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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Why RPGs Can’t Be Crowd Sourced, Yet

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/08/17 – 00:00 -

Recently my brain has been mulling over Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe. In which the author, with the breathless excitement of Wired writers, explains how “the power of the crowd” is going to eventually produce everything and change the shape of business. While I do agree with the points made thus far (I’m about half way through) I can’t help but apply it to my business of choice. While there have been some attempts to crowd/open source some RPGs it seems that the projects never quite get off the ground in any significant way; no one can seem to develop the Firefox of RPGs.

The Need for Change

Let’s face it, Dungeons and Dragons is not going to go anywhere any time soon, but why is that? Beyond the brand recognition we have a game that has gone through multiple incarnations, various parent companies and just keeps on going strong. What we don’t want to admit to ourselves, there just isn’t anything that wrong with the game. Sure it has its quirks and needs constant rule tweaking to make work the way we want it to, but there isn’t a driving need for something better. While I am a huge Savage World fan, I still play D&D; it’s like a comfortable pair of shoes. It’s easy to slip on and off when I want it. Without the driving need for change, it’s hard to get projects off the ground. We need a clear definable problem and the people to drive the change.

Lack of Brown Socks

In his book, Crowdsourcing, Jeff Howe cites a study that shows that given two groups the more diverse group will end up creating a better product. The study basically mathematically used a hyper smart, hyper focused group that they called Mensa. They then put it against a group that could have been picked from a collage facility lounge comprising of everyone, who in that room, happened to be wearing brown socks. The Brown Socks proved to be better decision makers then the Mensa group. Howe uses this study to prove his case that crowdsourcing yields better products. The problem with using this in our industry is that we really lack Brown Socks. Everyone who would be interested in a crowdsourced RPG would be put firmly in the Mensa category. In fact I would go as far to say that every one of our loyal readers would be put in this category. I mean, you are reading an RPG blog. It’s not to say that we can’t put out a good product, I know a number of savage licensees read this blog and make wonderful products. It’s just the community at large is to hyper focused to put out as good of a product if we were to get more casual interest in the project.

Good Writing is Hard to Source

Many years ago there was an article in Wired that discussed the idea of crowdsourcing news articles. The writer put out an idea for an article, and watched as the community tweaked it and expanded upon it until it became a full article. He then used it as a base for his article on examining the process. His biggest gripe was the fact that the writing was dry and informative but lacked voice. It got the point across without being compelling enough to print in the average news publication. Writing is tough job, getting across feeling, voice, and information in an interesting manner is something few can do. When too many hands are in the pot it makes the job nigh impossible. Too many different ideas can lead to boring and uninteresting work. Crowdsourcing works great for software development and problem solving when the objective and solutions can be clearly defined. As such I think it would be a great source for developing rules for a game. I’ve seen countless pages devoted to the art of tweaking a rule set to do what the GM wants and some are really great. Developing game content though, needs to be done on a much smaller scale.

With repositories of knowledge, advances in the field of science, and new daring ideas being take on every day it’s hard not to see the points Jeff Howe makes. Even his breathless excitement gets my mind racing from time to time, but it just can’t be used for everything.

I’d like you to prove me wrong. Tell me how crowdsourcing can be used for RPG development, and how it’ll eventually become the biggest game on the market. If there is a project heading that direction I would personally devote some of my spare cycles into its development.


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Savage Worlds Chat Event

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2010/08/03 – 19:34 -

We will be holding a chat event tomorrow, 8/4/2010, over at the IRC channel.  It will begin at 8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST.  Please let interested people know.

The subjects will include:

  • Converting a reluctant D&D player to Savage Worlds
  • Designing an epic Boss Fight
  • Anything else that comes up

You can find the channel on irc.slashnet.org in #savageworlds.

If you don’t have an IRC client, or you don’t even know what one is but want to chat, you can simply join the chat through this web client. Additionally, if you are running Firefox, you can install the Chatzilla extension, and then follow this link.


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How to Make Your Wizard More Magical with Skill Trappings

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2010/07/22 – 00:00 -

Unlike their D&D counterparts, Savage Worlds Wizards don’t have a plethora of spells littering their character sheet. Also, there isn’t a described cantrip mechanism that lets them do little magical things all day. But that’s a problem that a little imagination can fix without altering the rules at all using skill trappings.

What are Skill Trappings?

Skills are just a mechanic to differentiate characters who are good at something from those who are not. The Healing skill doesn’t go into detail as to how to stitch a wound or apply a bandage. All it cares about is success for failure at healing someone. How is left up to description and the trappings of the setting. For example, in a fantasy game, Healing would include the use of herbs and prayer. In a futuristic setting, it would include dermal regenerators or bacta tanks. The result is the same, but the trappings differ.

Applying that to Magic (aka, The Harry Potter Effect)

A wizard knows magic, so there really is no reason that he wouldn’t employ it to assist him in using skills. Instead of using brute force and nimble hands to repair something, he’ll apply heat and telekinetic forces to do the same thing. This doesn’t mean he gets any sort of bonus for using magic. Instead, the trappings of the skill change for him.

Let’s look at an extreme example: Harry Potter. The characters in Harry Potter use magic for everything from dominating friends and family to folding laundry. In fact, if you took a wizard’s wand away he couldn’t operate a toaster.

So, let’s pretend that you wanted to play a Savage Harry Potter game. You wouldn’t go through and pull out every little spell they used. Instead, you’d just make all those little spells trappings for normal skills, then give extra bennies to players who are good at roleplaying their skills (i.e. having a eidetic memory for made-up Latin).

Mechanical Effects

There are time, occasionally, where a specific trapping should have a mechanical effect. These are more rare than it often seems, as trappings are powerful and extra mechanics should be avoided, but sometimes it happens.

For example, in Harry Potter, if you take a wizards wand away, he should get a -2 penalty to all skill rolls because he lacks the proper equipment. If the party is being tracked by a magic-sniffing wolf pack, the wizard will draw their attention when using a little levitation to help him climb a tree (+2 to their notice rolls). Alternatively, if the party is in a mana-rich environment, such as at the crossing of two lay-lines or in a mana pool, the wizard might get a +1 bonus to all skill rolls. These are small, incidental mechanics that can probably be adjudicated on the fly, but should be considered.

What We’d Like From You

The idea of magical skill trappings seems sound, but we need more examples if people are going to be convinced. We’d like you to come up with some and leave them in the comments for other readers to be inspired.


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What was the Best Loot You Ever Received?

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2010/07/16 – 00:00 -

In my gaming career, I’ve received a lot of treasure.  Magic items, rare paydata, and more gold pieces than I could count.  In fact, I could probably buy a medium sized country with that, were it real gold.  Perhaps I’d save some as a hedge against inflation.

In truth, most of it isn’t memorable.  It’s just money or tools that will eventually be discarded.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise that my favorite piece of loot was a cursed item I couldn’t get rid of.

My very first D&D character was a fighter named Galic Roe.  He was a rather traditional fighter with a very big sword and nothing to make him interesting.  Then he found these magic gloves in a chest in the fairy realm.  They were simple leather gloves with stones on the back.  When pressed, Galic turned into a monkey.  And he could never take them off.

Oh, but it gets worse, for this was 2nd Edition D&D, and there was a random chance for everything.  It was possible, on an off roll, that an elephant would fall out of the sky and kill your horse.  In this case, there was a 1 in 100 chance that when I turned into a monkey, I wouldn’t turn back. Luck, always my best friend, was with me.  I got stuck the very first time I used it.

Things only got worse for Galic.  Sure, I found a powerful spellcaster to remove the curse, but it came at a price.  Galic was forever transformed into a half-man, half-orangutang, with four foot arms and bushy orange hair.

Fortunately, I didn’t give up on the character, nor did I play him to be silly.  I forged a real personality around his curse, and played through the campaign.  In fact, I played him again in a later campaign.  Today he’s one of my all-time favorite characters, and all because of a single cursed item in a treasure chest.

Now Your Turn:  What was the Best Loot You Ever Received?

Leave your story in the comments, and next week we’ll post the best story.  If you have any questions you’d like us to answer in a future Behind the Bar, let us know.

Last Week’s Winner Is: River

This was her response to the question, “What is your origins story?  How did you get started?”

The first gaming experience I has was with a made up Lego Castles game that my brothers and I devised when we were about 8 & 10 & 12. We each had a Lego castle that we positioned around the playroom, fashioning hills out of pillows and lakes out of sheets of ripped paper. Our lego men formed infantry ranks that could each move 6 inches every turn. Our cavelry could move 10 inches. Shiny swords did extra damage and shiny armor did more protection. Ghosts and skelletons inspired fear in the troops. Wizards cast spells. The princess hid in the tower (or led the armies, in my case) and killing the king meant you could try and take over his army.

Those were good times.

My older brother is also responsible for introducing me to D&D, though he never deigned to play a game with me. He did help me roll up my first character, though, showing me how to take advantage of the system in the most amazing ways.

I ventured into online RPs next, and eventually made it to my first D&D campaign in college. The rest is history.


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ENnie Award Opinions

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2010/07/15 – 00:00 -

Gen Con Indy is on the way, which means it’s time for the ENnie awards. Sure, everyone does a post expressing their thoughts on the nominees, but I think the Internet has room for mine as well. If you’re interested in other people’s take, you can read similar discussions on RPG Blog II and Critical Hits.

If you’re into gaming enough to be reading a blog dedicated to roleplaying, which I can safely assume you are, then you probably already know about the Ennies, but on the off chance you don’t, I’ll explain.

The ENnies are a fan based awards given to roleplaying games. They were started in 2001 on the EN World forums and have grown into one of the most respective awards in the industry. More information is available on the ENnie Awards Blog, including this year’s nominations. I recommend reading over the nominations before continuing.

And Now For My Opinions

Now I shall tell you who I think deserves to win each category. Obviously, I can’t have a fully informed opinion on every product. I haven’t read them all, or even heard of everything on the list. Chances are, you haven’t either. For that reason, I’ll try to be fairly thorough in my reasoning, but if you disagree with something, yell at me in the comments. Flame wars are good for business.

Best Adventure: Stolen Land

I can’t really be fair here. The only product in this category I’ve read is Pathfinder AP #31: Stolen Land. But I did read it rather thoroughly. The Pathfinder Adventure Paths have some of the greatest talent behind them and the best production values in the industry. This one, though is a bit of an experiment. It’s a sandbox world-building campaign where the Player Characters are supposed to become kings, which may be why the Adventure Path is called Kingmaker.

The appeal here is seeing how Paizo takes on what is essentially a Plot Point campaign. After reading it, I’m excited to find the right group to run it for. As such, I proudly choose it to win.

Best Aid or Accessory: Campaign Coins

I’m sorely tempted to give this to the Battlegraph Dry Erase Boards. I want those badly, but I probably wouldn’t really use them. The Campaign Coins, though, fulfill my love of props. And my love of metal things. It’s a win/win all around, really. I saw them in my local game store recently, but held off on buying them. They’re not cheap. But the website lets you buy them in smaller packs, and I may have to do that.

As a side note, I don’t understand Gaming Paper. It’s just a roll of large graph paper that I have to cut myself. I’d be far more interested if it was sold like an easel pad.

Best Art, Cover: Eclipse Phase

All of the nominations here have fantasic cover art, but I’ve seen enough Monsters and Fantasy covers that they no longer engage me. I haven’t seen very many tentacles ripping out of a space ship before. The whole Eclipse Phase cover fills me with a sense of loneliness. It’s breathtaking, in many ways, not all of them happy.

Best Art, Interior: Shadowrun – 20th Anniversary Ed

I adore Shadowrun, so I may be biased, but the amount of and quality of the art in this book really brings the setting to life. It’s not just quality, it’s evocative. Sure, the other contenders have great art, but again, I’ve seen fantasy. Lots of it, and it doesn’t enrapture me anymore.

Best Blog: NewbieDM.com

I read all but one of the nominations, and they’re all great works, but Newbie DM is working towards being a big name in gaming. The quality and usefulness of posts is consistent and high. Plus, NewbieDM practically lives on Twitter, so we hear from him a lot.

Best Cartography: Pathfinder City Map Folio

This packet comes with some beautiful city maps, which I simply like the look of more. Even if you’re playing your own city, you can use the maps in this pack. Each is distinct, with a unique feel and deisgn. That said, nobody does encounter maps as well as Wizards of the Coast, so I’ll give a solid nod toward Revenge of the Giants.

Best Electronic Book: Unknown

I’ve never even heard of any of these products, which probably speaks poorly of me. Sorry.

Best Free Product: Advanced Players Guide Playtest

It feels cheap to give this to Pathfinder. It was just a public beta test of the rules changes to what was already freely available in the SRD. Still, it was a very cool move, and it was a free copy of the Pathfinder rules, so it wins.

Best Game: Dragon Age: Set 1

I refuse to give this to Pathfinder or Shadowrun because they’re really just a little polishing and revising of the exact games I’ve been playing for years. Good improvements, all around, but not a new game by any means.

Dragon Age, while only one fourth of the whole game, is still a new game. And, the box comes with everything you need to play. And you can play the videogame to learn about the world. This comes together to make for a solid experience.

Best Miniature Product: Fortress of Redemption

This gets the win for just looking awesome. I want it. I don’t want to store it. I don’t play Warhammer. But I want it.

Best Monster/Adversary:  Hellfrost Bestiary

I have to give a nod to the Savage Worlds product. I also have to give a not to TAG for bringing a full monster book to Savage Worlds. Of course, Pathfinder is going to get this one, almost certainly, and probably even deservedly, but in the end it’s still just a Monster Manual.

Best Podcast: I can’t say

I haven’t listened to them, sadly. I’ll have to rely on your opinions.

Best Production Values:  Shadowrun – 20th Anniversary Ed

This one is close. As a whole Pathfinder has the highest production values in the industry. Every single product is fantastic. But the 20th Anniversary books are full of deep fiction, relevant and stunning art, and just about everything you need to really capture everything the game has been over the past 20 years. They’re something special.

Best Regalia:  Grind

It’s warjack soccer. Multi-ton steam powered robots pushing a spiked ball around a lava pit. I love it.

Best Rules: Can’t Comment

Strangely, I’ve never played any of the nominated games, so I can’t comment on the rules.

Best Setting: Day After Ragnarok

Even if this wasn’t a Savage Worlds setting, it would get my nomination. It’s unique, and not just a little. Ragnarok happened in the middle of World War 2. We nuked the giant snake. It’s pretty wicked.

Best Supplement: Player’s Handbook 3

With this release, Wizards has introduced hybrid classes and Psionics, and now 4th Edition D&D, after dozens of books, feels as complete as Pathfinder does in one book. That’s praise, of a sort. D&D 4e is it’s own beast, with certain strengths. If you’re a player that likes lots of shiny things, this book is the ultimate resource.

Best Website: d20PFSRD.com

Much of what I learned about Pathfinder I gleaned from this site. It’s well organized, making it an invaluable resource when you don’t want to dig through a several hundred page book.

Best Writing: Anathem by Neal Stephenson

I haven’t read any of the books on this list, but I did read Anathem, and it’s fantastic, if you like to fill your brain with science.

Product of the Year: Not Pathfinder

It’s inevitable that it will win. This game is the most significant release of the year, or for several years to come. And, I do like it. But I feel very dirty about giving Product of the Year to D&D re-branded. My personal favorite product is the Shadowrun 20th Anniversary, so in my heart it wins, but if the argument above applies to Pathfinder, it applies here too. So that’s it.

Thoughts?


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Wanted: Imagination

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/07/14 – 00:00 -

Yesterday I wrote about my love for pre-builts, be it adventures, characters, or settings. Anything that I don’t have to generate earns some love from me. When I was writing the article however I couldn’t help but come up with a rebuttal against my own argument. After all when I started gaming it was extremely fashionable to hate on pre-built anything; the era of the OGL did ruin it for a number of people.

Stifles My Creativity

The biggest complaint is the stifling of creativity. Pre-built don’t offer the same freedom that I can have with my own adventure. It doesn’t allow any changes for player’s taste or opinion; it’s all laid out in front of me, immutable as stone. If the wrong adventure is picked, my players or I could burn out before its done burden down by the pacing of the story. I can attest that adventure burn out has happened to me in my gaming career. Designing my own games allow me to make adjustments to the overall story. I mean who wants to stick with just one adventure, when you have a whole world you could make up?

Pushing the Envelope

I’ve never run a horror game; never really been my bag. While I could reach for a one sheet or pre-built adventure to help learn the craft, I’m far more likely to reach for what I know. While I could make my players go crazy with Cthulhu, or send the back to High School with Pinebox. All are fantastic settings to tell a story in. It’s just; I’m more likely to throw a band of orcs at them; my old school D&D colors shining through. With pre-built games I’m actually less likely to try something new; I’m just not sure how to run it. I look for comfortable dungeon dives, and fantasy settings where the bad guys are well defined. Why stray far from the tree?

Makes for Lazy GMs

Let’s be entirely honest with each other, we fall into lazy patterns when running pre-built adventures. We fall back on the adventure being balanced, and that it would provide all the necessary components to be fun. We don’t try as hard and we have a tendency to railroad our players towards the goals. We fail to think outside of the box instead relying on the scripted dialogue to convey any meaning. The way most games are written we can look at our players with apathetic looks on our faces and blink at them until they do what is obvious. No thinking required. What’s the challenge in using pre-built games?

I still fall on the side of using pre-builts, my love for them is strong and while I am lazy I’ve gotten pretty good at tweaking adventures to fit my needs. I know I’ll have fully lost any respect as a GM when they come out with Choose Your Own Adventure for Savage Worlds and I run that game. Feel free to take away my blogging credentials when that happens.

So where do you fall on the debate, pre-builts, or your own worlds all the time?


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Would You Like to Play a Game?

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/07/09 – 00:00 -

I first played Dungeons and Dragons about ten years ago.  Never will I view a polyhedral die in quite the same way as it will always make me think of a thief named, Mr. Bigglesworth.

Mr. Bigglesworth came to life late on a sunny Fourth of July about ten years ago. We we’d lit off all the fireworks that we could and we’re looking to kill some time until the sun went down. I was at a friend of a friend’s house for the party; we’d run into each other at school but never really talked much. He apparently had some ideas on how to pass the time.

“So,” he said while stroking his four long inch goatee. “Have you ever played, ah, AD&D?” His stutter became more apparent in that moment; his voice a quiet whisper like a drug dealer asking if you’d ever tried meth. I shook my head.

“It’s really easy,” he said palming the dice in his hand, “Tell me what you want to do and-uh then roll the dice. If you roll the right number, you succeed. Easy.” He made a rolling motion to reinforce his point.

I licked my lips, my mouth dry from the heat, thinking it would at least be cooler inside. “Ok,” I say slowly, “Maybe just one game.”

He chuckled and grinned like he knew a dirty little secret. My friends nodded excitedly they’d been playing for almost six months now. I felt like I had just asked a girl out for the first time, my hands sweaty, my eyes flicking nervously to my friends, I’m terrible with people I don’t know.

“I don’t know the rules,” I mumbled, “but I know how to play characters, I…” I trailed off and thought to myself.

Would I tell them my dirty little secret? I mean I’d only played in Star Trek AOL Chat Rooms before, I mean how un-cool could you get? Sure I’d ran fleets of ships, faced off with the Borg, and bent an elbow with other Captain’s on Ten Forward, but this was real life. I was almost sure I’d get laughed out of the basement. I mean talk about nerdsville, but I didn’t want them to think I was a total noob. I sighed inwardly, and braced for the laughter and shame that I knew was coming.

“I’ve only ever played Star Trek online,” I stammered quickly. I took a quick breath and rushed through to the end; trying to get it all out before they laughed in my face. “I mean I’ve ran a few games, and I really like playing characters but I’ve never done anything with dice, and in person.” I looked down at the floor trying to hide my embarrassment. I waited for the mockery; everyone else I’d told had laughed, why wouldn’t they? What made them any different?

“Well I’ve never been much of, uh, Star Trek fan but whatever gets you off. I like fantasy and games like Diablo 2, which is the rule system we’re using. Have you ever played Diablo 2?”

“Yeah! I really like playing the Necromancer, and summoning stuff.”

“Those are a bit tough to play, what else do you like?”

“Oh, well… I’ve always fancied myself as a bit of a thief. I’ve gotten into a bit trouble before, nothing to serious.” I wondered why I was opening up like this. I normally never talked this much.

“That we can do, let’s start by rolling up your stats.”

Once a week we go behind the bar at Apathy Games and discuss gaming in more personal terms and ask you to respond. The best response will be featured the following week.

This week our question is, “What is your origins story?  How did you get started?”

Our Winner From Last Week – 77IM

Last week we asked the question “What film would you like to see made into a full fledged RPG?”

Although it’s a television show rather than a movie, I would love to play in the setting of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It’s a postcyberpunk transhumanist world in which super-powered detectives fight electronic terrorists, and everybody has an iPad embedded in their skulls. I guess when I put it that way it doesn’t sound all that compelling, but it’s really a fantastic show — the characters are interesting and believable, and the way the show explores technology, society, and human existence is dead on. I basically consider it the best work of science fiction ever, in any medium. As an RPG, it would be a good blend of mystery and action, with the bonus that you can hack anything, including your enemies.


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The First Roll is Free

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/06/08 – 00:00 -

Over the weekend I found an exciting new opportunity, I got to introduce a young geek to the joys of roleplaying.  My new brother-in-law came by on Sunday to hang out with us, and I convinced him (with no arm twisting at all) to join my Savage Worlds game.  As a 15 year old kid he tried to hide his interest in playing, watching him try to play it cool made it worth asking.

Starting with the Basics

The first thing I did was asked him what type of character he wanted to play.  Some basic probing questions of if he wanted to be young, or old, male or female.  Strong, or good with guns.  Then I followed it up asking him what the character did for a living.

“He’s in the CIA!” He responded.

“Interesting,” I say, making a note on his character sheet, “What does he do for the CIA?”

“He uh…  Does Black Ops Missions, but he does it cause he’s good at it, not cause he-you know-likes killing people.  Nothing like that, he just does what the government tells him to do.”

We went on with this line of questions for a couple of minutes.  At no point did we get into the crunch of the game.  It’s important for this type of introduction not to get into rules.  It’s not that I thought he couldn’t grasp them, I just didn’t want his focus on something that wasn’t necessary for play.  As a new player I wanted him to ask, “Can I do this?” Not, “How do I do it?”  The difference, to me at least, involves some imagination.

Getting the Old Hats Involved

All of my players are relatively new to Savage Worlds and we’re just beginning to understand what Pulp Action really means.  So while we did have a new player they’ve been roleplaying enough to learn how to prompt each other well for responses.  Creating a call and response from a new player helps draw them out of their shell, and my players prompted wonderfully. They even showed him the frenzied action of the game by ramming a vehicle into a warehouse and driving over all of the enemies.  It was rather joyous to watch all of them working together.

The Aftermath

The drive home was spent hearing a recap of the events that had just transpired.

“Remember when I shot those two guys with the rifles? That was really good huh?”

“It was a great shot, you were fantastic playing.  You picked up on the mechanics really quickly.”

“I didn’t think I would, it was so confusing at first, but when I figured out it was just simple addition it started to get easy.  When are you playing again, I want to play again.”

I had to smile and reminisce on my own joy of beginning to play, when I drank way to much soda and powered through epic marathon sessions of Dungeons and Dragons.

“I think you could definitely join us again,” I said trying to suppress a grin.

“AWESOME! My character is so cool I want him to be able to…”

What was your introduction to gaming? Or have you ever introduced a new player, how’d it go?


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The Power Of Trappings

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/06/01 – 00:00 -

While reading Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies, I ran across an interesting article (as happens more often then not) by Spenser Isdahl discussing how to change the feel of a campaign by removing specific classes from the game.  I was enjoying the thought of making some changes to my current Dungeons & Dragons game when my thoughts wandered to Savage Worlds (as we all know they tend to).  A basic design philosophy struck me:  in D&D, to change a setting you need to add to the world (be it new classes, feats, skills, weapons, etc), changing mechanics to get a new game.  In Savage Worlds, you modify the descriptions, or the trappings–no new crunch required.

Trappings can be powerful.  A veteran Savage GM understands this at an almost intrinsic level.  As we’ve discussed in our primer, a trapping is typically a change in description.  While a change in crunch can happen, it’s not required to get the feel of the game.  In Slipstream, for example, you can breath in space.  In Ravaged Earth, the Heroes just don’t die.  Neither one of these changes required a change in the rules. It’s simply noted in the description text and away we went.  One could even make changes to a spell such as Blast.  Do you want to set stuff on fire? Done.  Be so hot to melt stone? Done. You’ve only changed the description; the crunch hasn’t changed.  In D&D, these would have to be represented through different levels of spells.  Fireball could burn some wood, but melt stone? Maybe, if it was three levels higher.

With that being said, I still play both games; they satisfy different styles of play.  In Savage Worlds I get high flying hero action with a one-two punch of cool. In my D&D games I like that the heroes can withstand boat-loads of damage, and I enjoy having lots of crunch for my weapons and spells. Both of these satisfy my inner GM.  Besides even Pinnacle has said their game isn’t for everyone.

What’s your favorite trapping to employ? What’s your favorite campaign style that you’ve emulated?


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