me a better researcher.
So, if gaming has affected (afflicted?) any portion of my life — it’s the skills that being a good GM made me develop.
Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.
The Black Campbell