So I have played a lot, and ran even more, 3.x games in the past. While I quit running DnD because it was too much work and way too much of a miniatures game, I still feel that the rules of 4e are awesome.  [Insert hippie indie gaming gobbled y gook here] I actually enjoyed it though because the mechanics were broken……This is so disgusting for me to say.

If read all of the books and spent a lot of time building a character and kept track of their advancement with regard to the  new content, I could be build a horribly broken character. And this is where I circle back to my hippie gamer self. I can, without dereliction of conscience, say that I made broken characters for DnD 3.x so that I could role play them better. If there are two level 7 fighters in a room how do you distinguish them? (Huh, well that is an interesting allegory) You do it, if you are a player, by making one extremely broken in at least some regard.

I never realized what appealed to me about some games, now I know. It was the fact that if I wanted to build a charismatic commander I would have to tear apart the game and figure out how to do such a thing. I could not just say so, and because of the work involved my masochistic nature actually felt rewarded for it.

And thy rant is done.

/shout http://www.storygames.com

Makes me not want to run any games their at all. Whoever she is, she should not be the one organizing the RPG’s I really do not think she knows what one is.

Although, I should correct that, they are what I run exclusively. As the only games I have available to me to “Play” are either DnD 3.5 – 4, or World of Darkness LARPS. And while the LARPS are really interesting, they usually focus too much on player skill, rather than character skill for my tastes.

My problem is that many of the really interesting games do not promote the concepts, or mechanics, of a campaign to me. And as such in my opinion do not constitute a role playing game, and instead feel more like a party game / board game where you “Role Play” a character (loose definition, I know, but it is the clearest that I can put it).

Take something like Kagematsu (which is essentially My Life With Master / Samurai, for those not familiar with it), which I got to play and picked up at this year’s Gen Con. Or other games like Inspectors, SotC, Dogs in the Vineyard, In a Wicked Age, Breaking the Ice, OcTane, My Life With Master, and many more, are not role playing game IMO. They are Party Games…..

I love these games to death, they are some of the greatest games that I have ever played or run, but, other than at cons, I will likely never touch them. Why ?, because you cannot run a campaign with them. Yes, some of those games have rules for extending the game (ie Character Advancement, and recovery rules). Though, the usual advancement really begins to cap out at about 5 sessions for most.

Even our 3:16 game capped out after about 5 missions, who took us about 8 sessions, and it was built for campaign play.

A lot of these games are centered on a concept / theme / mechanic, but are never as fully fleshed out as, I feel, they should be.

What are your experiences?

Are you getting frustrated buying these awesome games and never being able to play them because they are not campaign material?

Why are so many of the Indie games centered on the “One Shot?”

Albany Group

http://www.livinginnod.com/files/Albany%20Group.pdf

Cincinnati Group

http://www.livinginnod.com/files/Cincinnati%20Group.pdf

Las Vegas Group

http://www.livinginnod.com/files/Las%20Vega%20Group.pdf

So I can not find a program that I am interested in, that I can actually afford, so I am now out of school. I am still taking some classes online though.

It also appears that I have only about a month left of actual employment! Yay! I join the rest of the American populous in unemployment.

Anyway. We decided to take a look at dogs. This was a bad idea, since we did not plan on actually get one that day. We got to the rescue and ones we had seen online were a little sick that day so we decided to take a look at the two rambunctious pups in the cage next to them. We couldn’t let them go, and we could not seperate them, so we got both.

And our hands have been full since…

]]> http://www.livinginnod.com/?feed=rss2&p=153 0 http://www.livinginnod.com/?p=147 http://www.livinginnod.com/?p=147#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:01:43 +0000 Rach http://www.livinginnod.com/?p=147 From Thursday August 5th to Sunday August 8th, we will be elbows-deep in geekdom!

Oh yes, I’m stoked.

http://badgods.com/rudolph.html

Here is an idea. Players will roll a die based up on the difficult of a task, lower the die the more difficult the task is, higher means it is easier. Record the number in grid box on a campaign tracking sheet. When you have two numbers that are the same next to each other this creates another complication. Any time a complication is created you circle it and make a note about what is happening, and in what episode. You gain advancement based upon the number of complications you resolve in a given episode. You only have so many boxes per episode, until you need to make it to the cliffhanger box to the side. Advancement could be spent on the ability to roll an extra die of a specific size on a challenge, or possibly a re-roll under certain situations.

The grid would look something like so:

XXXXXXXX      XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX      XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX      XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX      XXXXXXXX

Each grid section is an entire episode. This shows the finite amount actions you can make in a show and the cliffhanger you must connect with in the middle.
There should probably be some sort of minor penalty for not completing a complication from a previous episode.

Like maybe complications that did not get resolved can no longer award XP.

Or even they can still award XP but will automatically fill certain boxes in the next episode. Maybe they fill the boxes in the middle fist so that players have to “Work around” the complication.

I feel so dirty now……