Crowdsourcing: How it is Working

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/08/18 – 00:00 -

While I tapped out a merry tune of how crowdsourcing an entire RPG would never work, smug in my well thought out points, Jeff had to go and ruin it. Before posting the article he quickly made some points on how crowdsourcing was working, in smaller ways, the jerk. He quietly pointed out that the community at large made some great material that he’d used himself and dismissing it all as not working wasn’t quite the best route. I’m unfortunately, and with great sadness, forced to agree with him.

Rules Tweaks

I believe I did briefly mention this in my previous article that the community at large is fantastic for rule tweaks; anyone who has spent time reading our Savage Mondays knows this. It can be easily said that the crowd will create a better rule system then Pinnacle or Wizards ever could. Fans will spend countless hours tinkering with rules to get them to feel and play a certain way. All to make their lives easier, and sharing it just makes it easier for the rest of us. Even we here at Apathy Games, are guilty of the occasional suggestion, like modifying combat, and changing skills, all of these developed to make our lives easier that you.

Tips, Tricks, and Tools

We love good tools, but so does every gamer. The community has given us a tool for generating names, they’ve given us their time and feedback by showing up to the savage chat. We’ve in turn given back tips for keeping track of potential players, generating characters, and tips on using hindrances for writing prompts. Crowdsourcing is a two way street, without someone else giving feedback we’re creating in a void. You, our readers, inspire us to continue creating and writing. We’re like fairies, except we survive off of comments instead of claps (though we’ll take either when we’re within ear shot).

Grab and Go Material

The Savage community is really at its best when it’s producing grab and go material. I’ve seen blogs generate countless hooks, generate many characters, and more gaming aids then when could ever need. Without the community at large Savage Worlds would still be a part of the Great Rail Wars miniature game (that’s right I just busted some history up in here) and would never have attracted people like me to start developing for it.

So when it comes down to it, I can’t dismiss crowdsourcing all together. Without the crowd, no the community, we wouldn’t have the games that we do today.


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Cooking Up the Big Show

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/07/28 – 00:00 -

My wife is a fantastic cook, she can do things with seasonings that would you make you sing praises to your maker. She’s always telling me that cooking isn’t terribly hard and can be distilled down into a couple of main points. Use fresh ingredients (preferably organic), season well, and always salt the water. Gaming is like cooking, you have to be prepared, have all the rights ingredients and a little TLC goes a long way (that way they really don’t expect the traps).

The Hook

The beginning of every story starts here; the event that starts the characters on their course. Your hook has to be strong; enticing players with its alluring provocative scent. A good hook should scream of enchanting mystery and adventure. It should waft out to the players luring them in until it’s too late, and the jaws of the hook sink into them. Slamming around them and thrusting them into the adventure, powerless to stop the course of events that has been set into motion their only course of action is to follow where few dare tread.

The Plot Twist

A good soup is one that is done slowly, the ingredients have time to soak in the juices of everything and really bring out the flavor. Good seasoning is a subtle art, too much and the dish is spoiled; too little and you can’t taste that it’s there. The art of the plot twist is that it’s unexpected (I mean it is called a plot twist) so letting it fester in the background until the last minute is half the fun, well at least for the GM. When coming up with the plot twist try coming at it from unexpected angles but be wary of being to over the top as it becomes rather obvious.

The Big Finish

They say that presentation is the biggest part of food. For me it’s the build up to seeing it, smelling the food, talking about the food, and then finally seeing the food. A big final finish is much the same way, its 90% build up. All of the careful planning and work we put into all the details leading up the end is all presentation. It’s nothing more than window dressings, which is why some fail even after careful planning. Still if all your ingredients are there and you’ve been simmering it just right, it should be one hell of a brawl.

What are your three tenants of game design? What can you compare to gaming that, like cooking, has a simple enough idea?


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My Favorite Job: The Holy Man

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/06/29 – 00:00 -

I love playing Clerics; Paladins; anything with a bent towards the higher calling. For me it’s always added depth to characters. It gives them a more rounded depth that I can’t find in other archetypes. My rogues tend to be motivated by greed; fighters the lust for battle; wizards the collection of more power. Any Godsent archetype can be motivated to do any of these things; the only difference is they do it on behalf of someone else.

The Motivations

While I’m sure it’s different for every player I have a hard time not crafting selfish, greedy, characters. I think it’s come from my years of playing Rogues. If I don’t have a shit eating grin on my face with one hand in the party treasure and the other on the dagger hidden up my sleeve I’m just not playing the right kind of rogue. So I’ve run the opposite end of the spectrum, basing them off of Paladin’s I’ve enjoyed reading about. The key for me is to not play them overly rabid but strong simple people who believe strongly in their faith and act accordingly.

Personal Struggle

The fascination of holy men, for me is around the personal struggle with their faith. Even the strongest members of the faith have their doubts, and all of them are challenged by it. The strongest warrior is always worried about the man who will defeat him in battle; a cleric is worried about how they will fall from their faith. Even if these worries are deep rooted and something that would likely never come out into the open, everyone has a deep worry. Clerics just can have theirs openly challenged and battled, roleplaying out this deep struggle has led to some rewarding character developments.

Depth of Material

Almost any setting that has gods in them has lengths of the book describing them. Take the much touted Iron Kingdoms (a personal favorite) they have an entire chapters describing the faith and the ramifications of believing. Not just crunch either, they weave flavor text and story into the reasons, prompting character prospects and GM hooks. For me there is no other section of an RPG book that could be more interesting and more telling about the world then this section. Cultures rituals can be more telling than any history or any oral stories. Consider the act of Christian communion the small act of eating bread and wine can speak volumes about a person’s beliefs as well as indicate more about the faith the person believes in. Understanding how the gods interact with the people of the world can give you a truer insight into the author’s mind that is writing the setting.

Why is the Cleirc/Holy Man/Paladin/Chosen One your favorite class to play? What is the story of your characters calling?


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How to Build a One Sheet Adventure

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/02/24 – 00:00 -

While I was writing Game Mastering on the Fly I started thinking about Savage Worlds One Sheets and what it would take to design one.  Most of them are written like fleshed out hooks with images and fleshed out enemies.

For example in “Feast of Famine” a Deadlands: Reloaded Savage Worlds One Sheet (really guys are you trademarking One Sheet or SW One Sheet?) the hook could have been, “After coming across an empty Saloon the posse hears rumors of ‘tall, black-suited salesman’ spreading lots of merchandise upon further inquiry it seems there is something more nefarious afoot.”  It’s a little vague but leads you with questions to expand upon and tell your story.  But how do we go from hook to fleshed out One Sheet?

Start at the End

As backwards as it may sound starting at the end gives you a clear picture of where you want to end up.  Coming up with ideas about your enemy and the end goal allows you to easily figure out how to get there.  What’s your enemies purpose, their goals?  If your looking to setup a dungeon crawl what kind of traps do you want to unleash on the PCs?  What treasure brings them to this location?  Once you’ve picked your enemy or your dungeon/treasure try to summarize the adventure in a couple of sentences, similar to developing your hook.

How do they get there?

Once the end goal is in mind come up with how they are going to get there.  Be general to the setting.  Taverns are great places to hear about unexplored dungeons full of treasure.  Futuristic/Modern/City settings may lend themselves to a bounty hunt.  Give enough description for other GM’s to know what your trying to get across without being too specific.  Naming a tavern is wonderful touch.  Naming the city, state and current king in power might be getting to be to much.  Try to lend your One Sheet to fit into any campaign where the style fits.

Flesh it all Out

Now it’s time to put the pen to paper and block out enemies name some NPCs and begin the hard work of writing.  The most amount of detail is going to be needed at the end with the stat blocks and final scenes, so start there.  That way if you end up taking an entire page (the back in this case) you know how much space you have to get the PCs where they need to be.  Once your all done writing it up PLAY TEST!

The Red Pen is Mightier

Run through the adventure a couple of times with a couple of different groups.  Keep good notes, where did you have questions?  What could be cut out and left up to other GMs?  Then edit, edit, edit.  Your goal should be to reduce your word count while still leaving things clear.  Once done hand it to another GM to play it without you around.  This step is important as you will not be around to explain to anyone else running so sit on your haunches and wait.  When the GM gets back to you, let them tell the tale once through before letting asking questions.

When they’re done, ask the following:

  • Did you have fun running it?
  • Did your players enjoy themselves?
  • Was it easy to understand?
  • Did you have any parts that didn’t make sense?
  • Would you want to run it again?

Make sure to thank them for their time, absorb their feedback and make changes as appropriate.  Now, find a new GM and do it again. Continue this process until your ready to claw your eyes out.  Once your done bleeding your ready to publish! HURRAY! We’ll pause for celebration.

Tyson loves creating adventures, but sometimes wishes he could lower his standards.  He does wonder however, how much luck have you had writing a published item?  How much writing, editing and play testing did you do before you released?


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Game Mastering on the Fly

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/02/23 – 00:00 -

I’ve previously discussed organizing your hooks but what if your new to Game Mastering and don’t really know what a hook is and don’t know why you should keep them all organized. A hook is a couple of sentences that give you a jumping off point to begin an adventure. You should keep them easily organized because it allows you to quickly start an adventure and allows you to thread in different events to your game.  Personally I keep a couple hooks handy to drop in as needed.

Picking your Hook

Obviously one of the toughest choices is picking which hook you want to employ on your characters.  Questions you might be asking is how much detail do you put into a hook?  What should a good hook do? A good hook should be vague and get you thinking about moving your PCs forward. Let’s borrow an example hook from Rocks Fall Everyone Dies which I lovingly abuse for such matters.

“One of the PCs has an admirer, a powerful one. An enchantress known across the land as having the ability to bend lesser wills to her whim at only the slightest exertion of her talents. She may have worked for a friend or foe in past, but somehow saw her chosen PC in action. If the PC is flattered and accepts her advances, she quickly proves too commanding to coexist with the PCs peacefully. Either way, after being rebuffed, she flees the city, and promises to ensnare her love’s mind as soon as he leaves the protection of civilization.”

The premise is simple and can be summed up in a couple of sentences. Its open ended, vague and allows you to fit it into any campaign. It also hooks the PCs into the action and continues from there. Imagine the awkward flirting that’s about to ensue between the GM and the lucky PC from this hook. I’m sure that’ll be worth a good story or two.

Fleshing out your Enemy

Now that you’ve either selected your hook or created your own it’s time to flesh out your enemy. Using our previously mentioned hook this would be the enchantress. This is the time to figure out her stat blocks, personality, background and motivations. Once the motivations are done you’ll know how to slot the enemy into the game.

Elaborate and Go

The only thing left to do at this point is establish a background for the game and the hook.  Using our established hook we’d ask ourselves, “Where do the PCs meet the enchantress and how are we going to introduce her now?” Once the background and introduction has been established start rolling some dice!

What’s been your favorite hook to use and what results did it lead to?


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Organizing your Hooks

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/02/02 – 00:00 -

Adventure hooks are a must have for every GM’s arsenal.  A list of quick plots to get you going is amazing when used at the right time, but how do you organize such a beast?  In this digital age everything needs to be categorized, tagable, and searchable.  Take this blog for example, you can search by tag, category or words contained in the post to find what you need.  Google has spoiled us in quickly finding the information we need.  So what is a GM to do? Use Evernote.

Evernote is a powerful note system that is easily accessible from not only your computer but from any mobile device.  This means any time you think of a hook or idea for your game you can quickly note it to access it later.  It makes everything searchable, allowing you to easily find everything.   Organization is a snap, just make a new note and place it under the notebook you want it to be under.

Personally I organize my plot hooks under a simple notebook called “plot hooks” I tag them with monsters that appear in the hook, the system, and some words that might describe it.  As Evernote also allows you to add images, I include pictures of the monsters.  I also link to websites I may need to reference for the hook to work.  This allows me to dump in everything I need to run quick encounter.  Add in another notebook for prebuilt characters and I’m ready to go anytime.

While this is an ideal solution for most organizational needs there is one small snag that you can only upload 40mb a month.  While this is rather paltry in size it does allow for quite a bit of text, just go easy on the pictures.

Overall this product has been great at helping me organize my games and may consider getting a premium account for more upload space.

What tools do you use to organize your games? Pen & Notecards or do you have something a little more digital?


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