I wound up going another session of my every-other-week Heart: The City Beneath campaign without playing Heart. We’re still in the throes of The Ground Itself and I regret nothing. I’m having a great time. Almost all of my players just so deeply understand what we’re doing that they’ve done half the moves I’d planned for myself, in terms of setting up the horrors of the world we’re going to play in. This means I’ve been able to focus on specifics and painting good images during my turns rather than introducing aspects of the world at large or adding to the tension of this downright awful bit of geography. I get to do things like talk, in detail, about a mysterious creature that emerged from a horrible sinkhole, described in stories as but a shadow on the horizon, that now wanders this world on some sort of mission that only it knows. Or describe how the dominant species (a froglike non-sentient creature that is incredibly long, flat, and known for hunting down everything in the area, including the people who used to live there) has been impacted by the force of decay called The Rot (which decays anything it touches/infests in every dimension and way, rather than being bound strictly to biological materials like we’re familiar with in meatspace) and how some of them have mushed together to form some kind of horrible beast that has been disappearing people for an unknown number of years. Or how a train, riding rails of limestone, bone, and metal over slowly dessicating dirt, emerged from the same pit that every horror has left behind in order to discorge its unknowable passengers upon the surface. It has been an absolute delight to play this game, even if it is, somewhat predictably, taking an incredibly long time to play.
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There’s a Lot of Creative Heart in My Heart: The City Beneath Group
Session 0 of the Heart: The City Beneath game went pretty well, I’d say. We got through the initial stages of character building, which has gotten us all pretty much on the same page as to what we’re expecting to see in-game. We talked through a bunch more stuff that might have made it into the Line and Veils list, since everyone now knows the sort of stuff that this game might introduce, but wound up not adding anything. I think I did a pretty good job, through my (just for the vibes, since they were originally produced for a very different game system) setting documents and explanation of the game, of setting the expectations for the group when we picked the game, since no one was surprised by what they found in the book. After that, we talked through our characters a bit more specifically, did a little bit of work to figure out what they’re all about, and then talked through the kind of game we want to play, the stories we want to tell, and what world we want to explore. It was a pretty thorough Session 0, if I do say so myself.
Continue readingI’ve Been Playing A Lot of Pathfinder, Actually
As I’ve continued to learn how to play Pathfinder Second Edition, partly because I already bought the book and partly out of a dogged desire to find the fun in a system that some of my friends enjoy immensely, I’ve begun to slowly see the patterns and rules underpinning it. I know I’m fairly late to the game, especially with the revised or remastered version of PF2e coming out sometime soon (maybe later this year, if what I saw was correct?), but I can see why people like it. Systems within system. Slowly stacking benefits as your character gains levels, eventually giving you massive numbers for everything you do and making you incredibly capable of some absolutely devastating actions. When the Fifth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons said “what if we kept all the numbers within an expected range so that very little is impossible if you’re lucky,” PF2e said “What if everyone got absolutely banana pants numbers and you could eventually do a whole bunch of stuff super well if you built your character right, but only a few things at a time because there have to be SOME limits?”
Continue readingA Little Bit of (the Fun Kind of) Horror in My TTRPG Campaign
This upcoming weekend (the one following this post going up), I’ll have my first session with a group of people playing a game of Heart: The City Beneath. I’m pretty excited to play it, since I was so inspired by the game (and the seventh season of Friends at the Table, Sangfielle, where they played it) that I wrote an entire setting for any number of games full of cool decay and horror themed stuff. This group will be playing that setting and we’ll be doing our Session 0 to talk through what adaption work we’ll be doing to get the base game to fit the flavor of the world ni which we’ll be playing. This setting is one I’ve written about here (or at least shared the introductory short story for the Dungeons and Dragons 5e Heoric Tragedy version of it), so I’m excited to get to use it with a group interested in exploring the more creepy, horrific side of things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely delighted to eventually continue the Heoric Tragedy game when all the players are available again, but I wrote this setting with mild to moderate horror and dark fantasy in mind, so it’ll be tons of fun to explore those a bit more directly with a game designed for horror like Heart.
Continue readingCrunching Into Pathfinder 2E
While I’ve been packing, most of my free time (aka, my breaks) has gone towards learning Pathfinder Scond Edition since I’ve joined a group as a player. We had a session 0 two weekends ago, which accounted for most of my Saturday breaks during my main packing weekend, and our session 1 is this upcoming Sunday. To be honest, learning PF2E has been more mentally draining than packing has. Not even dealing with the “box of things I don’t want to think about” was as draining as my regular dives into the incredibly dense rulebook and mechanics of the system. It is a very complex game full of proper nouns, what feels like an overwhelming number of character creation options, and an overlycomplex path from character ideation to final creation. I understand that this is probably not as true as it feels right now, since I’m learning the system as I’m trying to get ready to play it (and I remember just how incredibly obtuse and confusing learning to build characters in 3.5 and Pathfinder First Edition was back when I first played in 2010), but it is still more of a headache than I expected.
Continue readingMisdirection At The Table
I use a lot of misdirection in my storytelling as a Game Master and as a player in tabletop roleplaying games. It is incredibly fun to put a bunch of information out there, hiding the important pieces behind less important information by taking advantage of knowing that you can only really tell what information is important in retrospect. I usually try to avoid burying what I’m trying to hide in bullshit, since that tends to indicate there’s something I’m trying to hide and I do my best to avoid outright lying about it because it’s not really fair if I’m just going to deliberately steer people in the wrong direction. It is only good, useful foreshadowing and storytelling if people are given the tools and information they need to start figuring things out on their own. Anyone can lie. It takes real skill to tell nothing but the truth in a way that draws attention away from the things you’d prefer people to ignore.
Continue readingWhat Makes A Story A Gaming Campaign Or A Book
I wish I had the time and energy for more weekly Dungeons and Dragons games. Specifically, the time and energy to run them. At present, I’d like to get myself to one weekly game (that, you know, actually plays weekly) and two every-other-week games that alternate so I can run two games a week but have more time to prepare the two that alternate. If I didn’t have to spend time working a full-time job, I could probably run a game every day. Do prep in the morning, run in the afternoon, and have evenings to myself. I’ve thought about trying to get into the “Game Master as a day job” gig, but I’ve decided that for now, I want to keep this as just a hobby. Still, if I had more time and energy, I’d love to add another game or two into rotation.
Continue readingThe Best D&D Story Genre Is Mix-And-Match
I’ve begun introducing some elements of horror into one of my D&D campaigns. One of the BBEGs of the whole homebrew world is essentially nothingness that is something. The Void, since I can’t help but enjoy an allusion to a common phrase. Because when you stare into The Void in this homebrew D&D world, it literally stares back into you. It provides a great tool to mechanism ennui, doubt, and questions about the purpose of it all in a D&D game where some of the players are interested in asking those questions.
Continue readingDelving Into A New Dungeon
Post-Publication Edit: One of my friends on Twitter helpfully pointed out that one of the creators of this game, Adam K., has been involved in some awful controversies and, as these horrible things have shown, was apparently never a terribly nice person despite the persona he cultivated online. I can’t suggest buying the book at this point since I don’t think this guy should get any more money, but the other creator seems to be grappling with the failings of this system (e.g. the fantasy racism spread through the examples of how to use the rules and narrative guidelines in play) and his co-creator in a potentially healthy way (I’ll admit I’ve spent only an hour reading up on all this so there might be stuff I’ve missed), so I suggest getting fully informed before you make a decision.
As you’ll see below, I like the narrative style of the system and the light, story-centric rules, but those are common to most Powered by the Apocalypse games, not just Dungeon World, so I suggest you look elsewhere in that system if you want a fun game that doesn’t support someone whose actions are antithetical to my primary principles as a storyteller and GM.
Continue readingA Focus on Power Fantasies Ruins TTRPGs For Everyone
I saw someone post on Twitter that Dungeons and Dragons is all about power fantasies and, as a result, most people play characters that are like them in an effort to roleplay situations that make them, personally, feel powerful. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this idea and a WHOLE lot of thoughts about how it can play out in actual games. Part of the problem, of course, is that making any blanket statement based on your personal experiences shows your personal biases, privelege, and frequently overlooks the experiences of people who aren’t like you. I’m going to try to avoid making any such statements here by talking about my experiences specifically, but I will have to generalize a bit unless I’m going to write an entire novel. Which has a certain appeal, but this isn’t really the medium for discourse at length.
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