Vanishing Tower Press has got live streaming back for its Rom'Myr Dying Earth OSR campaign. It will be launching through the YouTube channel this morning at 7:00am.
Good time to start watching. The PCs are in the shrine room of Death Frost Doom and it is time to plunge deep into the evil witch dwells there!
Contact Information:
jay@vanishingtowerpress.com
Showing posts with label web sites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web sites. Show all posts
Sunday, April 12
Tuesday, December 17
Looking Forward to Ghengiscon
It is not completely solid, but all indications are I will be
attending Ghengiscon this February in Denver. Over Valentine’s Day no less. Most likely the only convention I go to all year (lets hope not). The
price to be paid for this running on Valentine's Day I imagine a few grumps and grumbles in the cabin.
The two games I offered have been accepted
so I will be running FGU’s Space Opera on Friday and Saturday run my current
OSR release, an adventure module for PCs 2-4.
Space Opera needs prep while AA03 not really. For the OSR
adventure I hope participants bring their own characters. Put some real money
in the game. No one is going to do that though. Players are cautious, paranoid
lot. I have been twisting up layout machine to make an original, comprehensible
character sheet for SO and is working out well. Unless you are willing to draw
one up,like James V. West, I find software creation to be clunky and hard to
fine tune. Fortunately sci-fi character sheets lend themselves to structured
layouts, clean text and picture frames.
Character sheets and monster stats! The
adventure takes place in a hostile jungle so a variety of critters to encounter
should be drawn up into its own monster section. Like an appendix or “New Monster”
section you can find in traditional modules. Having a few pages with all the
monsters to be encountered in the adventure, with stats, is a must for me when
writing dungeons. Detailing and tricking out the flying ATV which will be used
in the adventure. In a one-shot adventure players don’t have much to hang their
hat on, so useful items and gear begin to define their capabilities. Having depth
to the information about the rig will help the players come up with ways to use
it and escape danger!
Traversing the canopy below by flying is hazardous, there are
large raptors which are attracted to anything they can see in the sky. Having
your Air Raft break down deep in the jungle is when you need to call for a
lift, and fast. Once I have something worth playing at when the PCs arrive at the
“Forbidden City” the rest of the content will be much easier to write.
I’m not sure what kind of presence RPG’s have at Ghengiscon,
but I know Savage Worlds is played more than any other thing, followed next by 5e?
I think.
There are some luminaries of the OSR-o-Sphere living on the
front range so there is always the chance I see someone I’m a fan of. Toughest
thing about the con is the drive over the continental divide. It is always a
crap shoot. There is no guarantee you will
get where you are going once your on I-70 in the high country.
Tuesday, August 27
Into the Dark: Bryce Lynch's Adventure Design Tips Summarized and...
Into the Dark: Bryce Lynch's Adventure Design Tips Summarized and...: What follows is a second attempt to briefly encapsulate the tips and principles for designing adventures presented by the inestimable Bryce...
Monday, July 25, 2016
Bryce Lynch's Adventure Design Tips Summarized and Explained (Mark 2)
What follows is a second attempt to briefly encapsulate the tips and principles for designing adventures presented by the inestimable Bryce Lynch in his singularly fantastic adventure review blog, Ten Foot Pole. This is basically the same as my previous postsummarizing the principles from Bryce's reviews of The Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat, but with some minor edits to improve the felicity of expression (ahem).
Summarized and Explained
1. General Tips: The 5 C’s
1. Color: The referee should give brief but evocative descriptions of locations, monsters, NPCs, and treasures. Avoid the vague or generic.
2. Context: In order for their actions to be significant and purposeful, players must generally have some information about the likely consequences of their actions, such as likely reactions of monsters or NPCs.
3. Choice: There should be more than one course of action available to players in order for the adventure to continue. Avoid choke points—both literal choke points in the physical layouts of dungeons and other locations, and figurative choke points which require a unique decision or solution in order for the adventure to proceed.
4. Consequences: Player actions should be allowed to make a real difference in the adventure and in the campaign. Avoid a set storyline or sequence of events immune to player interference.
5. Creativity: Related to (3) and (4), reward player creativity by allowing them to pursue unanticipated courses of action or to produce unanticipated consequences, rather than restricting player action and player creativity by setting up arbitrary constraints in the location layout or course of events.
2. Hooks
6. Don’t rely on a single hook; use multiple kinds (treasure; reward; magic; glory; political power).
7. Create a rumor table with hooks and color.
8. Hooks should appeal to the players, not just to their characters.
9. Hooks can and should be complex or nuanced, such as working for an evil NPC or working for rival factions.
10. To support sandbox play, dungeon, town, and wilderness locations, monsters, and NPCs should all have hooks.
3. Locations (Dungeons, Towns, Wilderness, etc.)
11. Location descriptions should be terse (not verbose) but evocative (not boring, obvious, or generic).
12. Only include background info that affects gameplay; avoid long descriptions of irrelevant info.
13. Rooms should have features that players can interact with to produce meaningful consequences. Give concrete descriptions of secret doors, traps, etc.
14. Floor plan tips:
a. Multiple routes (vs. choke points or linear, one-way paths).
b. Multiple entrances and exits.
c. Multiple stairs per floor.
d. Open spaces with balconies, galleries, and ledges at various elevations.
e. Pools and rivers that connect different rooms or levels.
f. Bridges and ladders.
4. Monsters and NPCs
15. Create interesting, believable motivations for monsters and NPCs.
16. Create factions of monsters and NPCs, which leads to a dynamic, interconnected strategic situation.
17. Give players the choice of allying with, attacking, trading with, or having other relationships with monsters and NPCs.
18. Create schedules, routines, tactics, or orders of battle for monsters and NPCs.
19. Wandering monsters too should be given motives, goals, hooks, and tactics.
20. Avoid standard monsters. Failing that, describe standard monsters in a non-standard way (e.g., don’t just name the species).
21. Give evocative descriptions of monsters. Give concrete descriptions of their appearance and activities. Go for the telltale sensory detail, rather than the generic abstract trait. Show, don’t tell.
Example: Instead of stating “One of the guards in the camp is a cruel bully,” say “The burly Manfred takes a leak on Tobias’s bedroll, and then snatches Tobias’s roasted chicken from his hand and quickly gobbles it down.”
22. Use truly evil monsters to evoke a Sense of Terror.
5. Treasure
23. Treasure should be valuable enough to motivate players and to make the challenges worthwhile.
24. Non-magical treasure should relate to the setting and give clues or information about monsters, NPCs, locations, etc.
25. Avoid standard magic items.
26. Give evocative descriptions of magic items. Give concrete descriptions of their appearance and how they must be manipulated to produce their magical effects.
27. Use magic items to evoke a Sense of Wonder.
6. Format and Functionality
28. Include reference tables:
a. Rumor/hook table.
b. Monster/NPC table that lists their main traits, motivations, location, etc.
c. Room/building table that lists the rooms in a dungeon or other keyed location.
29. In published modules, put maps and monster stats on separate sheets so they are easy to refer to in play.
30. On maps, use keyed symbols to indicate standard features (e.g., lit/unlit, locked/unlocked, secret, trapped, etc.), rather than a verbal description in the location key.
Wednesday, August 7
YouTube/Hangouts Live Stream, What I did...
With the disconnect between Goggle Hangouts and YouTube's Live Event function I had to find another way to record my live sessions. I will miss the ability to Live Stream my sessions, but capturing the entire session on tape is my default DM notes I reference, establish canon with my players and use for verisimilitude in game session prep. Much higher priority.
My first hit, and the only software I have used so far, was Camtasia. It sells for more than I want to spend, but with little time before the game I took advantage of the 30 day free trial and began to familiarize myself with its capabilities. It captures your computer screen and allows to edit this content and convert to video. This part of the software worked just fine. I hit record and did not hit stop until the three-hour session was over. Everything was there. Some spot editing and then I went for upload to YouTube. I believe the inevitable crash is due more to the capabilities of my laptop rather than Camtasia. Either way, it figures into Camtasia as a "no-buy" for me. Conversion from "project" to video file is expected to be slow, but it was going to be a ten-hour(?) process to upload. No way this works. But I tried a couple of times with a couple of different formats and unsurprisingly the process choked and "closed unexpectedly". I then stripped the audio from the video, added a title page, and then went for it. This time I had the format as avi. It went up rather quickly considering. Now I and the players can listen to the session replay at our leisure.
I really like the audio format. TTRPG's are theater of the mind anyways. As a fan of radio broadcasting it didn't take me long to warm up to the idea. I started dropping in images related to what was currently being described, but I'm not sold on that. Title Page, sure. If I do include images it will sparsely done.
So I get the original "tape", video and all, upload audio only. For now. And I still need to "cast" about for a more affordable option.
Monday, April 29
Want to be a RPG creator?
Then this blog post by Aos is worth a read. It is worth a read because a) he is doing or has done what he is talking about. b) How to prepare for the necessary and expensive use of quality art, also his use of the word an analogies of commitment ring true to me, c) the Work Flow piece is really strong. I took notice of his mention to not go back and rewrite drafts. I find I do this and I'm glad to hear a fellow creator thinks "You need to write your first draft from end to end without going back and revising. It doesn’t matter if it’s garbage. It is a natural resource. Think of your first draft as mining the ore. Subsequent drafts draw out the METAL!"
There is a nugget of valuable information/advice throughout the short post. And buy a copy of Cosmic Tales #1, it is pretty dope.
Monday, April 15
Partial Migration from Drivethru
Thursday, March 28
Santicore 2017!
I am placing this link here mostly for my own benefit. I'm also proud to have wrangled for Santicore. It was a wild ride and certainly had given up hope and dropped out of the line.
Big hearty thanks to all who dragged the beast over the finish line. Now to stab it with our steely knives!
Thursday, December 27
2018 Clockwork & Cthulhu Campaign in Review
Aww, The Vanishing Tower now has a holiday tradition! Reviewing the past year's blood-soaked saga of Clockwork & Cthulhu!
What were the top 5 hits of this past year for the longest running roleplaying game I've ever tried? There is so much to choose from, so much ground covered, consequences consummated and reckless adventure pursued... I'm just having a hard time deciding!
What were the top 5 hits of this past year for the longest running roleplaying game I've ever tried? There is so much to choose from, so much ground covered, consequences consummated and reckless adventure pursued... I'm just having a hard time deciding!
#5 You Tube! I know I am real late to the party here and this sure is some low-hanging fruit, but this is a recent development for my group and it has had an immediate impact on my enjoyment of our play. The live streaming and the resultant upload of the video for later review lets me remember important events, catch witty things my players are saying I otherwise miss and appreciate the effect of pacing on everyone's enjoyment of any given session. How else will I never forget -6 Hit Points is not considered being "softened-up" by the players?
#4
PC Death! Not once, but twice! The Scottish outlaw Creigh disappeared
through a hole in the wall and Cousin Ralph Norton, a beast of a man,
went down during a whirling knife and pistol fight. Player Characters
can take more of a beating than the NPC's in my Renaissancegame
but I am truly surprised this was the limit of the PC body count for
2018. Dice favored the players more than naught when life and success
held in the balance. This puts two regular players on their third
character each while everyone else is still on their original. In a
long running campaign PC death changes the dynamic of the PC group.
Comfortable niches are all but upturned and Players have to reinvent
a game personality. I believe it is just enough work to make a player
want to keep their existing character. I know as the Keeper I have to
make not inconsequential choices on the fly for the introduction of a
new character. It is important to not restrain from killing a PC when
the dice roll against them just because I got invested in some story
elements involving the stand out character. No plot armor allowed!
#3 Splitting the Party! One player went one way, one another, and still others clutched their wounds and looked for a place to lie low. The old OSR maxum of keeping your player group all together during the session must surely be tossed on the junk-heap of gaming history by now. 2018 saw the campaign enlivened with the players finding themselves making split-second decisions and getting cut off from one another. This spawned a couple of bonus sessions and overall made a greater campaign world. This doesn't mean a Keeper does not need to work extra hard on pacing and keeping everyone involved. I did have to schedule seperate sessions and find time for them, but it shouldn't be shied away from in session either. Zak's Frostbitten & Mutilated has a nifty adventure which gives any Game Master an example on how tension and interest can be maintained while splitting the party.
#2 The Birth of the Side Quest into a major Campaign Event! The PC's have gotten up in all manner of conflict with cosmic and local forces that the adventure ground literally squirms with the snakes of complications. Whether or not the PC's pursue their enemies, trouble with an agenda is sure to find them. The Keeper's most useful tool for handling PC's going in unknown directions are random encounter tables customized for the current adventure location. The running and gunning the players did in the streets of Old Yarmouth against alien antagonists and political rivals was all spawned from the fallout from a previous mission. The proper mix of success and setback with random encounters and prepared site locations gave the players complete agency against a backdrop of a responding campaign world. Did I say random encounter tables are essential? You know what fuels great tables? Great adventure content. Involved side quests come across better when you have interesting third party content to use. It is hard to constantly foster entertaining encounters so a smart Keeper will use quality content from others as solid footing to riff off of during live play.
And #1 is the Consummation of the Picaresque. Sailing to the New World in pursuit of their ever-elusive initial adversary is kind of a big deal. Because it fit for the time period the voyage and the destination continued the campaign world-building. How the PC's arranged passage to the New World was an engaging adventure arc in its own right! The PC's jumped from Yarmouth, Norfolk, on to King's Lynn and then Africa. Each stop gave the PC's a chance to interact with the NPC's and they worked with their environment as they saw fit. Unique outcomes along the way, a hallmark of the picaresque, will then plant the seeds for future, new adventures.
And that is what has stuck with me for this past year's play. There is one more session of 2018, this Sunday morning. No matter what occurs on the last day of this year 2019 feels like a year of reckoning. For the PC's, for the campaign long unanswered threads- some will be answered. This is right an just and the group has made it so. I wonder what this will bring the body count to?
And that is what has stuck with me for this past year's play. There is one more session of 2018, this Sunday morning. No matter what occurs on the last day of this year 2019 feels like a year of reckoning. For the PC's, for the campaign long unanswered threads- some will be answered. This is right an just and the group has made it so. I wonder what this will bring the body count to?
Sunday, December 2
C&C #4 On Line Session Broadcast
Our fourth live streaming session of the long running adventures of the esteemed C.l U. B. agents continued today with close naval combat the whole time.
Pacing is always a concern for the hardworking Keeper, and no one wants a fight on a blood-soaked pirate deck to fall flat. But can one stretch it over the entire session and make it the centerpiece of the day's action? Of course you can!
Pacing is always a concern for the hardworking Keeper, and no one wants a fight on a blood-soaked pirate deck to fall flat. But can one stretch it over the entire session and make it the centerpiece of the day's action? Of course you can!
More efficient use of my game tables during play is my current area of improvement. But don't hold your breath, I've been this bad at it for five years now. My favorite parts of today's live session was the reveal for the Captain's name as well as that of the ship. Bunjee-jumping beasts and impromptu naming were some of other enjoyable game moments. Can't wait till next session and see what adventure has in store for the PC's!
Friday, November 9
A Vornheim Random Generator Page
I'm going to see how multiple pages on the blog work as a means to organize the random generators I'm making via Meander Banter's Automatic List to HTML Translator. This post over at D&Dw/PornStars helped crystalize the idea of using pages because, oh yeah, I use Vornheim the Complete City Kit in everything I run.
So now I have a subject big enough to need its own page. I dove into Meandering Banter's HTML Translator and quickly broke it with the size of the file I was trying to create. Fortunately this blogger created version 2 which allowed me to create a generator with such a large combination set. This has the effect of a one-click generator for the interesting results which come from multiple random tables. I mean, if the online tool doesn't do anything different than the game book why make it? As I create more random generators from Zak's book I will add them to the separate page.
So now I have a subject big enough to need its own page. I dove into Meandering Banter's HTML Translator and quickly broke it with the size of the file I was trying to create. Fortunately this blogger created version 2 which allowed me to create a generator with such a large combination set. This has the effect of a one-click generator for the interesting results which come from multiple random tables. I mean, if the online tool doesn't do anything different than the game book why make it? As I create more random generators from Zak's book I will add them to the separate page.
Wednesday, October 31
Live Session Stream #2 Clockwork & Cthulhu
[EDIT] Corrected the embed settings so the video plays from the blog post.
Enjoying the ability to live-stream my regular game and I'm finding a replay of the session a boon to memory and campaign consistency. This is only the second session recorded, but I've already received fruits from our labors. Specifically in today's session the players found themselves at odds with each other and it was great to go back to the "tape" and figure out where the group cohesion fell apart and the PC's went at each other's throats. So that goes down two thirds in of this nigh on three hour session, about 1:50:00 mark. This is really interesting to me as a referee. For the players it all seemed the frustration with each other was mounting as no easy answer, no easy out, was forthcoming. When another player retorted they didn't trust the other player either I wanted to hold up a placard stating "Roleplaying gold being mined here!" This was awesome sauce.
Enjoying the ability to live-stream my regular game and I'm finding a replay of the session a boon to memory and campaign consistency. This is only the second session recorded, but I've already received fruits from our labors. Specifically in today's session the players found themselves at odds with each other and it was great to go back to the "tape" and figure out where the group cohesion fell apart and the PC's went at each other's throats. So that goes down two thirds in of this nigh on three hour session, about 1:50:00 mark. This is really interesting to me as a referee. For the players it all seemed the frustration with each other was mounting as no easy answer, no easy out, was forthcoming. When another player retorted they didn't trust the other player either I wanted to hold up a placard stating "Roleplaying gold being mined here!" This was awesome sauce.
Playing
the session back I got a chance to see the arguments, opinions and
stratagems used by the PC's to try and resolve the situation. One of
the PC's used influence on NPC's (rather successfully) to try and
prevent bloodshed. Another PC wanted to try influence on a fellow PC.
Here I said no, no. Between PC's you need to not really on rolls to
work things out you have to, you know, role play it. And by no means
has the issue been resolved. The repercussions and outcomes from
everyone's actions will linger until next game session! Aaand the
players didn't take any course of action I anticipated so I was
painfully scrambling to put together adventure material as they
zigged against my zag. Not to give any spoilers here for my players,
but I had an awesome referee moment when I said to myself, "Fuck
it, this is where the game is heading!" so I strapped in let the
trans-arcana clock tick ever closer to midnight, because this is the
OSR baby. We did it all wrong it was so right; split party,
threatening and violancing on each other's PC's, the pleading,
arguing and fuming. A great way to enjoy morning coffee and get more
mileage out of my game material. The game literally runs itself when
the PC's are all doing the talking.
Sunday, October 14
Live Streaming the Game Session
The first live stream of my long running Clockwork & Cthulhu online game got off the ground with a real live gatecrasher dropping into the Google Hangout right at the end of the session. It was like some viral bot which persistently entered the Hangout with a prerecorded message. I'm guessing there are automated malicious malware which searches YouTube live for streams? I do not have a clue. Anyone who has experience with live streaming their Hangout go ahead and jump to the end to see what I am talking about. I would like to clean this kind of intrusion up.
Fortunately it did not diminish play and fun being had with this current live session. Using the YouTube(beta) studio I was able to set up a channel (Vanishing Tower Press) and figure out how to generate a Google Hangout which was also streamed live as well as be recorded to my YouTube channel. I'm sure many of you have already familiarized yourself with this online tech, but this was my first look at running it myself. Long story short, it was dead simple to open the Hangout through YouTube. I posted the link to my MeWe game group and let the players fall into just like always.
The game did take a roll-call hit this outing with the session three players down. This didn't have anything to do with the great G+ migration disrupting communication channels. Just stuff coming up so players couldn't show. Yes this is a pain in the ass as a game master, but we who show negotiate a handwave solution for the present situation and press on. We have come to know the game as deeply serial. Everyone wants to force a resolution so the session grinds on.
And it went like most sessions have for nigh on three years. There was the early settling in, the shop-talk as we all transition into gamer world. Then came play. With fewer active table players I usually see the "journey" through the game world pick up speed so we saw the environment drastically change over the course of the session for the PC's. More questions, fewer answers and less PC's to absorb the certain damage to come, and then the unusual bot hack which brought the whole session to a quick ending until next time.
Being able to replay the session back was waaay cool. Super obvious how it can sharpen my recollection of what just happened. Running a session I can miss some of the witty play coming from my players. So yeah I get to appreciate the social aspects of the game in playback I do miss to a degree as a game referee. Probably the most immediate and useful GM'img teaching tool going too. I was never good enough in sports to make tape and watch game film like the varsity players so I don't have much experience with learning from watching yourself play but the value is unmistakable. I'm not sure what the overall impact to play will be, but review did give me a chance to confirm suspicions and validate some actual play methods I try and stay conscious of. Getting to see the actual walk of the lot of talking we all do around here, it's good to see it work.
Adding a video library to the campaign along with the written is pretty exciting. Never has there been the ability to manufacture the actual play experience for spectators on such an accessible scale. Now all those papers, notes and scribbled maps are adorned with the sound of voices and images of people playing.
Saturday, October 13
G+ I'm leaving you...
The
demise of G+. Couldn't come at a better time. I was starting to
wonder why I was continuing to go there. I felt like there was too
many posts and circles and groups to effectively curate. If I didn't
use G+ as my online game platform I probably would have just stuck
with my blog's blog roll to stay up on cool content.
With
the migration to MeWe of many G+'ers I kinda get to rebuild my online
gaming architecture. Not by much, but with any type of move I get a
chance to look through my stuff and ask “What do I really need?”
First off I need a group for my current online game. Here MeWe falls
short because there is no integrated video conference app built into
the site. G+ broke up the seamless way I could go from announcing a
game, getting players and then forming a group complete with event
listings and then simple click for all participants to jump in on
game day. But I could still type in group contacts and send out
invites to the online Hangouts session. With MeWe I can have the
group organization but I will be needing to lead everyone over to the
Hangout. The good which has come about with the forced reorganization
is I've made a hard look at YouTube. To look at the recording and
live streaming capabilities. The public consumption of viewing others
playing table top roleplaying, well I have a long running game and me
and my players don't mind people lurking.
Seeing
what is possible. This is what I got the most from G+. What I can do
with free access to online tools and the audience online to interact
with. My game was nonexistent and once I was hooked up on G+ I was
reading blogs with elevated gaming information, writing my own game
blog and playing actual games. Then was the exposure to incredible
adult material I would never get from game companies.
Original, visceral and presented in useful and beautiful formats.
Plenty for free and the really good stuff was worth the price. Made
me want to make my own stuff. The G+ gamers showed the way here too.
POD, One Book Shelf, layout software, making PDF's. I get to make
game books I want to have on my shelf. And if anyone else is
interested they can spend coffee money and have them too!
I
was way wrong in thinking G+ would be around for a long time. But
hell with it. The good look and lesson I got sure showed it is all
about the people in the game community. We have met, more come
everyday, and the blogs backstop all the valuable material so
exposure and innovation will continue.
I
will be detaching from G+. No reason not to just post on my blog and
group scrum live with the gang on MeWe for now. As long as I have a
viable means of creating a video table for players to sit around I
don't think my online experience will be diminished at all. Maybe
this will cut down on distractions so I can finish the latest three
or four gaming books I agonize over.
All
in all this shows the durability of the blogs. This is a good thing.
Now I got a game I gotta get ready for. See you all real soon.
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