Onwards and upwards...

Since my last post I've done a few things.

Running & Playing

Ran session two of Midnight Sub Rosa for Pelgrane Press' Trail of Cthulhu.

As someone who likes a visual reference both as a GM and a player I decided to make a "map" of sorts for one of the scenes not depicted in the adventure.  Whilst I could narrate the scene (and I did) I find it helps to have something visual to help guide that narration.

In session one there were no dice rolls, safe to say that there were dice rolls aplenty during this session. Fortunately the investigators recovered the occult text and returned it to Miskatonic University; and now must come to terms with all that they've seen.

I also ran The Expanse RPG using the Salvage Op PDF adventure.

This was the first time I'd used the AGE system that Green Ronin have published. As I understand it the version for The Expanse RPG is subtly different from how it's implemented in ModernAGE etc.  I enjoyed the game and the system and can see me returning to it in the future.

So far that's two new games I've run and I've got more games planned.

Alongside those my two D&D campaigns continue to move along nicely, plus I got to play in a game of the new Judge Dredd RPG run by Ross and playtested a new Eberron Adventurers League scenario with Rich, Shane, Ian, Iain and Pete.  All good stuff.

Writing

I've been struggling a bit with this, probably due to too many other things occupying my brain (see above) and missed my planned DMsGuild release in February. It's fine though because...

Out of the blue, thanks to a random reference by Kevin Y and John D to a certain film about immortals with swords I wrote this.

"Less Than Two" A One Page RPG about immortals who wield swords.

I woke up on Sunday morning with the game largely formed in my head. About 6 hours of effort later it was written, had artwork and I'd made it look all fancy thanks to Affinity Publisher. 

So I decided to publish it!  It's "Pay What You Want" with a suggested donation of $2.

It's available on itch.io here and on DriveThruRPG here.

I've also come up with an idea for a series of horror / mystery adventures. Will likely use Gumshoe given my familiarity with it. It's a question of whether that's a hack using the SRD or whether it's using Fear Itself and/or Esoterrorists to take advantage of the DriveThru Community Content licence.

Either way I've given myself 6 months to at least publish the first part...

First though is finish at least one of the DMsGuild products I've got loosely drafted.  Starting with one about a broken time-control clock.

Mapping

I've decided to pick up an Inkarnate license ($25 for a year).

Main reason I chose Inkarnate over other platforms is that the price includes Commercial Use and with that comes a LOT of assets.  If Dungeondraft had a larger Commercial Use asset list included by default then I may have opted for that instead.

Think I'm getting comfortable with it as an app but notice there's a real lack of tutorial videos out there for it...  So if anyone knows of any please get in touch!

Events

Ok so the main bit of news is that we've cancelled 2021's Tabletop Scotland event.  Full details are on the website here.

In short, our venue is currently a vaccination hub for Perth and there is no end date for that.  As a result the venue management team contacted all event organisers to let them know that they were cancelling all 2021 bookings.  We'll confirm 2022 dates when we can.

In the meantime, I co-organised a D&D Game Day over on the Dungeons & Dragons Scotland Discord Server on Saturday 13th March 2021 (today as I write this). Good variety of games offered up and whilst I didn't play in any of them I'm keen to see what the feedback is like on the event. Maybe we'll do another one?

At the very least I hope it enables the D&D Scotland community to embrace more conventions in general.  Not least of which is AlbaCon in October.  Proper planning for that will start soon.

Day 335 of Year 2020...

So it's been 3 days since I last posted here. That's got to be the shortest time between posts for a LONG time!

So what's happened?

My adventure, Unsettled Ground, has been published on DMsGuild! Exciting!

Not only that, but people are buying it!

A look back at 2018 & 2019 and a look forward at 2020.

I skipped the whole of 2018 and 2019 from this blog and I feel kinda bad about that.

Not hugely bad because both years were excellent in hobby terms but still kinda bad as I had plans for this thing.  So how do I summarise the last 2 years in my hobby?

2018 : My now annual visit to UK Games Expo, a return to GenCon, the realisation of a hobby dream in Tabletop Scotland and a return to DMing D&D thanks to my players and Matt Colville.

It was a great year for my hobby, a challenging one but a great one.  Whilst swapping a large chunk of my free / game time for convention planning wasn't hard, it wasn't easy either.  I did manage to offset that a little by running D&D 5th Edition.  2018 was a year that reminded me why I love this hobby.

2019 : No GenCon 2019 but I did go to Conpulsion in Edinburgh, AireCon in Harrogate and Glasgow Games Festival in erm Glasgow which was nice. Obviously I also went to UK Games Expo which in 2019 was a different experience largely off the back of the relative success of Tabletop Scotland 2018 as I had people thank me and the team for the con and "recognisable name" publishers mention that they'd heard about how good it was.  Oh and Tabletop Scotland 2019 happened too, twice the space and at times really tough but hugely worthwhile.  In between all of that my D&D group kept going, with an often disrupted schedule but all good, and East Neuk Tabletop turned 5.

So 2019 was another great year for my hobby.  In many respects a more challenging year due to trying to exceed the expectations of those who came to Tabletop Scotland 2018.  I could write a lot about my Tabletop Scotland 2019 experience but if I was to boil it down to two things it'd be this -

• we hosted over 100 tables of RPGs, avergaging 20 tables per slot. Including games especially for kids.
  As a Roleplayer "first" this gives me such joy.
• our attendance was up by 54% on 2018 with almost 1,600 individual people being there.
  That's a success story and one I'm hugely proud of.

2020?  Well now... it's looking busy convention wise -

• AireCon in March
• Conpulsion in April
• UK Games Expo in May
• GenCon in July/August - there for my birthday and I'll have my GenCon brother Greg with me as always.
• Tabletop Scotland in August
• Glasgow Games Festival in November

In between all of that the D&D game and East Neuk Tabletop attendance will continue; plus I'm planning to add another RPG "slot" to my schedule with Night's Black Agents looking like the favourite to start that off.  I have some other hobby goals for 2020 that probably bleed into 2021 and beyond but they're not currently for sharing :-P

I intend to post on here about GenCon 2020 (tickets go on sale on the 26th January!) and hope to get the chance to meet many people I only know in an online capacity.  So if you're at GenCon and our cyberpaths have crossed somehow let me know as it'd be great to meet you and maybe even play a game.

To wrap this up, I have one thing to ask.  If you see me at a convention, in a game store, at a games club or out and about and ANY of the above mean something to you then let me know.

Cheers and here's to a great 2020 in the hobby.

RPG A Day 2015 - Day Seventeen

Favourite Fantasy RPG...

So this is a shoe in, right?  It's D&D obviously, right?

Actually yes it is but it's not the only Fantasy RPG I've ever played but it's the one I keep coming back to irrespective of which version it is.

Other Fantasy RPGs that I've tried include -

Tunnels & Trolls
Runequest
MiddleEarth Roleplaying Game
Rolemaster

plus the obviously solo games like Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf.

None of those have ever had the same pull on me as D&D nor have any of those had the mechanical appeal that D&D has (for me).  D&D and me just fit.

I know there's been a lot of other Fantasy RPGs released over the previous 10 or so years but none of them have had the pulling power to tempt me to try them out.

What am I missing?

RPG A Day 2015 - Day Sixteen

Longest Game Session Played...

Well I ran a game of 1st Edition AD&D for 24 hours once for charity.  Think that wins?

So how did this happen then?

I think it was 1991 as I would have been about 17 at the time.
My friends and I had signed up to do a sponsored 24 Hour RPG event for Red Nose Day.
I'd volunteered to run a game of 1st Edition AD&D for the full 24 hours and we'd enlisted a couple of extra players to cover off any drop outs over the night.
Venue wise we'd managed to secure the local scout hall which was pretty basic but met our needs.

I'd prepped a bunch of scenarios mostly taken from White Dwarf and Dungeon Magazine and very loosely knitted together a campaign plot that could be played over the 24 hours.

To help fill in any blanks or the need for side treks I'd also bought I13 - Adventure Pack I

I vaguely recall the event being a bit hit and miss in places, largely due to us all struggling to maintain our focus but I can safely say that I and I think 3 others stayed awake for the full 24 and a bit hours and that between us we raised something like £200 for charity.  Not bad really.

Would I do it again?  Yes but perhaps not as 1 big game...

RPG A Day 2015 - Day Fifteen

Longest campaign played.

This is actually quite hard for me as the bulk of my game play in ye olden days wasn't really campaign based.  Sure the players would keep their characters and move from scenario to scenario but I'd mash that up over various settings and use published scenarios from Dungeon magazine and various 1st Edition AD&D adventure supplements.  It's worth saying though that we played a lot of 1st Edition AD&D over what was probably 5 years but it'd be stretching it to say that this was a campaign as that also included a foray into the world of Dragonlance for a good year or so.

So what was my longest actual campaign?

Clocking in at erm 2 and a bit years maybe with that being run pretty much fortnightly on Saturday's it'd have to be my D&D (very loosely) 3/3.5 game set in my homebrew / Dragonlance-hack of a world called Kilranthia.

I ran this at ORC Edinburgh and it was largely sandbox with some key plot hooks and NPCs as devices to see how the players moved the story on.  The game re-used some earlier concepts and characters from previous homebrew games I'd ran including using former PC names as NPCs this time around.

Players were almost all teenagers for the majority of the campaign and there were some comings and goings but most of all I remember it for being just damn good fun to DM.  Plus with the added bonus that we actually managed to finish with a fairly decisive conclusion to the campaign - the bad guys won...

It's a setting I've often been tempted to return to but the very nature of a sandbox game means it has to have the right group of players to re-create the same effect.  Maybe someday though!

RPG A Day 2015 - Days Four to Nine

I should have seen this coming really.  Gone are the days where I have the time for daily posts on here so for Days Four to Nine I'm going to do them all in 1 post.

Four - Most Surprising Game

Probably All Flesh Must Be Eaten.  For a game that's pitched at fans of all things Zombie it actually works in a variety of different ways. By that I mean it handles the full range of aspects of the Zombie genre, all the way from comedy through to full on horror.  Mechanically and fluff wise it has a lot of potential.  Just a shame it doesn't get to the table anymore...

Five - Most Recent RPG Purchase

Rise of Tiamat for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.  Even though it's highly unlikely that I'll get to run it any time soon I wanted to have the complete storyline should I ever get round to running it on a regular basis.

Six - Most Recent RPG Played

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.  Just started to run the scenarios from first Adventurers League season.  I meant to do it when they came out but hey never had the time.

Seven - Favourite Free RPG

Risus by S. John Ross.  Fully flexible system that encourages impromptu play of RPGs.

Eight - Favourite Appearance Of RPGs In Media

Ermmm need to pass on this one as I actually can't think of any that really stood out as being good.  There have been plenty of references and such like but none that made me go "Well done" in relation to how it's been portrayed.

Nine - Favourite Media You Wish Was An RPG

So you mean licensed product?  I actually have no need or desire to see any media as a RPG as any desire to play in a set license I can do with any number of systems.  Never been a big fan of licensed RPGs other than the obvious Star Wars ones...

RPG A Day 2015 - Day Three

Favourite New Game of the Last 12 Months?

RPG wise that's a no-brainer - Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.

Why? Simple really, it's the best version of D&D I've played and ran. It also reminds me of the best of every version of D&D I've played before now (which is every version).

Whilst I have little / no time to run RPGs these days I continue to have the urge to run D&D. I've managed to start that with a group of gamers in Anstruther and they're all new to 5th Edition although as a group they've got varied background with RPGs.

RPG Pre-Conditions and Self Limitations

So way back when I started this blog I kicked it off with a post called "I'm Dave and I'm a Roleplayer" and I proceeded to talk about the rediscovery of what I wanted my hobby to be.

Since then I've managed to rediscover my hobby and I've achieved some things too, not least of which would be attending Gen Con and establishing East Neuk Tabletop Games.

As my post on DMing Lost Mines of Phandelver attests though I've not really lived up to the title of that first post - namely I've not done much roleplaying since this 2nd Chapter started.

Why is that?  Well.....

My Star Wars game has suffered as a result of conflicting schedules (mine and my players) and establishing another game has proven to be more challenging than I think I ever appreciated.  Not through a lack of player interest more that I've not found or indeed at times made the commitment of time to run a game.

One of the beauties of boardgames is that the majority of them can be played in 90 minutes as a maximum time span. Yes there are some that will take longer but the majority of the ones I own can be played in that 90 minute slot which is great.

RPGs can also be played in a relatively short slot too but I'm beginning to think that I don't like that... I actually think that for me RPGs should be in a 4 hour slot as a minimum.  Sure you can play one-shots in 2 hours or even less and that's essentially how the Star Wars game has functioned since it started.  Now if any of my Star Wars players are reading this don't fret, I'm not about to say that we're only going to play it if I have a 4 hour slot (although that would be nice...).
What I am saying is that for any RPG that I kick off from here-on I want the slot to be roughly 4 hours.

This obviously brings me back to my challenges with that around available free time etc but it also gets me thinking too.  What other things should be pre-conditions of running a RPG?

4 hour slot is great but it should happen semi-regularly. Ideally it should happen fortnightly as a minimum although weekly would be preferable but let's not over extend things and just stick to the fortnightly as a minimum.

The funny thing is that I used to be able to do this.

Every fortnight I'd turn up on a Saturday at +ORC Edinburgh and run a game.  Not always a campaign game but a RPG and I'd run it for 4 hours.  This worked really well for a good few years and then I found I couldn't sustain it due to Real Life (tm) getting in the way...  Ok so that sounds bad. Real Life (tm) didn't so much get in the way, it was more that my priorities changed when I became a dad.

So how does that help me now?  Well it doesn't really.

Where it leaves me is going back to that consistent element of "time". The only way I can really kick off a new RPG session in a 4 hour slot is by making that time.  That really means that something has to give and the most likely (and also easiest) option is that I swap some of my existing game time for other game time.

There is another option, or perhaps just a different nuance to the option above. My Star Wars game has just completed the Beyond The Rim scenario and whilst the players are keen to continue maybe I should put it on a short break and run something else (likely D&D) for a time...  I'm not overly keen on that though as my preference leans more to running RPGs at ENT and given we're now running in a 4 hour slot that becomes more likely.

No conclusions as yet, more pondering required about my options but without pre-empting my 2015 look ahead post I think it's clear that more RPG play is going to be one of the objectives I set myself.

One Small Step For A Meeple...

One Giant Leap For Meeple-kind?

Not quite.

I realise I've slipped into another "no update" zone with the blog which I can only apologise profusely for. Other than work, family and of course gaming I've not really had any real time to spend on the blog.

So a quick update is probably in order then.

Games at a beer festival went really well. We didn't have any converts but we did have some people asking questions which is never a bad thing.
We managed to play Poo, Get Bit, Kittens in a Blender and Braggart which all worked pretty well considering we were sitting near where the live (and at times excellent) music was being played.
I look forward to the next Cambolicious beer festival in May 2015 where more games and more beer can be enjoyed.

DWARF wise we've finally managed to re-instate the Star Wars game that we've been playing. First game since July and 2 of the party almost died.
We're coming to the end of "Beyond The Rim" and I've been very pleased with the scenario this far.  It is a bit railroady at times but it's flexible enough to manipulate the story.
The question I have started to ponder is what's next? Another Star Wars scenario or something else?
Of course alongside that I've been playing more board games at DWARF

ENT wise we're approaching our final event of the year - Sunday 14th December.  Alan aka +donjondo pulled together a list of all the games we've played since we started and it comes to the frustratingly not rounded number of 49! Then our community pointed out a few omissions and we're actually now at 52!
To celebrate our first year we're hosting a sort of poll / survey to get people to vote for their favourite games played this year ahead of the session on the 14th. Alan came up with the name Golden Axe Award and we've decided to stick with it, although what an ENT would be doing with an axe I'm not sure... ;-)
ENT will also see some changes from the 14th December with us moving to a 4 hour slot (1pm to 5pm) and also moving to the Upper Hall which should be warmer over the Winter!  I think the changes are a positive step forwards for the community, especially for the longevity of the community but also increasing the options of what can be played.

I've failed miserably at getting the "gang" back together for some D&D. This has been solely down to me just not having that much free time to actually play the game for any reasonable length of time (a separate post is brewing on the topic of game length).

So that's pretty much where we are although I do have a couple of other topics to be covered, just need to find the time to write them!!!

DMing Lost Mine of Phandelver

So I've finally got round to running a game of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.  Specifically I've started running Lost Mine of Phandelver.

This is the scenario that comes with the Starter Set and I've chosen it for a number of reasons.

• None of the players have played it.
• It's an introductory scenario and 4 of the players either hadn't played D&D ever or for a very long time.
• One player is currently playing in the Hoard Of The Dragon Queen season of Encounters so had to be something very different from that.

So what did we have?  Well I used the pregens from the Starter Set and I also managed to find some D&D Adventurers League compatible 1st level pregens online.

The players opted for -

• Dwarf Cleric - Played by Richard
• Halfling Rogue - Played by Steven
• Human Fighter - Played by Alan
• Human Paladin - Played by Theresa
• Tiefling Warlock - Played by Oliver

They managed to rescue Sildar and take down Klarg the bugbear, the wolves and a number of the goblins.  Ok so they had lady luck to thank for some of that after some tributes were made to Tyche in Phandalin as at times the dice were being particularly cruel!

Overall it was a really good session and felt good to be running D&D again, especially for a group of people that I've never roleplayed with before as most of them I've met through East Neuk Tabletop.

Hoping to get at least 2 or 3 more sessions in before Christmas but need to think carefully about the scheduling of that and of course a location to hold it. For this 1st session we used my wife's wool shop on a weeknight, with weeknights largely being problematic for me I think it might need to move to a Sunday post-ENT slot (whether that's coinciding with ENT or not). Something to ponder and chat with them about before organising the next slot.

Gen Con - My Itinerary (The Sunday)

All good things... Whilst Gen Con comes to an end on the Sunday my trip to Gen Con doesn't as we don't fly back until the Monday.

So what does the Sunday have in store for me? Not a lot (of events).

The list is short because Gen Con essentially packs up for the year around 4pm on the Sunday.

Doomtown Reloaded - Alderac's returning card game.  Unlike the event I have on the Wednesday this one is aimed at players who want to learn how to play.

Shadow on the Moonsea - The only D&D event outstanding from the various official 5th Edition games being run at Gen Con.

So what else?  Well there will be the mandatory last minute survey of the trader hall to see if there are any bargains available. This is entirely dependent on there being any space left in my case...

The plan for the Sunday night is quite simple.  Meet up with my fellow travellers, have dinner at Ruth's Chris and reflect on the event as a whole.

There may be some playing of games either just amongst us or by meeting up with people we've connected with over the week or through use of #genconpug

We don't leave til mid-afternoon on the Monday (well we need to be at the airport for 2pm ish) so there will be some wandering round the fair city of Indianapolis and probably some more unhealthy food too.

So yeah, that'll be the end of Gen Con 2014.  One of the first questions that I'll start to ask myself at this point is whether I want to go again in 2015.  Far too early to consider that though!

Gen Con - My Itinerary (The Saturday)

I hope you've all recovered from the last post not being about Gen Con.
I could have put Gen Con references in it as after all it's about posting daily about RPGs in August which is when Gen Con happens but I decided to make it all about RPGaDay instead.

Anyway, where were we?  Ah yes, Gen Con!!!

So by now my horde of stalkers will be thinking "What does Dave have planned for his Saturday at Gen Con?"  Let me tell you this, it's mostly D&D.

Dungeons & Dragons the New Edition : Ready, Set, Play! - My day starts at 10am taking part in what's essentially a 2 hours session / workshop of how to play the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons.  Sounds like a great way of doing it as there will be members of the D&D team there to handle questions and walk people through Character Creation. This is as much about ensuring that I've grasped the mechanics of the game as it is about anything else.
Anyone who knows my gaming style knows that I'm -ahem- somewhat lax about reading rulebooks cover to cover.  If I can't remember a rule I will invariably wing it rather than pull the rulebook out to check the rules.  That's probably a post all by itself...

Secrets Of Sokol Keep - Now we're talking.  4 hours of D&D 5th Edition goodness. Full scenario spec is below and I don't know if this is simply down to me being a D&D Fanboy or not but the spec really sounds great - "Decades have passed since Sokol Keep was reclaimed, and a small garrison placed there along with a beacon to help guide ships. Now, that beacon has gone dark, and the garrison has disappeared. In Phlan, rumors circulate that something ancient was discovered in the grounds beneath the keep, dating to before the clerics of Tyr built the small fortress. Uncover the secrets of Sokol Keep!"

Live Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast! - Ok so this one is another "optional" ones that I've signed up for.  Shut Up & Sit Down is a vid/podcast series about playing tabletop games. I have enjoyed a number of their shows in the past and particularly like their Intro to board games video.  I'm not really that bothered about going to the event though (there are still tickets available so again no guilt associated) but similarly I am tempted.

Corruption in Kryptgarden - Yep that's more D&D!  The added benefit of being in this event is that it means I'm already where I need to be for the event that follows it which is the D&D CELEBRATION CEREMONY.

That takes us to well 9pm for when Corruption finishes and the D&D CELEBRATION CEREMONY is only supposed to last an hour (yeah, right) so that's a 10pm finish.  Again the temptation exists to play some late night Magic: The Gathering...  we'll wait and see how the old body is fairing at that point!  After all it's not like we're leaving on the Sunday...

Gen Con - My Itinerary (The Friday)

Before I continue with the perfect guide to stalking me at Gen Con I need to reflect back on my post for the Wednesday.

One of the events that I planned to attend has been cancelled - Every School Should Have a Games Club.  This made me sad as I was really looking forward to learning stuff in this one around the overall promotion of the hobby.  The guy who was running isn't running any other seminars so unfortunately this looks like he's been unable to make it hence the cancellation.  These things happen and given the likely overlap with a couple of other seminars I should get plenty of content for the brain and blog.

So, Friday!  What excitement awaits me?

Gaming for Good: An Insider's Guide to Playing Games for Charity - Should be fairly clear why I want to go to this, especially if you've been reading this blog for a while...  I think this should also touch on ways in which to promote the benefits of what is a very social hobby.

Defiance in Phlan - It's D&D! (Ok so I did that last time...) Yep this is the likely first slot of D&D 5th Edition that I'll play unless I take part in the Thursday 11pm slot.

Bring Me The Head Of Dr Dinosaur - It's Atomic Robo! Run by game creator +Mike Olson! Plus +Liz Mackie is playing in this game too!

Sentinels Of The Multiverse : A Storyline Game - So this is interesting.  3 back to back games of SotM where the characters / villains are determined by a common story.  Very cool idea and brings another layer of roleplaying to one of my favourite games.  Plus +Greg Barr is playing in this one!

The last event on the Friday is more of a walk-in experience.

Dungeons & Dragons: Tyranny Of Dragons Launch Party - This is an all day event with the real focus from 7pm to 11pm. I'm in the SotM from 6pm to 9pm so will miss some of this but as I say it's more of a walk-in experience rather than something you sit down to participate in after all it's taking place outside of the Convention Centre on Georgia Street. The real buzz for 5th Edition I think will be on the Saturday night but that's for the next post...

I also intend to use the timegaps I have on the Friday (not many but some) to browse a bit more and demo some games.  I've tried to be careful and not block my diary out completely (as hard as that can be to avoid) as I want to balance events with experiencing the con.  Right now I think my schedule is fine but I fully expect that might change!!!

Gen Con - My Itinerary (The Thursday)

So almost 2 weeks ago (really?!) I posted about the Wednesday at Gen Con.  It's now 3 weeks til we fly out to Gen Con and my excitement level increases on a daily basis.

Unfortunately it also means that I'm working harder and thus having less time to create content for the blog.

With that in mind I'm only going to commit to post a few more posts before we head off and those will be prioritised as itinerary posts with anything else (e.g. my buy list) being a bonus.

So, after having survived the Wednesday we get to the Thursday.

The day starts off a bit weird.  Having a press pass means I get into the trade hall a whole hour earlier than non-press attendees.  This is one of the key perks of getting a press pass (as well as attending all of the cool stuff on the Wednesday).

So my first scheduled "event" is the trade hall at 9am.
Having looked at the floor plan for the trade hall I'm convinced I could spend the entire convention in there and not see everything.  I expect to do a separate post on what my must haves are from that exploration of the trade hall but other than con exclusives for games I already own it's more than likely t-shirts from Offworld Designs.

But we don't want to hear about your shopping list Dave, we want to know were you'll be so we can stalk you!

Hmmm.  Ok then.  The trade hall experience takes me right up to 1pm where I attend...

Key To Con Games - This is a seminar / workshop primarily focussed on how to run games at conventions.  That's of interest to me but I also want to look at it from the con organiser perspective and understand more about why a GM chooses to run at a particular convention.

The Psychology Of Gaming - I've been interested in Psychology for a long long time.  Not so much from an academic perspective but very much from a layman point of view.  This seminar will look at profiling (to a certain extent) of what makes a gamer.  There are various interests involved in this but right not the primary one is how this can be used to expand the gaming community by tapping into the psyche of those potential gamers.

Battletech : Alpha Strike - Rampage! - As per my previous posts on Battletech I have a real interest in playing this version as much as I can.  With this being a 16 player event I fully expect it to be awesome!

Dark Dungeons : World Premier - Ok so if you don't know anything about Dark Dungeons then go to THIS WEBSITE before you continue.  Done?  Trust you've come away from that without any emotional scarring and still feeling of sound mind.  Ok to continue?  Good.  So this film is not making fun or light of the source material but I fully expect it to be an interesting and entertaining experience...  I'll leave it at that...

Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns Documentary - Probably the first event that I'm not convinced I'll actually take part in.  I'm a huge fan of the book which was what attracted me to the event but I might take the opportunity to do something else depending on how the Thursday goes.

Defiance in Phlan - It's D&D!  This is an optional event for me (it's at 11pm) and I have another slot for this on the Friday.  I could easily play this twice but again as with the Frank Miller event I could also skip this and do something else.  The event is not fully booked (44 spaces currently) so I know I'm not causing any serious ramifications if it stays like that.

That's another pretty jam packed day full of awesome gaming goodness and cerebral content (for future blog posts more likely).  There is the option to continue playing through the night (specifically in things like Magic: The Gathering Booster Drafts at 3am if I wanted but I suspect I'll be in need of sleep!

So that's Wednesday and Thursday done. What's next? Well Friday of course (which should hopefully be in the next couple of days!).

Tabletop Day 2014 @ DWARF in Dunfermline

So this Saturday is Tabletop Day.  If you're not sure where to go and take part in one of the many thousands of events to celebrate our hobby then go to the Tabletop Day website and find out where your nearest one is.

If that happens to be Dunfermline in Scotland then come along to the DWARF event.

I'm bringing some of my board games -

Sentinels Of The Multiverse - 2 to 5 player co-op superhero card game. 45-60 minutes to play.
Gloom - 2 to 4 player card game where you make your family miserable and kill them off. 45-60 minutes to play.
Lords Of Waterdeep - 2 to 5 player board game where you are powerful lords vying for control of this great city. Roughly 60 minutes to play.
King Of Tokyo - 2 to 6 player board game where you play mutant monsters, gigantic robots, and strange aliens fighting each other to become the one and only King of Tokyo. 30 to 45 minutes to play.
Bang! - 3 to 7 player card game set in the Wild West where barrels are your friend and dynamite randomly explodes! 30 to 45 minutes to play.
The Resistance - 5 to 10 player card game where you are either in The Resistance or you're a Spy trying to stop the resistance! 30 to 60 minutes to play.
Jungle Speed - 2 to 8 player card game which is nothing like Snap! (with violence) whatsoever... 15 to 45 minutes to play.
Fluxx (Zombie, Star, "Standard" and I think 1 other variant) - 2 to 8 player card game where the rules and goal are always in Fluxx! 15 to 45 minutes to play.
Straw - 2 to 6 player card game where the players are trying to NOT break the camel's back unless it's with that elusive Straw. 30 to 45 minutes to play.

Plus I plan on running (if there's demand) 2 RPG scenarios.

The first one is a hack of my Prison Break scenario for Star Wars.  It's a hack as I need to condense it to no more than 90 minutes!  Doable but challenging!

The second one is an as yet undecided scenario for D&D Next/5th Edition.  I probably have toooooo many options here so will be picking something that fits the 90 minute slot as well as gives players a proper taste of the rules.

A Late Entry - D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge (Part 2)

A continuation from the previous post of what was supposed to be a Daily Posting challenge for February.

Day 15: What was the first edition you didn't enjoy. Why?
AD&D 2nd Edition.  Multiple reasons.  I bought it when I wasn't really gaming and tried to use it to reinvigorate my hobby. Unfortunately I didn't like the changes over AD&D 1st Edition and neither did my players.  Not just THAC0...

Day 16: Do you remember your first edition war? Did you win? ;)
Probably 3rd to 3.5.  Should really preface this with - I am not a rules lawyer or a believes in Rules As Written (RAW).  I won because of that.  The ability to fudge rules or make it work through GM Fiat or whatever can overcome any discrepancy or flaw in rules.

Day 17: First time you heard D&D was somehow "evil."
This totally went over my head until my 20s (so mid/late 90s) when I wasn't gaming but was researching the hobby during the early days of AOL in the UK and their exclusive TSR / D&D Section.

Day 18: First gaming convention you ever attended. 
I've covered that in my Gen Con UK post - Loughborough 1998.

Day 19: First gamer who just annoyed the hell out of you. 
Hmmm.  Tricky one this.  I don't think I've ever really been that annoyed by a player other than when playing at a convention or similar.  I've had players who have annoyed me but never enough to really bother me.

Day 20: First non-D&D RPG you played. 
Golden Heroes.  Probably just around the time it first came out so 1984/1985 ish.

Day 21: First time you sold some of your D&D books--for whatever reason. 
Never really tracked this that closely...  The biggest clearance I had was when my wife and I moved home 10 years ago and I sold off all of my gaming stuff except for 1 bookcase shelf worth of stuff which in hindsight I probably should have got rid off to as I no longer have any of that either!

Day 22: First D&D-based novel you ever read (Dragonlance Trilogy, Realms novels, etc.)
Dragonlance : Dragons Of Autumn Twilight.  Blew my mind and so many people I knew (gamers and non-gamers alike) were reading those books at the same time.  Largely defined my D&D playing back then and influenced my Kilranthia campaign too.

Day 23: First song that comes to mind that you associate with D&D. Why?
Stephen Lynch's D&D - Not sure why but it does.  I don't really associate songs with D&D other than this one...

Day 24: First movie that comes to mind that you associate with D&D. Why? 
Movie... Probably the Dragonslayer film.  Quickly followed by the Peter Jackson Lord Of The Rings movies.  I think if only because they portrayed fantasy as epic story telling.  Other films such as Krull, Hawk The Slayer and Beastmaster certainly were fantasy but not epic fantasy in the way I think of it although Krull specifically comes close to it.

Day 25: Longest running campaign/gaming group you've been in. 
2 different answers here I think.
Campaign - My Kilranthia game that I ran at ORC in Edinburgh.  It ran for the best part of 2 and a half years.
Group - My original gaming group.  We gamed together playing all manner of RPGs during the 80s and early 90s so I'd probably say 6-8 years.  Some of that was weekly gaming, some of it however had long gaps in between.

Day 26: Do you still game with the people who introduced you to the hobby? 
Nope.  I'd like to though if only for nostalgia's sake.  We did go through a phase during the KoA period where we'd get together around my birthday at the shop and game but that was more down to it being my birthday than anything else.

Day 27: If you had to do it all over again, would you do anything different when you first started gaming? 
This is a tough one. I started gaming erm almost 30 years ago so a lot has happened since then. I would say that if I had to change anything it'd be the number of games I bought that I never played or even read in some cases.  Definitely failed on the Only Buy It If You're Going To Use It principle back in those early years!

Day 28: What is the single most important lesson you've learned from playing Dungeons & Dragons?
It's all about having fun.  If you're not having fun then something needs to change.  I'm sure there have been various other benefits but that's the key lesson I've taken.

Phew!  That was more short and sweet again.

A Late Entry - D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge (Part 1)

So I totally missed this (and the follow up which will be subsequent posts!).

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge was (from what I can see) set up by Stelios V. Perdious who is the author of the d20 Dark Ages blog.

The intent of this challenge was to do a post a day (been there done that!) covering a series of questions.  I am not able to commit to that frequency at present so I'm going to tackle these over 2 posts which is a bit of a cheat...

Day 1: First person who introduced you to D&D? Which edition? Your first Character?
This would be my brother Allan.  He was the one that got the D&D Basic Set - Red Box.  I can't remember precisely why or how he got it (might have been a birthday present?) but he had it and I begged to get to play with him and his mates.  I think I played a Dwarf but not sure.  I tend to play Dwarves when playing D&D.

Day 2: First person YOU introduced to D&D? Which edition? THEIR first character?
This one is actually much harder than it should be...  It would have been the D&D Basic Set (Red Box) but player and character wise I actually can't remember.  If I was to take a guess it'd probably be my school friend (and still friend albeit he doesn't game any more) Gordon Robertson and he probably played a Fighter.

Day 3: First dungeon you explored as a PC or ran as a DM.
As a PC I think it would have been a homebrewed one that Allan came up with, likely a tweaked version of the one that was in the Basic Set.
DM wise I probably stole Allan's dungeon and re-worked it myself.

Day 4: First dragon you slew (or some other powerful monster). 
This is beginning to sound like a broken record but I don't remember specifics.  I just remember it being awesome!

Day 5: First character to go from 1st level to 20th level (or highest possible level in a given edition).
Never ever done that. Not sure why other than I have mostly been the DM than the Player.  Similarly never had a player get that far either largely down to longevity of campaign issues.

Day 6: First character death. How did you handle it?
That Dwarf died heroically as all good Dwarves do and at that stage I handled it perfectly fine as the character himself didn't really it didn't matter as I wasn't invested in him.
I've had players who have handled character death badly but that's likely a different post entirely.

Day 7: First D&D Product you ever bought. Do you still have it?
First one I ever bought would have been the D&D Expert Set (the Blue Box).  I no longer have it.
I was going to say the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook but I think that came shortly after.

Day 8: First set of polyhedral dice you owned. Do you still use them?
I "inherited" the poly set that came with the D&D Basic Set that Allan had (and the set itself when he stopped playing).  I still have the d20, d12 and d4 and do still use them.  The others were casualties of a dice bag being too close to a candle which caused them to melt...

Day 9: First campaign setting (homebrew or published) you played in.
Campaign Setting... Hmmm never so bold a definition I suspect.  It would have been some Tolkienised D&D based on whatever Allan was thinking up at the time.  Nothing specific that it had a name I think.

Day 10: First gaming magazine you ever bought (Dragon, Dungeon, White Dwarf, etc.).
That'd be White Dwarf.  Can't remember the precise issue number but it would have been around the 30 mark.

Day 11: First splatbook you begged your DM to approve. 
Again I was mostly the DM and I tended to be the one buying the "splatbooks" for incorporating into games.

Day 12: First store where you bought your gaming supplies. Does it still exist?
First store I bought something from was Games Workshop in York on a family holiday. It still exists (sort of) in that Travelling Man in York is essentially that same shop and Games Workshop still have a shop in York.
First store I classed as my FLGS would have been a gift shop in Falkirk called The Gilded Cage which stocked RPGs.

Day 13: First miniature(s) you used for D&D.
Erm I didn't use miniatures for D&D until 4th Edition and even then I didn't really use them for that!

Day 14: Did you meet your significant other while playing D&D? Does he or she still play? (Or just post a randomly generated monster in protest of Valentine's Day).
Seeing as this was supposed to be on Valentine's Day....
I didn't meet my wife through D&D or indeed any form of gaming whatsoever.  It's a hobby she's never been interested in but at the same time never "got in the way of" either.

Ok so that's the first 14 done...  Short but hopefully sweet replies, let's see how 15-28 go in the next post!

Why D&D Next is important.

So Wizards have confirmed that D&D Next / 5th Edition will be released in the Summer of 2014 which is usually code for "around the time of GenCon".

Why is this important though?

If you look at the D&D "family" of games you can see that these still account for the largest slice of the RPG hobby.

Pathfinder has in most regions replaced D&D as the market leader and with other relations like 13th Age and Dungeon Crawl Classics and the plethora of retro-clones out there you have to ask is there a demand for D&D itself?

I believe that there are 2 aspects to D&D with one more important than the other depending on your point of view.

Brand

D&D is for a lot of people looking in on the RPG hobby the only game that exists. You say "Roleplaying Games" to people who don't know what it is they will either look blankly or think of something like World Of Warcraft or another MMO.  If you say Dungeons & Dragons then you're more likely to get a reaction that at least suggests they know what you mean, if likely a more stigmatised version of the game.

The brand for D&D is largely historical and really down to the way that the hobby has been (mis)represented over the past 20+ years.  Without a D&D product available to buy it can be difficult to overcome that situation of a consumer wanting to buy D&D. Sure you could suggest alternatives but none of those have any kind of brand which usually results in a level of distrust if the consumer is asking for D&D itself.  I've witnessed this and it's not just limited to D&D but that's another story...

So I believe that having D&D as a brand is important to the hobby as it provides a recognisable name that the mainstream public can identify with and should be able to associate new people with the hobby.

It's D&D

This is more about the perception of the hobby from within.  Some people will focus on a specific game as their game.  For me fantasy roleplaying has always been about playing D&D and D&D has always been about fantasy roleplaying.  Sure there are lots of other fantasy based RPGs out there but none of them appealed other than in my early gaming years when I dabbled with games like MERP, Rolemaster and Runequest but ultimately D&D was where it was at.

There are others like me who will only play the "true" version of D&D simply because it's D&D.  Sure that's perhaps narrow-minded or even ignorant to what else is out there but it's not as if D&D is the only RPG I (or indeed those others) play.  I suppose in some respects it's an emotional attachment to the heritage of the game, plus as I've said elsewhere I embrace change in the hobby including new editions of a game.

Yeah but Dave, why is D&D Next important?

It may not have the largest market share of product sales right now and it might not even have the largest player base but it's D&D.  It's also being produced by Wizards Of The Coast who could quite easily have decided to not bother as Magic The Gathering continues to grow exponentially so why should they bother about a brand that isn't anywhere near as commercially viable?  It's D&D, that's why.

If it fails commercially then I do worry for the future of the brand and in turn potentially for the RPG marketplace but I think if nothing else it will help to provide some much needed interest in the RPG market as a whole.  If the finished game is anything like the playtest rules then I think it's going to be very popular, not sure if it'll be popular "enough" though (whatever that is).

So 2014 sees the release of 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons (well really 6th as 1st Edition was AD&D and we had "Basic" D&D before that but let's not split hairs) and it's also the 40th anniversary of the game being released.  That landmark milestone is a fantastic opportunity for Wizards to promote D&D in new ways and reinvigorate a title that in many respects lost it's way over the past 10 years.

Cursed Item Horror Stories

As I've posted previously me and horror don't really work that well together and given that this post is going out on Halloween I felt I should post something with the word Horror in the title.

This post could so easily have been about horror stories of games that have gone horribly wrong and been memorable for all the wrong reasons but I wanted to focus more on player character disasters rather than gaming disasters as it were.

For those old school D&D players amongst you there may be a shiver down your spine when you read this but please hang in there!

Back in D&D and AD&D 1st Edition (the latter especially I feel) cursed magic items were very much a part of the game.  Now these came in a variety of formats and in many respects were just variants (dangerous variants granted) on a normal item which if the PCs weren't careful would backfire on them.

One such cursed item that has stuck in my memory all these years is the Horn Of Collapsing.  A cursed item so vile and malicious that it was deemed too risky to include in the Queen Of Demonweb Pits scenario.  So what makes that item stand out from all the others?

Easy - It resulted in my first ever total party kill (TPK).  Ok so it wasn't really the Horn itself that did that, more the recklessness of the player who thought "Hey there's a bugle, I wonder what will happen if I play a tune on it?" and ultimately resulted in that TPK.

Now I no longer own the 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide but through the power of Google I was able to find a version of the rules for this despicable cursed magical item...

The horn appears to be a normal musical instrument, perhaps a bugle or warning horn of some sort. If it is sounded improperly (e.g., without first speaking the proper command word) or 10% of the time in any event, the following will result:

• Out-of-doors: A torrent of fist-sized rocks will strike the individual sounding the horn, 3d6 in number, each causing 1d6 hit points of damage.
• Indoors: The ceiling overhead will collapse when the device is blown. The character suffers 5d12 points of damage.
• Underground: The area immediately above the character sounding the horn will fall upon him. The damage is 5d8 points base, multiplied by one for each 10 feet of height which the material above drops (i.e., twice damage if a 20-foot ceiling, three times damage if a 30-foot ceiling, etc.).

Proper use of a horn of collapsing enables the character to sound it while it is pointed at the roof overhead from 30 to 60 feet beyond the user. The effect is to collapse a section of roof up to 20 feet wide and 20 feet long (10-foot radius from the central aiming point) which inflicts damage as noted above if indoors or underground only.

The horn can be used once per day.

Some versions of this horn have charges. These kinds can be used as often as desired until the charges are used up. They cannot be recharged but also do not require attunement. They will usually have 2d6+2 charges.

I just remember explaining the result and back then I didn't really cater for rewinding the clock or anything like that to give the players a 2nd chance.  The decision had been made to blow the horn and now all that was left was for lots of dice to be rolled.  The character in question was being played by my good friend Craig Milne who was part of my original gaming group back in the day and some 25 years later this episode is STILL cast up even though none of the original group (other than me of course) still play games.

I can't even remember what class Craig's character was playing back then or anything like that.  I simply remember that they were in a cave/underground complex and Craig's character discovered the Horn and decided to blow it.  The resulting dice roll killed the entire party in one foul swoop.  Needless to say that for many future games to come Craig was never again allowed to pick up random objects to see what they would do...