RPGaDay catch-up part 3: Days 10 to 12

Welcome back to my RPGaDay catch-up. With this post, I’ll be caught up on the questions.

This year, RPGaDay is hosted by BrigadeCon.

Day 10: What was the largest in-game surprise you have experienced?

I find this question strangely difficult to answer. As I improvise alot in my games. When I take the GM role, I merely set up situations and see them evolve. I am constantly surprised by what happens next which is in a way a cop-out.

Speaking to Brenda, she helped me remind me of an event that surprised me. For her, she was surprised that Princess Stasi was a succubus. My story is from a RPGA living campaign named Living Jungle.

Living Jungle was an organized play campaign set in Malatra, an isolate jungle environment in the Forgotten Realms setting. You were members of tribes and it had a rich atmosphere. I played Zwanlo of the Simbara tribe, a warrior mystic who was brave. In AD&D 2nd edition terms, I was a human wizard and I charged into combat at level 1.

On one adventure, we had to make a choice between saving the life of Bengoukee, a great and wise shaman who would lead our armies against the enemy or the life of spirit of the lion who would fight the tiger in the mystical realm. Zanlo had come to respect Bengoukee and didn’t wish for him to come to harm and as a member of the Simbara tribe, he worshipped the spirit of the lion. He believed that both should be strong and thus as a faithful servant, he offered his own life as a sacrifice. This felt natural and wasn’t the surprise. What surprised me was others in the party joining me in their offering. I think they thought I had seen a different angle where they might gain much when really, it was just a noble sacrifice that Zwanlo was making. The DM, Scott Delahunt, ruled that our sacrifice would mean that we would love a level which I felt was just. The other players got angry at me for having their characters lose  a level. I found it funny that on my record sheet, there was a negative value of how much xp gained. Scott later told me that if no one else had joined me that Zwanlo would be dead as I expected.

Day 11: Which gamer that you have played with has most affected the way that you play?

I would say my best friend from high school, Miguel Gervais, had the most effect on the way I play. He introduced me to D&D even though I had been playing “Livres dont vous êtes le héros” (Choose your own adventure books) and TMNT & Other Strangeness. Most of my previous experience was learning the game and showing to others. Miguel brought me to a group who had experience to the game. From there we tried a bunch of stuff and experimented with the rules. We weren’t afraid of changing stuff and go silly. I still remember his milk mage for one of our comedy April fools games. He set me on the path to try out stuff and learn from it. I continue to try stuff and learn. I’ve also learned so much since we made so many mistakes over the years.

Day 12: What game is your group most likely to play next? Why?

There’s various ways to interpret this question. Each leads to a different answer. The next time my regular group meets, we will probably play Dungeon World. I suspect we won’t have quorum for a game of Questers United, our D&D 4th edition campaign, and thus they will play the small group which Questers United send to tie up loose ends. I’m experimenting using 2 different systems for the same setting and have them interact.

As an aside, if you are a fan of D&D 4th edition and wish to join a campaign, please contact me. We’ve made modifications mostly from 13th Age. Questers United could use a new member probably from another plane or prime material world. If you wish silly fun and fight dragons, let’s talk.

On August 20th, I will be the Keeper for a Call of Cthulhu 7th edition demo using the A Time of Harvest organized play campaign. While this isn’t my group, it is a game that I’ll be playing next.

Finally, after Questers United campaign ends, I think we would be most likely to play Night’s Black Agents, the Dracula Dossier campaign. I have it and saw it win a bunch of Ennies at Gen Con. My best friend, Christine, finished reading my copy of Dracula Unredacted. I’ve listened to actual play podcasts about it and thus it excites me.

I asked this question to Brenda and she thinks Fate because everyone but her likes it. While I find Fate a fun system, I don’t have the spark of excitement to play it.

What game are you excited to play next? Is it an old game, something you saw at Gen Con or announced recently?

RPGaDay: Favourite RPG podcast

On August 13th, the topic is my favourite rpg podcast. I listen to several different podcasts during my commute to work and during breaks. I’ve mentioned one of my favourites before, Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff (KRTAS).

Hosted by Kenneth Hite and Robin D. Laws, KRTAS talks about a variety of subjects and usually try to spin it for a roleplaying perspective. They separate their segments into various huts which last about 15-20 min. long. Once they start rambling, starting on a tangent or repeating themselves, they expertly segway into a different hut and thus a different subject.

As they are both professional writers and game designers, they promote their products and discuss their current projects. As a fan of their work, I enjoy listening to their promotion of their stuff. Additionally, you can buy advertisement which they do themselves with hilarious and entertaining results.

I enjoy several of their huts. The gaming hut focuses on offering advice at the gaming table and how to deal with subjects of play. The Ask Ken & Robin hut is where they answer a listener question unless the question can be answered in a short way then it goes in their lightning round episodes. The How to write good hut gives their expert advice on the craft of writing. The Among my many hats hut focuses on their professional design work which they are either doing now or did in the past.

Ken’s Time Machine is a fun segment where Kenneth Hite is given a mission by Time Inc. to change history (or make sure history doesn’t get changed). This usually results in Ken taking a historical figure out for a drink. It shows how knowledgeable Ken is with history and his creativity in applying alternate history. As a fan of TimeWatch, you can delve into any of those time machine segments for scenario ideas.

I haven’t went to any of their live recordings but they seem to be a blast. They start out with a segment called nerd tropes where they draw a card from a deck of nerd subject cards and one from various tropes cards. Ken then mixes both subjects together for a fun narrative or campaign idea. For example, at Cthulhucon, they pandered to the audience and had a mix of Leonard da Vinci and Glaaki. He talks about how Da Vinci wrote the original Revelations of Glaaki, the one before volume 1. It was entertaining to hear and gave me ideas on running a Cthulhu mythos scenario or campaign set during the Renaissance.

What are your favourite podcasts?

RPGaDay: Forthcoming game you’re most looking forward to.

The game designer, Dave Chapman, holds the RPG a Day event this August. Every day, a rpg related topic posted each day. For August 1st, the topic is the forthcoming game which I’m most looking forward to.

My gut tells me such game is TimeWatch by Kevin Kulp, a time travel game using the Gumshoe engine designed by Robin D. Laws. I trust my gut. 🙂 I backed this game over a year ago on Kickstarter. I playtested it before and after the kickstarter. It is the first Gumshoe game which I played. The only other Gumshoe game which I played recently is Trail of Cthulhu by Kenneth Hite.

In TimeWatch, you play agents of the TimeWatch organisation who enforce temporal continuity. There are rogue agents, aliens from other timelines and other time travellers who wish to establish their own history. The agents go into the past, unravel what key element changed and then work to fix it so there are no changes to history.

When we playtested it, we played as time tourists. Folks who go to a different historical period to witness events. Of course, to add a story, there’s always an event where antagonists will attempt to change history. The tourists uncover strange events, they investigate and then decide how to resolve the issue. We also played a scenario where they brought passengers to the past as a historical tour and the passengers got into trouble which might lead to changes to history.

We playtested the Lovecraftian Timewatch variant by Chris Lackey. In it, your character sends their mind to the past to inhabit a character involved in the event. Creatures from the Cthulhu Mythos are trying to change history. You must uncover and stop the threat without losing your mind or bringing the attention of the hounds of Tindalos. This worked and resulted in doing some minor historical research in one of the suggested scenarios.

I had fun playtesting and look forward to get the book.

As a side note, I’m excited with the Sentinels of the Multiverse rpg, designed by Cam Banks, Phillippe-Antoine Ménard and Dave Chalker. They were part of the team for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying design team which I had fun play and wish to play again (more than one-shots). From what I hear, it is a mix of Cortex Plus, Apocalypse World and Fate Core which are great games. Sentinels of the Multiverse is a great cooperative card game.