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RPG Bloggers NetworkCharacter du Jour: Blaine The skylight splintered as Blaine rolled with the landing, two crooks felled with well-aimed blows before he touched the floor. Two more joined them as he spun before standing, fists upraised, facing the syndicate. A voice growled from the shadows at the back of the warehouse. “Take... [...] The Long Road to Deadlands #5 Saddle up and Reload Now that I’m done reading up on Savage Worlds, I think I can safely start reading up on the Deadlands setting.Â Deadlands is a classic, being one of those rpgs that have withstood the test of time by virtue of being an evocative setting with a lot of flavor and great ideas crammed into it.Â ... [...] M&M - First Impression Our first Mutants & Masterminds session was kind of disappointing. I blame a number of factors, some having to do with the game itself and some not, but I think the biggest factor is simply that the first scene in the introductory adventure makes a... [...] White Knights and Black Powder There’s been some talk about fourth-edition stats for early firearms over at Dice Monkey.Â (Edit:Â Jonathan pointed out Stargazer’s post on the topic, which I’d read but overlooked when writing this.Â Mea culpa.) I’ve been thinking it over myself, and I’ve come up with... [...] The Terminator's next target? While reading some Traveller threads over on the Citizens of the Imperium forum I ran across a reference to an amazing story about Traveller that I've never heard before. It's about a real-life artificial intelligence program named Eurisko learning how to play Trillion Credit Squadron- In 1981,... [...] So what *is* D&D exactly? My friend Tim is probably the biggest "pure" D&D fan I know. AD&D (2e) was his first RPG, and it's about all he wanted to play for years. To this day, nothing would make him happier than the prospect of playing nothing but D&D for all the rest of his g... [...] NPC Spotlight: Argona Valdis I really don't like the way I have approached the last few NPC Spotlight posts. In writing both, I felt restricted because I feared giving away too much information to my players (a few of whom actually read this from time to time). This time I'm focusing on an NPC that they may or may not even... [...] âTwilightâ and making new gamers I have to admit to coming pretty late to the Twilight phenomenon. I hadn't even heard of the books until the movie came out, and when I asked my kids about it, I got my first dose of "Jeeze Dad, that's been popular for forever! Where have you been?" Of course, it instantly got me thinking about how... [...] The need for defense This question was posed by Daniel Donohoo in the review of this site that he posted to GeekDad recently: ...(do we really need to keep explaining that D&D is not satanism, I'm not sure?)... My answer is yes. And here are my two reasons why: 1. While the negative press against role-playing... [...] Whatâs in a name anyway? Trailing on the heels of others, I have always wondered how to choose a name for a character in a fantasy game. I began to wonder should a GM have any say in name selection? Character names are something special. As players, we try to use the as a statement of about characters. As GM, we use them... [...] RPG Bloggers Network

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Dork TowerEvil Inc.FreakAngelsGirl GeniusGoblinsIrregular WebcomicNodwickOrder of the StickPenny ArcadePS238PVPUser FriendlyXKCD Dec 04 2008 Encounter Savage! Update After greatly over-thinking it, I’ve thrown out my first draft of Encounter Savage!, my Encounter Critical-to-Savage Worlds adaptation. EC is supposed to be lighthearted, and SW is supposed to be Fast, Furious and Fun, so the intersection of the two should not feel like the errata from [INSERT GAME YOU HATE HERE].I’m sticking with the “Creating Worlds” section on page 134 of the Savage Worlds Explorer Edition. This will not be a conversion document to allow you to port EC characters into SW and vice-versa. This will present rules on writing up EC races and classes in SW. It will be all crunch, and no fluff; the “flavor text” in EC stands fine on it’s own. As most of the powers, mutations and abilities in EC are left open to interpretation, so they will remain in Encounter Savage! Monsters, weapons and armor will likewise be nothing but tables, tables, and tables.I’m hoping to have a free PDF ready at the end of the month.

Tagged as Encounter Critical, Savage Worlds by: Berin Kinsman 2 Comments Dec 03 2008 Perception, Reality, and Writing RPGs

The theme of this month’s RPG Blog Carnival (hosted by Critical Hits) is Transitions and Transformations. It’s a pretty wide-open topic that suggests many different things to me, so I may write multiple posts on the topic over the course of the month. Today I want to talk about something that’s been a recurring theme here at UncleBear: transforming “hobby” into “work” or, more to the point, “fun” into “not fun”.I blame George R.R. Martin, really. Martin, and Melinda Snodgrass, and Lew Shiner, and John J. Miller, and a whole raft of others. You see, back in the day these folks put together a campaign using Chaosium’s Superworld, and had a wonderful time doing it. Like any great campaign, it was filled with compelling characters and gripping storylines and comedy and drama and all sorts of creative goodness. And like many players in great campaigns, they found it eating up a lot of their time, to the point that they weren’t getting anything else done. So to remedy this, they decided to transform their game into another media and publish their work. And that’s how the Wild Cards shared universe anthologies and novels were born.When I first read about this, it put a terrible, terrible thought into my head. It got me to thinking that I could somehow take all of these ideas in my head and somehow turn them into cash, that all this worldbuilding and campaign design I was doing for fun was something that I could do for a living. That my hobby could realistically be transformed into a career.If you’re not laughing already, you should be. Go ahead. Today, you’re not laughing at me, you’re laughing with me. We’re all laughing at my naive younger self, that poor sap.The main difference between me and the Wild Cards crew was that they were, for the most part, established writers. They’d paid their dues, learned the business, published other things, gained reputations with readers and editors and publishers. They knew what they were doing. What their campaign was taking them away from was the business of writing, so it was a logical step to write about their game world. I was working in a hospital at the time, and hadn’t published a word at that point; the leap for me was a little bit larger.It’s been at least 20 years since I read the first Wild Cards book and got that wild hair, and of course I still have this dream of publishing my game stuff, but that dream has transformed and been tempered by reality as well. I write because it’s fun, and it’s a way to participate in and support the hobby that I love. Even if I manage to make a little bit of money, I don’t expect to make a living at it. I’ve tilted at that windmill more than a few times over the years, though, and have done a little bit of professional work. What’s held me back has been more than a lack of talent, however. It’s that what’s required to work professionally in this hobby sucks all of the fun out of it for me. The compromise, the pandering, the marketing… ugh. I’d rather write something that I love and have three people in the world enjoy it than toil through writing something the masses will love for the sake of a buck. It took me a long time to figure that out. Transformation.The other things that’s changed over the years is my level of appreciation for the people that are doing this for a living. The trap I fell into is that the Wild Cards crew made it look easy, so I assumed it was. Silly me. While I’m sure it does come easy to some people, this stuff is hard for most of us, even most of the folks who are good at it. I’m sure most of these folks could make better money doing something else, and that’s where my real appreciation comes in.

Tagged as RPG Blogger by: Berin Kinsman 3 Comments Dec 02 2008 Impressions: Primetime Adventures

Based on actual play experiences, I’ve written two previous posts about Primetime Adventures. Both of those were more heavily into describing the shows we created and played out, rather than an overview of the system itself. To rectify this, here’s a very quick summary of how the game works, peppered with some personal opinions.The premise of the game is that the setting is a television show, and the players are the protagonists in that show. Part of the first session is supposed to be spent brainstorming a premise, with the players collaboratively coming up with the setting and characters. This is how it was done both times I played it, but I also know people who came to the table with a very specific setting or premise in mind. General elements that need to be agreed upon are genre (cop show, reality show, cartoon, sitcom, anything at all, really), tone (serious, fantastic, network or cable, and so on), and general themes and/or metaplot. What is the show about, in a shirt pitch.Character creation is simple: each character starts with Edges and Connections. Edges are like Fate’s Aspects or Risus cliches. They can be anything that describes what a character can do or what they’re about. Connections are also like Aspects, but are about the relationship between the character and other protagonists or supporting cast members. Rather than typical Attributes or Skills, when a conflict arises in the game the player can tap into these Edges and Connections, which I’ll explain in more detail shortly.The next thing to determine is the length of the season. The game recommends between 5 and 9 “episodes” as idea. Players then figure out their Screen Presence for each episode, which is rated from 1 to 3. This will affect how much a character can do in an episode, and how well. A 1 means the character is relegated to the background. 2 is average involvement, balanced against the other protagonists. 3 is a spotlight episode, placing that character center stage.The gamemaster is called the Producer. He controls the supporting cast, and the Budget (which I will also get to momentarily). He starts off narrating the first scene of the episode. The other players, in turn, set up and narrate subsequent scenes. When you’re narrating a scene, it doesn’t even have to involve your character. You just set up what you’d like to see next, based on the last scene, in terms of characters, location, and moving the plot forward.The Producer’s Budget is based on the characters’ screen presence for the episode. It’s used as Screen Presence for supporting characters and plot conflicts, and a portion can be doled out as Fan Mail. When protagonists do something interesting, cool, or entertaining, the players can give each other Fan Mail. People watching the game, random passers by, can give players Fan Mail. Fan Mail is good.Conflicts are resolved with playing cards. In Primetime Adventures, a conflict isn’t a physical fight, although it can be. It doesn’t even have to be a conflict between characters. A conflict occurs when a player wants things to go a certain way, but it either doesn’t seem like it should automatically happen that way or a player contests the action.The player and the Producer each start with one card. They player can then tap Edges, Connections, Screen Presence, and Fan Mail to buy additional cards. Other players can pitch in their Fan Mail to help, if they want. The Producer can spend Budget points to buy extra cards. Red cards are successes; the most successes wins, so they’ll get what they want from the conflict. However, high card narrates so it can be a “yes, but…” situation. It’s all about dramatic tension.Those are the basics. Most of the 106-page book is devoted to the structure of series, episodes, and scenes, examples of play, and sample shows. Everything to need is included in one small, concise book.Primetime Adventures is great for roleplayers who love television, and makes a great introductory game for non-roleplayers.

Tagged as Primetime Adventures by: Berin Kinsman 1 Comment Dec 02 2008 Impressions: Wilderness of Mirrors

Wilderness of Mirrors is John Wick’s take on what a spy roleplaying game. I love the fact that it was basically written on a dare: a couple of his friends were working on house rules for Spycraft when he commentted “All you need for a spy RPG is…” and off he went. The game goes right to the heart of spy genre tropes and provides simple mechanics for the things you really need.The phrase “wilderness of mirrors” was first coined by T.S. Elliot in the poem Gerontion. It has since been used by many espionage and thriller writers to describe the twists and turns inherent to spy work. On the title page, John quotes the Rush song Double Agent, which contains the phrase. It’s the perfect title for a spy game, and I’m surprised no one’s used it before.All characters are experts. No one wants to play James Bond as a first-level character, or George smiley starting out as a file clerk. In this respect, the game reminds me of Amber Diceless: Everyone can do everything, and well, but not everyone is the best at everything. You’ve got your specialists, your con man, your hit man, your gadget guy and so on, who are just a little bit better at those things than the other characters.The game master (known in-game as Operations, or Ops) throws out a mission as a one-line plot hook. “Blow up the enemy weapons lab” or “rescue the Secretary of State from the terrorists that kidnapped him” or “steal the plans to the enemy’s new fighter jet”, things like that. The game then goes into the planning stage, where the players make up the rest of the detail as the work up how they’re going to do it. They even have creative control over who they, the agents, are, what government or agency they’re working for, and who the enemy is. This seems like the place where the whole game can fail. If the players aren’t particularly creative, or into collaborating on their own plot, you’re about done. The two factors for the planning stage that will motivate them are Mission Dice, and Time. The more complicated the players make their plan, the more bonus dice they get to actually execute the mission. If it’s a matter of just kicking in a door to get to their objectives, they get no dice. If they discuss and roleplaying the satellite surveillance and intelligence reports they sift through to learn that there’s a state of the art lock, with 20 armed guards, and a moat full of pirhanas they have to swim through, they get bonus dice to help them pull it off. this group pool then gets divided up among the player characters by the team leader (one of the players, not the GM) based on how many each character might need to fulfill their part of the mission. The longer they take to plan, however, the more bonus dice Ops gets to screw with them and make their plans go horribly awry, as all plans in spy fiction ultimately do. It could be fun, but it could fall flat with the wrong group.The final twist is Trust. Players get bonus dice for contributing elements that sabotage other characters’ actions. As in spy fiction, you never know who you can trust, or how far, or for how long. You write a note and pass it to Ops, and Ops gives you back dice. This is done in front of the other players, so they know you’re up to something, but they can only guess or assume what that might be. Healthy paranoia is a good thing.Then, of course, you play out the carefully crafted plan so it can fall apart and the players can improvise their way toward the goal. Once per game, the special power of each character type can be used as a freebie - the hitman kills someone, the gadget guy pulls out just the right whatsis, the faceman lies and everyone believes him, and so on. Note that that’s once per game, not once per character. If there’s more than one killer, for instance, the first one to declare the use of the freebie gets it, and the other wetworks agent has to roll like normal folk. Rolling dice doesn’t only dictate success or failure, it determines who narrates the outcome. A marginal success mean Ops maintains the traditional role of dictating the action. A slightly better role gives the player a veto. Still better, the player narrates with Ops holding the veto. The best success of all places uncontested narrative power into the player’s hands: it happens exactly the way he or she says it does.(The basics of the game are also explained here, in John’s own words in the original Livejournal post on the subject.)This is definitely a game I want to try my hand running at a game day. It requires little to no gamemaster prep, so it seems perfect for that type of one-shot. I think it would play best with a full crew of 4-6 players, however, as 2-3 players wouldn’t have offer enough of the Trust element. As mentioned previously, I also think you need the right type of creative people, as the players themselves are doing a lot of the heavy lifting.If I had any beef at all with this game, it would be that I paid $5 for a 17-page PDF (19 pages, if you include the color cover and the character sheet). It’s not much of a beef, though, because the game is just that good and you really don’t need more that what’s there. I’m also more forgiving because this $5 is mitigated by the fact that John Wick is also selling his 400+ page opus Houses of the Blooded for $5, so there’s some sort of balance there: you can get two very different, but equally excellent, games for a total of $10.

Tagged as by: Berin Kinsman 12 Comments Dec 01 2008 Impressions: When Darkness Comes

When Darkness Comes is a horror games that blends roleplaying with board gaming and blurs the distinction between the two. Each player takes one of the pregenerated characters to start, and each character has a corresponding 25mm miniature. There are also character sheets, however, so characters can be expanded during extended play. At the same time, a modular, tile-based playing board is used. Each tile represents a building, or a portion of a larger building, including a school, a cafe, a museum, a gun shop, and even a game store. The bonus is that since these are standard-sized tiles, they can double as props for any RPG. Tokens are placed on the tile boards, face down, for characters to find. These could be allies who grant the character bonuses, resources like guns, flashlights, first aid kits, and money, or even monster.The begins with the players being given an objective. In the session I played we started in the museum, where a mummy had wandered off. To win, we either needed to defeat the mummy and bring his body back to the museum, or locate an artifact called the Orb and all of the allies and bring them safely to the school. Going around the table each player than rolls to move, which felt very much like moving room to room in Clue. All doors and windows are locked, so you have to roll to break into buildings; fail, you don’t get in. If the character lands on a token, you flip it over. If it’s a resource, you basically have to make a perception roll to find it. If it’s an ally, you need to persuade them to come along. you can also find an “alarm” token, which can be an actual alarm that needs to be disabled, or a dog or security guard that needs to be persuaded or fought. And monsters, of course, will need to be fought. The standard monsters in this game are zombies, which goes a long way to explaining why the characters are breaking into places and scavenging stuff.The die mechanics are interesting but a little kludgy until you get the hang of them. Each character’s abilities are a die pool, indicating how many d6’s you get to roll. Instead of a standard target number, difficulties are assigned like poker or Yahtzee - you have to get 3 of a kind, say, or 4 in a straight, things like that. So if you need 4 of a kind, if doesn’t matter if you roll four 1’s or four 6’s to succeed. If you need 3 straight, 1-2-3 is as good as 4-5-6. Other characters within 3 spaces can help you out, allowing you to reroll dice. You also get Victory Points for accomplishing certain things, which you can spend on additional rerolls or extra dice, but also count toward your score for you, the player, to “win” the game, so you want to use the points sparingly. My one gripe would be that even though everything else, including wounds, are tracked using tokens provided with the game, you’re supposed to track Victory Points on the character sheet. This looks like a good place to break out the poker chips.Overall, it’s a decent game for a one-shot or a fill-in when your regular group needs to switch things up for a session. It felt more like it was emulating a first-person shooter, running around finding healing and ammo while blasting (or avoiding) monsters. I don’t see that it would remain interesting for campaign play, because there’s not really enough roleplaying in it for my tastes. I might be a good gateway game to introduce board gamers to some basic roleplaying concepts, though. Definitely worth a look, though, and I’d gladly play it again.

Tagged as by: Berin Kinsman 2 Comments Nov 30 2008 Impressions: Munchkin Bites!

It is entirely possible that I was the last gamer on Earth who had not played Munchkin. As a break from our regular weekly World of Darkness game, the group I’m in played Munchkin Bites, which is a stand-alone version of the Munchkin game that parodies the World of Darkness and its tropes and stereotypes. It’s a fun, fast-faced card game that worked well as a respite from our regular campaign.In the Munchkin games, your goal is to be the first player whose character reached Level 10. You gain levels by killing things, selling treasure you accumulate by killing things, and drawing special cards that grant you a level-up. I’m told that the mechanics are more-or-less the same between the various Munchkin games, meaning if you’ve played one you already know the core rules for the others.In Munchkin Bites, you can be a human, a vampire, a werewolf, or a changeling. You get 5 cards in your hand, and can play as many as you’re able on your turn, but if you end your turn with more than 5 you have to discard some. On your turn you kick down a door (drawing a Door card), and if there’s a monster there you fight it. If there isn’t, you can play a monster card in your hand and fight it. If you beat the monster, you go up a level. If you lose, you can lose a level (or more) and other stuff can happen as well. Beating the monster also allows you to draw treasure cards, which can grant you more powers and magical items.The game, of course, gets ridiculous, which is the point. I ended up with the Half-Breed card, meaning I could have two Race cards allowing me to take the advantages of both. My character ended up a vampire changeling with That sword That Lets You Cut Peoples Heads Off From That Movie. I also had a cool power that allowed me to force another character to help me fight monsters. There are tons of jokes in the game that are probably only funny to people familiar with the World of Darkness and its tropes, so while the game is playable and enjoyable by anyone, only gamers are going to really get the full value of the humor.Munchkin reminds me of a Games Workshop I played ages ago called Talisman. The major difference (and this is from memory) is that Talisman had a board, and Talisman was only unintentionally funny. The premise was similar - you have a character, you go around the board collecting items and fighting stuff. I don’t recall what the endgame was, but I remember the game itself got silly. The guy who owned the game had mixed all of the expansions together. In one game, I was playing a leprechaun riding a paladin’s warhorse, wearing Space Marine armor, and carrying a sword that was remeniscent of Stormbringer. I’m pretty sure that game wasn’t intended to be played that way. Munchkin is.Now that I’ve played one, I know that some Munchkin games need to be on my shelf. These can be a staple at game days and conventions, and I can probably talk some non-gamer friends into playing.

Tagged as by: Berin Kinsman 5 Comments Nov 30 2008 In the Pipeline at UncleBear Thanksgiving threw my writing schedule off more than I anticipated, but I’ve got tons of gaming goodness in the pipeline for the coming weeks. Here’s what you have to look forward to:More Houses of the Blooded articlesA lot of Worldbuilding 101 articlesArticles on Poker Chip mechanics, including specific articles on using them in Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition and World of DarknessA review of Wilderness of MirrorsA review of Mars: A Roleplaying Game of Planetary RomanceA review of Helix: The Post-Apocalyptic High-Tech fantasy Western RPGEncounter Savage!: the long-awaited Encounter Critical/Savage Worlds conversionBADFILM RPG will return in January. Brimstone and Gall in February.

Tagged as by: Berin Kinsman 1 Comment Nov 26 2008 RPG Thanksgiving: Gaming Gratitude

It’s Thanksgiving here in the United States, a time when we look back and reflect on the things in our lives that we’re most grateful. As it’s been a particularly good year for me as a gamer, I thought I’d take the opportunity to express that thanks.I’m thankful for the Southern Arizona Gamers Association. They got me gaming on a regular basis through the two monthly game days they put on (Ides of Gaming and the Tucson RPG Guild) as well as RinCon. I’ve made a lot of new friends as a result of SAGA. I want to give a special shout-out to Thomas D, who started the ball rolling with Ides almost two years ago.I’m thankful for all of the people who’ve run games I’ve played in at those events, and for all of the great players I’ve gotten the chance to sit down at the table with. I’m thankful that those people number multitudes, too many to mention by name.I’m thankful for the RPG Bloggers Network. In addition to all the new friends and new reading material, it’s helped me re-focus both my blogging and general writing efforts. The quality of my material has improved, or so I believe. I’m thankful for the Chatty DM and Dave Chalker of Critical Hits letting me in on the ground floor. I’m thankful for Chatty Phil allowing me to play in his sandbox and guest post for him.I’m thankful for having a regular weekly gaming group again.I’m thankful for the games that come into my possession this year. One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to not buy any new books this year. I made three exceptions: the 4th Edition Player’s Handbook, because I thought I’d end up in a campaign; the World of Darkness core rulebook, because I did end up in a campaign; and Houses of the Blooded, because I could not let a silly thing like a New Year’s Resolution keep me from getting a copy of a fantastic game autographed by the author. To that list, add the copy of Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane that I won at a Tucson RPG Guild meeting; the copy of Monsternomicon that I won at RinCon; the copy of Dark Heresy someone bought me from my Amazon Wish list earlier in the year; and the print copy of Encounter Critical someone bought me for my birthday, also from my Amazon Wish List (which will be here any day now, w00t!). Oh, and the used copy of 50 Fathoms I got for $5 at the used book store with trade credit. All quality products.What gaming-related stuff are you thankful for? Add your thoughts to the comments below, or if you write a blog post or do a podcast on it, link to it in the comments. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the U.S. — let’s get a Gaming Gratitude meme going! Who’s with me?

Tagged as by: Berin Kinsman 14 Comments Nov 25 2008 Future Gods: Building Myth from History

Another entry for this month’s RPG Blog Carnival on Religion.The gods are rarely as interesting — or as dangerous — as the mortals that follow them. If we look at mythology, and the Greek myths in particular, we find stories not about the gods themselves but the heroes who are helped or hindered by those gods. We don’t read tales of Zeus or Hera, we read of Perseus and Hercules (half-god, true, but more importantly, half-human). The role of gods, whether they’re active, passive, or unseen, is that of supporting cast and literal deus ex machina for the plot.Many tales of mythological gods are thought to be based on exaggerated tales of epic heroes, who over time were elevated by popular opinion or the works of a popular author to god status. Once the brag gets too big or the tale gets too tall, that person obviously can no longer be considered a mere mortal. Sometimes powerful leaders will declare themselves to be gods, and during their lifetime have the martial or political clout to make it stick without arguement. This is where some creative worldbuilding can offer up some original and interesting gods for your settings.Not all gods are elevated heroes, but it’s something to consider when assembling a pantheon. When designing gods for your campaign world, consider the world’s past history. What great historical event occurred, and what roles did heroes and gods play? How did those events change the roles different gods played? Did a god’s worshippers expanded into a new area? Did a god lose favor when their followers were wiped out, or turned to another god who swooped in to rescue them from some great crisis? Did some hero usurp the role of a god? How did religious practice change as a result of those historical events? Are their traditions, rituals, celebrations that commemorate those days?One should also consider these things when planning campaigns set in the future, or even the present. In an alternate history, would some powerful historical figure have a mythology built around them so that a cult, or even a recognized organized religion has built up around them? The Church of Tesla? The Cult of Hitler? Take the ideas of historical figures, and blow them up larger than life, claim that their ideas were divinely inspired, and you’ve got yourself a religion.One idea I’ve seen used is to have religion be a connection between otherwise unrelated campaigns. In a modern-day setting, one player’s charismatic action hero is a popular celebrity. In another campaign, in the future, that long-dead hero is followed as a saint. The opportunity for humor follows, certainly, but it presents an opportunity to explore human behavior and how history can become distorted, as well as giving you plenty of knowledge to build a religion on.

Tagged as Worldbuilding 101 by: Berin Kinsman 3 Comments Nov 25 2008 Setting: Houses of the Blooded

In the days of Atlantis, Mu, and Lemuria there was a race of powerful beings known as the Sorcerer-Kings. These beings built grand estates, impenetrable fortresses, a wondrous world for them to inhabit. Then they made war upon one another, and destroyed it all, and themselves.The being who were created by the Sorcerer-Kings to serve them became the dominant race in this new world. They called themselves the Ven, which in their language means “all of us”. And they called the world Shanri, which means “the Great Enemy”. Anything not Ven is “ork”, which means “monster”. So all monsters are orks to the Ven. Understand these three words, these three concepts, and you’ve gone a long way toward understanding the Ven mindset. They formed themselves into noble houses, and created their own culture and civilization. And then they began to make war one upon another, one House against another, until they realized that they were headed down the path of destruction forged by the Sorcerer-Kings. War, them, was outlawed, with no House allowed to raise up arms against another. Murder, on the other hand, was legal, so long as the proper authorities were consulted beforehand and permission was granted. Duels were fought, and assassinations plotted, as payment grievances real or imagined. Battles between Houses became ones of politics and intrigue, with occasional bloodshed.This is the basic backdrop for Houses of the Blooded. John Wick maintains that the Ven were real, and that proof of their lives still exists in documents like The Voynich Manuscript and Madame Blavatsky’s TITLE. More Ven fiction exists than history, in the form of “pillow books” (romance novels) and opera, so the setting presented is more a “Mythic Shanri” in the same mold that John’s Legend of the Five Rings was Mythic Japan and his 7th Sea setting with Mythic Swashbuckling Europe. There are no pictures of the Ven in the book, as there are no pictures of the Ven, period. We know what they were like, but not what they or their world looked like. This allows the gamemaster to adapt Houses of the Blooded to be the sort of fantasy he wants it to be. With this style of romantic play, I see the pre-Revolutionary France of Alexander Dumas’ Musketeers, with ornate clothing and mansions with elaborate lawns and gardens and a lot of gilt. But I could also picture a sword-and-sorcery world with ziggurats and scantily-clad women, men in colorful robes like peacocks. What I also see is Stephen Brust’s Dragaera (the Ven are taller, longer lived, and heartier than we are), with its Houses and intrigues, and this game could very easily adapt to that setting.As I stated in my demo report, John describes the game as “rules light, concept heavy”. The mechanics of die rolls and style points is easy to grasp, and I’ll get into the nuts and bolts of all that in the next post, but the real “rules” are those of Ven society. How the player characters choose to follow, or bend, or break those rules are more important than the dice, and get resolved through roleplaying. Actions have implications, as well as consequences. Murder is legal, yes, and duelling and assassination are valid means of resolving greavances. Killing peasants is legal — the Ven word for them translates as “dirt” — but is considered an insult to the noble that owns the peasant. All of the player characters are married, having been placed in arranged unions at the age of 13, so everyone has lovers and mistresses and even beginning player characters probably have children, as well as siblings and parents and uncles and cousins and large extended families, all jockeying for power within the House.I like that fact that not too much is nailed down, allowing the gamemaster to flesh out this idealized, romantic world on their own. Everything you need to know about the setting is here; all the gamemaster and the players have to add is the flair. That seems like a perfect balance to me. Some settings are so sketchy and stingy on details as to no really qualify as settings; others are so overly-detailed as to lock out the gamemaster. Houses of the Blooded seems to hit just the right balance.

Tagged as Houses of the Blooded by: Berin Kinsman 1 Comment Nov 24 2008 Impressions: Houses of the Blooded

On Saturday morning at RinCon I got the opportunity to play Houses of the Blooded run by it’s author, John Wick. I’ve been a fan of John’s work since 7th Sea, and have followed his Wicked Dead stuff with great interest. He’s the closest thing roleplaying has to a rock star, not only because he writes killer games but because he exudes attitude, and one can easily picture him trashing a hotel room.Houses of the Blooded is the first “big game” he’s tackled since 7th Sea, and like that game and Legend of the Five Rings before it tackles broad mythologies and cultures. Where L5R was Mythic Japan and 7th Sea was Mythic Swashbuckling Europe, Houses of the Blooded is Mythic Shanri, an antediluvian world of intrigue and sorcery. As with his previous “big games”, John excels at worldbuilding and presents a society with its own rules, plenty of opportunities for characters, and endless story ideas.The demo began with character creation. Building a character is so simple and easy that it makes pregenerated characters unnecessary. It also allowed John to explain the rules and the implications of character abilities as he walked us through it. Each character has six abilities representing the Virtues valued by the game’s culture, the Ven, and represented by the totem animals of the noble Houses. These are Strength (Bear), Cunning (Elk), Courage (Falcon), Beauty (Fox), Wisdom (Serpent) and Prowess (Wolf). You assign a number of dice (the game uses only d6’s, in die pools) to all Virtues but one. The last is the character’s Weakness. That doesn’t mean the character can’t do things related to that Virtue, but they’re going to suck at it and it’s going to come back at them in story terms as well.All player characters are members of a Noble House, which the player gets to pick. For the Virtue of the House your character belongs to you get +1 die. The characters have lands, wealth, and servants out of the gate. john describes the game as a “response” to D&D, and this is just one example. Everyone has lands and estates and servants. If the orks invade, they characters would hire some expendable, grubby adventurers to go deal with it and not dirty their own hands. The game is about romance and intrigue, not killing things and taking their stuff. To that end, all of the player characters are also married, having been plaed in arranged marriages from the age of 13. This builds in all sorts of opportunities for conflict, as most people have lovers and mistresses.Next, the player selects Aspects for the character. These are lifted directly from Fate, and its authors are acknowledged in the credits. As with Fate, these can be anything at all, positive or negative. Phases are broken out into “seasons”, equating the the states of the the character’s life - Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and ’solace”, the end of one’s life. As we were young, beginning characters, we only filled in Aspects for the Summer season. I was envisioning my character as a sinister, scheming type, so my two Aspects were Apothecary (allowing him to make poisons) and Inquisitor (very polite term for torturer). Remember, this is a game about political intrigue. These choices didn’t make my character evil; they made him well-positioned.Each Aspect can be firther detailed using the Invoke, Tag and Compel rules from the version of Fate found in Spirit of the Century. As this was a one-off demo we weren’t required to use these, although John told us we could fill them out and play them if we were familiar with the concepts and wanted to use them. If you’re not familiar with these, I’l cover them in a future post with more detail on Houses of the Blooded’s rules.Finally, each character needed a name. The character’s name is actually a mechanic in the game, so you also have to determine what that name means. If you do something that’s related to your name, you get an extra die. Likewise, if someone knows your name and its meaning it can be used as an Aspect to Compel you to something. It’s pretty cool. I named my character Yrsigo, and told John it meant “plague of pain”, which seemed to crack him up., and gave me +1 die when hurting people. Other peoples’ character names meant “honor” ( he got +1 for doing honorable things, defending honor, etc), “day” (+1 when doing things during the day, or related to days), and murder (+1 to kill people).That’s it, that’s all of the mechanics of character creation: Virtues and Aspects, and a Name.The next step was creating a Blood Contract. This binds the player characters together. John gave a nice, clean sheet of parchment-looking paper and told us that we should take a few minutes to decide why the player characters might be working together and what we’ve agreed to do for each other, then right it on the paper and sign it with our characters’ names. This is a great way to enforce party unity, and to allow players to decide their own purpose. To keep things simple for the demo, we decided on a simple mutual defense/non-agression treaty. A Blood Contract is a sorcerous ritual. If a character violates the contract (and the gamemaster gets to interpret what constitutes a violation), the word “traitor” gets burned into the character’s forehead for a year and a day for all to see. It’s a nice way to keep a group of characters together, but it also forces them to get creative if they decide to screw each other over.Two very quick concepts for the system: you roll your die pool and add the numbers together, and the target number for nearly everything is 10. You can withhold dice from the pool and use them as wagers, a concept John lifted from his Wicked Dead partner Jared Sorenson’s game octaNe. The game starts with the gamemaster setting the scene, where they are and what has happened. Everyone making Wisdom check, concealing any dice you want to use as wagers in your hand. Everyone who scoreed 10 or above gets to name one thing in the scene that is true, adding to the narrative, with the person who rolled highest going first. If you rolled successfully and had wagers, you go around again, with each player with a wager adding one more thing that is true. You keep going around until all wagers have been used. At this point, the gamemaster has a list of ideas generated by the players that he can build up, but the players have set the scene. At the start of each new scene, another Wisdom check is made and the players again get to add what is true, which creates twists and turns in the plot that are both Machiavellian and soap operatic. Then we all had to play them out, appropraite to our characters.We ended up in a plot where one of the player characters’ sisters was murdered, apparently by another sister, except the murdered sister wasn’t dead, and two of the other player characters were romantically involved with the “dead” sister, but it turned out it was really elaborate ruse by the sisters to kill their brother the player character and take his lands, but because we had the Blood Contract that forbade us from harming each others’ immediate families we couldn’t actually kill the sisters, and it got absolutely crazy from these.And all of that came from what we, the players, put into the plot.This game was ridiculously fun. John describes it as “rules light, concept heavy”, and it really is. The mechanics for doing things are simply. It’s describing what that means and roleplaying the success or failure of character actions that gets complicated. I very much want to play this again, and would run a long-term campaign given half a chance.

Tagged as Houses of the Blooded, RinCon, SAGA by: Berin Kinsman 7 Comments Nov 22 2008 Houses of the Blooded Week

John Wick describes his latest fantasy roleplaying game, Houses of the Blooded, as “rules light, concept heavy”, as well as “the anti-D&D” and I can’t disagree. It’s a game designed for long-term campaigning in the style of D&D, but with indie-style rules that give players a lot of narrative control and shifts the focus away from “kill things, take their stuff” tropes and toward political intrigue, Machiavellian power plays, and more lust and revenge than a week’s worth of soap operas. Clocking in at over 400 pages, the game is deserving of a lot of attention and detailed analysis. So rather than writing just one review, I’m declaring Houses of the Blooded Week at UncleBear and will offer up my thoughts in five parts (six, technically, if you include what you’re reading now).Day 1 will cover my impressions of the game based on the demo John Wick ran at RinCon. This was a great intro to the game and covered character creation, an introduction to the world, and a nice taste of the rules (they’re delicious!).Day 2 will cover the setting. You really can’t begin to look at the rules until you understand the basics of Ven culture and the history of the world of Shanri. I repeat: rules light, concept heavy.Day 3 focuses on the rules, and the way John has put his own spin on the Fate system and married them to the world of the Ven. Although I am sometimes prone to hyperbole, “innovative” is not adequate here.Day 4 will include a mini-review of the soundtrack John arranged for the game, and discuss some of the supplements that are under development.Day 5 will be another self-serving Building Character post, looking at the character I played in the demo. Hopefully, this will help convey the flavor of the game as much as the articles that precede it.It all starts Monday.Meanwhile, if you want to learn more you can visit the official website at HousesoftheBlooded.net, where you can download a 48 page preview of the game that provides both starter rules and an adventure. You can buy a PDF of the full 400+ page game for only $5 at Indie Press Revolution, because John really wants you to read it and play it.You can listen to the soundtrack at the website, or download it from IPR for only $5 as well. It’s over an hour of music, so that price is a steal. $10 for a full game AND a soundtrack? Bargain.John gave two great podcast interviews at RinCon as well, with my friends Don Dehm of Pulp Gamer and Ron and Veronica Blessing of The Game’s the Thing. Both are worth a listen. The Blessings name drop me (yes, I have an ego, duh) and also mention the Deadlands Reloaded and Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane games I was in at RinCon.

Tagged as Houses of the Blooded by: Berin Kinsman Comments Off Nov 21 2008 So You Wanna Be a RPG Blogger? Everyday Inspiration Writing on a single subject can be difficult sometimes. It’s hard to continually come up with new ideas, or fresh angles to write about things that have already been covered by other bloggers. If roleplaying games are only one of many things you write about on your blog, you’re probably okay because you’re not trying to come up with RPG content on a daily basis. If your blog is specifically about roleplaying games, or about one particular system or setting, you’re more likely to run up again this wall.Recently, the RPG Bloggers Network instituted some changes to try to filter out non-RPG content. There were complaints about folks’ non-RPG content showing up on the network’s page and RSS feed. For my part, because I did commit myself to supporting the network and want to make life easy for the guys who volunteer their time to maintain the back end, I decided to change my content so it’s entirely RPG focused. My problem wasn’t coming up with things to write about. My problem was what to do with all of the non-RPG stuff that I still wanted to write about. The solution: making it into RPG content.This post I wrote for this month’s RPG Blog Carnival originally began as a political rant about opinion vs. belief. I don’t currently have a political blog or belong to any political forums where it would be appropriate to post. At the same time, I’d been struggling to find a topic for the blog carnival that hadn’t already been done to death. Being a little slow sometimes, it took me a while to realize that there was some synergy there, and that the points I wants to detail in my rant would translate well into an article on handling religion and it’s intersection with culture and politics within a fantasy game setting. Making a point changed to providing a tool with which players and gamemasters could introduce conflict, the heart of all drama, into a game setting. Viola! A roleplaying article is born.One of the reasons I ran the Random News Table at UncleBear was that I saw the stories as inspiration for roleplaying game plots. Weird crime, forgotten history, scientific discoveries, it was all part of my grand idea file. I never had the time to flesh out my ideas on how I’d use those stories in a roleplaying setting, more’s the pity, but it was an endless source of inspiration.When stuck for ideas, think about what’s on your mind at the moment, even if it’s not RPG related. Family problems? Work, school, current affairs? Movies, video games, the book you’re reading? Then think about how that would translate into a roleplaying setting. Interesting NPCs, villains, plot hooks, setting background, organizations, anything at all can be twisted, mashed up, and used as fodder for a game, and your RPG blog.

Tagged as RPG Bloggers by: Berin Kinsman 5 Comments Nov 21 2008 Religion and Fantasy, Opinion and Belief

The topic of this month’s RPG Blog Carnival is religion. I find this a tricky subject to tackle, because there are so many ways to offend so many people. This might be the reason why religion in most fantasy roleplaying games feels flat and underdeveloped to me. If my character follows Grumbleguts, god of Hard Cheese and Outhouses, the primary effect in most game systems is defining what kewl powerz my character has and his Alignment (or other fairly generic, high-level moral code). The roleplaying ramifications are left up to the player and the gamemaster which, being an old grognard who prefers simple mechanics, is usually a good thing. However, there’s a lot of opportunity to use religion to add flavor, nuance, and story potential to a campaign that frequently gets overlooked. In this article, I’ll provide some guidelines and food for thought on incorporating religion more deeply into a campaign.The Role of the GodsBefore you can determine anything else, you have to decide how active the gods are in the everyday affairs of mortals. Are they simply mythic figures who never show their hands directly, acting in mysterious ways, like Krom and the gods in Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories? Do they take an active interest in the affairs of men, appearing frequently to heroes, as in gods of Greek myth? Or do they simple view mortals as a form of entertainment, or pawns on some great chess board, as the lords of chaos and order in the Elric saga? Do they even exist at all, or is their existence a matter of faith rather than hard evidence? This is important, because it will help shape the beliefs, opinions and actions of individuals and organizations throughout the setting.There are basically three types of gods, so far as their interactions with mortals are concerned. Active gods are right there, in the world, interacting with the masses. Their existence is an undisputed fact based on regular appearances at holy days, festivals, and major events. Passive gods show up once in a while, or may only interact with select people in mysterious ways. They’re around enough and have enough direct interaction with mortals that no one would dispute their existence. Unseen gods almost never appear among mortals, being uninterested, otherwise busy, or even non-existent. Their workings in the world are subtle and their worshipers rely greatly upon faith.The status of various gods can be mix-and-match, but having mixed activity from god to god has implications. It’s easier to believe in an unseen god when it’s a fact that gods actually exist because that other god is standing right over there. It’s harder to do so when they’re all mysterious or uninvolved. The concept of faith is less important when a physical being shows up to smite you, or reward you, based on your actions. The Active gods are also more likely to attract followers than the Passive or Unseen gods unless the follower has faith that their actions will provoke some reward or retribution.Organized ReligionThe followers of each individual god are going to have their own form of organization. In most roleplaying games, the type of organization seems to follow the preferences and nature of the god. This makes sense sometimes, but not all of the time. An Active god might directly order his followers to build a temple to certain specification that please her. A Passive god might tell one person, or have sacred texts indicating a preference for forms of worship. An Unseen god’s congregation could take many forms, based on tradition, the interpretation of the god’s will by the clergy, or something the followers themselves decide might please the god. With no direct contact, this could lead to many different interpretations of how to worship a particular god.Which brings us to the problems of orthodoxy. There are typically no schisms with an Active god telling her followers what to do. However, the god may intentionally separate her followers for designated purposes. Grumbleguts, from my example above, might have one sect of worshippers who deal with Hard Cheese, and another that deal with Outhouses. There’s probably no conflict, as they’d be operating under separate doctrines. The human (demi-human? humanoid?) factor comes when the god appears to favor one sect over the other, or the leaders begin making petty power plays. Evil gods would do this sort of thing on purpose to allow the strongest/most murderous to dominate, and trickster gods would just do this for their own amusement.The orthodoxy of Passive gods can go either way. With little direct intervention, schisms can occur as sects are left to interpret doctrine on their own. If the god doesn’t really care what’s going on in his name, he might let the sects do what they want as long as it doesn’t bother him. He may only care about the sect (or sect leader) he’s speaking with, and let the “schismed” sects do their own thing, or leave it to his preferred sect to deal with blasphemers.Orthodoxy with Unseen, absentee gods is where things can get dangerous. Without a physical god to step in and say “No, I did NOT say that“, religious leaders can take power unto themselves and use the organization’s resources and followers to their own ends. With no god to act as a guiding hand, the clergy really holds the power to decide upon doctrine. Schisms will happen and evolve into very different, sometimes very strange, directions. Followers often follow the clergy more than they follow the god and her teachings.Church and StateDespite the best intentions of the Founding Fathers of the United States, it is nearly impossible to completely separate religion and politics. The morals and ethics of the dominant religion(s) frequently form the basis of a nation’s laws, and the leaders of the land can impact the role of religion in a culture. Religion will almost always have some role in, or influence upon, politics. There are a number of ways this can dramatically impact a game.Active gods may get to pick who gets to be King, or demand the worship of a kingdom. There’s no religious freedom, because he’s standing right there. If he’s vengeful, he might smite you. If he’s generous, you might not get the good blessings. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good (or bad, depending on how the god rolls) for goodness’ sake. A cooperative pantheon of gods might share responsibilities, so different government functions might worship gods who preside over their job functions. The gods themselves will likely play some direct or indirect role in how the nation is led and run.Passive gods may not be involved in politics at all, but may cherry-pick individuals or issues they wish to promote or dissuade. A Passive god may still exert influence with a prophet or a king as the means to make their will known. A politician may still use their status with a passive god to gain power and influence either as a legitimate representative of the god, for personal gain, or some degree of both.Representatives of Unseen gods will rely on doctrine and sacred texts to influence the laws of the land. Without the god’s direct intervention and guidance, however, there will again be varying interpretations of the god’s desires for mortal behavior. Much of this will be well intentioned as the followers perform actions and promote political systems that reinforce their beliefs and serve as demonstrations of their faith. Much of this will also be mortals twisting and distorting doctrine to support their own agendas, for good or ill.Opinion and BeliefWhen it gets down to individuals, conflicts of religion versus culture or religion versus politics become that of opinion versus belief. An opinion, according to the UncleBear dictionary, is a reasoned argument based on fact. You can say, “My opinion is that the best course of action is X, based on how I interpret this information”. Belief, on the other hand, can be based in logic but is largely based on faith and instinct. “I believe we should do X,” for example, “because The Teachings say that is the best course of action, and even though it may not seem to make sense right now there’s some purpose to doing this that we just can’t unsderstand at the moment”. There is nothing wrong with Opinion (unless your character is in a theocracy or an iron dictatorship), and there is nothing wrong with Belief (unless your character is in some godless oligarchy or happens to follow the wrong god at the wrong time), but one should never be mistaken for the other. If there is a theoretical overlap, it is very, very small in most situations. One who expresses an Opinion will not be swayed by sacred texts, unless that person is also a Believer. And one who expresses Belief may listen to facts and reason, until it comes into conflict with Faith. It can become a gulf that cannot be breached. As in the real world, the impact of religion in a fantasy world can come down to a handful of divisive issues, with Opinion dominating one side and Belief holding the other. In a best-case scenario, the two sides will tolerate each other and agree to disagree. In the worst case scenario, you get holy wars, inquisitions, crusades, concentration camps, pogroms, jihads, suicide bombers, and other violent outbursts intended to eliminate those who hold opposing viewpoints.SummaryAs always, I maintain that history and current events are the greatest inspirational tools for any roleplaying game. People will undoubtedly find parallels between what I’ve written here and the real world, but my intention has been neither to bash nor promote and point of view. I suggest you look to real-world religion for inspiration in your game world not in doctrine but in the behaviors and motivations displayed by individuals and organizations in response to those religions. The intention is to help you find interesting stories to tell and make your game worlds deeper, richer, and more textured.

Tagged as RPG Bloggers, Worldbuilding 101 by: Berin Kinsman 6 Comments Nov 20 2008 Kickin’ It Asimov Style

In some recent conversations with people doing NaNoWriMo, RPG Bloggers, and writers in general, I’ve mentioned that I’ve developed an affinity for writing “Asimov style”. Although I’ve written about this previously in a So You Wanna Be a RPG Blogger article, enough people have asked me about it that I though it bears revisiting.I cannot provide a specific citation, but years ago I either read in a copy of Asimov’s magazine, or heard the late Good Doctor Isaac Asimov himself speak at a convention, on his method of writing. He had multiple typewriters set up in his office (for a science fiction author and futurist, he never switched to using word processors or computers). He’d sit at one typewriter and work on one project until he got stuck. When the words didn’t come, he moved over to the next typewriter and started something else, or if there was something else in progress there he’d add to that until he either finished or got stuck again. Then he’d move to the next typewriter and work on that, and so on. Working on other, disparate things gave him perspective when he returned to projects he’d stalled on. Even if he wrote only a sentance or two, he moved forward and kept writing. He never allowed writer’s block to bring him to a complete, grinding halt. This was how Dr. Asimov was able to write so prolifically, and on such a wide range of topics.I have no idea what the actual layout of his office was, but I always pictured him having a desk chair with wheels, rolling around the room from desk to desk. The image amuses me. For years I kept a picture of Asimov seated at a desk above my own writing space as inspiration.Writing “Asimov Style” isn’t that dramatic or complicated these days. Simply put icons for the various documents you’re working on group together on your desktop, or in a specific folder. When you get stuck, save, close, and open the next one. For a long time, I kept the files numbered in front of the titles to keep track: “01 thistitle, 02 thattitle, 03 theothertitle“, etc. I later moved to a tiddlywiki, put each project in a separate tiddler, and created a menu page that listed each one. That allowed me to move more quickly between projects. As things grew too large, or needed editing, spell checking, or formatting, I’d cut and paste them into an OpenOffice doc (or Wordpress, for blog posts).On my Alphasmart there are “file” keys where the function keys are on a normal keyboard, each holding a project file. I just have to go down the row, from File 1 to File 2 and so on. Since it automatically saves, and they’re only text files, it takes no time at all to move between files.There’s one major drawback to working this way, and that’s the feeling that you’re never completing anything because you’re working on multiple things at once. I have two recommendations. First, make sure you’re doing something each time you touch the files. You may not score a touchdown, but you’ve at least moved the ball forward and you’ll feel good about making some sort of progress. My other recommendation is to limit the number of projects you actively work on. Asimov only had so many typewriters. My Alphasmart can only hold eight files. Your computer can hold a ridiculous amount of documents and you will overwhelm yourself if you’re not careful. A few weeks ago I found myself staring at 17 in-process projects. I decided to pare that down to a number I found manageable, and focused on five I felt were a higher priority. The others I moves into a separate folder, so I could move them into the rotation as I completed things. The right number of projects in your rotation is up to you, depending on how many ways you feel you can split your focus, how much time you have to spend writing, and what your word count output is. You can prioritize what goes in your rotation based on deadlines, but I’d also suggest putting something at least on project that’s close to completing in the line-up to give yourself some occasional closure and a sense of satisfaction. I’d also suggest always having at least one project in the lineup that’s an absolute chore, either because it’s something you have to write but don’t want to, can’t get the ideas to flow, or just aren’t inspired with right now. If it’s in there, you don’t have to spend a ton of time on it, you’ll get a little bit done when it comes up in the rotation, and you won’t feel guilty about putting it off.Obviously, “Asimov Style” isn’t for everyone. Even if you give it a try, you should adapt it to your own style and needs, keeping bits that help you and ditch the rest. There is no “correct” way to write, no universal productivity trick that works for all writers, all the time. This is simply something that works for me. It’s also certainly no process for guaranteeing quality, which you can certainly judge for yourself by reviewing my own writing. If you do give it a try, or have tried it, or are interested in trying it, I’d certainly like you hear your thoughts and feelings on the matter. Feel free you leave your comments below.*************************Painting of Isaac Asimov by Rowena Morrill. Used under a GNU Free Documentation License.

Tagged as RPG Bloggers by: Berin Kinsman 3 Comments Nov 20 2008 So You Wanna Be a RPG Blogger: Doing It For Fun So you’ve taken the plunge and become an RPG Blogger. You’ve picked out a really cool blog name. You’ve installed Wordpress, or got a Blogger or LiveJournal account or something so you’ve got the tools and the space. You joined the RPG Bloggers Network. You’ve read every article on RPG blogging that the Chatty DM, myself, and anyone else you can find has written. You’ve tinkered with optimal page layout, done the things you need to do to attracted readers, check your page hits and RSS feed subscribers often, and really, really want to be successful. The problem is, at this point you’re so wrapped around your axel over the technical aspects of things that you’ve lost your motivation to write, and that blank screen is staring at you. You HAVE to write something, get something fresh on that page, or else you’ve failed, right?I’ll let you in on a secret. Writing an RPG blog is like playing roleplaying games: if you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.It was 12 years ago tomorrow that I started UncleBear, and I am by no account one of the most popular roleplaying blogs around. There are times where I’ve tried to be, and it’s just ended up pissing me off and frustrating me. There are times when I’ve felt like I wanted to walk away forever. There have been multiple times when I’ve put the site on hiatus or taken a mental vacation from blogging. There have been times when I just didn’t have anything that I wanted to write about. At all of those times, for a number of reasons, doing this just stopped being fun. If you’re trying to be “professional” about your blogging, that’s terrifying.Doing this for 12 years and not being super-popular, or making tons of money in ad revenue, doesn’t mean I’m a “failure”. I get out of this exactly what I wanted to. I’ve built a community of regular readers and commenters, who have become good friends with me and each other over the years. I get to write about what I want, rather than what’s popular. Face it, if I wanted the big hits I’ve write about nothing but D&D and the flavor of the month all day, every day. There are other blogs that do that well and fill those niches, and I love them. But that wouldn’t be fun for me. I don’t have to worry about gaining and maintaining readers and subscriber levels to keep advertisers happy. I don’t have to censor my content for any reasons other than my own personal standards. And if I start getting bored, I have the freedom to switch things up.The standard bit of advice given to new writers is “write what you know”. I’m going to tell you, right now, to escort that old chestnut around back, kill it, take it’s stuff, and give yourself 50 x.p. for the effort. If RPG bloggers only wrote what they knew, we’d have no new product reviews or playtest reports. Roleplaying gamers, like their character, like to explore and discover new things. They like to create new things. I’m going to tell you to write what you have passion for, and if roleplayers have anything in abundance it is passion. Oh, how we love what we love and oh, how we loathe what we loathe. Don’t just write what you know, write what you’re getting to know. New monsters, spells, magic items, house rules, adventures and setting come not always from what you know but from what you’re getting to know, from an unmet expectation and a hole that you’ve identified and needs filling.To bring this full circle, even if you are interested in the metrics, the page hits and RSS subscribers and ad revenue, those concrete measures of success, I will say that you still must write with passion. It’s what will draw in the readers, and keep them there if your passion for a subject is infectious. The traditional definitions of success will spring from there. And even if they don’t, you’ll still be having fun.

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Articles,	reviews	and	rants
on	science	fiction,	games,	movies.
The	Toybox:	arguably	the	largest
collection	of	free	roleplaying	games
on	the	web.	Genre	Fonts:
	A	collection	of	TrueType
fonts	inspired	b

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Uncle Bear Online 2008 December

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Articles, reviews and rants on science fiction, games, movies. The Toybox: arguably the largest collection of free roleplaying games on the web. Genre Fonts: A collection of TrueType fonts inspired b

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