I recently began listening to this podcast from a site/group called Role Playing Public Radio. They have a regular podcast, which I have not listened to. They also have something they call an actual play podcast, which I do listen to. The one I'm listening to now is a 4th Edition DnD one, but they also have a GURPS one, a Mutants and Masterminds one (I think), and a WWII Call of Cthulhu one.
The one I am currently on is what they call their 4th Edition New World campaign. The first episode is lost, so I had some catching up to do when I started listening to it. I am generally amazed at the content. The actual play podcasts are usually at least two and a half hours long and the one I am currently playing is four hours and eleven minutes. The gist is that the players are part of an expedition to a newly discovered continent and they need to help set up an outpost for the colony to live, their main concern being ready access to fresh water, as the seas around the continent are salt water.
The content is amazing and inspiring. They're not just wandering into dungeons and killing monsters. One of their quests involves leading an aerial and naval assault against a massive goblin ship and attempting to sink it as a preemptive strike against the goblin hordes before they can decide they've grown bored working for the government and want to plunder. The previous episode centered on them pissing off the lead slave merchant of the outpost they work out of and his attempts to make life exceedingly difficult for them by inciting them to violence and having paid witnesses in the crowd say they started it. The response of the players was to hire a lawyer and go to local leaders, business men and officials, and form a secret organization bent on ousting the slave trader from power and attempting to sway the popular opinion of commoners against the institution of slavery. Currently in the one I am listening to the party (an eladrin wizard, dragonborn fighter, orc warlord, a warforged fighter, and a warlock that only occasionally appears at the sessions) are leading an army of close to three hundred goblins, convicts, and mercenaries against a trap laden thieves guild underground complex.
The finale of that particular episode is a half hour discussion between the players and the DM regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the scenario and what the characters plan to do with the emptied our thieves guild complex. They also discuss the fact that they are going to found their own outpost nearby and determine what's going to go on as they found it over the next year of in-game time.
That's one thing I would really like, a ten or fifteen minute sit down where we discuss the scenario we just finished. Just a relaxed discussion over pop and chips about what happened and what we want to happen next, perhaps as we level everyone up. This bullshit where everyone takes off like bats out of Hell is vexing to me. I've put in sometimes up to eight or ten hours of work on the scenario prior to the session, everyone that shows up can surely take five minutes to talk about it afterwards. That's reasonable isn't it? I honestly just want to know what everyone thinks of my style and DMing method, what my flaws are and how I can improve the session for them. Actually, if you're reading this and you game with me, I've enabled Anonymous commenting so feel free to tear me a new one if you have complaints because everyone we game with has the address of this blog and I'm in no way savvy enough to track IPs and whatnot.
This leads into a discussion of one problem I think the group has. I don't feel that they're invested in the world at all. They know its full of weird stuff and weird terms and weird shit from my brain, but its not really attached to them any more than a standard cookie cutter pseudo-medieval fantasy world would be. Its there and their characters are in it and I think that's about as much interest as some of them have in the place. I do think that the group has a bit of attachment to Spineplate and I think the key is that Spineplate is around. He's there, he says things occasionally, and from time to time he ambles over in front of them when brigands attempt to put sharp objects in them. I think that if they were in one place long enough, had some repeat appearances from characters that could string whole sentences and paragraphs of dialogue together to engage them they might find the world more "real" than they do now. I want them to be attached to the world, because I think it makes for a better game if you care about your character and where he's been and where he is going in that geeky DnD way (not in the intense LARPing in steam tunnels/Jack Chick and his sadistic propaganda way). Most of the campaign has been a wild ride from one place to another engaging in sociopathic behavior, I think if I can play Hell properly and get them to settle down in one place so to speak, that I might be able to draw them further in to the world a bit.
I've spoken before about how I would like to "level up" my DMing skills and how that's one of my goals this campaign. At least I think I have. To be honest, I write a lot of posts and more often than not I end up deleting them, so maybe I did write and just never publicly posted it. These things happen. Anyway. I'm trying to get better at DMing, I'm still having trouble stepping away from the "you have to fight SOMETHING every scenario" mindset though. I'd like to do something where there is no mandatory fighting and every fight can be circumvented (I mean, technically most fights can be circumvented eventually with an Intimidate or Diplomacy roll, but you have to beat on the enemies for a while). I tried that once in d20 Modern Shadow Chasers. The guys ended up killing a bunch of shit they weren't supposed to and then complained that there wasn't a big final boss battle.
So, the point is I want to do more to improve my DMing style and I've been a bit successful in that I've been able to change up and vary the content of my scenarios. Aside from a deliberate dungeon crawl with a twist, I've been able to keep my scenarios varied enough that the guys aren't doing the same damn thing every five minutes. There are a lot of skill checks being made and I'm putting them in places that are not merely stone tunnels and passages. These are good first steps, but more can be done, which leads me to my next bit.
Its December, so I am a bit early, but I'd like to put my New Year's Gaming Resolutions on the blog. Normally I shy away from resolutions because I figure if you're going to do stuff, just go and do it and don't make a big deal out of it.
1. Find and use effectively some manner of audio mixer program to build ambiance during my scenarios. Just something that can add some background noise to build tension or as I discussed earlier, make the world more "real" to the players. Something that can simulate horses heading down a road or mystic chanting as the players enter a final battle against a group of sorcerers. I'm not saying every second of every scenario will have a soundtrack, but a sound effect to indicate its initiative time or the clang of a sword against armor when battle is joined. Stuff of that nature to add depth to the session and make it more than me just droning word after word at them.
2. Learn to let go and be less frustrated when the group does something that would normally frustrate and irritate me. This doesn't mean I'll be ok with them doing stupid stuff and needing their hands held, it just means I'm going to try and not fixate on silly stuff like the fact that they didn't know they could run and get all bent out of shape over it.
3. No more kid gloves in combat. I do a lot of rolling on my laptop rather than on the table. Some of it is an artificial means of keeping the guys in suspense, some of it is because I'm afraid to kill them. In fifteen years of DMing only two players in my group have died. I'm not saying I'm out for blood, but I have been holding off on using certain abilities of monsters because I am afraid to hurt the guys too badly. My encounters are balanced according to the rules and guidelines listed in the DMG and I don't take advantage of the group's weaknesses when I craft scenarios, so unless they act stupid or the dice act like dice they should be ok. This isn't a goal because I want to hurt the players, its a goal because I think they need to know that they can lose these characters. There are no save points or resurrections here in The Known World so if you fall in battle, that's it. I've noticed there are no tense, quiet moments during battle, everyone just keeps making dick and fart jokes the entire time like they do for the majority of the scenario, and I think that is a sign that they don't think of the fights as something that can have a lasting impact on them. Plus, I almost lost Spineplate trying to keep their characters from meeting their ends in a dark dwarven hole, its only fair they risk their characters as much as I risked my beloved NPC. We're entering into an Aeofel vs. Binwin situation here, so I'll leave it at that.
4. To keep a coherent plotline/story and actually finish the campaign. I like this rebellion idea and I like the idea I have of the ending and if there is one campaign I'd really like to see through, I believe it is this one. I have the next couple scenarios plotted out as well and that is definitely a good sign in my mind.
5. For years I've wanted everyone to tell me their thoughts on the scenarios and what they liked and didn't like and for the most part they've kept quiet. I don't need a paper from them, I just need them to tell me that "Hey, you remember that thing, we liked it. Do more stuff like that."
6. I want to expand my miniatures collection so I can more easily represent what the guys are fighting. There was a very nice response to my Lego men representations of all the characters and I think they'll like my upcoming addition to that even more. The group seems to respond better when you can put stuff right in their faces and take the burden of imagination off of them so I want to continue this trend with an expanded mini collection and possibly do that Lego battle scene thing I've spoken of before. The better I am able to suspend their disbelief the more they'll be into the game.
7. I would like to begin recording our sessions. Not because I desire to start a goofy podcast no one will listen to or anything of that nature. I just think I'd find it interesting and useful to be able to hear myself as I game and to also hear the things I missed during the sessions. I'm not sure how to go about doing this, but I think it would be a really neat and interesting thing to do and would offer a lot of insight into what makes our sessions tick.
8. I would like our sessions to be shorter and for the group to game more often. I think a bit of the difficulty we have keeping on task stems from people's attention wandering over the course of a seven or eight hour session of gaming, and sometimes just not knowing what is going on because the last session was three months ago. If I can shrink down my sessions by an hour or two and get us gaming regularly once a month and perhaps move it up two twice a month, I think that might make gaming a little more DnD focused and not so full of tangents to relieve the boredom inherent in rolling dice and listening to me talk for over six hours.
So there's some stuff.
Music - Pictures at an Exhibition - Mussorgsky
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