We finished up the city creation playtest last night, and it’s a friggin’ blast. The same player who wrote up the first chunk of material is working on a more detailed writeup, but I thought that I’d give y’all my initial thoughts.
The entire process of city creation for the Dresden Files RPG is fun, especially coming up with the locations. It really makes the players want to play in the city and explore all the cool stuff they’ve come up with. One of the best parts, as far as I’m concerned, is coming up with the characters that inhabit the locations. Since the players invent them, the players care about them, so any time a bad thing happens to them, the PC’s are going to jump to the rescue.
On the other hand, we found that, if you go overboard with the ideas at the beginning, you’ll bind yourself up at the end, when everybody starts tossing out story hooks and whatnot. This was the problem that we ran into - we created slightly more that twice the number of locations that were recommended - 9 locations between 4 players - which really made the last few steps of the city creation process redundant. You’ll see what I mean when we get the full writeup posted.
Still, overall, the city creation rules are solid enough to make me and all my players incredibly excited to play the DFRPG. It’ll be fun to see what comes out of Portland, OR in the Dresdenverse.
The rumor is that we should be seeing a chapter on conflicts next, but that probably won’t happen until after GenCon, since all of the Evil Hat guys are there and will be incredibly busy. In the meantime, though, my groups have a Shadowrun game to finish, a Burning Wheel game to start, and a Werewolf: The Forsaken game to create a character for. Also, we’ll be doing some collaborative stuff (and hanging out) with the folks from Good Omens again, which is always a blast. Not to mention the monthly one-shots that we play
So, despite the slow progress of the Dresden playtesting, there’s still an awful lot of awesome gaming to talk about, so stay tuned.
One of the members of our group was kind enough to take the mass of 3×5 index cards that we used to build our Dresdenverse Portland and post the bare bones of our creation session. There isn’t any flavor text added, but all of the Aspects, themes, locations, an personalities are there, or at least the seeds of them. As soon as we have some flavor to add - possibly tomorrow, since we’re finishing up the last couple of steps tonight. In any case, enjoy the rough sketch of Portland, OR.
If you’re interested, you can go and join in the conversation about our Dresden playtest on the This Modern Death forum.
Portland, OR
Aspects:
1. Hard to Drive, Easy to Walk
2. This is Really Two Cities
3. Two Big Rivers
Locations
1. Powell’s World of Books - Giant Bookstore
2. Portlandia - Bronze Statue
3. 40 Mile Loop - Giant Magical Circle
4. Olympus Mons Coffee Co. - Wizard Hangout
5. Rose Garden
6. Oregon State Zoo
7. The Woods - New Money Neighborhood
8. Industrial District - Vampire Territory
9. Oldtown - Downtown Portland
Location Details
1. Powell’s World of Books
Theme: Knowledge for Sale
Touch of Magic: The Magenta Room, hidden room with arcane knowledge
2. Portlandia
Theme: The Power of Icons
Aspect: The Spirit of Portland
Face: Nobody specific, but there is usually some kind of city employee or other nearby that feels the need to protect the statue from “vandals”.
Touch of Magic: The statue has no real magic itself, but it has power as the symbol of Faith in the city.
3. 40 Mile Loop
Theme: Protection Circle
Aspect: The Circle is Broken
Touch of Magic: It’s a Big Fucking Magic Circle
4. Olympus Mons Coffe Co.
Theme: Wizards’ Hangout & Haven
Aspect: It’s Hot Chocolate on a Cold Day
Face: Francesca “Frankie” Matinopalous, Tall Amazon looking woman, lots of tattoos, Suicide Girl, Master Roaster (all machines in the coffee shop are low tech, hand crafted affairs).
Touch of Magic: Incidentally arranged and equipped in a way to make it a haven for wizards. Somewhat New-Agey.
5. Rose Garden
Theme: True Romance/Date Spot
Aspect: Love and Lust
Face: Cantankerous Head Gardener, Arnold, Old Blood (family has been in Portland since the city was founded), powerful wizard, caretaker & protector (maintains the balance of energies in the Rose Garden), crafty
Touch of Magic: Attractive to the Fae (they want to take control of it). Site of Power from Life and Emotion.
6. Oregon State Zoo
Theme: False Sense of Security
Touch of Magic: Huge brass containment circle set in the center of a big fountain in the middle of the zoo.
7. The Woods
Theme: Rich New Money Neighborhood on the River
Aspect: Old Land, New Money
Face: Passive Aggressive Homeowners’ Association Chairperson, a total fucking bitch, but perky and “friendly” about it, knows who should and shouldn’t be in The Woods, has a dirty little secret
Touch of Magic: Magically Sterile
8. Industrial District
Theme: Seedy Underbelly
Aspect: Deadly After Dark
Face: Black Court Vampire Union Boss, Jeff “Benny” Benjamin (True Name - White Feather) Native American, predates the American Colonies, controls the Black Court in Portland.
Touch of Magic: Black Court Union
9. Oldtown
Theme: Heart of the City
Aspect: Livingroom of Portland
Face: Old Blues musician street performer, notices everything that goes on in his town, full of anectdotes, he gots the blues
Touch of Magic: Mostly mundane, has access to the Shanghai Tunnels
Who Cares?
Black Court Vampires
White Council, especially Arnold
The Fae, they want the Rose Garden
The Sasquatch, U’Bi’K, HATES White Feather
Coroporate America
The PC’s
Who Keeps the Peace?
The PC’s
The Cops
Sasquatch
The White Council
The Fae
How Do Mortals Cope?
An inneffective group of Wiccans
An underfunded Police precinct
We started working on the city creation rules for the Dresden Files RPG last night. When it gets done, I’ll be sure to post it here, for everyone to see. Let me just say that the entire process is immensely fun, although somewhat time consuming. I have a feeling that, in practice, writing up a city will take pretty much an entire game session and character creation will likely take a whole nother session. On the other hand, withe the Fate system, creating both the city and the characters will most likely be like small games in and of themselves. I really enjoy the collaborative nature of the DFRPG city creation. As a consumately lazy GM, anything I don’t have to make up makes me happy.
During our playtesting session last night, we decided that we’d write up the Dresdenverse version of Portland, OR. So far, it’s a city of incidental magic - a perfect storm of history, custom, and intentional wizardry creating a fantastically interesting location.
Expect a full write-up soon, most likely cross-posted over at the This Modern Death Forums. I can assure you it will be fascinating. And the effect on player ownership of the setting will be awesome. I have some very high hopes for the Dresden RPG.
So, my group played SotC as a one-shot last night. Rather than going for the standard pulp adventure feel, we did sort of a steampunk/pulp mix. The year was 1857 - during the Indian Revolt - and instead of having fought in the Great War, everyone was a former member of the now-defunct East India Company.
The intended plot was fairly simple. The H.M.S. Balthazar, a ship carrying tea and spices and other sundries from India to London is attacked by mysterious turbaned pirates during the night. The characters are awakened from their bunks, and run to defend the ship. After warding off the pirate attack, they find that a couple of clay tablets - the Tablets of Brama - have gone missing! This leads to an investigation upon their return to England, during which they discover that the Tablets were supposed to go to one Dr. Bartholomew Farnham, a Professor of Antiquities at the British Museum.
Dr. Farnhan is reputed to be working on some secret project for the Crown, and hasn’t been seen for some time. Investigating his office at the British Museum, they find one of the turbaned pirates rifling through the good Doctor’s belongings. When they chase down and capture the mysterious man, he crumbles to dust, but leaves behind a page from Dr. Farnham’s notes - a rubbing of a chunk of the Tablets, and the address to a warehouse on the banks of the Thames. Some research into the rubbing indicates that the Tablets of Brama, which, legend says had the power to end wars, were in fact an ancient blueprint, but a blueprint for what was unknown.
Making their way to the warehouse, they find hundreds of the strange pirates loading steam-powered boats with supplies. Dr. Farnham is there as well, bound and held captive. The characters go in guns blazing and fists swinging, causing massive chaos, and setting off some of the crates of gunpowder. After a vicious fight, Dr. Farnham is rescued.
He informs the characters that he was captured by the real mastermind of the operation, one Sir Randall Dalton, former Leftenant in the East India Company*. It seems that he was unwilling to let the dissolution of the Company go, and was convinced that if he built the weapon, he could crush the Indian Rebellion and once again restore the East India Company as the rulers of India. Capturing the Tablets (actually, the remaining tablets) also allowed him to control their ancient guardians, who, through some strange Eastern magic, were undead slaves to whomever held them.
So, the characters track Sir Dalton to a small, rocky island off of Britain’s northeastern coast. They can plainly see the pirate ship that attacked them in the first scene. The island itself is dominated by a crumbling keep. Sneaking onto the island, they make it to the underground workshop where Dalton has finally completed the weapon - and modified it for his own purposes! During the ensuing battle, Dalton activates his monstrosity - a giant iron clockwork and steam powered elephant, armed with very large guns. Of course, the characters defeat it, and bring the keep down on Dalton and his mechanical monstrosity. As the keep crumbles, the characters make a dashing escape back to England.
Now, in practice, we didn’t make it all the way through. They managed to stop Dalton immediately after the scene in the warehouse. I do, however, really like this scenario, and I might use it for convention play at some point.
Some changes I’d make:
The characters shoudn’t start off on the ship. If the players do well enough, they can prevent the theft of the Tablets and pretty much blow the game out of the water (no pun intended). Instead, they should be handed the assignment of investigating the attack of the H.M.S. Balthazar, and find out about the Tablets later.
Use the quick character creation rules. Or, better yet, use pregenerated characters. For a convention, I’ll probably use variations of the characters that were created by my group. I really liked their ideas
Really shave down the amount of investigation that the group needs to do. As awesome as it can be, if not done right, or if the players have no clear idea of what they’re after, it can take far too long and lead to serious tangents.
I need to prep better. The minions are easy (SotC’s minion rules rock!), but I need to really work on my NPC’s.
Finally, I need more steampunkish stuff. Maybe Dalton’s ship needs to be a dirigible. Even better, he may need a good henchman to foil the characters.
Despite the problems, the system itself is a joy to run - incredibly intuitive. I had some difficulty (by some I mean a lot) compelling one of my players’ Aspects. I’ll chalk this one up to poor communication of the rules on my part. Still, all in all I think everyone had a good time. Running this game was great practice for the Dresden Files playtest that we’re starting tonight.
*I don’t know if there actually were Leftenants in the East India Company. But it made for a decent plot, so fuck it.
I’ve got a new job (sort of), and some new opportunities, and I need a place to talk about them that won’t interfere with the content over at This Modern Death. Also, I need to do some serious work on my game, since Randy challenged me to get a game to print before he did. Anyway.
I just joined up for the Dresden Files RPG Burning Alpha Playtest, and I must say, I’m really excited. It’s going to be a real learning experience. I’ve never playtested a game before, so not only is my group going to get to help make an awesome product, but I’ll get to learn first hand how to slog through and fix drafts of game mechanics.
So, yeah, consider this blog restarted. Feel free to beat me if I don’t update regularly.
Wow, been awhile since I’ve updated the ol’ blog. Fear not, though; I have no intention of abandoning this site, nor the podcast, despite my lack of posts to either of them. Things have just remained unbelievably busy.
So, the news.
First off, Kristin decided to forgo her commencement ceremony from Chico State University in favor of going to Kubla Con. We have been convinced that we wouldn’t be able to make it this year, but it looks like we’re actually going. Had I been more on the ball, I would have registered earlier, but c’est la vie. Unfortunately, since I just registered the two of us today, I was too late to submit a Shadowrun event like I’d planned to. Perhaps next year. Or, I could always wind up running a game on the fly again. Perhaps I’ll come prepared, just in case.
Kristin also talked to our favorite folks over at Good Omens Games about doing some recording with us. This has prompted me to start looking at the Flip Video Ultra. I’ve been thinking that there is a glut of audio convention coverage in the world of gaming podcasts, so I figured that some con video footage would be appropriate. I have a feeling that I’ll be conning my fiancée into asking the questions, since nobody wants to see the fat guy on camera.
For those who are interested, I’ve been using Google Reader for my news feeds lately, and I’ve been actively sharing a great deal of articles, not a few of them from Pharyngula, the blog of biologist PZ Myers. I don’t think that I’ve ever really made much of an attempt to hide my opinions regarding the teaching of Intelligent Design Creationism in the classroom, but it hasn’t been an issue that’s come up a lot in discussions of RPG design. Suffice to say, if you read Dr. Myers blog, or see the articles I’ve been sharing, you’ll probably have a good idea of how I feel about the subject. I’d also like to encourage everyone to check out Expelled Exposed, a site that addresses the claims of Ben Stein’s anti-evolution film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
This brings up another thing of note - as of next semester, I’m going back to school. A lot of things have changed in my life lately, nearly all of them good, and that’s prompted me to start taking a look at where I’m going in life. With my fiancée graduating from college, I just can’t stomach the thought of living off her residuals after we’re married, so I figured that I should do something to pull my own weight. So, it looks like I have to start trying for a degree in earnest.
To be honest, the thought of going to school as a 30 year-old is a little frightening to me, but I think I’ll manage to survive. Given the comments I’ve posted above, it should be no wonder that I’m seriously considering making an attempt to enter a scientific field. My problem is that I’m far too interested in far too many subjects to make the choice easy. So, I’ll be waffling around with general education courses while I work full time until I manage to come to a decision on what I want to do with the rest of my life.
Wow, my semi-regular blog posting got totally hosed by my recent lack of Internet access. My thanks for that go to AT&T, who seem incapable of sticking to a connection date. Bleh.
Anyway, on to the meat of this post.
I’ve wanted to be a role-playing game designer since I was eight years old. My dream was to grow up and go to work for TSR so that I could write D&D books for the rest of my life. Until recently, I’d pretty much given up on designing my own game .
Fortunately, people like Clyde Roher, Ryan Macklin, Sam Chupp, Mick Bradley, and a whole slew of other folks have re-inspired me to try designing my own game. With that in mind, I figured that I’d start a design diary here on Raptus Regaliter, so that I can get some feedback on where the game is at.
I’m going to keep this particular post somewhat brief, since I’m still working on specific details. I’m just going to outline some of the specific design decisions that I’ve made so far.
This will be a short-form story game. I was directly inspired to write this kind of game after having played John Wick’s Wilderness of Mirrors. I really find this style of game to be both fun and useful. They tend to be either somewhat lighthearted or very intense, and they’re great for just killing time, or for when a player doesn’t show up for your regular game.
All the prep work will be done at the table. I want to design something that can be just pulled out and played. So, everything from character creation to creating the main conflict to playing out the scenario will be handled right then and there. Therefore, all the character creation rules need to be simple. Hell, all of the rules will need to be simple. If it’s made to be played at the drop of a hat, it should be able to be taught to new players easily.
I’d like heavy player authorship. I see the role of the GM in this game as something of a moderator, more than a storyteller. Perhaps his primary role will be to start things off and nothing more.
Finally, there is the actual concept of the game, the answer to the question “What is your game about?”. So the concept is this: all the players have just died, and are waiting to pass on to the afterlife, but first, they have to come to terms with their deaths. So, who’s fault was it that you died, and can you forgive them?.
So far, that’s what I’ve got. Beyond that, everything is simply a nebulous collection of ideas. But, at least I have a starting point now, and can finally move on to some of the more important aspects of designing.
Regardless of how you may feel about the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, it is undeniable that it has had an impact on your life if you are a table-top gamer. By extension, therefore, so has one of its creators, Gary Gygax, who passed away today. According to this announcement, Mr. Gygax passed away in his home this morning.
I won’t pretend that I ever knew Gary Gygax personally, though I do know many who did. To them, and to Mr. Gygax’s friends and family, I offer my condolences.
For any body who’s interested, Sam Chupp will be releasing a memorial show on the Bear’s Grove podcast feed sometime after this Sunday.
Goodbye, Gary. The world of gaming will not be the same without you.
Normally, I wouldn’t post something not RPG related here, but there’s something to be said for the pure, unadulterated awesomeness of an independent musician gaining enough of a following to be included on a game like Rock Band.
So, last night was my usual Shadowrun game night. One of my players called me up early, asked for a ride, and said that he wanted to talk to Kristin and I before the game started, and before everyone else got there. We BSed for a while, and then, before we got ready to play, he explained to us that we had hurt him during Episode 8 of our podcast.
He was absolutely right to do so.
See, we didn’t really think about what it was we were doing when we brought up the situation in question during the show. It was relevant to the topic that we were covering, and we just thought of it as an illustration of the topic. We failed, however to consider how it would make him look, especially considering that he’s active on a number of forums - at least one of which has listeners of our show on it.
While it wasn’t our intention to cast anyone in a negative light, looking back on it, and re-listening to the audio, I realize that that is precisely what we did. And I completely blame myself for it. Fortunately, the player in question is a big enough guy to differentiate between intent and deed, and that is something to be appreciated in any friend. I’m glad that our fuck up didn’t ruin a good gaming group, much less a great friendship.
I could go forth with a sappy apology here, but I’ve done that in person. The real lesson here is for other podcasters, bloggers, and forum posters. Remember, you’re players aren’t just case-studies. They’re your friends, too. Consider their position before you talk about them. Get their side of the story. Most of all, think about how you’d feel if someone talked about you the way I talked about my friend, especially when you have the entirety of the Internet as a potential consumer of your content.
Don’t be an asshole like I was. Friends can only take so much before they decide it’s better to leave both your game and your life.
