Do You Believe in Magic?

 

 Every year I raise money for Extra Life Marathon and the Children's Miracle Network. One of the people who donates is chosen at random and included as a character in my annual holiday story. This year that person was named Andria. I hope she enjoys how she appears in the story. I hope you all enjoy this tale of a young woman meeting returning character James. 

Andria hunched her shoulder against the snowfall as she walked into the park. She liked the park this time of year; few people would venture there and it let her be alone when she needed it. She walked down the winding path through the trees following the same route she’d walked since her youth. She marched slowly past the playgrounds, soccer fields, and skate park; all empty of the over noisy children who frequented them during warmer days.

Andria used to come here in the winter with her father. They’d walk around with a pocket full of bell pepper slices and look for reindeer to feed. They never found any. Though Andria would always go home and draw pictures of their adventures to hang on the walls of her room.

A lone jogger came towards her, the rhythmic thump of their steps intruding on her introspection. They were dressed in warm clothes and their breath came in a thick cloud of warmth. As the jogger approached they nodded, gave a short wave, and called out, “Merry Christmas.”

Andria ignored them as they sped past barely pausing as their footsteps receded away into the distance. It wasn’t long before they were gone and she was once again alone.

Andria stuffed her cold hands into the front pouch of his plain hooded sweatshirt next to her spring class guide. She wished momentarily for some gloves. She didn’t used to need them. Youth had made her invulnerable once, gone were those reckless days. Back when she was filled with immature dreams that anything could happen. When possibilities was a word she knew but didn’t fully understand until they were all gone.

It’d been four years since she’d been back to the park but she found the old bench she’d sat on as a girl with no problems. The one her father had left her at while he went to grab some breakfast. Where the police had found her after the driver had run the light. Where she learned she’d only have one parent for the rest of her life.

Andria wasn’t sure why she’d come back here. She’d thought about it before. Wondered if it was the last place she’d been happy; sitting here with a pad and colored pencils, drawing fantastic pictures of whatever popped into her head.

She sat on the bench without brushing away the snow. It was cold and uncomfortable, but she didn’t really care. It was just the way it was around here. The way her life went.

She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and let some snow fall on her face. Saying she liked the feeling of the pin pricks of cold on her face would be to use the wrong words. She didn’t like it. She recognized it as something to feel. If there was something from it to gain, she would call it comfort.

“How you doing?” asked a young voice nearby.

Andria looked to see who was talking to her.

A young boy in a red snowsuit with bright mittens and a knit hat with a little bobble on top sat next to her on the bench.

Andria leaned back on the bench and looked back at the sky.

“My names James,” said the boy.

Andria sighed. “Go find your mother kid,” said Andria.

“That’s what I’m doing,” said James. He began to kick his legs back and forth rocking the bench gently.

“You’re just sitting there,” said Andria. “Don’t you think it would help if you went to look?”

“Nope,” said James. “My mother says if we ever get separated I should go to where she’s sure to find me and wait there. We eat lunch on this bench every Tuesday when the weather’s good so I figure she’ll come find me here.”

“Fine,” said Andria. “Can you do it quietly please? I’m trying to think.”

“Sure,” said James.

Andria closed her eyes and began pacing her breathing. She let the world fade away and just feel the cold wind, drops of snow, and the gentle chill in the air. She did this until there was nothing but her thoughts, the weather, and jingle bells.

Andria leaned forward, wiped the moisture off of his face and turned to look at James who had started whistling.

“You’re very happy,” said Andria.

James nodded. “Three days till Christmas and I’ve been pretty good this year. There was a small incident with the family dog and a bottle of purple hair dye that might still count against me, but I’m pretty sure I’m still doing well.”

Andria briefly considered asking what type of dog but feared that might just bring on more questions and decided better of it.

“You finished thinking?” asked James.

“Apparently,” said Andria.

“What were you thinking about?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” said Andria leaning back against the bench.

“Not if you don’t tell me,” said James.

“I’m trying to decide what to do next,” said Andria.

“It’s just afternoon,” said James. “You could go to a movie.”

“I was thinking more long term,” said Andria.

“There’s some pretty good Christmas specials on tonight,” said James. “I’m going to watch the one about Santa Clause and how he started. It’s one of my favorites.”

“That’s nice,” said Andria. She’d used to watch it every year with her parents.

“Do you like that one?” asked James.

“I know it,” said Andria. “I remember it. It’s fine.”

“AAAhhhh,” said James as if he’d just discovered the secret to the universe. “You’re one of those people who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus.”

“That’s not true,” said Andria not wanting to spoil the holiday for James. “Santa’s great.”

“It’s okay,” said James nodding solemnly. “I’m 10. I know some of the older kids don’t believe in Santa anymore. They think its baby stuff.”

“What do you think?” asked Andria.

“I don’t understand,” said James. “Santa Claus is great. Why wouldn’t someone want to believe in him?”

“Really,” said Andria. “Maybe they think they’re too old for him.”

“I guess that’s possible,” said James standing up and pacing back and forth in front of the bench. “It’s just that I don’t think Santa Claus has an age limit.”

“Really,” said Andria chuckling; she hadn’t done that in a while.

“Hear me out,” said James. “I’ve been thinking about this. I don’t think its Santa they don’t believe in anymore. I think they’ve just stopped believing in everything.”

“How do you figure that?” asked Andria.

“It’s everywhere I look,” said James. “Everybody looks to be more serious all the time. Nobody has time for wonder anymore. Everybody I know is upset All The Time. My family, my brother, even my folks are always upset about something in the paper or on the news. When they’re not angry, they’re sad, or annoyed. I think it’s because they think they’re not allowed to believe in stuff anymore.”

“I’ll agree with that,” said Andria. “I see that in my friends and family too. Wherever I go online there are people mad at one another.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” said James. “I think it’s because they decided to stop believing in magic.”

“You think magic is that important?” asked Andria.

“Yes,” said James. “It has to be. Everyone I know who believes in magic is happy. My friends who still believe went out and built a snow fort last weekend. We threw snowballs at one another and had a proper war for the kingdom of the park. The swings was our battlefield and the slide our castle. We fought bravely until dark and our mothers came to get us. Yesterday, I made a snowman with my little sister; her name was Eevee. The snowman, not my sister. My sister’s name is Lydia. Today, I came to the park with my mother to feed the reindeer.” James reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of broken carrots and a single candy cane. “We didn’t find any.”

“It sounds like you had a great week,” said Andria. “Sorry you didn’t find any reindeer.”

“Not today,” said James looking off at the woods and squinting. “Not today.”

“You should bring bell pepper slices,” said Andria. “Reindeer like bell peppers; my dad used to tell me it’s because they’re sweeter.”

“Thanks,” said James. “I’ll remember that.” James walked back to his spot on the bench and climbed up and sat down again. “You see what I mean about magic though.”

“Not really,” said Andria. “You didn’t need magic to do any of that stuff.”

“True,” said James. “When was the last time you did any of that stuff?”

“That’s different,” said Andria. “I’m too old to do those things.”

“Age has nothing to do with it,” said James. “You’ve just decided you can’t do it because you’re old. You’re too serious to make a snowball.”

“That’s not it,” said Andria.

“Do you have arthritis?” asked James. “My grandmother has arthritis and can’t move her fingers right to make a snowball.” James cupped his hands as if trying to demonstrate hooked fingers through his mittens.

Andria laughed. “My fingers are fine.” Andria held up her hands and wiggled her fingers to show her hands worked. “You’ll understand as you grow up.”

“I hope not,” said James. “I never want to think I’m too old to throw a snowball at my buddies or make a snowman. As long as I believe in magic, I know I can do those things.”

“I guess,” said Andria.

“Then when I’m done, I’m going to tell everyone the story,” said James. “People need to hear the stories.”

“You do that,” said Andria.

“Do you mind if I tell people about the bell pepper thing?” asked James.

Andria paused for a moment trying to think about what James meant before realizing what he was asking. “Tell everybody,” said Andria. “Let everybody know how to find the reindeer.”

“You should tell people too,” said James.

“I’m not a story teller,” said Andria.

“What can you do?” asked James.

“I used to draw,” said Andria. “I was pretty good at it too. I stopped when…I stopped.”

“You should start drawing again,” said James. “People need to see pictures. It helps remind them that magic is real.” James stood up off the bench and started walking away.

“I thought you were waiting for you mom?” asked Andria.

“Can’t you hear her calling me?” asked James. “She’s just over that hill.” James stopped and returned to the bench. He pulled a carrot form him pocket and handed it to Andria. “I know it’s not a pepper but just in case you start believing in magic again.”

Andria looked at the carrot, it was bent and beaten, but it was a nice carrot. She looked up to give it back to James, but the boy was gone.

Andria sat on the bench for a long time staring at the lone carrot. After a bit she tucked it into the front pouch of her hoodie and pulled out her class schedule. She thumbed through it for a bit and looked at the art section. There were a couple of drawing classes that might be fun. She still hadn’t declare a major, maybe art would be neat. She folded the page down for later and tucked the book away.

She stood and began walking out of the park humming to herself and wondering what she would do tomorrow. Andria pulled the carrot from his pocket and took a bite out of the vegetable. The loud crunch echoing off the trees around her. She rounded the bend on the twisting path through the woods and there in front of her, standing patiently as if it had been waiting all day, was a great brown reindeer.

fin

There we are. I hope Andria enjoys meeting the reindeer. 

As with every year, I hope you all had/have/are having a wonderful holiday you deserve it.

Good vibes to you all.

Until next time, stay safe and be well.

Let's Run an X Crawl pt 3: Out of Crawl Experience.

Back in August I took part in RPG a Day where I responded to a writing prompt that related to Role Play Games. While I talked about several different topics and games one of the articles I wrote had got me asked a couple of questions. In the article the article on villains I talked about DJ Vinechild who was one of the few true villains I used in X Crawl.

In that article I described DJ Vinechild’s week-long celebration that was built around the X Crawl and some of the events that she’d set up as a part of that. A couple of people asked about the outside the dungeon events. Most of the questions revolved around how my group enjoyed them, what sort of things I planned, and if I thought they were a good addition to X Crawl.

I’ve already answered those questions, but I thought it might be nice to put something here in case someone had a question and just didn’t ask it or they did and I somehow missed it. This article is going to be about planning, running, and the benefits of running events outside of the crawl.

A little bit of background for those who didn’t read the original article that you can find here in case you want to go and check it out too. Napa Valley Crawl is run by DJ Vinechild. She is a serial killer. She picks a certain type of crawler and eliminates that member from each team in her crawl. She doesn’t care who else she kills, but she wants to make sure that one specific person on each team dies. When I ran the game I randomly determined she was after the party’s healer. She did this by setting up monsters, traps, and combatants to specifically target that one person. She even rigged a charity Date a Crawler auction to get the member of each team “won” by someone she planted in the crowd to give them a bottle of perfume that would be scent matched with the same things she laced on the food of most of beast monsters from level 2. Those are the basics, there are a few more bits and bobs but I don’t want to just repeat the previous article.

 

Nappa Valley Crawl was the first time I really went for outside of the crawl action. I’d had a few interactions backstage and one or two other bits. Occasionally, I’d put together popular news stories that were floating around about members of the team. I had a recurring team that was the rivals to my players that would show up periodically. I even roleplayed an interview at one point. However, I’d never really planned anything large scale to take place outside of the crawl.

Planning the encounters was a matter of setting up what I wanted to happen and hiding it in a couple of other events that would mask the important ones. The biggest thing to hide was between level one and two I needed to get a bottle of cologne or perfume to one of the party members. To do this I wanted to plan a number of events to blend that one in.

I started by deciding what events should take place. I picked one event for the day before each level. The first event was a large opening ceremony wine festival that happened before level one. Between level one and two I had the charity bachelor/bachelorette auction and the date would take part the night before the level. The final event was a concert that happened before level three. I also planned several smaller events that could happen in tandem with some of the bigger ones. These included the group’s monk being invited to a night out with a couple of politicians, an adventures guild meeting, and a local talk show appearance. I didn’t use all of the smaller events, but I had them planned in case I needed them.

Then for each large event I added the general point of the night and then hid at least one Easter egg other little secret inside of one it. For the opening ceremony I decided to have the event include a large trade show like series of booths where different vineyards would show off their products and have free samples available. My players were the Sons of Bacchus and I wanted to give them a reason to walk around and see new things. I also wanted to reward them for looking around. One of the booths I had set up was a small booth in the back section of smaller vendors. The booth was run by an artisanal vintner with a jolly attitude and purple eyes. The group would only find him if they specifically went through the smaller vendors. They were rewarded for their visit because he served the best wine they’d ever tasted and it gave them a +1 bonus to hit in the first level because he was Bacchus. I like including the gods in my events. Going to the larger booths would have gotten them showered with swag, fame, and sponsorship opportunities. My group split and did both. Some of them took to the large booths and a couple members walked the smaller stalls.

I think having a large event outside of the crawl is a great way to give your players a chance to roleplay something other than the in front of the cameras heroes they usually play. It gives them a chance to play their characters when they’re not “on”. The moment when they can drop Kayfabe and be the person behind the mask. It’s also a way to introduce them to new characters and situations. While at the celebration I also introduced them to a couple of reporters, the scouts for a division 2 sponsor, and DJ Outrageous Fortunes, the DJ for a future crawl. This was my way of seeding events and plot hooks to come.

Did my group enjoy them? Yes, we still tell stories about X Crawl and while a lot of those stories come from inside the crawl itself, there were several out of the crawl stories too. The one player who found the smaller booth still talks about it. He still brings up meeting Bacchus. The jokes about the teams monk arriving at level three in a stretch limo, still wearing his clothes from last night, smelling of sweat, smoke, and alcohol while literally stumbling out of the limo onto the ground at the rest of the teams feet is a fantastic story. From a different crawl, but the race to find a high level cleric to cast remove poison on the teams paladin after he contracted alcohol poisoning the night before comes up quite often. Sure we’ll remember having a ceiling dropped on the gnome, or the rogue getting swallowed three times by the same t-rex in a single fight for a long time these stories will live on too.

Do I think they’re worth it? Also yes. They let me add new details to the world, give the teams something to look forward to outside of the crawl, and hint at future events.

Terry Pratchett had quote that I think applies to this sort of thing. Actually, it applies to lots of stuff, but it works here to. It’s not exact but, “Big things are made up of little things. That makes the little things pretty important.”

If you want to have a big event outside of X Crawl, the players won’t remember the huge event, but the small moments that made it up. Focus on those and the larger event will be memorable.

A couple of things to remember when preparing one of these. Treat it almost like a level. Pick a large overarching theme for the event. A charity auction, a festival, a grand ball, or a political event. Prepare several smaller encounters that the group can experience during the event. Meet a reporter, bump into a legendary crawler, find a small problem they might be able to solve, or character they can help. Give them small rewards for taking part. These can include minor pluses, an extra point of mojo to start the next level, a contact for the future, or an in with a potential sponsor. Drop memorable characters on them. A radio DJ that likes to share local music history with team Jammer, a child from the local hospital who’s here for a charity photo shoot and asks the character to solo an orc for him requiring the character to call out the kill before making it, or an actual god.

I hope these help. I’d love to hear if you’ve ever used an out of crawl encounter or if you’ll use one in the future. Drop a comment below or on any of the social media links where you saw this. I really do want to know.

Until next time, stay safe and be well.

RPG a Day #31 Thank

 

I’ve taken part in the #RPGaDay writing prompts for 2021. The idea was that there’s a prompt every day that asked you to write about something in RPG’s you really like. There were a couple of alternate prompts offered but I tried to do the main one every day. If you want to check it out for yourself, you can head here for the calendar for this year.

For the final day of RPG a Day I’m going to thank my parents. Not only did they get me into role playing games they supported me in my playing of them. They encouraged me as well.

They bought me my first D&D set in the late 70’s early 80’s at the height of the Satanic Panic. That was when there was a strong pushback against D&D by a select group of parents. My parents didn’t care; at least as far as I knew. They saw that the books were a genre I enjoyed, got me to read, do math, and use my imagination. I think D&D made me a better reader, student, and writer. I owe that to my parents.

They also put up with my friends and I. When I was in high school we started playing D&D on a regular basis. Once a month or so we took over my family’s dining room and would argue constantly. My family thought D&D was mostly yelling at one another for several hours. We’ve gotten much better, I don’t think we yell nearly as much as we once did.

That’s it…RPG a Day 2021 is now finished. I’m going to miss this. I’ll see you all next year.

Until then, stay safe and be well.

RPG a Day #30 Mention

 

I’m going to try and take part in the #RPGaDay writing prompts for 2021. The idea is there’s a prompt every day that asks you to write about something in RPG’s you really like. There are a couple of alternate prompts offered but I’m going to try and do the main one every day. If you want to try it yourself, you can head here for the calendar for this year.

I don’t know what to do for mention. I’ve looked at a lot of other people’s posts and nothing has really jumped out at me as a way I can fulfill this post. What I’ve decided to do is give three pieces of advice to anyone getting into gaming. I suppose I’m mentioning them here and we’ll call that the tie in.

1: Be respectful of the table and its tone. When I was in high school and really getting into the swing of gaming my friends and I created our fair share of asshole characters. It was funny to play the guy who did the weird destructive thing. It also ruined entire evenings. I’ve been the game master on the receiving end of the guy that murders the quest giver and I’ve been the player pulling the trigger. I don’t know exactly when I realized, “It’s what my character would do,” was only a decent defense once in a great while. If you find yourself using it a lot, you’re playing the wrong character for the table and should either make a new character or excuse yourself from the game. This may not be a failing on your part, because sometimes what your character wouldn’t do is burn an orphanage to the ground.

2: Help out when possible. Pitch in with whatever your group needs. This can range from tracking initiative to bringing snacks. Ask your game master if they need a hand cleaning up or getting ready. Always be willing to pitch in when you’re needed. Have an extra pencil or a spare dice. Remember sometimes you’re the one who needs a hand. This can also mean not showing up to a session. If you’re sick or distracted by a real life emergency then maybe let your game master know what’s going on and stay away. I’ve been in games where people showed up sick because they didn’t want to let the group down and just ended up giving everyone else their cold. The exception to this is if you’re having a hard time and need to be with people to help take your mind off of it then please come and play. It’s a good idea to let the gm know ahead of time what’s going on and that you may leave early or step away from the table if you need to. But once again just to make sure. If you need to be around people for your own emotional support please come to the game.

3: Learn the game. You don’t have to know the rules; god knows I don’t. Hell I run games and don’t know all the rules. There too many systems with too many mechanics to remember them all. However, I will learn the game. I know what dice to roll for an attack, I’ll make notes to keep my bonuses straight. Hell, I used to practically have a flow chart for my bonuses when playing my 4^th edition barbarian to make sure I didn’t forget anything and could quickly figure my to hit numbers when rolling. Do I have the rules for grappling in DCC, pathfinder, or D&D memorized? Hell no. It comes up far too infrequently and is well overcomplicated. I know where to look if I need them and can follow the instructions if I have to.

That’s my mentions. If you’re getting into the game these are some quickish tips and what to think about moving forward.  Maybe they’ll help you. They’ve helped me.

I’ll see you tomorrow for the final RPG a Day topic…thanks.

Until then, stay safe and be well.

RPG a Day #29 System

 

I’m going to try and take part in the #RPGaDay writing prompts for 2021. The idea is there’s a prompt every day that asks you to write about something in RPG’s you really like. There are a couple of alternate prompts offered but I’m going to try and do the main one every day. If you want to try it yourself, you can head here for the calendar for this year.

There are a lot of really great RPG systems out there. I’m certain that there will be a great many people writing about some of the most popular and oldest systems on the market. I want to write about one where I love the system and enjoy it so much that it overrides my feelings about the setting. Not to say that the setting is bad. I’ve seen it used to great effect and enjoy a live play in this setting quite a bit. However, the dark tone of Blades in the Dark isn’t one that I gravitate towards.

Blades in the Dark is a story focused system that recreates heist stories. In Blades you’ll take the role of a member of a team of criminal who specialize in a type of crime. This can be anything from theft, espionage, to assassination. While these are your specializations they aren’t the only type of crime you commit. A session will consist of your group determining what sort of job you’re going to pull, how you’re going to infiltrate the location, and then starting play.

Preparing for the job takes the least amount of time in the game. Where some crime games make scouting out the location, uncovering information, and getting any equipment you’ll need a major focus of the game Blades choose to focus instead on the operation itself. To accomplish this you simply pick your job and target.

Once you’ve decided on a job you decide what approach you’re going to take. Will you go in violently with swords, bows, and magic? Will you attempt a stealthy approach and sneak in under cover of darkness? Or will you infiltrate using your social graces by entering the location during a grand ball or business meeting? However you decided to approach the job your GM will make an approach roll. They’ll build a pool of dice based on advantages, luck, complications, and information you might have and roll the dice. This sets what position you’re in when the session truly begins. Best case scenario you’ve begin inside the location with no complications having arisen to stop you. Worst case scenario you’ll be starting with your back to the wall and with some sort of opposition coming down on your position.

From there the game proceeds. You roleplay your way through the rest of the job, working the location, folks, and even ghosts to complete your objective. As you play through the GM will ask for checks. You’ll determine what skill you’re using to accomplish something, roll a number of dice equal to your skill, and take the highest individual dice. If you roll a 6 then you succeed with no complications. If you rolled more than one 6 then you’ve scored a critical and get a spectacular success. A 4 or 5 is a partial success you’ve done what you wanted but something went wrong, you lost a piece of equipment, hurt yourself, or raised some suspicion. A 1 to 3 is a failure and goes badly for you, it’s unlikely that you succeeded and will probably have something bad coming your way.

One of the things I really like about the game is the stress system and how it is used to reflect the lack of in game preparation. As you go about the job you’ll build stress and if your stress gets to a certain level then you’ll abandon the job. Your character will have reached the end of their rope and peaced right out of the job. One of the drawbacks of partial success and failures is added stress. The other way to build stress is to call for a flashback.

Using a flashback is an action you can take at any time change something in the story. You get searched at the door on your way into the party; flashback to earlier that day when you bribed the guard. Your target is hosting a dinner party and you can’t get close to him; flashback to getting a waiters uniform earlier. You’ve accidentally gotten the attention of local law enforcement; flashback to your childhood and how this particular guard was your best friend back in the day. Every flashback gives you a bit of control over the story but it also gives you stress. The more useful the item the greater the stress with a limit of 1 or 2 points.

There’s a lot more to the system and the game. There’s an entire section on maintaining your gang and base of operations, reducing your stress between jobs, and working on side projects. I love the system in this game and enjoy playing it.

However, I’m not a huge fan of the setting. The world of Blades is dark and unforgiving. There’s a brutality to it that it I don’t find appealing. It’s just not my kind of setting. But I do love the mechanics.

I’ve been taking my spare time to jury rig my own setting. Something I do from time to time when I want to do something a bit different. For me I’m going with a 70’s spy film type of setting. That’s more my speed.

What’s a system you love despite the setting? Have you tried to reskin it? How did it work?

Let me know down in the comments. I’d love to hear.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back for mention.

Until then, stay safe and be well.

RPG a Day #28 Delve

 

I’m going to try and take part in the #RPGaDay writing prompts for 2021. The idea is there’s a prompt every day that asks you to write about something in RPG’s you really like. There are a couple of alternate prompts offered but I’m going to try and do the main one every day. If you want to try it yourself, you can head here for the calendar for this year.

I hope you’ll forgive me for being a little late today. I had some good family stuff come up and it made it impossible to get the blog posted before just a bit past midnight. Thus, technically, this is tomorrow.

Also, I’m going to ask a favor before I jump in. Today’s main prompt was solo and while I’m fascinated by solo RPG’s I’ve never played one. I’d love to try a couple out and if you can drop a comment below with a couple of recommendations I’d be grateful.

On to the topic.

I’m going to talk about the greatest delve I’ve ever been on; the Undermountain. To be specific, the Undermountain as run by my friend Scot. For those of you who don’t know the Undermountain is a massive dungeon found beneath the city of Waterdeep. It is run by the mad mage Halaster Blackcloak. While there are many entrances to the Undermountain, the most popular and celebrated is in the center of a tavern named the Yawning Portal.

The adventure was a boxed set containing several poster sized maps, multiple encounter guides, and a large creature codex. It was designed as a funhouse style dungeon where parties go in and go from room to room killing monsters, avoiding traps, and gathering loot. One of the elements of this boxed set was a lot of empty space. Large sections of the dungeon weren’t populated by the writers and left it to the DM to fill in the blanks.

There are a couple reasons why I love Scot’s Undermountain. First, there was very little dead space. Scot went through and created encounters for most of the dungeon. In the few places where he didn’t place an encounter, trap, or point of interest he’d done it with purpose. One of the first empty rooms we’d found was behind a heavy secret door and functioned as the perfect place to make camp.

The second reason was that Scot worked to give his dungeons character and sensible layouts. He’s dedicate entire sections to a tribe of orcs, a cluster of spiders, or a dark temple and its cultists. On your way to that section there’s be clues as to what was to come. You might find crude warding symbols, a proliferation of cobwebs, or occult symbols. If you paid attention you could figure out what was coming.

The final reason is that Scot to very detailed notes. I’ve been in three different Undermountain campaigns run by Scot. Each of them started at the yawning portal and while exploring we’d find signs of old parties. I still remember coming across the hole burned into the floor by a cursed coin that was caused by one of the earlier group’s actions. I also remember coming across the same hole several levels down as it passed through the ceiling and floor of multiple levels.

Scot’s one of the best DM’s I’ve ever had and while he had his flaws I will always remember with great fondness his Undermountain. Every piece from the hall of mirrors of opposition that ended up with me playing my own characters reflection for several levels after it beat me in a fight and left me imprisoned to figuring out a couple of seconds too late that the mist filled room of statues signaled a medusa.

Anyway folks, I could go on with stories about the Undermountain and the ridiculous things that came out of it for days. I’m very tempted to return to this topic if just to talk in depth about the Church of the Crumpled Helm, a temple of Mystra that was dedicated to the Paladin in our party and run entirely by prostitutes. For now, I think I’ll stop so I can get this up as close as possible to the deadline.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

Until then, stay safe and be well.

RPG a Day #27 Practice

 

I’m going to try and take part in the #RPGaDay writing prompts for 2021. The idea is there’s a prompt every day that asks you to write about something in RPG’s you really like. There are a couple of alternate prompts offered but I’m going to try and do the main one every day. If you want to try it yourself, you can head here for the calendar for this year.

Do you practice for a game? For me, if I’m going to be running a game for the first time I like to try and run it ahead of time. I especially do this if it’s for an event. I’ve talked about running things for Free RPG Day and my local game club.

For Free RPG Day I always try and run the adventure for my friends first because I know that Free RPG Day will require me to move quickly. I’ll be running the game in a slotted time so I can run a couple of groups through it. I want to make sure I get everyone who wants to a chance to play.

Playing it ahead of time lets me find any rules or questions that I might not have noticed reading the module. I’ve hit problems in the past with a trap being a game breaker the way it was written and had to make adjustments to it so that it was more of a possibility during the actual game. With my friends we were able to stop the game look up some stuff and make adjustments. If it had happened on the day it could have soured folks to the game. I don’t want to do that.

The same goes for large events. If I was running a battle interactive I always tried to hold a session zero where I’d run the module for everyone who was running it for the club. That way they’d see it from the players side, get to take their characters through it, and again if any questions came up we could pause and answer them. We also go together for breakfast the day of the game to run over any last questions and strategies.

The only other time I practice is if I’m learning a new system. When I’m sitting down with a new game, especially if I’m going to be teaching it, I will run myself through a couple of quick encounters and fights to make sure I’ve a basic understanding of the mechanics. I probably won’t get everything right but at least I’ll be going into that first game with an idea of what I’m supposed to be doing.

That’s about it for me. I don’t really do any other practice beyond that. How about you?

I’ll be back tomorrow to talk about Solo…maybe…

Until then, stay safe and be well.