The Start of a New Project and a Different Direction

I have currently been keeping two blogs about gaming updated. One is here and the other is called Samson's Bridge. I originally planned to get myself up and running by using the 5e rule set as a jumping point and from there start working on my own material. The problem is that I have heard Wizards of the Coast is sending out Cease and desist letters and well, I just didn't feel like getting one of those. This means of course that I took down the blog posts I had written that may have violated copyright laws in any way. While I was okay doing that I didn't want to give up on either of my blogs because I enjoy writing about RPG's.

This means that I had to think of new purposes for both blogs and the good news is I have. This blog is going to focus on posts about gaming in general. Tips and tricks for GM's and DM's as well as various opinion articles about various aspects of the game. I also hope to get some guest blogger in here to share their knowledge. It's funny because this is exactly what I intended for this blog when I started it a few years ago, but never really got into so in a way this works out just fine.

Samson's Bridge is going to change direction pretty hard core. I had intended to use it to build a DnD campaign from the ground up including adding some "crunchy" bits as I went along. The problem is that right now that seems to be a course of trouble so I want to back off that a bit. Instead of building a DnDcampaign I am going to be working on an indie RPGproject I have been considering for some time. This project will be an exhaustive look at character background in fantasy role playing games. Along with looking at how backgrounds effect characters, I am going to have several "crunchy" tables and charts to help people generate random backgrounds from birth to the start of their adventuring career.

I know there are already a lot of "gamer opinion blogs" out there but I hope I can add a unique voice to the conversation. I have been doing this gaming thing for thirty years and in the time I feel I have gained a lot of useful insight to other gamers. Anyway, I think I have gone on long enough for now. I can't wait to see what the future holds and hope you join me :)

A bit of a snag...

I have hit a bit of a snag and it is changing my plans for this blog a bit. While I don't feel I was violating any copywrite rules, the fact is Wizards of the Coast is sending out cease and desist letters to people who want to use any 5e material. this means that the stuff I had posted up could potentially recieve such a letter and I just want to avoid the problem before it happens. This does not mean I am giving up on this project. It just means that I have to move forward in a different manner.

Instead of using anything related to DnD this blog is instead going to focus on creating a new game that focuses more on character background and story telling than on rolling dice. I feel that there is a niche for this kind of game and given the fact that I intend to make sure it is easily compatible with other gaming systems it should still be of use to most gamers.

I hope that Wizards will soon come out with some kind of fan site policy like they did during second edition, or even better, offer a new open liscence of some kind. While I understand that they need to protect their intellectual property, I personally believe that the OGL and other open gaming style liscences have been a boon for the hobby in general. I also believe that one of the reasons 3.0 and 3.5 was such a success was because of the enthusiasm of the creative community. While sure, there was some real bad stuff put out during the time and a bit of a glut did happen, I think the hobby overall benefited from allowing people to add their own creative energies into the mix.

I hope those of you who have visited this blog continue to poke in from time to time. This is not a step backward, merely a step forward a bit faster than I intended to make it happen.

Keep on the Borderlands 5e conversion Part 1: Introduction

It's been a while since I used this blog so figured I would dust it off and start using it again. While I have another blog over at http://samsonsbridge.blogspot.com/ that is about a campaign I am building, I wanted to have a space for doing some old school module conversion to the 5e rule set. I have decided to start with Keep on the Borderlands because out of every module I have ever played in or run this i the one that I always think of first when I think of old school gaming. There is just something about this module that gives me a happy gaming buzz whenever I look at it and I know many other gamers feel the same way. While I plan to make my way through almost every module printed for first ed and maybe dabble with updating the many 2nd ed settings, this is a good place to start.

Considerations on the Conversion

Before I even really get started on the "crunch" of converting this module, I have to consider a few factors. If I go in blindly and just decide to replace all monsters and encounters with little thought I am likely tor ruin the balance of the 5e game. This means I have to really look at the difference between the Basic DnD rules Keep on the Borderlands was written for and the current 5e rules. While I don't expect to many things to require that much work there are a few things I have already noticed.

Different Rules for Races and Classes

As I already mentioned, Keep on the Borderlands was written for the Basic DnD rule set. This means things like Elf being both a race and a class, Armor Class differences, Combat differences and a lot more. Basic DnD was a super simplistic set of rules that were designed to be easy to play "right out of the box" so to speak. While  the 5e rules represent this spirit a bit, the fact is the rules are a lot more complex now than they were back then specially  in regards to race and class.

Experience Curve

Experience points is probably going to be another bugaboo. In Basic DnD all the classes advanced at a different rate of experience. In 5e they all advance at the same pace. Not only that but experience rewards are a little different. Since I want to capture both the feel and spirit of this module, I have to make sure that the encounters keep the characters on a pace similar to the original work.

Because this entire module was designed for character levels 1-3 to gain several levels during their explorations of the Caves of the Unknown and the environs around the keep I have to make sure that the same happens for 5e characters. This might actually mean a bit of slow progression for players and that is something I am okay with. Back in the day it took a while to gain levels and it always felt really good when you got to add a level. This is part of the experience I want my conversion to reflect.

Encounter Balance

Another thing I will have to juggle is making sure that the encounter balance is fair and even. While Basic DnD gave some thought to encounter balance, it wasn't quite the consideration it is today. I think almost every old school gamer has stories of working up multiple characters during an adventure because staying alive was hard in those days. I lost count of the characters I have had die in this module with the basic rules. While yes, that is part of the appeal of old school gaming, I feel a conversation to a new rule set has to consider the ideas of the new rule set.

I am sure I will create a fairly normal monster progression of kobold<Goblin<Orc<Ogre etc because that was in Basic DnD but this adventure also has one of the most notorious owlbears of all time hiding out and those things have only gotten even more beastly in time (not to mention the Medusa you encounter in the temple complex) so I might have to make some changes to 5e monster stats or just put different monsters in  some areas to preserve the balance.

Formatting

Out of all the things I am going to have to figure out, I think formatting is going to be the thing I spend the most time on at first. However, while I will spend a lot of time on it upfront once I have it figured out that will make future conversions a lot easier. While I am sure some people would love for me to simply re write the entire module and post it here, that is not going to happen. Instead I am going to create a bit of a "cheat sheet" that will allow DM's to use 5e stats while they work with the original module.

In the end I am sure I will have fun with this project and I hope you the reader are happy with the result. If ever you feel like I should do something different or you have a better way of handling a situation I run into feel free to let me know. While I won't promise to stick to any particular schedule with updating, I am planning to have a new part of the module converted about every other day. If this experiment goes well, I will decide which one to tackle next so feel free to suggest any old school modules you would like to see updated. Until next time, may that damn owlbear not kill your wizard with 1 hit point in the first round...

Being the Game Master: What You Really Need

I have been trying to think of something to do with this blog since the day I started it. Given that I started it off a bit of a whim I never really had a clear direction of where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I finally think I have found at least one thing I want to do with this blog on a somewhat steady basis and that is share what I have learned as a Game Master.

I first started playing Dungeons and Dragons nearly twenty years ago now when I was nine years old. Ever since that first experience I have been hooked. In those twenty years I have not only played Dungeons and Dragons but a massive variety of other role playing games as well and I truly believe my life is all the richer for those experiences. Role Playing Games have allowed to visit not only other worlds but other times. All I need was some dice some paper and I could be anyone and go anywhere I wanted. The only limit was my own imagination.

I like almost everyone else started out as a player and I was quite happy in this role. I show up with my dice and character and someone else provides the story and the munchies. The only problem was that my first Dungeon Master (and probably still my favorite one) was my Uncle and while he did let me play, he was also a bit short on patience and probably had times when he would have rather throttled me than play DnD with me. This of course meant that if I wanted to keep playing Dungeons and Dragons I would have to take on the role of Dungeon Master.

The problem with being a Dungeon Master at the age of nine is that I had no resources for the books or the other materials you needed to play. I had my own set of dice though, and I had the memories of how it all worked from playing with my uncle. So one day I ambushed my younger brother and told him we were going to play Dungeons and Demons (Hey I knew it wasn't real Dungeons and Dragons but the name sounded cool so I went with it) and while I barely remember how it all worked out I do know my brother and I had lots of fun. Before I knew it I had a binder full of home rules with a really bad drawing of a demon on front and my younger brother and I spent hours playing in our room.

It's actually kind of funny looking back at those days in comparison with where I a at today. Today I bookshelves lined with rpg books, shelves filled with dice and characters, and a computer full of hundreds of PDF files. Yet despite all the "toys" that I have accumulated to make the game "better" I can't really say that the play experience has really changed all that much. When I sit down to play Dungeons and Dragons or any other rpg my mind still goes to that magical place that allows me to escape this mundane world and enter a world of my own creation.

I think a lot of people who have an interest in being a Game Master tend to stop themselves short because they don't have the "stuff". I totally get this, but the "stuff" is really just fluff and isn't as important as you think it is. What a Game Master really needs is a willingness to just go out and do it. You don't need rules, fancy graph paper, or mini's. All you really need as a Game Master is some imagination, a group of friends, and a couple of hours to kill. If you have those things then the rest is just window dressing.

The Adventure Begins

About a week ago I finally decided to get together with my kids and play some Dungeons and Dragons. I have had the Bean play before but this was the first time for both Juicinator and Potato. I knew Bean understood the concepts but was a bit worried that Juicinator would need every nuance of every rule explained (she is a bit detail oriented and can hammer you with questions when she wants to understand something) and didn't know if Potato would be interested enough to learn. My fears were largely assuaged when I asked them “Would you guys like to start playing DnD with me?” and they responded with a very hearty “Yayyyyyyyy!!!”

Once I had them all in agreement to play the next step was of ourse to create characters. I gave a lot of thought about how I was going ot do this, after all there are currently five versions of DnD available and each has it's own merits and drawbacks. My first impulse was to simply break out my ancient basic DnD stuff because it really is about as simple a game as you can get. While Basic is indeed simple that is also its problem because it just plays so generically. I never really considered either first or second edition Advnaced Dungeons and Dragons because while they were aweosme for their time, they are very old in game philosophy and I just wasn't thinking it would be that much fun to run. I nixed fourth edition because while it is a very solid game.. it isn't the experience I wanted to start my kids out with. So that left 3.5 but I did wonder if it was a bit to complex but decided I could adjust complexities if need be.

Once the version was chosen it was time to prep the kids a bit. I had the Bean take the other two in hand and go through the Players Handbook with the assignment of each of them picking the race and class combination they thought they would like the best. I have to admit their choices surprised me a bit because I was expecting them to pick “simple” things like human fighter or rouge. Instead, Bean picked a elven druid, Juicinator picked a gnome ranger, and to my great surprise Potato picked a Halfling cleric.(I like being useful and helping people with healing, Daddy)

So, their race and classes picked out it was time to get down to actually making the characters. I have to say that this process went more smoothly than I thought it would. While there was a bit of having to explain somehting ten times in twenty different ways, for the most part they figured it out pretty quickly. A little side note, Jasmine rolled two eighteens on her character which was awesome. It took a couple hours on two different nights to get the characters completed but complete them we did and finally it was time to actually sit down and play.

Now, anyone who has played with me knows I like to put prep into my DnD sessions and while I would have loved to do so with my kids, they were so eager to play that I really didn't have time to do the kind of prep I like to do. Also with my eyes being as bad as they are (god can time creep any slower till I can get them fixed?) Pouring over DnD books just isn't that appealing at the moment. With these complications I just decided to wing it. I mean why not? So I figured given that they are all woodsy characters (Jade decided to follow Yondalla a nature kind of diety) this made a good starting point. Their mentor a druid by the name of Theodore sends them off to none other the village of Homlet (It's how I started so just made sense to me) to speak with an alchemist there by the name of Robard to get some elderberry root. After fielding some questions about what he needed it for the three noble adventurers head of bright and early one morning for a seven day trip to Homlet.

I actually had anticipated that they wouldn't run into much there, but I was wrong. I was using a d10 to check for encounters. I would use one roll for the daytime and two for nighttime. Their first day of travel nothing happened but that night on the second roll they got attacked by dire rats. It was during this encounter that I felt a strong sense of paternal pride in my emerging gamers.

Bean was on watch when she hard a crackling in the underbrush. Curious she decides to investigate the noise. She travels about fifteen feet from the camp and sees several dire rats making their way toward the camp. Thinking quickly Bean sends out a shout of alarm waking the other two and wades in with her wolf animal companion to do battle. The first round does not go very well, both Bean and the wolf are wounded while they fail to land a blow on the now swarming dire rats. As the other two arrive the melee intensifies and again the round goes against our noble companions. At this point is when something awesome happens.

Juicinator looks at me thoughtfully and points to her character sheet “Can I use my speical abilities right now?”

I look at her and ask “Well which one do you want to use?”

She smiles “I want to use Dancing Lights.'

“Why do you want to use that?”

“Well I want to make bright lights that scare off all the rats.”

I shake my head “Sorry Juice but that won't work because they are in combat they most likely won’t notice the lights and even if they did I doubt it would scare them.”

Juicinator scowls and then points at her sheet again “Can I use ghost sound?”

I consider it and ask “What do you want ot use it to do?”

She smiles “To make a sound like a big cat and scare of the rats!”

I laugh and decide that this actually can work. While I would think somehting like a thunder clap would work better I have to admire her creativity. I roll a will svve for each of the rats and DC 10 and wouldn't you know it all but two fail and flee in fear of the loud cat sound. The rest of the battle goes rather quickly and Potato heals up everyone and they go back to sleep.

Now I have ran countless games of DnD and in almost every case similar to this encounter players generally just battle the critters, I was seriously impressed with my daughters thinking of using ghost sound. It was really neat to see her think of that in the heat of battle. Maybe I am being a bit over proud, but I don't care, they are my kids and they are awesome.

So the next day they are walking along when the encounter and owlbear. I was a bit worried about this encoutner because the owlbear is actually quite a brute, but I figured if worse came to worse I could think of some way to save them. Turns out that these worries were unfounded considering that in the first two rounds all thee of the girls rolled critical attacks. The owlbear was downed pretty easily then Bean thinks of maybe tracking the creature back to it's lair.

Agian I was impressed because very seldom have I seen veteran gamers think of doing something like this. So they make th eapproriate rolls and find the owlbears tracks. A short hike later they find the small cave it has been living in. Deciding to show some caution (again surprising their DM) they sneak up to the cave entracne carefully and find it empty. Thye give it a through searching and are rewarded with finding 120 gold pieces and a wand of invisibility (they got to roll on the treasure table and managed to roll well enough to get a mnor magic item.. I am telling you these kids have serious luck).

At this point it was close to bed time so I told them we were stopping for the night (Awww Daddy to we have to?) but assured them we would play again son.

Looking back on the night I have to say that while it was not the most intense night of gaming I have ever had, it was certianly one of the most fun. There is just something really cool about seeing my kids shuffling character sheets, rollling dice, and listening to me intently as I describe the world they journey through. I can't wait to do it again soon.

So looking forward I have a bit of a decision to make. While I sent them off to the village of homlet, this was done simply to give them a direction Now they have found a small cave. I can simply keep it a small cave and let them continue their journey or I can let them find a passage way further into the hills they are traveling through.. I really don't know which way I will go yet.. what do you think?

The advantages and disadvantages of play by post gaming

I, like almost every other gamer on the planet has had times when it was damn near impossible to get a group together to play a game. In the old days that generally meant spending your time rolling up a billion characters, drawing a thousand dungeons and designing a couple of campaign worlds. However, with the invention of the internet, gaming was able to enter a new frontier. Admitted, there are some signs that say this new frontier might be slowly destroying pencil and paper gaming, but on the other hand, it has also given gamers the ability to contact one another a lot easier.

In the early days of the internet, a system called play by email was adopted by gamers seeking games online. This was a great option for people who either couldn't get a group together or had real life constraints (work) on their time. You simply checked your email, read a post or two, replied, and off you were. It was a short and simple way to get a small fix. In fact there were some PBEM's that I was involved with that were just as good if not better than my average tabletop session.

Along with PBEM gaming, play by Post gaming also started. While Play by Post was a similar way to game it was conducted on message boards. You generally had to create a username and then apply to a variety of games. While I strongly preferred PBEM gaming at first, there was a utility available in PBP that eventually led to it winning the contest between the two. I hear that there are still PBEM's going on (specially in the world of Star Trek Sims) but for the most part the utility and usability of message boards have come to dominate the online gaming community. Having done my fair share of PBP gaming I have come to believe their are certain advantages and disadvantages when compared to a table top game.

The main advantage PBP games have compared to table tops is that you don't have to work around the schedules of five people. You can log into the message boards whenever you have time, enter a quick post, and you are done for the day. Another strong advantage of play by post gaming is that it allows those of us who really like to write and develop characters a place to do so. In fact, if you want to really get an epic storyline going, I would strongly suggest PBP games.

The disadvantages of PBP gaming is the fact that there are no smiling faces at the table with you. You don't get the same feel that the table top experience provides. Also, if you are not much for writing or you don't have internet access it can be very difficult to actually do play by post gaming. Finally there is the fact that you never really know if anyone is cheating or not.

In the end, I find that there are times I want to use play by post for gaming and other times when I want the table top experience. I am glad that both are available to me and can't wait to see a time when technology allows us to get the best out of both worlds (and no WoW is not it)

If you are interested in gaming in a play by post game you should check out mythweavers.

Motley Monday: New blog, an idea or two and other stuff

I have decided that I want to have some kind of weekly column here and thought that Monday makes a great day for that. Monday is a weird day for me, I have to get up early, I generally have some kind of work to do, and the kids are in school. By Tuesday I am adjusted to weekday's, but Monday is all about getting the ball rolling. For that reason I really like the idea, so welcome to Motley Monday a collection of various thoughts and the like from yours truly.

I like this blog quite a bit, but I wanted to start another one to act as a place to store my campaign notes, so I started a new blog. I will still keep up with this blog, but I will also be working on the other one. I actually think this will cause an increase in my posting rate so I am kind of excited about it. If you want to check it out go here.

I plan to sit down and get some campaign journals started up. The reason it has taken me this long is because all the games I am involved with had been going for a while before I started this blog and I am trying to make sure I get everything right before posting it up here. Also I need to get permission from everyone else involved and decide upon an acceptable nick name for them in the blog (protecting personal information and all that being somewhat important in this day and age).

My buddy Heavy Noir is starting the first session of his twenty four hour game this weekend. I am pretty psyched about it as I think Heavy is a great GM and I think the idea sounds like a lot of fun. Admitted I am not as young as I used to be so I am not sure how staying up twenty four hours is going to treat me. I used to be able to do it no problem (heck even had some 70+ hour days a couple of times), but now I am not so sure. Whatever happens I am sure it will be a lot of fun.

I am trying to decide on a special teams coach for my fantasy football team. Any suggestions would be appreciated. If you do submit a suggestion and I do use it, you would of course get proper credit.

Well, that is all for now, see you all later!