Taking a break from my normal nonsense related to gaming to talk about my actual life nonsense. If you're only here for the gaming, this update may not be all that interesting for you. Then again, it might be, maybe you'll learn smethng about yourself. Maybe you'll not. Only the Shadow knows.
As I discussed in a previous post, this year has been frought with ridiculousness. I've traveled to the other side of the planet, bought a house, got married, and started a new job. I've also watched my mom and stepdad get divorced, lost dozens of friends due to me being an insufferable assshole, and lost my brother due to.... well, mostly due to his lifelong battle with depression. The depression thing wasn't exactly a perfect unknown, but not something you can ever prepare for.
I've always taken suicide far more seriously than I thought I should. Now that I've been confronted by it face to face, I can see that I didn't treat it seriously enough. If anyone reading this ever, ever, ever even remotely considers taking their own life: don't. Email me. Text me. Call me. Whatever you need to do. I can't watch another family go through the hellscape that my family has endured over the past six months. I promise you that whatever you're going through will pass. You can make it through, even if I have to drag you through against your will.
My family takes solace in the fact that my brother is "with G-d now". I have no such comfort. The days of my belief in an almighty grandpa in the clouds are as gone as my days of belief in a magical sleighriding madman from the North Pole who distributes presents. I don't discount the possibility of their being an omnipotent overbeing who watches over all, but I also don't discount the possibility of their being an indestructible teakettle orbiting the third moon of Jupiter. Just because I can't disprove it doesn't mean it exists. My brother held similar beliefs. He wore the guise of Christendom, but from our many long discussions on the topic over the years, it was clear that his faith had dried up entirely.
They tell me that he's in a better place, but I cannot fathom nonexistence being superior to existence. That ideology is so alien to me that I cannot even begin to comprehend it.
This life is all we have. That's why there's generally such a low incidence of Atheists and Agnostics killing themselves; if this is all we have, why would we ever voluntarily give that up? That's also why most spree killers profess some sort of religious faith; they believe that their faith will either protect them or reward them for their actions. They think that they can be forgiven by G-d for their transessions, so they have no mortal law or repurcussions to fear. That is the true danger of zealots.
I know this has been rambling and only semi sensible, but it's just a bunch of words that were clogging up my head. Thanks for reading this far.
Oh, and I meant that bit earlier about the contacting me in the event of thinking about considering suicide. Seriously. I'm right here.
-J
Showing posts with label great success. Show all posts
Showing posts with label great success. Show all posts
2012/12/28
2012/12/20
Glo.ri.ous.
I should probably get to work on clarifying that MtG:PtC hack from Monday.
The idea behind the hack is rather basic. Everyone who's tried to make a MtG RPG in the past has erred on the side of Look-at-All-My-Rules. I've seen D&D 3.5 hacks that take up hundreds of pages. That's insanity. Sure, I'm sure someone likes things like that, but I'd rather be able to hand my players a sheet of rules and say "make anything in the multiverse".
Character Creation:
- Make up a concept. One would hope that this would be an obvious first step, but you'd be surprised. For the purposes of this example, our concept will be Former Drill Sergeant Turned Pyromancer.
- Choose Three Characteristics. These are the qualities which define your character's mentality. They also provide bonuses or hinderances to your dice pools, as you can choose to roll them as a d6 or as a d4. If you choose d4, you also get a Plot Point. For FDSTP, I've chosen the following: Heart of Darksteel, Military Bearing, and "Burn with me!".
- Choose an Affinity Array. Affinities relate directly to the five colors of magic. You can choose to be Monocolored or Dual Colored. Monocolored Planeswalkers have a single higher die and the rest are lower. Dual Colored Planeswalkers have two higher dice (though not as high as the Monocolored's prime affinity) and the rest are lower. (d10, d6, d6, d4, d4) vs (d8, d8, d6, d4, d4). FDSTP chooses Monocolored, with the following array: White d6, Green d6, Red d10, Black d4, Blue d4.
- Choose one Specialty at a d8. This is the type of spellcasting you're best at. Since we're making a Pyromancer, Elemental Damage is an obvious choice.
- Choose two Specialties at d6. These are your secondary spell types. Since FDSTP was formerly a drill sergeant, we'll pick out Enhancement and Domination.
- Design Limits. For the purposes of this, all Planeswalkers have the following limits.
Limit - Mana Burn: Shut down any one Affinity to gain 1 plot point. Recover on during a transition scene.
Limit - Mental Misstep: Shut down any one Specialization to gain 1 plot point. Recover on an Opportunity.
- Design Milestones: These are personal. Follow the general guidelines in the MHR book.
And now, the finished product.
Uriel Dastar
Heart of Darksteel, Military Bearing, "Burn with me!"
White d6, Green d6, Red d10, Black d4, Blue d4
Elemental Damage d8, Enhancement d6, Domination d6
Limit - Mana Burn: Shut down any one Affinity to gain 1 plot point. Recover on during a transition scene.
Limit - Mental Misstep: Shut down any one Specialization to gain 1 plot point. Recover on an Opportunity.
-J
The idea behind the hack is rather basic. Everyone who's tried to make a MtG RPG in the past has erred on the side of Look-at-All-My-Rules. I've seen D&D 3.5 hacks that take up hundreds of pages. That's insanity. Sure, I'm sure someone likes things like that, but I'd rather be able to hand my players a sheet of rules and say "make anything in the multiverse".
Character Creation:
- Make up a concept. One would hope that this would be an obvious first step, but you'd be surprised. For the purposes of this example, our concept will be Former Drill Sergeant Turned Pyromancer.
- Choose Three Characteristics. These are the qualities which define your character's mentality. They also provide bonuses or hinderances to your dice pools, as you can choose to roll them as a d6 or as a d4. If you choose d4, you also get a Plot Point. For FDSTP, I've chosen the following: Heart of Darksteel, Military Bearing, and "Burn with me!".
- Choose an Affinity Array. Affinities relate directly to the five colors of magic. You can choose to be Monocolored or Dual Colored. Monocolored Planeswalkers have a single higher die and the rest are lower. Dual Colored Planeswalkers have two higher dice (though not as high as the Monocolored's prime affinity) and the rest are lower. (d10, d6, d6, d4, d4) vs (d8, d8, d6, d4, d4). FDSTP chooses Monocolored, with the following array: White d6, Green d6, Red d10, Black d4, Blue d4.
- Choose one Specialty at a d8. This is the type of spellcasting you're best at. Since we're making a Pyromancer, Elemental Damage is an obvious choice.
- Choose two Specialties at d6. These are your secondary spell types. Since FDSTP was formerly a drill sergeant, we'll pick out Enhancement and Domination.
- Design Limits. For the purposes of this, all Planeswalkers have the following limits.
Limit - Mana Burn: Shut down any one Affinity to gain 1 plot point. Recover on during a transition scene.
Limit - Mental Misstep: Shut down any one Specialization to gain 1 plot point. Recover on an Opportunity.
- Design Milestones: These are personal. Follow the general guidelines in the MHR book.
And now, the finished product.
Uriel Dastar
Heart of Darksteel, Military Bearing, "Burn with me!"
White d6, Green d6, Red d10, Black d4, Blue d4
Elemental Damage d8, Enhancement d6, Domination d6
Limit - Mana Burn: Shut down any one Affinity to gain 1 plot point. Recover on during a transition scene.
Limit - Mental Misstep: Shut down any one Specialization to gain 1 plot point. Recover on an Opportunity.
-J
2012/04/05
Reverb Gamers? Okay, I'll bite.
I had planned on doing this back in January, but as I'm easily distracted by shiny things it got swept up into the ether until now. Q2 is still something resembling the beginning of the year, right?
Anyway, over at Atlas Games, there was a challenge thrown down. You can see the full list of questions HERE. It's my goal to answer a few of these at sporadic intervals before the end of the month. Woo! Progress! (Trigger Warning: There's a fucktonne of cursing in one of my answers.)
Prompt 1: What was your first roleplaying experience? Who introduced you to it? How did that introduction shape the gamer you've become?
The year was... well... I don't rightly remember. 1992, maybe. I was either in fourth or fifth grade. My friend Christian said he found this really cool book in a box in his attic. It had a demon on it and it was full of ridiculous, nonsensical maths. We used both recesses every day for a month trying to puzzle out how the hell this made any sense at all. Finally, during a sleep-over, we explored the attic and found a companion book with a big bronze-y statue with glowing eyes. It still didn't make any sense, but we were closer to figuring things out.
Since we were both completely inexperienced with the game and had no idea what any of this odd notation meant, we just decided to play. Since it was Christian's Dad's book, he decided that he should be DM. I played a Human Thief named Dek. The game started off, like a lot of games did back then, with my character trapped in a prison. I made my way out, and was accosted by guards. This is where things got a bit squiffy.
We had no idea what the crap 1d2 or 1d4 meant. We juggled it back and forth before coming to the obvious conclusion that d must be shorthand for divided-by. So a punch did 1 divided-by 2 damage. A dagger did 1 divided-by 4 damage. Why a fist did twice as much damage as a knife, we had no idea. The bad guys stats said they were armed with a Club (1 - 6 damage). This made even less sense. How did they do negative 5 damage per hit? Were they magical clubs of healing? Dek made it out that dungeon alive after about three weeks of playing five days/week.
Then, as happened a lot in those days, I stayed over at Christian's house again. He'd finally figured it out, with the help of his dad. 1d4 meant a four-sided die. The eureka moment. Everything else basically clicked from there. No wonder those Longswords did so little damage in that prison.
I think those first few months shaped me quite a lot. They made me that-guy-who-figures-out-new-systems. It also left me very naive compared to a lot of my fellow gamers. I had no idea there was a demonic stigma against gamers until I got to High School.
Prompt 2: What is it about gaming that you enjoy the most? Why do you game? Is it the adrenaline rush, the social aspect, or something else?
I enjoy clubbing the rules over the head and taking them home. I enjoy figuring out new ways that rules interact that the designers didn't intend. I'm that guy that every player loves to have on their side, because I can usually help everyone squeeze out that last bit of efficiency.
It's also a good excuse for me to hang out with my friends. Say what you want about shared tragedy or sports camaraderie; people who game together learn more about each other than they'd ever hoped (or ever wanted to, really).
Prompt 3: What kind of gamer are you? Rules Lawyer, Munchkin/Power Gamer, Lurker, Storyteller/Method Actor, or something else? (Search "types of gamer" for more ideas!) How does this affect the kinds of games you play? For example, maybe you prefer crunchy rules-heavy systems to more theatrical rules-light ones.
I'm a Rules Lawyer, through an through. I commit the rules to memory, I roll them around in my head, and I use them to the advantage of my fellow players (as well as the DM; I can't begin to count the number of times that one of my DMs has asked me how a rules subsystem works when they're unsure). Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of Those Guys. I don't beat people over the head with the rules. Never will you hear me utter things like "You can't DO that! The Rules say X!".
What you will hear me say are things like "Oh! Awesome idea! Let's see how we can make that happen. I think I remember a Skill Perk and an Alternate Class Feature that'll let you accomplish that much easier than the build you've currently put together. Hand me that Advanced Player's Guide...". I can make the Rules sing like a virtuoso.
On the other side of the coin, I'm also a Storyteller. I love to make up complicated backstories and improvisational stuff while DMing. Unlike a lot of Storytellers, though, I don't disregard the rules when they become inconvenient. Working my masterpiece story into the rules is part of the fun.
I'll play anything, but I do tend to prefer modular games like the various flavors of d20 System. I've also found a recent liking for more Rules Medium games like Marvel Heroic Roleplay, if only because it gives me a lot of room to stretch my creative muscles while at the same time figuring out which power sets, limits, etc. are best used to describe a particular character.
Prompt 4: Are you a "closet gamer?" Have you ever hidden the fact that you're a gamer from your co-workers, friends, family, or significant other? Why or why not? How did they react if they found out?
Oh, closet gamers. I really am trying to write this paragraph without vitriol, but closet gamers piss me right the hell off. It seems antithetical to the spirit of the hobby in general. I can't think that there's ever been a point in my life (after I started gaming, at least) that I hid my hobby from those around me; especially those I care about. That just... I don't... What kind of irrational thought process is that? "Oh, I'm a gamer, but people will judge me for it. Oh woe! Oh sorrow!" What the fuck, man? Seriously? We're *still* having this conversation?
I hear from a lot of people that they can't out themselves as gamers because of their job or their religion or their whateverbullshitexcuse. I can't abide that. Being a gamer isn't like being a part of the Tea Party or the Young Republicans or some other thing one should be ashamed to belong to. It's like being Agnostic. Anyone who is going to judge me for my choice to be a gamer can fuck right the hell off anyway. I don't need that kind of stress.
It's twenty-fucking-twelve. If people have a problem with you rolling dice in your dining room, then they need to grow the hell up and learn to stay out of your damn business. Maybe they shouldn't spend every Sunday drinking cheap-ass beer and watching grown men have a sissy slap-fight over a piece of pig leather.
Now that my rage has subsided, let's continue.
Prompt 5: Have you ever introduced a child to gaming, or played a game with a young person? How is gaming with kids different than gaming with adults?
A married couple I'm friends with has a son named Brezlin. I first ran a game including him back in 2007. He was 7 years old. I made a rules-light version of D&D 4E based on Star Wars Saga edition and whatever little tid-bits had been released to the public at that point (read: not a lot). He played a Barbarian. Very simple, very visceral, very childlike.
There were four other players. One, Brezlin's mother, was stressed out due to two of the other players. We'll call them Nichelle and Nike. Nichelle hated kids, but generally tolerated their presence. Nike was a curmudgeon. He didn't like a lot of people. The other player was a happy-go-lucky guy who is probably one of the best dad's you'll ever meet.
Anyway, gaming with kids isn't very different from gaming with adults; only that the subject matter shouldn't be quite as dark and the rules should be slightly less archaic. Games with dice pools seem to be a bad idea, but then again kids love rolling a lot of dice. So long as they can do calculations rather speedily, it's all good.
The trick seems to be that, when gaming with kids, make sure that the rest of the people in the group aren't anti-children. If they can adopt a light-hearted mindset like they had at that age, the game goes much smoother.
I've played in games with Brezlin every few years since then. He and his parents are regular players in my Dark Sun game. Now that he's into the Tween years, he's starting to get a better grasp on the slightly more complex rules systems. It's been an interesting journey.
He still likes Barbarians, though. I blame Adventure Time.
Well, that's all for this time, cohorts. Tune in sometime later this week when I'll probably be stream-of-consciousnessing at you some more. Woo!
-J
Anyway, over at Atlas Games, there was a challenge thrown down. You can see the full list of questions HERE. It's my goal to answer a few of these at sporadic intervals before the end of the month. Woo! Progress! (Trigger Warning: There's a fucktonne of cursing in one of my answers.)
Prompt 1: What was your first roleplaying experience? Who introduced you to it? How did that introduction shape the gamer you've become?
The year was... well... I don't rightly remember. 1992, maybe. I was either in fourth or fifth grade. My friend Christian said he found this really cool book in a box in his attic. It had a demon on it and it was full of ridiculous, nonsensical maths. We used both recesses every day for a month trying to puzzle out how the hell this made any sense at all. Finally, during a sleep-over, we explored the attic and found a companion book with a big bronze-y statue with glowing eyes. It still didn't make any sense, but we were closer to figuring things out.
Since we were both completely inexperienced with the game and had no idea what any of this odd notation meant, we just decided to play. Since it was Christian's Dad's book, he decided that he should be DM. I played a Human Thief named Dek. The game started off, like a lot of games did back then, with my character trapped in a prison. I made my way out, and was accosted by guards. This is where things got a bit squiffy.
We had no idea what the crap 1d2 or 1d4 meant. We juggled it back and forth before coming to the obvious conclusion that d must be shorthand for divided-by. So a punch did 1 divided-by 2 damage. A dagger did 1 divided-by 4 damage. Why a fist did twice as much damage as a knife, we had no idea. The bad guys stats said they were armed with a Club (1 - 6 damage). This made even less sense. How did they do negative 5 damage per hit? Were they magical clubs of healing? Dek made it out that dungeon alive after about three weeks of playing five days/week.
Then, as happened a lot in those days, I stayed over at Christian's house again. He'd finally figured it out, with the help of his dad. 1d4 meant a four-sided die. The eureka moment. Everything else basically clicked from there. No wonder those Longswords did so little damage in that prison.
I think those first few months shaped me quite a lot. They made me that-guy-who-figures-out-new-systems. It also left me very naive compared to a lot of my fellow gamers. I had no idea there was a demonic stigma against gamers until I got to High School.
Prompt 2: What is it about gaming that you enjoy the most? Why do you game? Is it the adrenaline rush, the social aspect, or something else?
I enjoy clubbing the rules over the head and taking them home. I enjoy figuring out new ways that rules interact that the designers didn't intend. I'm that guy that every player loves to have on their side, because I can usually help everyone squeeze out that last bit of efficiency.
It's also a good excuse for me to hang out with my friends. Say what you want about shared tragedy or sports camaraderie; people who game together learn more about each other than they'd ever hoped (or ever wanted to, really).
Prompt 3: What kind of gamer are you? Rules Lawyer, Munchkin/Power Gamer, Lurker, Storyteller/Method Actor, or something else? (Search "types of gamer" for more ideas!) How does this affect the kinds of games you play? For example, maybe you prefer crunchy rules-heavy systems to more theatrical rules-light ones.
I'm a Rules Lawyer, through an through. I commit the rules to memory, I roll them around in my head, and I use them to the advantage of my fellow players (as well as the DM; I can't begin to count the number of times that one of my DMs has asked me how a rules subsystem works when they're unsure). Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of Those Guys. I don't beat people over the head with the rules. Never will you hear me utter things like "You can't DO that! The Rules say X!".
What you will hear me say are things like "Oh! Awesome idea! Let's see how we can make that happen. I think I remember a Skill Perk and an Alternate Class Feature that'll let you accomplish that much easier than the build you've currently put together. Hand me that Advanced Player's Guide...". I can make the Rules sing like a virtuoso.
On the other side of the coin, I'm also a Storyteller. I love to make up complicated backstories and improvisational stuff while DMing. Unlike a lot of Storytellers, though, I don't disregard the rules when they become inconvenient. Working my masterpiece story into the rules is part of the fun.
I'll play anything, but I do tend to prefer modular games like the various flavors of d20 System. I've also found a recent liking for more Rules Medium games like Marvel Heroic Roleplay, if only because it gives me a lot of room to stretch my creative muscles while at the same time figuring out which power sets, limits, etc. are best used to describe a particular character.
Prompt 4: Are you a "closet gamer?" Have you ever hidden the fact that you're a gamer from your co-workers, friends, family, or significant other? Why or why not? How did they react if they found out?
Oh, closet gamers. I really am trying to write this paragraph without vitriol, but closet gamers piss me right the hell off. It seems antithetical to the spirit of the hobby in general. I can't think that there's ever been a point in my life (after I started gaming, at least) that I hid my hobby from those around me; especially those I care about. That just... I don't... What kind of irrational thought process is that? "Oh, I'm a gamer, but people will judge me for it. Oh woe! Oh sorrow!" What the fuck, man? Seriously? We're *still* having this conversation?
I hear from a lot of people that they can't out themselves as gamers because of their job or their religion or their whateverbullshitexcuse. I can't abide that. Being a gamer isn't like being a part of the Tea Party or the Young Republicans or some other thing one should be ashamed to belong to. It's like being Agnostic. Anyone who is going to judge me for my choice to be a gamer can fuck right the hell off anyway. I don't need that kind of stress.
It's twenty-fucking-twelve. If people have a problem with you rolling dice in your dining room, then they need to grow the hell up and learn to stay out of your damn business. Maybe they shouldn't spend every Sunday drinking cheap-ass beer and watching grown men have a sissy slap-fight over a piece of pig leather.
Now that my rage has subsided, let's continue.
Prompt 5: Have you ever introduced a child to gaming, or played a game with a young person? How is gaming with kids different than gaming with adults?
A married couple I'm friends with has a son named Brezlin. I first ran a game including him back in 2007. He was 7 years old. I made a rules-light version of D&D 4E based on Star Wars Saga edition and whatever little tid-bits had been released to the public at that point (read: not a lot). He played a Barbarian. Very simple, very visceral, very childlike.
There were four other players. One, Brezlin's mother, was stressed out due to two of the other players. We'll call them Nichelle and Nike. Nichelle hated kids, but generally tolerated their presence. Nike was a curmudgeon. He didn't like a lot of people. The other player was a happy-go-lucky guy who is probably one of the best dad's you'll ever meet.
Anyway, gaming with kids isn't very different from gaming with adults; only that the subject matter shouldn't be quite as dark and the rules should be slightly less archaic. Games with dice pools seem to be a bad idea, but then again kids love rolling a lot of dice. So long as they can do calculations rather speedily, it's all good.
The trick seems to be that, when gaming with kids, make sure that the rest of the people in the group aren't anti-children. If they can adopt a light-hearted mindset like they had at that age, the game goes much smoother.
I've played in games with Brezlin every few years since then. He and his parents are regular players in my Dark Sun game. Now that he's into the Tween years, he's starting to get a better grasp on the slightly more complex rules systems. It's been an interesting journey.
He still likes Barbarians, though. I blame Adventure Time.
Well, that's all for this time, cohorts. Tune in sometime later this week when I'll probably be stream-of-consciousnessing at you some more. Woo!
-J
2011/09/14
Introductions always seem forced.
If you're reading this, it means you've probably read several blogs in the past and can tell by the pixels that introductory statements are forced as fuck. You hate it, I hate it, so lets just hold hands and get through the boring bit as fast as possible.
I'm Jeph. I'm horrible at writing. I play games. I'm trying to write games. You can see how this could be a problem. This is mostly a blog about gaming; past, present, and future. I guess I should probably elaborate on what I mean by that.
- Gaming Past: Posts with the gaming-past tag are stories about games I've been involved in that are now over (Games from college, games from Boy Scouts, games from now defunct groups, games from current groups which we've finished, etc.).
- Gaming Present: Posts with the gaming-present tag are either stories about games I'm playing/running currently OR games that are out and in print nowish.
- Gaming Future: Posts with the gaming-future tag are about games that either I or my friends are in the process of developing.
I'm also prone to self-aggrandizing posts about how awesome I am. These could be personal anecdotes from ages gone by, things that happened in my daily life, or stuff that's yet to happen (but will probably be awesome, simply because I'm somehow tangentially involved).
Now that I've wasted all of your time, I'll get to the business of actually creating something.
-JL
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