The Cultural Attache

I am still working on creating an interesting cultural encounter. At least something more so than the usual stuff I'd do, which is try and present the players with something familiar with fantastic elements.

My friend Frank has said that it's good to draw on something familiar, because it "fills in the blanks," meaning that from what everyone knows about, say, feudal society, they can infer all of the little details that I don't give out when describing the society. This in turn lets them draw their own conclusions as they synthesize the data I give to them with the rest of what they know, making it easier for them to get involved in the (social) action.

So what I have done so far is taken a look at other "created cultures" to see how they've taken the fantastic elements of the worlds they're from and how they relate/effect the society that makes use of them.

The best example of this I can think of is from the show Avatar: The Last Airbender. They have four distinct cultures, each loosely based around a certain vaguely Eastern type of society and the mastery of one of the four classic elements, Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. The four different elements equate to four different styles of dress, methods of defense, cultural mores, etc. And of course, four different kinds of awesome powers. Another thing that I've noticed tends to shape the behaviors of the nations in this show (and hopefully in any game I'd run) is the effect that worldwide events are having on the interactions between each culture.

The Fire Nation is attempting to conquer the world. To this end, they are very industrialized, focused on making machines of war. As a result, their nation is militarized, their structure is very strict. Duels of honor known as Agni Kai are a very striking and visual example of this society. Two combatants square off fighting each other in a manner displaying their skill at Firebending.

Whereas the Earth Kingdom, having been invaded, is heavily focused on defense. They combine the strength of the earth with the intractability of stone. Combat (of the non-lethal variery) tends to be focused on moving your opponent, or crushing them beneath the weight of the earth. Their society, while structured, affords a greater deal of freedom.

Now I am not sure what about meeting a new culture would appeal to any given Explorer, so what I plan to do is come up with encounters among culture that run the gamut from diplomacy to combat. In the examples above, both nations, Fire and Earth come equipped with different devices that can be used to make encounters in either feel different; whether an Agni Kai or an Earth Rumble (kinda like the Royal Rumble, but with more boulders) the fights can feel different, as can the mannerisms of any given subject. I know there's more to society than just its mannerisms, there's also the values, and by extensions taboos to consider, alongside of the style of dress and even local flora and fauna.

So in building the social encounters, I will try and keep these ideas in mind, remembering that my world is as fantastic as I make it. I have a wide variety of elements to choose from. So for example, I could take the Agni Kai and apply it to the Dragonborn, and maybe call it the Breath of Honor, or something, which would be a fight between two Dragonborn, with the goal being to wear one combatant down and render them unconscious with a single, powerful breath weapon blast. Or I could steal a little less blatantly and describe an inn in one of these Dragonborn cities, where the chef happens to be heating food by breathing fire.

And that's just one race. The key here, I think, will be keeping in mind both what races and classes the pcs are, and their backgrounds, so that I can lead them to cultures different from the one they've gotten to know in their first few levels. And in order to speed up the process of developing expectations, I can start them off in a very standard, very generic fantasy/pseudo-medieval feudal society. I'll have them be above serfs, but in a village full of them, so they can see firsthand what life is like. And as mentioned before, the players should fill in the blanks on society.

Then after a while, when they encounter a new culture, they'll be a little more surprised, as it will be something different from what they've experienced to this point. It will be new enough that they won't immediately know everything about it, but easy enough to pick up the information, allowing them to get more and more involved.

That's the main goal, to keep the players interested and involved.

Close Encounters of the I made a bad joke

Today, I've been back to world building. As I said earlier, I've always been kind of fascinated with the Explorer.

So while exploring ways to interest and engage an explorer, both with cool cultures and exotic locales, I've been looking at designing encounters that would appeal to this kind of player as well. With that in mind, I'm going to take a look at a sample encounter I might build with an appeal to the explorer. To make it a little simpler, I'm going to focus more on exotic locale, rather than cool culture for this encounter.

One of the big keys seems to be in setting the scene. It's the chance to really convey where the players are, allowing me to differentiate between fallen ruins that act as difficult terrain, or thick gnarly vines which are difficult terrain, and so on, which is itself, difficult terrain. I know right?

But it's not enough to set one encounter apart from the others with a description of the environment. I've got to try and make encounters in the more "explorey" locations stand out from the others. One thing I am thinking of doing, is giving the terrain a bigger part in the scene. It is already an important part of any combat, what with difficult terrain slowing up monsters, and cover and concealment allowing lurkers to get around to shank more vulnerable PCs. But I think I can try and give it a little more active role, whether through traps/hazards or interesting terrain effects.

So, say I send the party deep into the Shadowfell. Possibly so deep they are in Shadow Shadow bo Badow, and they come through this twisting shadowy mist into a cavern. In this cavern there's a copse of exotic ghost mushrooms the size of trees that give off a faint bluish/white glow. They are slightly translucent, perhaps they have grown so large from eating the dead and decaying ghosts and specters and other haunted souls that roam the lands of the dead. All around them motes of dust and spores dance in their light.

So let's say I have a few stands of these giant mushrooms spread around the cavern. That's kinda cool in and of itself. Maybe if I gave the mushrooms some kind of importance to the story it might make them a little more interesting, maybe they need to harvest young mushrooms for a cure to a deadly disease, or something like that. I don't know, as I've said, I've never really done up encounters/locations like this before.

Now amidst these rare mushrooms, maybe there are ghosts that are trapped, slowly being digested by these giant fungi colonies. And to top it off, there are some monsters here they'll have to fight. Maybe they've been tracked here by their enemies, or maybe it's just a bunch of shadowy cavern monsters. Either way, there's a fight.

So when the fight breaks out, I could probably try and encourage the PCs to explore around the mushrooms, by hinting that say, the shadows around the mushrooms seem eerily thick, they provide concealment to adjacent creatures. Or maybe give players that fight in squares filled with floating mushroom spores a bonus to their attacks at the cost of a penalty to defense.

At some point, the half-digested ghosts might wake up, and either join the fray if the fight is going too easy, or perhaps they start thrashing about, which would give me the excuse I need to change the effects of the mushroom. Maybe this causes clouds of spores to move around, or a different kind of ghost spore to be emitted, which damages anyone caught in it, storing the life energy of creatures within the mushroom stalks. Maybe at this point, they could try and free a ghost from a mushroom, which would allow them to spend a healing surge, or regain a healing surge or something like that.

That seems kinda cool. I like the idea of the dynamics of the encounter changing over the course of the fight. It would encourage people to revisit the terrain. I guess the danger here is in not being clear about when things are changing, but if I can describe the shifting of spores or something, then I could prompt active perception or dungeoneering checks or something, to give players the opportunity to use their skills and feel like they were worth taking. Oooh, I could totally have freeing the ghosts be a skill challenge or something.

That's how I might engage the explorer in an exotic location. Tune in soon for cultural encounters of the third kind.

Dangit.

Dungeons and Dragons Bloggin' 2: This time, it's Personal.

When D&D 4th Edition first came out, everyone in my gaming group was amazed. Everything was new and shiny, and just seemed so cool. Then came creating characters, which brought with it the following proclamation: "You don't need an 18 in this edition."

For those of you who weren't there in 3rd edition, if you didn't have an 18, or better yet, a 20 in your main stat (generally Strength or Intelligence, but possibly Dexterity) and proceed to acquire the magic items to boost that by whatever was reasonably priced, you were shooting yourself in the foot. Trying to be a fighter with a strength of 16 was like trying to take on three machine gun nests at the top of Tiger Mountain: unless you were Yogendra Singh Yadav you were going to die a bloody bloody death.

Today, we've a few more games of D&D under our belts, and it looks like you do really need an 18 in your primary stat, and if you can swing it, a 20 is the way to go. It makes sense, too. You've got to hit to do most of the cool stuff in the game.

But I stand by our original claim, and I also stand by the Standard Array (rray ray ay). Mind you, this takes a lot more work and the style of play it caters to isn't everyone's cup of tea. More on that style after the jump, but suffice it to say that it hits my secret weak points for enjoying a game.

You guys have one of these... right?

It is also important to bear in mind that these are based on my own, admittedly limited, observations from playing D&D, and also a lot of looking at theoretical situations. So, it may be that I am just making things up, but I still think it is possible.

The Explorer and You. Or. Well. Me.

Man, I guess it's been a while. Let's dust off the old blog.

This means you!

Sorry about that.

Now, on to business. I've been thinking of running a D&D game as of late. It all started back in historic This One Time. The scene went a little something like this:

It was a busy night at Chuy's. Thanksgiving was around the corner, and darned if the hungry masses were gonna cook up a hot meal at home. There'd be time enough for that come Thursday. But tonight, the city was one hotbed of dining out. Money would change hands more than once tonight, and the people? They'd pay.

But that didn't matter, not to me. I'd seen too many lives wasted in the gutter, too many dames with sob stories and killer instincts. A dame a dime a dozen, you could say.

I thought I'd take in the scenery, with my closest buddies. Sometimes it feels like they're the only ones I can trust, but I know it's only because I know where the bodies are buried. That kinda sentiment really gets ya, right here.

The waitress broad brought our orders, and Pat, formerly Big Angry Pat, formerly "Knuckles Mahoney" Pat, the kinda guy who'd bust your nose for lookin' at him funny, reminded me that my life wasn't really a film noir scene, and try as I might, I don't really sound like Humphrey Bogart. (Sadly.)

So Pat spake, proclaiming: "You want to run a game."
And lo, did I ask of them, "I do?"
Verily, did Frank reply, his voice portending the future to mine ears, "Yeah, kinda."

Which brings me to today. I've been doing a little bit of world building, and with a lot of help from Frank I think I have a winner. What really struck me as interesting about the whole process, is the amount of thought put into the various cultures in the game, and the cool/unique scenic and aesthetic elements that I'll be describing.

I don't want to give away too much here. Not yet anyway, but suffice it to say, this has struck a chord with me, as I've always been fascinated by one type of player, the Explorer.

For those of you who don't know, the Explorer is the kind of player who delights in getting to see new parts of your campaign world. When there's a lull in the plot, they're the ones who want to travel somewhere new to see what's out there, they long to climb the next hill, meet the next interesting people, and take in as much of the game world as is possible.

This is easy to understand. After all, part of the appeal of D&D or any similar game is getting to explore a more fantastic world. But for me, it's always been exploration through, either combat with its inhabitants or through the unfolding of a story. The setting has always been kind of a secondary character.

In my experience, the players in the group I'm with have always been more interested in doing than seeing. Often times, travel through the countryside is hand-waved, reduced to something along the lines of "A few days pass of you walking through the woods and you get there." Even if there's an encounter in the wilderness, it's never really described beyond, "And there's totally some trees here, which count as blocking terrain, and some bushes here which are difficult, but provide cover." Everything is always laid out simply and practically, with an eye towards the mechanics.

There's a dearth of flavor text in my gaming experience. Now, mind you, this is probably just my group, but as such, I've often wondered how to describe something effectively enough to invoke a sense of wonder, or at least stoke the fires of nascent explorers. How does one describe "the woods" in order to make them as engaging and interesting as the owlbear that just came crashing through them? How do you convey the timeless sense of ancient ruins and a bygone civilization that wrought such works upon the world, only to fade with time, without having an all too jaded/detached party of players encourage you to get to the fightin'?

So in building this world, I'm attempting to put in details to try and encourage exploration. This means I'm gonna have to practice description. The DMG advises showing, not telling, as a means of encouraging player interest, and engaging all of the senses. Coincidentally, or not, this is also an acting exercise that is used to really evoke "the scene" for you and for the audience, making it more real; they can tell if you're "smelling something good" vs. "smelling freshly baked cookies." The latter is more specific, and it lends a kind of emotional weight that other people pick up on. It helps to fill in the blanks and engage the senses of the audience.

With that in mind, as Frank and I have been coming up with peoples and places, I've been trying to picture them as detailed as I possibly can. I'm still kind of at a loss, but then, this is new territory for me. It seems a pity to give up on exploring it now.

You saw that one coming, right?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must continue to atone for my misdeeds and redeem/regain my lost honor! Details at 11.

My poor poor Tau

Earlier today I had a game at Battleforge Games. My Tau army faced a monstrous horde of orks. The battle did not go very well for me at all. I lost all of my forces and managed to take out maybe a third of my opponent's in return.

Part of that was due to a run of bad luck, but I attribute my crushing defeat also to my relative inexperience with the game. I wasn't aware of what certain units did and in turn was off balance for the whole game. I found myself more or less reacting to one part of the board and allowing my forces to get trapped and killed.

The next time I run up against Snikrot and his Commandos I have a better idea of what they'll throw at me. And Frank taught me a valuable lesson: if you don't know what something does, ask. That would've garnered me some information which would've helped me out a great deal.

Presently my army list is focused on destruction of enemy armor, with flamers and submunitions from railguns to take out enemy infantry. I'm looking at varying that a little, because as I play more and more games, I find the focus tends to leave me wanting against certain armies. But then, I'm still learning the game, and building a cool list is all a part of it. It's very interesting, I just wish I had more time to play.

A long time ago...

In a galaxy far, far away...

Tonight, I got to play Star Wars with my friends. It was amazing. I haven't had this much fun in a gaming session in a while; I was surprised by some of the things I found myself enjoying and wanting to do in the game, but I'll get to that in a little while.

First and foremost, the game was enjoyable because it was a chance to just sit and hang out with my friends. Gaming is a marvelous activity because it is so social. It brings us together, as I've said, and it has been a while since I've had the chance to sit down and spend an evening with some of these folks, namely Mike and Jordan, so that was particularly nice. They're good guys, all of them. And the kind of atmosphere that a role-playing session creates is a little more intimate than an evening of wargaming I feel, because it brings you together to tell a story, and you have to connect with the others in order to participate on the same level. Also it's a quieter environment, limited to only a few people, so there's a narrower focus for interaction, which means you get both quality and quantity time.

I talk more about Star Wars after the jump

My latest project

I've finished work on my financial aid applications, and am waiting around to hear from the other universities I applied from, so that I can get my schooling underway next semester.

While I wait, though, I've been keeping myself busy. Whether painting up my Tau or dreaming about the upcoming release of Dragon Age Origins, I've kept myself entertained.

But now, I am taking a big step forward. Sort of. I've put together an adventure pitch and sent it to WotC, with the hopes that they will think it awesome. I hope that they do, and what's more, that they print it up in Dungeon or something. That would be sweet, but you know what? If they don't take it, I'll print it here myself, so it's a win-win.

But that's how it goes, really. I have found that in general, it is always worth it to try something, to take the risk in putting yourself out there in some way. Whether auditioning for a part in a play or applying to school, even asking someone out on a date, it's scary, sure, but the worst that happens is they say no, and you're no worse off than you were to begin with.

Anyways, I'll keep track of my adventure in um, adventurerering here. Let's see what happens. :D

Painted Tau, return of the revenge!

I finished painting my Tau. There's only one thing left to do:

Fashion Show, after the jump.

Speaking of Tau...

I have been painting my Tau lately, and with a tournament coming up on Saturday, I'm hoping that I'll have them all painted up in time. For now, here's how I'm painting up my Fire Warriors.

Pictures after the jump:

Regarding Warhammer 40k Planetstrike:

There are bastions for the Greater Good. They are Tauwers. That is all.

Games.

A while back, I wrote about my history with games. Sort of. I was incredibly tired and ready for bed. But since then, I've actually organized my thoughts, and made things a little more coherent. So much so in fact, that I'm using this as a basis for some of my entrance exams. Games are an important part of who we are. More after the jump.

Speaking of roleplaying games, the other great thing about this game starting up is that I'll get to create a new character. Breathing life into a character concept is one of the things I love the most about gaming. It's almost more fun than actually playing the game, because when you're creating a character, you are still dealing in the primordial ooze of fertile ideas. Your character has unlimited potential, they can be anything. Here you have the most freedom. Your whims dictate who your character knows, where they've come in life and where they think they're going.

Seeing where the process of creating and fleshing out a character leads is fascinating. There are times when it's as though the character has a mind of their own, and certain things just seem to make sense. Other times, I'm looking at you Shadowrun, you're at kind of a loss for words, aside from, "I DON'T KNOW BLARGHABLAGHABLARGH."

Once you start playing, then the waveform collapses, and your character ceases to exist in potentia... that is another kind of fun in and of itself. You see, I'm also an actor, and I love trying to figure out the personality of another character. It's an exercise in exploration both of the human experience and of the self. Through putting yourself in someone else's shoes, you not only allow yourself to experience things you wouldn't have otherwise gotten to do, you can afford yourself a glimpse into the other realms of your persona, seeing how, for example, the parts of you that glower at the jerkface who just cut you off in traffic, would respond given other stimuli.

It can be kind of cathartic in a way. Sadly, this doesn't happen too often, either in acting or in gaming. I feel it's because we've built for ourselves a kind of ingrained sense of detatchment. This lets us distance ourselves from what is going on, keeping us from feeling foolish if we're caught doing something silly ("Oh, I was doing that ironically,") but it also keeps us from getting to step outside of our own experiences and truly embrace another self.

Either that or we keep cracking bad jokes about the name of the ship, or the fact that the party has a donkey, so it's like unlimited ass jokes time.

Maybe a little of column A, a little of column B. I find though, that I have the most fun, and the characters feel the most vibrant when they go for the gusto. When I say, 'you know what? I'm just going to do this and it will be awesome,' then it usually is. I've seen other people do this as well. My friend Frank has done this a few times. His last character, Edward Bartholomew MacPhail was larger than life. On the surface his mannerisms were completely ridiculous, like something you might expect from an ostentatious Ming the Merciless impersonator, with a more benevolent megalomania, but that's what makes him so completely awesome. He knew what he wanted and was not afraid to go after it.

I hope the character I end up playing in this Star Wars game ends up as much a bon viveur as that. Given the kind of adventure the setting lends itself to, I'm pretty hopeful this will be the case.

Tomorrow, I'll include the backstory for my character, one Jenros Vel, MASTER OF THE well, okay maybe not.

From a Galaxy Far Far Away...

My friend Mike is starting up a Star Wars role-playing game, and I get to be in it.

This is all kinds of awesome, and here's why:

Star Wars is a setting that I've never really played in before but at the same time it's something that is so iconic, because well, it's Star Wars, which means that I get the excitement of something new and the comfort of the familiar at the same time!

Also, seriously, it's Star Wars. Playing in this game means I get to go out and have adventures in space, flying in spaceships, fighting the Empire, shooting lasers, talking to Wookiees... man, that gets me all giddy just thinking about it. I mean come on, who hasn't wanted to make friends with a walking carpet bag and then go flying around the galaxy having adventures and fighting evil?

Nobody, that's who. Star Wars speaks to something deep inside everyone's cultural experience (hell, for most of us it is a part of everyone's cultural experience), because the characters and the story are so universally human. They're archetypal examples of figures that span the human experience time and again. Joseph Campbell wrote about this in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which George Lucas drew on when making the movies. So Star Wars is something that reaches out and grabs everyone.

And it's such a staggeringly huge setting. It takes place in a galaxy far far away, as well you know, with whole encyclopedias and almanacs dedicated to detailing the various planets, species, weapons, ships, customs, etc. of this universe it inhabits, a handy summary of this is included in every sourcebook for the game! This makes it incredibly easy for me to figure out a place for my character, since there's a rich history to draw upon. And being able to learn more details of the setting means I can build this rich history and add another layer of immersion to the game world, so that I can make a Knowledge check and be like, "Why yes, it was in fact the Sith Lord Exar Kun who, along with Ulic Qel-Droma used the Dark Reaper superweapon to devastate Yavin back in the days of the Old Republic*," instead of having to basically parrot whatever it is the GM tells me is the stuff I know to everyone else. It makes me feel more involved, more invested in the game.

And most importantly... this is the kind of adventure I love. It's so melodramatic. Heroes are larger than life, villains are undeniably evil, and a sense of mystery pervades even the most mundane parts of the setting. This makes for rich, cinematic gaming, and it's the kind of stuff I crave.

Finally: Wookiees. I'm just sayin': Roooorwooorghworgh.

*I am not making this up. That this is a factual statement in the world of Star Wars makes me squee with delight.

T3h Games!

So today I entered an Essay contest for the ESRB which asked why I thought game rating summaries were important. That got me thinking about why it is that games are so important:

Games bring us together. During childhood, I bonded with my family over games. My dad and I fought off demons together in Act Raiser, looked for the Seven Mystic Runes of the 7th Saga, even stomped around as Godzilla saving both Tokyo AND Outer Space. How's that for being involved with your kids? Nothing quite like beating up UFOs and King Gidorah AT THE SAME TIME to warm the heart and create memories that last a lifetime. We still talk about games to this day, reminiscing about how we never did stop the Warlock in Shadowgate. Freaking Shadowgate.

Yeah, that sad little "you're out of lives" jingle from Mario Bros. has NOTHING on the grinning specter of Death looming ominously on your TV screen, mocking your inadequacies with his silent rictus, and those soulless, all-consuming, ever baleful eyes.

But I digress. It wasn't just father-son bonding that these games fostered. The advent of the n64, and Goldeneye in particular helped me make friends and influence people. Well, I shot them a bunch with the golden gun anyway. It's a kind of influence.

What really made the game great was that it allowed up to four people to play the game at once, so my friends and I would sit there, joking and trash-talking with each other, while we fought to the death on screen. Unless you were a vile screen-watcher, in which case the fighting spilled over into the meat world, and rightly so.

The best thing about Goldeneye, though, was what its success bore: Perfect Dark.

Easily one of the best games I've ever played, Perfect Dark brought my sister Sierra and I together like nothing else. We could spend hours together, fighting bots, fighting against each other, but never fighting each other. This game provided rocket-powered catharsis, and a competitive story mode I have not seen in any game before or since. Also, it had this guy:

















It's time to admit it, games are how we relate to each other. My group of friends comes together to play role-playing games, which gives us an excuse to socialize with one another. My girlfriend and I play games of Scrabble together on quiet nights. Earlier tonight I played Warhammer 40k with my best friend, and we spent the whole time laughing.

The point of all of this is that games bring us together. Through them, people get involved with one another across barriers both real and imagined. Anyway, that's all I can really think to say for now. But I do believe I'll write more about this subject soon.