DM-babble: Creating the world with maps

Starting location map zoomed in. (Inkarnate)

These past couple of weeks I've been working, on-again off-again, on maps for my homebrew. Why maps? Because I'm hoping it's going to supply me with answers to the story as opposed to creating a map to fit the story I've pre-written. A bit arse about face, but I console myself with the knowledge that I will be using these maps and thus it isn't time wasted.

So what I've been doing is randomly generating maps on Medieval Fantasy City Generator and Village Generator, then going to Inkarnate and reworking them either to fit my 'vision' better or just to make it look prettier. I'm also by no means a map maker. I didn't take geography at school and have no notion of how things should be on a map. But I don't think it came out all that bad. And hell, it's a fantasy land with dragons and whatnot. Sense is not something it needs to absolutely make.

Here are some examples of what I've been up to:

The city of Alsheim doesn't have a governmental structure yet, but I know that it has a river that flows through it. Yay! With the help of mapping, I've gotten some ideas on the wards of the city, if not the actual contents.

Alsheim (Inkarnate)

But! Before my victims... I mean the party... reaches Alsheim (if they decide to go to the city at all), they have a starter village to investigate called Cara's Pasture. This village was randomly generated with the Village Generator and then I decided that it needed the river to flow past the village and lead down into another bigger town of Spelar. I nabbed some concepts for Cara's Pasture from The Lost Mines of Phandelver as the frontier town of Phandalin had a range of handy dandy shops and places that I wanted to see in this village. Plus in terms of location, the two settlements have similar resources at their disposal (or so I tell myself).

Cara's Pasture (Inkarnate)

I do have the village inhabited by a couple of plain characters and one or two more colourful ones. I have the beginnings of tension in the authorities at play, which I think there should be for it to seem a bit more real. And, I have a couple of quests (though not nearly enough) to start the players off. Hopefully the events will transpire the way I want them to and not have the players killing off my innocent little monsters before they can do what I would like them to do. I probably need more quests and thoughts on this, but so far the whole thing is a little daunting.

Spelar is one of the two places that the party may decide to go to on their way to the city of Alsheim. Much like the city, I basically only have the map for it. No NPCs or quests yet.

Spelar (Inkarnate)

Despite this, I still feel like I've been doing quite a bit. My mind has been working in the background thinking of ways to use and populate these spaces that I've created. So I wouldn't consider any of this a distraction though it does sometimes feel like it. I think I'm avoiding the 'big work' of bringing these places to life. I fear that, like my limitations with geography, my knowledge of political/governing systems is going to put a spanner in the works. But I guess that also depends on the type of players I get. Those who are interested in stabby-stabby would not care for who rules in the random port town that they are passing through where as the more role-playing party just might. It's difficult to tell.

Tell me what you think? 

DM-ing babble: My first homebrew setting... oh dear.

I've been playing D&D for close to seven years and DM-ed for maybe three years(?), but they've been pre-written campaigns or one-shots (usually crappy ones with little decent motivations in them). Homebrew in any form has always been a bit of a mountain I haven't dared climb. Well, sort of. I did try a homebrew setting once. It didn't work out well. It was an email campaign... which is mostly why it failed because time zones suck.

Anyhoo, I admire those who do have homebrew settings because I struggle with proper motivations for characters and getting a story that pops. I have similar challenges with writing stories, so it doesn't quite surprise me that this would be a hurdle I face in the TTRPG sphere. 

But... I've found a story... Uhm, no. Let's call it an fledgling idea. So I've found a fledgling idea that I like. I have victims to try it on. And I have ample enough time to plan the crap out of it. 

This is already sufficient motivation to try it out.

And then, the key ingredient, I have committed myself publicly to try. Guilting me into action is always key. Sadly. Damn.

Future post will probably include more detail as I figure it out and ramble about it. 

What I can say now is that I have a starting world map thanks to Inkarnate, Roll20, and Mythic Portal Games' Cartographers Guild tokens. I have both a city and a town that's slowly taking shape, and I have maps for them thanks to Medieval Fantasy City Generator by watabou.

So the resources are in place. Now to populate the world and make it interesting. That's the next challenge.

I don't know how much I will share of the world here. Perhaps a bit, depending on interest. Perhaps only vaguely in case the only interested parties are my players. Tricksy players.

So here's my question for those game masters out there. How would you start off a level 1 party? How does one work towards levelling them up and making those experiences meaningful without it just being a goblin slog? That seems to be something that's done to death. 

Podcasting babble: Guesting for Dragons & Flagons

So I did it. 

I shifted my mic boom arm closer, kept a close eye on my notes, and participated in a podcast. The subject matter was something everyone who has had experience with playing roleplaying games could add their input on:

'What makes for a bad player?'

The previous podcasts the team of Dragons & Flagons did had to do with what makes for good players and good DMs. This conversation was the inverse of that and had us listing some pet peeves that you can get from players. It was an interesting conversation. 

At some point, I had forgotten that I was supposed to be adding to the discussion and listened mostly because I was reminded how, several years ago before I stumbled over D&D, I barely found people whom I resonated with. And while the countries, cultures and even language are different, I still felt that sense of resonance during the conversation. Which was kinda cool. Not necessarily a thought to occupy one's time while recording but still cool.

I've been invited to record the next podcast with them as well. This will be about what makes for a bad DM. My notes are ready and I'm eager to be a part of the discussion.

Hopefully this time I won't get too distracted!

DaF: Holiday special

 This post is a little later than desired. I was invited to join the Dragons and Flagons peeps in a D&D oneshot late last year to save Christmas from an evil Santa.

Link to the first episode here on Spotify. 

I was a little more reserved than everyone else, but it was a lot of fun. The game is probably NSFW, just so you know. I think we did good. :)

Let me know what you think.

From Text to Speech: On (possible) new adventures

First a bit of a reflection on this year. I'm in a very fortunate, even privileged position, where I wasn't in danger of losing my job like so many other people were. I had some stress as my contract was in need of renewal, but in comparison to the devastation 2020 has sowed on many people, I really can't complain. I was also able to work from home and, as an introvert, found the distance from people quite delightful.

That being said, I did take some strain and found myself in need of escape. And in that, I clearly wasn't the only one. For one thing, the online D&D community skyrocketed as more people were forced to find alternative means of playing the game. What was a fun little hobby became an absolutely necessary escape as the year continued to spiral out of control.

In my case, my gaming days increased dramatically. Pre-Covid, I was already playing two sessions a week. Then I got invited to play with a group of North Americans over the weekends, increasing my sessions to four a week and probably damaging my sleep schedule irreparably. Time zones suck, but technology closes distances dramatically. People I mostly spoke to over text for years have now become almost household acquaintances. Programmes like Zoom and Marco Polo has really helped cross boundaries that previously seemed impenetrable. 

And then a new opportunity arose. One I hadn't previously considered. I was invited by the North Americans to join a recorded D&D game which is to be released via podcast in the very near future. I was nervous, naturally, but delighted. As a Christmas gift, I received the means to make it an actual option: a podcasting microphone kit. And so, I stepped over from text to speech.

This leap is mildly terrifying. English is not my first language, and I've always been more of a writer than a speaker. Also, it brings forth the question: what does my voice add to the conversation? Which is something I never really considered. While I like babbling about the things I love, I never really successfully imparted the aspects of myself that I thought worth considering to a 'community', as it were. There is a certain confidence you need to have which I'm still developing.

That being said, this might be the start of a very interesting, fulfilling journey as those crazy people across the ocean have taken further steps by inviting me to actually guest in their podcast. I'm humbled by this and by their apparent certainty that I will be able to add something constructive and edifying.

When all of this will happen, I'm not sure, but I will definitely keep this blog updated on events as they transpire.

For now, I'm going to plug the podcast, namely Dragons & Flagons and invite you to listen to these four crazy people discuss things D&D. 

Gaming Babble: Lock down list

 I did this a while back and kind of liked it. Instead of focusing the post on a single game, I'll instead mention a couple of games I've been playing this past couple of months. I can (hopefully) always expand on an individual ramble at a later time. The majority of the games I'm going to talk about are still in Early Access, so they're not the finished product, but still enjoyable. 

Grounded

So I've talked about it before, but I've been playing Grounded quite a bit. I'm now at the stage where I need to wait for the next update to see what they bring in next, but I'm patient. The game is worth it. For those who don't know, Grounded is essentially Honey I Shrunk the Kids meets a survival game. You run around in the back yard, the size of an ant. The game is fun in single player, but I have no doubt multiplayer could also be a blast with the right person(s).

Subnautica Below Zero

I have a deep love for the original Subnautica and the sequel looks very promising. Set a year after the events of the first game, you play a new character who is out to follow her sister's trail through a frozen, aquatic world. Survive, build, but most importantly, explore. Where the first Subnautica kept you mostly in the water, Below Zero encourages you to explore the surface as well. In moderation... you might otherwise freeze to death.

Eco

The premise of Eco is interesting. A meteor is about to strike the world, build from scratch and develop the technology to avert the disaster, but be aware that the world you're trying to save has its own balance. It's very easy to wipe out the very thing you're trying to save. The game is designed for multiple people to work together - each going into a different specialisation. You can play single player and you can play without the meteor - which is what I've been doing. Eco is relaxing in a strange way, but very very grindy. 

Satisfactory

Satisfactory is in some ways the exact opposite of Eco. Here it's about using everything the world has to offer, build factories, automate and ship off planet. I've only spent a few hours stripping a particularly lush world bare so I can't say much yet, but I'm enjoying it. It runs the risk of going over my head, but so far so good.

No Man's Sky

I've only recently purchased No Man's Sky and I've already invested 40 hours into the game. That said, I feel as if I'm still only busy figuring it out. The story is interesting: You crash into an unknown planet with no memory of who you are. Following a bread-crumb trail, you learn about the mysteries of the universe you're in and make some pretty big decisions while you're at it. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you just go in whatever direction you please. No Man's Sky leaves it up to you to decide how involved you want to be. The only gripe I have with this game is its waiting/loading times. I've taken to reading a book while playing the game and I'm surprised at how far I got in the book!

Game Ramble: Grounded - or the game in which I scream a lot

Grounded has a very simple premise. You wake up in the back yard, only you're the size of an ant and the yard is vastly bigger than ever before. You collect sprigs, pebbles, grass fiber and fashion yourself tools and weapons to combat the creatures that share this space with you.

All of this is very appealing to me. Even in early access, the game shows a lot of potential to be a great game. I daresay, it's already great. There's very little story as of yet. It's taking a similar route to The Long Dark in giving you the world to play in while it sorts out the story bits in the background. And that's fine. There's already so much to do and it's just delightful.

I just have one problem with the game. 

I do not like spiders. Not even a little bit. 

The game features an arachnophobia mode in which the spiders appear as circular blobs instead of the long and hairy creepers with large fangs, but that doesn't really help me. My mind can fill in the blanks and a part of my pride refuses to turn this feature on. 

So I scream in this game. A lot. And die. A lot. But Grounded is relatively forgiving when it comes to death. It expects you to die and die frequently and so you can set up respawn points in the world so that you're popped back into existence at that particular point. Then it's just a matter of fetching your gear... 

Grounded's atmosphere is gorgeous and lush. This is a very pretty game. I'm excited to see what else the creators cook up.

That is, if I can get over my screaming fits...

DM-ing Babble: Finishing off a campaign.

It's been a couple of hours now and I think that it's finally started to hit me. I'm done with my Sunday games running Waterdeep Dragon Heist. 

This was the second time I've run that particular campaign (and not the last) but it was the most challenging from a motivational standpoint. One thing I already know about myself and which became painfully apparent is that I'm not terribly flexible as a person and as a DM. I like my law and order, and so the absolute anarchy of the party left me quite stunned more than once. It made me have to pause and process a great deal more. It made me forget story beats and levelling. Because really, who would expect the first reaction to meeting an NPC who has done absolutely nothing up to that point to be "I headbutt her in the face"?

It was difficult. I've learnt that you (mostly) have to make your players the "heroes" of their story. It's their story after all. You have to be rooting for them. The whole idea of being an adversarial DM is anathema to me. But what do you do when the moral fiber of your party is... not so heroic? Not evil. Criminal maybe, but not evil. But when they actively seek to better themselves at the expense of others all the time, it's difficult for me to haul out my pom-poms and cheer them on.

Essentially, my perfect little world was being shattered by men bordering on murder hobos and I didn't have the mental agility to make the leaps with the party. That made the campaign difficult and a lot shorter than it could have been as I focused on nothing but the story material. It just wasn't a game I wanted to run and so my motivation for it dwindled and I didn't actively go out to expand the world beyond the confines of the book. 

I learnt much from this little experiment in DM-ing. As I finish off with this group and wish them well on their future endeavors, I realise that I am very fortunate that I discovered the two gaming groups I comfortably reside in. They're an odd bunch, but they are a quality of players I should truly appreciate. My search for such gaming friends could have been much longer and far more arduous.

I should make a point of telling them how much I appreciate them... 

Gaming Babble: The Last of Us Part 2

I'm not going to spoil the game for you. I just need to note down somewhere some thoughts that had gone through my head as I finished the game. I started playing on Friday morning and, new puppy allowing, played every chance I got to finish a couple of hours into the evening today. It's been a wild, thought-filled ride.

I was fortunate in that I had not been spoilt by the game leaks. I still don't know what was actually revealed. All I saw of the game was the trailers, including the game play trailer. And so I didn't have any negative feelings or expectations that I brought with me, except for the one concern I had - one that in the end wasn't founded.

So what can I say about the game without spoiling it?

The Last of Us Part 2 continues the story of Ellie as she loses herself to vengeance. After an incident of extreme loss, Ellie goes to Seattle to track down those whom she believed wronged her.

The game is very emotionally charged, and poses a number of questions about vengeance and crossing lines without ever having the characters ask them so directly. How far would you go to gain recompense? When is it enough? What is left of you when all you have left is your rage? What separates us from them?

In many ways, the story is pretty brutal and I'll admit that I shed more than one tear throughout. It wasn't as gut wrenching as I was expecting though... but maybe it's because it didn't nearly fuck me up as much as Mass Effect 3 did emotionally. I was sad, I was worried, I was invested, but I wasn't gutted. Which is not a bad thing to say of the game, but gives me a way to measure the intensity of it. There were some things in terms of pacing that initially didn't make sense to me or that I felt I didn't care about at the time of playing, but it became relevant later on in the game. More than anything, this game is a story and how willing you are to hear it from the writers will determine your satisfaction in it, I think.

This seems like a good enough segue into the acting - which was phenomenal. I'm still insanely impressed by what one can do with motion capture and the methods employed in this game to have the actors tell the story. The range of emotions on the faces made me forget that I was looking at something that wasn't real. My mother walked into the room multiple times and, despite some mentions of the extremity of the violence, she was also captivated by the 'realness' of the characters as people. I suppose, as a Critical Role fan, I'm biased when it comes to Ashley Johnson and Laura Bailey, but they really knocked it out of the park. I was incredibly impressed by Laura's performance as she played a character that I would never have imagined her to play physically and vocally. It was disarming. Troy Baker played his role with the same expert skill that I've come to expect from anything he commits himself to.

Gameplay, as expected, is very close to the first game in some ways. There was a sense to me of not fixing something that isn't broken, but they did improve on some aspects as well. Which was great. I played the game on Moderate, with the exception of one particularly nasty infected that spent over an hour ripping my character to pieces until I decided I've seen enough of that cinematic and popped it over to Light. I was challenged. I like stealth games (which is funny because I'm not good at it), so Ellie did a lot of shooting and running for her life as people/critters chased her. The gameplay is solid. Ellie is far more agile than Joel, but she's also a lot smaller. So you have to think about how you're taking on your opponent physically and also how you're going to navigate the world. Not everything within Joel's reach is within Ellie's. So that was interesting.

Bugs: I didn't have the day one patch (I'm nearing the limit of my data cap), so I did have a few bugs, but nothing terrible. I had to restart the programme once due to an error popping up and once I had to kill my character by drowning because the screen went weird. Which was interesting as that was the only time my character drowned while playing and I got to watch the acting instead of freaking out about the lack of breath (I tend to freak out about stuff like that). But those were the worst and probably fixed with the update.

With the passing of time, I think I will probably come back to playing the Last of Us Part 2 again, but not immediately. I think it's going to stick with me for a long time though - as all good, meaningful stories do. I feel the game has left a mark on my soul... I think that's the best compliment I can give it.

Ramble: Life and Subnautica

In the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of social chaos that will hopefully bring some good change, in the middle of everything, I can admit to the world that I'm alive, I'm healthy, if a little fearful at/of everything.

There, that's my update on life.

No, to be honest, things have been okay for me. I'm fortunate that I can work from home virtually unimpeded and am in a position where I don't have to fear for my livelihood. And for that I'm exceedingly grateful. As we step into winter, I have yet to deal with any of the common place colds and flu - which I know is due to the lockdown my country has implemented and not just a stroke of luck, but I'm still grateful that I haven't had to deal with that in the midst of all this insanity.

As an introvert, locked in a house with her mom for company since March, I have to say that only recently have I begun to feel the need to expand my communication lines. And then it's only a slight niggling I get every now and then reminding me that talking to people is actually normal and healthy and thus advised. 

Maybe that's why I'm getting back to blogging... er... don't hold me to that.

So yes, that's life. It still consists of work, video gaming, (virtual) tabletop roleplaying, and just existing. Waiting for something, but I can't tell you what because goodness only knows what it is. Maybe just waiting for the storm to pass.

In this time of confinement, I've been gaming quite a bit - getting back to it in a way I had not realised I had missed until I started playing again. I still have that incurable itch to play something new which got filled for a time with me finally getting my toes wet in Subnautica.

I've had the game in my wish list for years and I had a couple of reasons why I didn't just buy the thing. 

The first was a personal, silly matter. See, I don't like water. I live by the coast and the closest I get to the ocean, if I ever do, is about ankle deep and it's been more than a year since I've even done that. Same with swimming pools. I can swim (not gracefully, but still), but I've never had a call to the water. It's just not my thing.

The other thing I found that made me hesitate was that I was simply afraid the game was going to be too complicated for me. That it, like with Oxygen Not Included, would be the kind of game where I only scratch the surface of understanding and be limited in enjoyment because of it.

But boy, the game still looked darn pretty. So in the middle of the first month of lockdown, I decided to hell with caution, bought it for a song on Steam and loaded it up.

And I was instantly transfixed. The game is gorgeous. Visually, the game was just something to appreciate. I did have to tone down the effects so that my PC could take a breath, but even at lower settings, the game is still a beauty to behold.

So what is the story behind Subnautica? (of course, this is the thing that caught me) Your ship crash lands on an alien planet and you soon learn that rescue is something for other people. You have to get off the planet by yourself. You traverse this mostly aquatic world, searching for wreckage blueprints so you can craft, build and ultimately escape. Unlike games like Don't Starve, there's a definite feeling of having a goal beyond survival. You want to discover and explore and gain knowledge of the world around you, partially out of curiosity but also, more importantly, because you want to leave. Every trip you take is another step towards that goal even as you build a base and set up a temporary residence. 

The game kept me captivated from start to finish, and I was so excited and a little sad when I was ready to leave. But I was also ready to launch into the stars. I loved the sense of accomplishment.

Subnautica does have a dark side. Though it's not something you see in most of the game, the game does have some glitches that had me up in arms. Sometimes you would set out on a journey that would take you fourteen minutes to get to your destination, only to get stuck or have the save go wonky. In my second play through of Subnautica, I found that I had less patience for that. I knew how the game ended so I wasn't going to do a 'rescue' mission to recover lost equipment that would take another thirty minutes of my time.

That said, I've already purchase the sequel, Subnautica Below Zero, and eagerly - dare I say childishly - await its final release date.