DM-ing at Game Over Gaming: Here we go again!

I got a phone call today. I didn't recognise the number and, fearing some kind of scammer or bot or whatnot, I answered the phone without speaking. Because in this day and age, that's apparently what you're supposed to do. After an awkward 'uh hello?' from the other side of the phone, I realised I was speaking to the human variety and it didn't sound like a call centre. What can I say? I'm not used to being called by people who don't want my money.

The conversation was brief, but to the point. Game Over Gaming is having another event in March and they want me to come to Glentana and do the DM-ing thing again. Seeing as I have something already prepped sorta, I said yes and we discussed the details a bit. It might be streamed again, I'm not sure. But regardless, it should be interesting. Glentana was rather pretty the last time I went - migraine and all. 

They're promising everything that was the previous festival but bigger, grander, geekier. There's going to be multiple DMs running tables, more space for PC gaming (which I still won't partake in... I'm afraid of dropping my computer somewhere along the way and I'm very attached to it...), more in the line of cosplay, more comics and other geeky-related stuff. 

I'll babble more about it as I get more info... or maybe after the fact haha. For now, I figure it's worth noting on this little blog.

The Homebrew that keeps Growing...

The year was 2016. 

I had only been playing D&D for about two, maybe three years at this point and something interesting occurred.

I. Had. An. IDEA!!!

It was very vague still. There were going to be these heroes who have lived long lives and then died. Then they're going to come back while only slowly regaining their memories and it's going to be a big, great thing. I had only two settlements in mind, no pantheon, no map and it all was... not quite glued together. 

It's from this half-assed campaign that I attempted an email story game. It didn't last long but it began solidifying the things in my mind. And then it faltered in the same year... turns out time zones suck. Plus I had never run a play-by-post game and never been in one and it probably sucked. haha 😉

As the years moved on, the idea grew and reformed. Why take away their memories when you have that backstory to mine from? Why not have a character in a level 1 body with a level 15 mindset? 

I started running Dragon Heist online and the idea kept percolating in the back of my mind.

And then I started playing on Inkarnate and Roll20 and the Cartographer's Guild icons on there and a half-assed map was born.

The early version map of Rheas (2021)

I started documenting the progress here on this blog and yeah... it's spiralled and grown into one helluva ride. I feel my map making skills have improved and the story also began shifting into something more concrete. I attempted a couple of game runs (going on four so far, with only two surviving) and throughout, the lore kept accumulating and I haven't scratched the surface of this world that I'm creating. 

A portion of Rheas (2023)

And now, as the year 2023 too quickly draws to a close, I've hit the milestone of 40 sessions with the South Africans... I don't know how that happened. We've explored maybe 30% of the island/continent(?) of Ocruan. I'm both excited and daunted by the thought of churning out more content. I have it in my head somewhere, but getting it to spill onto paper is sometimes quite challenging. Maps are easier to make, I've found. 

Anyway, I felt to document it here. I am excited at my little homebrew that could. It keeps going despite setbacks and is growing into a rich experience that I am enjoying thoroughly.

Curse! Splat!

So I know this isn't a life blog, but the fun has to be documented somewhere and it influences my future geekiness.

It's almost a week into nanowrimo and it's already very quickly going to pot. I can still catch up - if I can write 15 000 words in one day to win like I did a couple of years ago, anything is possible. So I'm not going to say that I'm giving up on nanowrimo just yet, but it's going to the backburner while I recover a bit more karma.

Now, those who know me should be aware that I don't actually believe in luck or karma or stuff like that. But just because I don't believe in them don't mean they're not going to screw up my circumstances right good. 

Last Friday I had courier package trouble, then got home late, and found a pigeon in the kitchen which promptly shat on my head. On Saturday, I rolled so poorly on Roll20 that people were suggesting I roll with actual dice (which I could have fudged the rolls for) because clearly digital dice hate me. 

And then came Sunday. Beautiful, beautiful Sunday.

I had an Arkham Horror date with friends. First, I overslept. Then I got the car out of the garage to discover the tyre is flat. Then I tried to move the car to find the battery was giving issues and not letting me restart the car.

Joyous.

So I put on my big-girl pants and changed the tyre while my mom coordinated with a neighbour to give me a jump start. And then we discovered that one of my mom's friends had "borrowed" my jumper cables without asking me. I was livid. But, long story short: tyre got changed successfully (yay), jumper cables were returned (yay), car got jumped (yay), and off I raced to go play a card game (yay) in which we died (well..... shit).

I would like to say yesterday wasn't a train smash but I'd be lying. Continued car trouble, evil meetings, poor conflict resolution, it had the makings of a disastrous day and it delivered.

And then we have today. I'm honestly terrified what today is going to bring.

All of which is to say, nanowrimo is the furthest from my mind right now. I had dnd games to prep, life's crash helmet to fasten, and just general work mayhem to navigate.

So what about streaming? I'm going to try to keep the Wednesday weekly stream going. Instead of doing nanowrimo like I did last time, I'm just going to play games. It'll be fun, relaxing, and not nearly as exhausting as trying to pull words out of thin air.

That's the hope anyway.

Geeky Babble: Con.ect 2023

This year's Con.ect seemed a little smaller than last year, but I don't know whether there's truth to that statement or not. There was definitely more marketing, more hype about the stalls that was going to be there, etc. That said, I enjoyed both days and felt a little overwhelmed on Saturday by the amount of people that rocked up.

When things were still quiet...

I decided to support the convention with a VIP ticket. I heard there was going to be a goodie bag and was pretty hyped about the idea... That didn't pan out exactly. The bag had a decent looking Con.ect hat and pin, and an energy mixer. But otherwise it was just filled with business cards. A missed opportunity, I think. 

As is the custom now with this convention, there were a large number of cosplayers. I didn't snap a lot of pictures of them, but did get two that I thought was rather well done.

Cosplay of For Honor character

Cosplay of Reverse Flash

Bubbly goodness!

I also got to try out 'Bubble Tea' though admittedly, I avoided the tea part and went for a fruit slushie. Still, really good! If they return next year, I'll definitely be another soul who stands in the queue for them. 

I didn't buy a lot of stuff, some armbands, dice (of course), and a little dragon statuette. I did end up buying a lot of food-related things. On the dice baggie that I got was a website link, which I promptly followed and found more stuff to splurge on. 

As mentioned above, contrary to last year, there were dice to be had this time! I went for the most legible which ended up being the cheapest. I also tried to ask for Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse, but it wasn't available for purchase. The first vendor I asked had a whole bunch of D&D books, but was absolutely bewildered by the question. Poor thing. The second was less bewildered but also not any more helpful. I'm also worried as to how much it would have cost had it been there. Book prices have sky-rocketed to something crazy. It's okay though. I have it on DnDBeyond, so it was more a collecting thing than a 'I need to have it' thing.

The Dune RPG handbook's price was absolutely shocking. Good thing I bought the pdf and that pdfs are a thing that can be purchased, because I would never be able to justify the price that the printed book was going for.

In any case, Con.ect seemed to have been a success with a lot of people arriving and partaking in what they had on offer. 

Cutesy dragon statuette

A brief update: I'm doing it again!

I don't have much to report this month. Things have been very much the usual tedium of working till I can escape and escaping until I have to go back to work. That said, I have been up to some shenanigans in that I've started Streaming again.

Every Wednesday at 20:00 GMT+2, I stream on Twitch for about an hour. The streams are very low key and calm. I sit and play Colostle by myself (babbled about the game on my blog here) and throw in ideas from those who watch. It has been fun. I've had about four sessions so far and the story is progressing steadily. Don't get me wrong: The writing is sub-par from my side as I just sit and waffle, but that doesn't really matter. It's still fun and good practice and that is part of why I do it.

I've been given a lot of guidance from my friend Discarded Dork and they've been kind enough to actually assemble these incredible layouts for the stream too.

I'm still learning the ropes - streaming, writing, writing while streaming, using OBS Studio, etc. But it's going well and that's all that matters.

I don't know what I'm going to do for nanowrimo with regards to the stream. Seeing as 1 November falls on a Wednesday, I feel like it is a good opportunity to actually do like a stream for it... 

I don't know. Much to think about.

DnD Prep Stats babble

One of the weird and wacky things I decided to do in the beginning of the year is to start logging how much time I spend prepping and playing D&D games.

The motivation behind it was to see what I could work on to help fight back against the last-quarter-of-the-year burnout I have endured the past couple of years. I had to be realistic and I had to make liberal use of my scalpel in an attempt to trim down on how much time I spend in and around games. And I was somewhat successful. I've trimmed down how many games I play in and how many games I run. 

Besides cutting things down to size, I kept a monthly log of the number of hours I spend prepping. And... It's a lot. Even having cut things down, I spend a ridiculous amount of time prepping my games. Considering how liberal I was with that scalpel, I can imagine why previous years have been so exhausting.

Things I've included as prep are map making, summarizing previous sessions, reading certain materials that involve D&D (like The Griffon's Saddlebag for magic items), and everything that basically took longer than 30 minutes to do. That was my mark. So if I only spent a minute on something, I didn't log it... which probably means I spend even more time than I have logged but I figure 30 minutes makes sense.

So without further ado, the most recent results:

Homebrew refers to everything prepped for my two homebrew games... it's definitely what I spend most of my time on. Oneshots are sessions that conclude within one or two gatherings - I haven't done a whole lot of those, and it's interesting that it takes between 2-3 hours for me to prep them. Written adventure specifically relates to my Dragon Heist Campaign which has now been concluded. I'm fiddling with the idea of possibly running Phandelver and Below in a year or two... we'll see. And then Other refers to things like making maps for other people or fiddling on World Anvil (which I'm admittedly struggling with, but I'm trying to use. My brain hasn't figured it out yet).

What I found particularly interesting about this logging exercise is the very visible ebbs and flows that naturally occur without my pushing myself. Some months I'm excited and full of ideas. Other months I'm lazy and tired. My games don't become more or less. They remain fairly constant. And yet, I still have more than enough material to supply... well sort of. I still feel like I don't have enough material, but I think I'll never stop feeling like that.

TTRPG Babble: Ironsworn Starforged

For some reason, this particular post feels very difficult to write. I guess it has to do with the fact that I don't consider myself a persuasive writer and the things that I enjoy the most tend to require persuasion? I dunno.

Ironsworn - Starforged is a TTRPG that can be played solo, co-op (without a GM), or with the traditional GM-and-player setup. I would say it's primarily designed with solo in mind, but it provides you with the tools if you wish to play with friends.

Setting

Where the original Ironsworn had you roam the lands of a gritty fantasy scape, Starforged is a science fiction game inspired by the likes of Battlestar Galactica and Firefly. Your character is an Ironsworn: a capable person who takes on quests in the form of Iron Vows - just like the previous game - but you're travelling the vast space of The Forge as opposed to the Ironlands.

The Forge is a large cluster of systems and planets that orbits your character's galaxy of origin. Due to cataclysmic events (defined during the setup of the game), your character's people fled their galaxy to inhabit the Forge and has resided there for two centuries now.

Amazing art by Joshua Meehan

Setup

As with its predecessor, Starforged embraces 'prep is play' and the first thing you'll do is set up the circumstances your character will find themselves in. Things like religion, information technology, horrors, medicine, magic, laws, etc. are all covered in the setup so that you have a rich and unique environment at the start of the game. 

The second thing you create is the immediate sector of space your character will find themselves in. Starforged has an amazing range of oracles to assist with everything from the planets' habitability to the settlement's law enforcement. You're never really without help when setting up the circumstances of your character's journey.

And then finally, you'll create your character. Are they augmented in some way? Are they a sword wielder or do they shoot their gun from the hip? There are so many options that you can decide from. 

Character creation

I feel I should elaborate a bit on this aspect. In Ironsworn Starforged, your character has five stats that remain static throughout the game:

• Edge - agility and distance fighting
• Heart - courage, empathy, sociability
• Iron - physical strength and close-quarters fighting
• Wits - expertise, knowledge, and observation
• Shadow - sneakiness and cunning

These stats make up your character's immediate strengths. But then comes the asset system. In the beginning of the game, you select a number of assets that defines your character. As you progress through the game, you can gain experience points which essentially act as 'currency' to either purchase more assets for your character or to add features to an existing asset. 

The book says it better.

Game Mechanics

Inspired by Powered by the Apocalypse, the game has a number of moves that can get triggered by your character's actions. Once a move is triggered and a dice roll is required, you roll two 10-sided dice and one 6-sided die. The d10s are your challenge dice; your score will hopefully beat both for a strong hit or one of them for a weak hit. The d6 is your action die which is rolled to help determine your score. It along with the relevant stat and any bonuses will form your action score which you compare to the numbers of the d10s.

So pretty much the same concept as I babbled about in Ironsworn.  

How to get it

Purchasing the PDFs are fairly easy and can be done via DrivethruRPG, but getting the print version might be a little trickier. As of the time of writing this, a reprint is planned next year as most of the books have been sold out. For all the info of pdf and print copies, see here.

Thoughts

Ironsworn Starforged gives you the opportunity to have a rich adventure within the vastness of space that's only limited by your imagination (and the dice rolls). The rules are similar to the original Ironsworn, with very few changes, and yet it feels like an update to the original recipe. If you're into solo roleplaying and science fiction is a thing for you, then I'd heartily recommend Ironsworn Starforged.

To nanowrimo or not to nanowrimo?

 So, if you've been following this blog for the past couple of years, you'd know that I frequently participated in a funny "little" exercise called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). To make a long story short, the exercise is to write a story of 50 000 words in a month - specifically the month of November.

I last participated (and floundered spectacularly) in 2021 when burnout hit me so hard I would have been seeing stars if I wasn't so exhausted at the time. Last year, I didn't even consider it because the burnout bug bit me again. This year....?

I don't know. 

Part of me wants to do it again. It always feels exciting and then grueling and then delightful when you succeed on whatever your target was - be it the 50k or whatever else. I feel like I have the energy this year that I didn't have in the past two years. My problem is that I don't exactly have a story in mind. 

See, my favourite activity is not the actual writing. It's the planning. And by planning, I mean PLANNING. White boards and markers, pictures and notebooks, the whole nine yards. I love when I have something that I can explore, prepare, consider, work on. I spend an unending amount of time on it.

But this year, unless the idea lightning bolt hits me in two months, I would be writing without a plan. Which means there's already a 50% likelihood of not making my target. I'm one of those "fail to plan, plan to fail" people who can't pants anything. (pants = flying by the seat of your pants)

I do have a couple of options for if I do pants this thing:

• Colostle: This is a solo-rpg game I've babbled about before that I was very impressed by. If I were to use this as a mechanism to generate content, I will be set for at least... 10 000 words? I think I would be challenged to do a lot of worldbuilding and it would definitely take the form of a journal with 'daily events'. It is a possibility. I think my hesitation with this is that there are so few hand holds in the game and it's so free-flowing, that it's almost too reliant on my own creativity: which makes it daunting. The rules are painfully simple though. It's not something I'm going to get stuck on. It will just be "Can I think up what to do in this situation and stretch it into as many words as possible?"

• Ironsworn Starforged: I haven't babbled about Starforged on here yet, but I have talked about Ironsworn here and here. In Starforged, I think there's a bigger possibility to generate more words than I would in Colostle, but it will have its own challenges. Starforged is a 'prep is play' type of game, where you spend hours worldbuilding and then the story can start. I've done a bit of it, my brother brought me the books when he came to visit, and I immediately jumped in and started playing. The challenge I have is the fact that I still need to come up with an inciting incident. In Colostle, that's supplied. Your character has a list of possible motivations to choose from. But Starforged is very much a blank canvas and I don't know if my ol' noggin will come up with something interesting to start off with. Once I do get started, it's going to be fun. There is a LOT more mechanics and rules to the game, but because of how much I've played Ironsworn, I'm not too bothered by that. The biggest challenge will be the dice rolls. My dice hate me. So I might end up with a dead character. Fortunately, once you've done the world building, it's easy to just generate a new one and tell a different story.

Yes, I'm definitely leaning more towards Starforged, I'll be honest. Maybe my next post should be about Starforged just so that people can know what it is I'm getting myself into.

Other possibilities:

• Fanfiction: I used to be very into fanfics. I know it's controversial because some authors are okay with it and others are absolutely appalled by the very notion that you would dare think of writing a story with someone else's world. I'm of the opinion that it's writing practice and, so long as you're not an asshole about it (trying to claim the author stole your ideas and whatnot), it can explore aspects and situations that might even be insightful. I tend to stick to game fanfiction though as opposed to book fanfiction. The lines feel a little less blurry. But what would I fanfic about is the question. I'm still too angry at Bioware to give Mass Effect a chance. (Yes, yes, I know, it's a game, I should get over it, but I think this grudge might stay with me until I stop breathing). If I do write fanfiction, it might be something like for XCOM or such... but I don't know. I don't know if I'm in the mood or have the capacity to come up with a decent idea. 

• D&D: I think I play too much D&D and spend too much time prepping my homebrew to actually write in it. I think this still classifies to some degree as fanfiction... But anyhoo, I don't know. Here I would have to have a decent plan of action and something I want to write. I've done D&D playthroughs as writeups for Nanowrimo before. It works, it's just not very interesting to me.

• Original fiction: The least likely thing to happen - me coming up with an original idea set in an original world (it would be either fantasy or scifi-ish) is not currently within the capacity of this writer. My big problem with original fiction is that I love world building and can come up with some things that would interest me, but the actual main story? Pffft.

Regardless of what I do, I don't think I'm going to go into the social aspect of Nanowrimo. It used to be a thing: meeting other participants, going to write ins, etc. Heck, that's how I met the person who would eventually get me into D&D. So I am not going to knock it and say it's stupid or something. I just think I don't want to use the full machine that is Nanowrimo and will rather go with the barebones that is the initial concept. 

If I do end up taking the plunge, I'll probably share some of my progress here... maybe. 

D&D Babble: Finishing off Waterdeep Dragon Heist

I did it. It happened. After 38 sessions, the game which started in January 2021 was finally concluded last night.

It went well. Lots of laughter and one big 'whoops, maybe I shouldn't have done that', my chaos goblins chose the side of light and was still handsomely rewarded (because in my world, good deeds aren't punished... just a nice little shift from reality, no?).

Feedback has mostly been positive. Just one big glaring negative: not enough combat. This is both a flaw of mine and of the particular campaign. But this is also a group that's a bit more combat-orientated, which exacerbated the problem.

What was funny to me is how every victory had to be celebrated. Like a player rolled a natural 20 (I think it was the only one for the night) and pictures had to be taken. I love that. I love that the small things can be big things in this game. The group worked very well together, which was also great. We had long discussions about what to do, plans were constructed, reconstructed, scrapped and re-reconstructed. All good fun.

I think from my perspective, the biggest flaw of this group is scheduling. It was an utter bastard. It was also not a case of preplanning. Time was very fluid and last-minute cancellations were not uncommon. For the ISTJ, mega-planner, wanter-of-schedules this was quite a challenge. But I'm glad we stuck to it and got it done.

Whereto next? Dunno. I know the general feeling is to give Ris a break from DM-ing, but also that no one else seems to have time in their schedules to DM. Whatever happens though, I might suggest running the new Phandelver campaign with them in 2025. I'll only acquire it late 2024 and it will give me time to plan, create maps and set up the game on Roll20. 

Why not just purchase the module on Roll20, you ask? Well, because I wanted the book and buying both seems expensive. I just can't justify it. Plus building the module was a lot of fun. I don't know if this will be as fun... maybe I'm remembering the TONS of work fondly because of the years that it's been since I last did it? I dunno. We'll see. Maybe I'll cave. But for now, only the book.

Anyhoo, I'm rambling. Let me go do something more productive...

Babble Post 101: Talking to your players (again)

 Imagine my surprise when I realised that I've hit over 100 posts on this blog...

... no really! It was a surprise. I mean, I babble and have been babbling on here for over ten years. That is an achievement in and of itself, but then to add that I have been babbling so much that I can note that I've reached that amount? Colour me stunned.

So today's post isn't actually about all that though. I wanted to revisit a subject I brought up in a previous TTRPG-related post about getting feedback from your players.

There's something exceptionally daunting about asking for feedback in any context. Asking for it as a DM when you're not prepared for the answer could make or break you - especially if you're not used to constructive feedback, or your players don't know how to delivered it in that fashion.

But a couple of months ago, I heard of a method of feedback giving/receiving that works fairly well. This method is called Stars and Wishes. 

Now again, I suppose it depends on the type of people you have in your party. But how this works is, in your discord server or roll20 talks or whatsapp group messages (whatever you use), you allow for a channel or time for stars and wishes after each session or so. 

This is an opportunity for the players and DM to hand out Stars to someone for something they did well - be it the plan the rogue came up with on the spot or the roleplay of a particular scene. So it's not just feedback for the DM but for everyone. Stars is the opportunity for praise that you don't usually give but might think of about a particular moment, incident, or aspect.

Wishes is a mix of feedback and desires: things the player/character would like to see or encounter or would like to see LESS of like politics and puzzles, particular monsters or story beats. It can also be things like "Less talky-talk and more combat". It can be projections into the future or feedback on behaviour like "Allow the DM to explain what you see first before exploring with your tokens" or "DM, explain what we see first before showing us the map so we don't go off into the unknown."

Stars and Wishes is a really great tool to get consistent feedback without the stress of directed, scheduled feedback. It also allows a space for people to chat after a session about the things they liked or would have preferred. 

I think the negatives of Stars and Wishes is that if you're looking for direct feedback, you're not necessarily going to get it or, if you have that particular player, you might get too much of it. So whether this strategy will work or not is heavily dependent on the type of people in your group.

But yeah, just an interesting concept I thought was worth sharing.

Ramble about games

 Update: I'm still alive!

It's been a while since I said anything, mostly because I don't have a lot to say. This post is going to be a ramble about everything I've been up to... I think. 

PC Gaming - what have I been playing (a lot)

Satisfactory

I can't tell you how long have I been playing Satisfactory in my recent playthrough. Well, technically I could, I suppose, if I look at the save files. But I don't know whether I should. It's such an addictive game with a basic concept. It's been in Early Access forever, but the game is still a lot of fun to play regardless of its 'unfinished' state. It's fairly polished with only one annoying bug that I feel should have been fixed by now.

But, I digress...

Satisfactory is a first-person factory-building game where you arrive on a planet and it is your job to get its resources. If you are the slightest bit OCD, you might find yourself agonising over where to put what and how to get the squares aligned and whatnot. My character isn't that far gone though. She lives in a disorganised factory where she leaps over equipment constantly and shuns walkways. That said, I still reach my target in terms of resources submitted to the big sky via sky elevator, so I'm not doing all that bad.

I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Baldur's Gate 3

I have to admit, as much as I love D&D, I can't say I'm completely enthralled by BG3. It's good, no doubt. With the interactive world and poor dice rolls my character makes, it's almost a bit too real. But I've just never been able to get into games like it - from the original BG to Divinity: Original Sin. I think the game is brilliant and well thought out. I just don't know whether I can say I like it. Still, I'm open for correction, so I spend a couple of hours here and there mostly dying due to poor choices and die rolls... again art imitates real ttrpg...

Battletech

I've always liked the revamped XCOM-style top down tactical strategy games. Battletech is that with far more finnike parts. The problem is that, while I enjoy these types of games, it doesn't mean I'm any good at them. I'm not a master strategist who knows about bits and bobs that you put on mechs. Still fun though. I've lost so many hours on this game...

TTRPGs - DM-ing spree

At the death throws of a Dragon Heist Campaign

I've lost count of how many times I've run the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. I think this would be my fifth time with only one of them having resulted in an early bailout. So three of the five were completed, one was a bail and now I'm literally waiting for the last session of the last Dragon Heist campaign (at least that I'm going to run in a while). Story-wise it's been utterly fantastic, but I am eager to get it done. I don't want to rush the finish, but I'm also ready for it to be finished.

Homebrew Babble

So I've had 35 sessions of the homebrew with the South Africans. It's going great. I got a little tired of churning out content, but it seems like, after a bit of a rest, I'm back at spending at least an hour a day working on / agonizing over the campaign. It's silly of me, but I still have a fight with my anxiety over the game. I know it's silly though, just performance anxiety and the desperate need for approval that I viciously stomp on every time it rears its head. :-P Nothing to see there.

But yes, I've been at it for two years and it's still going well. I'm ridiculously happy about it.

The multi-national group has had four sessions and they've already made very different choices than previous groups - which makes it both delightful and daunting to run for them. While these deviations aren't game-breaking, they do keep me on my toes as I learn what to cater for. The only negative I can give is that, when I prep for them, I constantly want to update my maps and make them better. This is a time-consuming process that doesn't actually yield as many rewards as I would want and I need to actually settle down a bit about it. I don't regret fixing the maps I have fixed, but I need to accept what I have already created as being good enough.

RPG Babble: Colostle

It's no secret that I'm a sucker for a good story. In the TTRPG realm, this seems to also translate into a compelling setting.

But the problem, I find, is that there are so many games to play, but so many problems in playing them. Getting people together, getting a date and a time sorted, getting prepped and ready to run. All of these things can become stumbling blocks when it comes to actually playing the game. It gets worse when it is a new game because then there's also the fact that everyone has to learn the game and might not be in the frame of mind to do so.

Which is where solo-gaming has become my escape. Like with computer games where I tend to gravitate to the single-player ones, TTRPGs/card/board games that can be run by my onesy gets attention. Then the only obstacle I have is me. Which, if I were honest, is still an obstacle, but less so than two or three other people with their individual hindrances.

So let me get back to my first statements: I'm a sucker for a good story and a compelling setting. I've only recently started dipping my toes into solo-RPGs, but I've found one that is simple, easy to play and pretty compelling.

The world of Colostle is a fantasy/medieval world set within a massive castle - each room filled with mountains, forests, even bodies of water like lakes, rivers and oceans. The Roomlands are filled with adventures, things to explore, places to navigate through and cities to visit. You play an adventurer in these lands who documents their adventures in a journal.

How does it work? 

You choose a class which determines your capabilities at exploration and combat. You're given a calling - an inciting incident or goal that you're striving towards - and you can decide on the personality of your character. 

Each day, or period of time, you draw a number of cards from a shuffled deck. This is the exploration phase and each card is something you encounter in that period. This can be a simple as finding something to hunt or gargoyles grabbing you and taking you to a different location. The cards also might show opportunities to combat creatures or Rooks (the only "creatures" who hold magic in the Roomlands that have the look of castle towers with arms and legs). Combat against Rooks are always avoidable, but then you lose out on what treasure or goodies the Rook might contain.

Having concluded the Exploration and Combat phase, you then take up your notebook and document the events of that cycle. This can be done by hand or electronically, in a notebook or pdf. How you do that is entirely up to you.

What I like about Colostle is that is inspires creativity. There's a lot of flexibility in the game by design. Things are open to interpretation and even if you were to pull the same or similar cards, it doesn't mean that the results are going to be the same. It's not a difficult game to learn and you can fall into it almost immediately with little setup required.

Card game babble: Arkham Horror LCG

 For the past couple of months, I've been part of a trio of friends who play Arkham Horror LCG (the living card game) on the weekends. As I fell into the lore and the story and the mechanics, I felt myself being consumed by this game - enough so that I've decided to make the financial commitment to get the game for myself.

What's it about?

Each player takes on the role of an investigator who is thrown into various scenarios that need to be uncovered and resolved. For those familiar with the Cthulu mythos (be it the books, other games, etc.), you'll know you're in for a tangled web of crazy cultists, monsters and a sleeping ancient one (or ones... who knows?). 

What do you get?

The first box, gives you the rules to play the game, the tokens, the cards (of course) and a booklet with the first three-part story, or three scenarios, to get your feet wet. You're given five investigators - each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses - and decks that you can either build yourself or trust the initial assembly as given in the book by the creators. 

As someone who has never played a deck-builder game before my venture with my friends, this is an awesome help.

How does it work?

I'm not going to go into the exact round order and phase order because I will confuse myself and, in turn, confuse you and make this game inaccessible. But I am going to ramble about some things in the game.

The scenarios each have an agenda deck and an act deck. The agenda deck shows you the bad thing that is happening and what needs to happen in the game to make it worse. The act deck shows you what you need to do to try and keep the bad thing from happening - usually this objective is something like gathering a certain amount of clues or discovering a particular area.

Each investigator gets three actions on their turn which they can use to investigate, draw a card, fight, evade, get a resource, etc. There's a really handy card with each investigator pack that lists the phases of play as well as all the actions an investigator can do. I think this is a wonderful addition.

Each investigator has statistics for Willpower, Intelligence, Strength, and Agility and will, through the game make tests based off of these four stats. You can add to the skill check by playing cards or having other investigators who are with you in that particular location give you a card to enhance the skill. 

Then you draw from the chaos baggie! The chaos bag contains chaos tokens which are either numerical modifiers or pictures which means something unique in each scenario. This is a very interesting mechanic for me as the 'auto fail' token seems to be magnetically attracted to my fingers whenever I try to pull a token out of the bag *harrumph*.

The bad of the game

Arkham Horror: The revised core edition has a lot going for it. But the truth is, it is only a taster. To truly appreciate the depth of this game, you're going to have to play a campaign, which is more money that needs to be spent. 

The mini-campaign provided only consists of three scenarios, that's about... four hours of gameplay. Granted you can play multiple times with different investigators, there's flexibility in things not ending the same way every time, but it's still only just a taste. A full campaign has between six to eight scenarios packed into it. That's a lot of hours of gameplay with each scenario having multiple endings and so the branching out of the game is huge... but expensive. Well, at least in South Africa it's expensive. 

I guess it brings the whole debate of what you're paying for. The quality is excellent, the game is well written and thought out. There's a lot of replayability and you're definitely going to want to infect someone else with this addiction so there's that. But it's still an investment.

What to get?

If you're also interested in getting this game, be careful. You'll see that there are a multitude of options out there and you have to do a little homework.

Arkham Horror The Card Game was originally released in a blue box (below).

Don't buy this one.

Then came the revised core edition.

Buy this one.

Note 'campaign expansion'.

You'll note that the cover is the full picture, not cut off by blue. It's the better one to buy. So get the revised core edition.

As I said, in it, you'll find the five investigators cards, the chaos tokens and other tokens, and the mini-campaign. Now, if you want to buy more campaigns be aware that they were initially sold in little bite-sized packets, but now you can get each campaign in one box. BUT, if you want more investigators and investigator cards, you may need to consider also buying the Investigator box for that campaign.

Yeah, that's part of the bad stuff, right there.

In summary...

... do I regret my choice? No. Do I think it's a bit of a money scheme? Yes.

But I also know that I thoroughly enjoy this game and am going to play the stuffing out of it. Especially because you can play this game solo. And that really wins it for me.

Ironsworn: The "riveting" tale of loss, horrible dice rolls and ultimately death.

Made with Inkarnate.

Welcome to the Ironlands: a place of beauty, rugged terrain, fierce beasts and, not always though in my case often, death.

This is the default setting for Ironsworn by Shawn Tomkin. As you might recall, I babbled about Ironsworn in a previous post, going into some of the mechanics but I didn't really feel as if I captured the awesomeness of the game in that post. I don't think I can really do it justice in any post and I don't think I'll do that in this one. Especially because this post will tell you how terrible my dice are and how much they hate me. So not necessarily the uplifting, magical explanation that would really sell the game to you.

Anyhoo, let's begin.

The story begins with Katrin Cera, an Ironsworn living in the Flooded Lands with her father Hersham who is a seer and the village mystic/nut. For years he has been going on about the Iron Pillars (mysterious objects that litter the Ironlands and are worshiped for their power) and how something was wrong. Katrin ignored it until she received a dream of the pillars cracking and falling. Fed up that her father's ramblings were piercing through her dreams, she decides to take Hersham to the nearest Iron Pillar to prove that they're still standing and whole. 

When they get there, they find that the area has been closed off and that you can only gain entry via recommendation of the elder at Stonehill - the nearby village providing for the priests. To get that recommendation, Katrin offers her services as Iron Sworn to help the town with their current ailment - raiders. Recent raids have made a dent in the village's supply and she sets off with some folks to do a counter raid and get the goods back. 

She has a miserable time of it, returning with the goods, both wounded and stressed, only to discover that the initial raid was a feint. That the baddies had come back to attack the village a second time, this time emptying its stores and kidnapping villagers - including the elder and Hersham. She follows the trail of the baddies, attempts to sneak up and take out the lookouts, but fails to do so, alerting everyone. Not that it mattered, in her wounded state, she is no match for a couple of lookouts and is easily slain.

That was five hours of solo gameplay. Very annoying gameplay, I should add. I had spent so long building the world, building the character and when I actually got to play her things just went sideways. Why?

The bloody DICE!!

Never have I rolled consistently high on the wrong dice and low on the right dice. But that's the nature of the beast, I suppose. So I decided to try again.

Instead of creating a different world, I decided to use the same world but a different person in a different location.

In steps Kataka Sayer, a veteran fighter-turned-Ironsworn who is working on one of the Barrier Islands with a priest to investigate troubling events within her town. New dice were hauled out and the evil ones that caused the death of Katrin were returned to the stash. Surely it would go better this time, right? 

Well... not really. The pair of investigators couldn't find the baddies, were attacked by all kinds of assassins and only barely survived. But at least, they discovered that this whole plot was due to the machinations of a priestess dum dum dummmmmmm who has withdrawn to the Flooded Lands while her evil plans are carried out.

So now the pair are on an perilous quest to go to the Flooded Lands, to capture the wench, and to return her to the settlement.

Frustrating, but fun. I just hope my new character survives long enough that she finally finds out that the apocalypse, that the previous dead character dreamt about, is a possible reality. I really liked that idea and I'm loathe to discard it just because of something as inconvenient as character death. ;)

I tend to mostly play over the weekends. I find that the exhaustion of a workday isn't really conducive to playing a solo TTRPG. 

So I guess I'll find out what happens next in a couple of days from now. Maybe I'll give an update here... Maybe.

 

D&D Homebrew Babble: What's happening with the Saffas?

So let's start with:

 Update: I'm alive!

Not much happening on the life front. I'm still trying to save up for a big trip next year. Still waiting for answers on said trip. Still getting ever nervous as the days fly by and the deadline for buying my tickets nears (still months away but that's not going to stop me from panicking).

To escape the continuous waves of panic that the above inflicts upon me, I dive deep into the depths of procrastination (via computer gaming) or escape (via D&D). It's been about 9 months since I rambled about my homebrew, so I figured I could do that today.

First thing: There are now multiple groups romping through my world.

Okay this isn't a new thing. We had the South African group (which is still going strong after 31 sessions!), then we had the British group (square peg, round hole lasting only like 10 sessions, if that? I can't remember), and now I have a multi-national group that I've just finished session zero with. The latter will be gathering only once a month, but I'm hopeful it's going to go well and will be memorable enough that the gap in between games will not be too distracting. I also think I have also selected the group well enough that there won't be any issues and we're introducing a few new things that I'm excited about - not new to the story, but new to the gaming dynamic. One is basically a mechanism to allow ongoing feedback for everybody and the other is a mechanism to bring roleplay forward on matters that won't necessarily be tackled in game.

So that's rather cool.

Second thing: I'm a horrible DM. 

Well, debatable. But I took about eight months before levelling up the South Africans to level eight. This was due to a mixture of reasons: We hadn't gathered more frequently, they were taking their time through my world (can't complain about that), and so were not really hitting any big milestones.

With that said, I'm happy with the progress they're making. There's a self-motivated engine that's running the show and it's not coming from me as powerfully as from them. They want their characters to achieve things and they want to know what's going to happen next. Which is nice. It makes me happy.

Third thing: I'm still stressed and anxious.

I struggle a lot with perfectionism and performance anxiety. (well, actually all kinds of anxiety, but this one is relevant for this situation :P)

I don't know if I'll ever shake the trepidation that dogs me when it comes to running a self-made game especially, but so far I've been having good days and bad days. Bad days involved medication and a power nap which makes me feel awesome... so I guess they're not terrible days. Good days involves me sitting in disbelief thinking "how on earth did we end up here?"

So even though I'm stressed and anxious about stuff, I'm pretty grateful too. I'm happy with what's going on with this group and happy to have them.

D&D: You win some, you lose some (random progress babble)

So my one Dragon Heist game ended. Well, to be more accurate, I ended it. It was another situation where it was a square peg in a round hole. I won't go into the details of it but I felt it should be noted in this here blog thinger. I'm not super happy about it, but I think it's for the best.

This means I have one Dragon Heist game left - of which they're probably like three-four sessions from the conclusion. I'm happy to report that, after a five-month break, we're reconvening to finish off the game. I'm very happy about it.

I've also started an Ironsworn game with two friends. We've created the world in our last gathering and now need to make our characters. The energy of the collaboration has me excited. We still have a lot to learn about the actual game mechanics and whatnot, but we've already created a world that's unique to any I've played in and it's driven by them, not me. Which makes me very happy.

Finally, I'm going to risk my homebrew with a group of fresh faces. I'm nervous about it but excited. The group has been assembled, the primer has been given, jokes have been made and characters are in the process of being created. So far, so good. I've specifically chosen people who I feel will work well together and hopefully spend time diving into character backstory - which is one thing that, while not absolutely essential, kinda sorta is important for my homebrew. That will drive character motivation when things are still uncertain and they don't know what they're doing.

In my South African group, we're getting a new player into my homebrew. Poor bastard doesn't know what he's letting himself in for. I chatted with him and then on the same day cooked up a seven-page primer for him. Mwahaha. He doesn't get to know what the others know yet until they start playing, but he'll have a better idea of the dynamics of his immediate surroundings. At least, that's the idea.

Hm, that reminds me. I still have some more information to babble at him about.

So yes, I lost some and won some these past two weeks. But overall the winnings outweigh the losings.

Oh! One more thing to babble about briefly. In the past couple of weeks I've joined a roleplay-heavy play-by-post. It's rather challenging, but fun!

So that's another win.

D&D Babble: The Aftermath

 As the gargantuan juggernaut rose out of the flaming pool of lava, the heroes (and the DM) steeled their resolve to fight in what would be their most challenging battle to date.

When I was a lot younger, I used to play guitar quite a bit. I was self taught and didn't know much, but could sing and made reasonable amount of noise that could be misconstrued as music. The problem was that I had the horrible habit of making an utter fool and failure of myself the moment you put me in the limelight. Sure, I had times where I didn't choke, but the times I did were... memorable.

Long story short, this is a persistent fear in me now and drives my performance anxiety to its limits.

Fortunately, despite what my anxiety was trying to tell me, I didn't drop the ball (or the robot) this time. In fact, I had quite a bit of fun.

It's eyes glows bright and fires radiant light down on the heroes.

They say that, like characters, game masters have alignments. I'm definitely of the more benign DMs out there. I cheered and encouraged as the party whittled down this enormous construct before them. I did get to blast them with eye beams - which was fun - and I got to slap around a player who had turned into a dragon, but I was still cheering as they found creative (and destructive) ways to deal with their foe.

In the end, time was the biggest enemy. We had three hours and the objective wasn't completed by that time. We improvised and I hope that the players still felt like they had accomplished something big.

I won't be sitting in for the conclusion of the campaigns. Time, again, is the enemy in this regard. But I am hoping that with the ending of their journey, they will feel determined, liberated, and satisfied. 

D&D Babble: Sometimes wonderful, unexpected things happen.

As anyone who plays D&D - or any TTRPG for that matter - could tell you, the game is unpredictable and surprising. Most often in delightful ways. But my babble today and the title thereof comes from outside of the table.

For the past near-on-a-year, I've been playing D&D with a group of people on alternating Saturdays who're living predominantly on the North American coast. I got pulled into the discord server and the first thing I saw was the sheer amount of people connected to this dungeon master and went *gulp*. The gentleman in question has multiple games running throughout the week, all set within his world, all containing different people playing characters in this world which becomes influenced by their actions. It's a beautiful thing to see. 

And what is happening is also kinda rare in that his homebrew story is coming to a spectacular conclusion. The goodies are fighting the baddies and the odds are stacked against success, but they still fight and may just succeed and each player involved in the story is deeply invested.

From a DM-ing perspective, it's inspiring because it takes one helluva story and one amazing DM to garner such devotion. These are people who have busy lives and yet they make the time because they're captured by the unfolding story.

My Saturday games are detached from the events, but I'd have to be blind not to see the excitement of the other groups on a near-daily basis as things slowly come to a head.

And then the unexpected happened:

"Hey! Got a sec?" the DM asks me after our game. "I was wondering if you would be my second DM for the epic?"

...

......

..........

!

My brain stops functioning for a time as I try to absorb the enormity of the suggestion. At first I wonder whether he got the right person. Maybe he was meaning to talk to someone else. I mean his channel has over 60 people and mistakes happen.

Then I finally understood what Troy Baker felt when he got to the audition for the Joker in the Batman: Arkham Origins and, not knowing what he was there to audition for, spotted the dialogue that was undoubtedly from the Joker himself and went, "Oh God."

I composed myself, admirably, and accepted the honour with as much gravitas as I could muster.

Since then, I've been battling with brain goblins on a daily basis - much like I did when I took the Glentana gig. The emotional pendulum is swinging from glee to horror at a somewhat rapid pace. In many ways this is a bigger step for me than DM-ing in Glentana, because Harlen's shoes are fucking massive. And I will not be leading newbies. These are veteran players at a level of gaming and roleplaying that I have not necessarily encountered before. I'm used to sitting at the feet of experienced players. Sitting at the head of the table is going to be a challenge.

But it is a challenge I'm willing to take on and am taking on. I've already started prepping by printing out materials and making notes. Harlen has been awesome in supplying all the details, setting up everything, and making me feel as comfortable as possible.

My goal is a simple task, but I feel an enormously crucial one: As we come to the end of the story, make the conclusion worth the journey.

*cough* In other words, don't be a Mass Effect 3 *cough*

And I think I can do that. 

I'm going to absorb as much as I can. I'm going to forget myself, step out of my goblin-infested mind, and just present the best story I can for people who deserve their long and arduous journey to have a fulfilling end.

Gaming Babble: Sons of the Forest

So it's been a while. Not much to say in terms of what's been going on. Work, work, work, work, work, D&D! Sleep, Grounded, sleep, work... rinse repeat.

But then, on Thursday came something new...

... which was promptly interrupted by loadshedding and apparently a crashed Steam. But yes, Sons of the Forest, sequel to 'The Forest', is out on early access.

How is it? ... Pretty good. The first few hours was really rough as I took a while before figuring out things. I've not gone spelunking too much - creepy mutants creeping me out! - but I've run around the new island, and around cannibals who didn't like me running through their camps, and the game is very pretty. And good. So. Pretty good then.

The premise is that you're part of a squad who gets sent to an island to find a billionaire and his family. Soon after your helicopter takes a tumble in one of three locations on the map and you start off to continue your mission and survive and not get eaten by cannibals, not be killed by mutants, not starve, not thirst to death, or not find other horrible ways to expire.

There are a number of similarities to The Forest. Crafting has expanded but basically works the same way: Gather ingredients, combine them, boom. The difference is that there at least seems to be a lot more items available than before. Your inventory expands quite a bit and you have to swing your cursor around left and right to make sure you spot everything that you've accumulated so far. Being early access, there are a number of things subject to change. Currently some plants are hugely overpowered while others are pointless to gather. Some weapons are effective, others are like using a fly swatter on that big lady's ass in Resident Evil - meaning: pointless but amusing.

A big difference is how building works. There are a few pre-fab buildings that are built in similar ways to the original game: gather logs and lob it in the blueprint area. But the developers have decided to make free building a thing. It takes some getting used to and, as with all things, there are bugs, but I managed to craft a cabin for myself with a ramp and I'm currently working on a palisade-esque wall to surround the area. It's a lot of work but it'll be worth it, I'm sure.

Then there are the additions of companion AI. The first you encounter not far from where start. Kelvin is a useful companion who can't hear you swear at him... which is probably for the better. ;)

The other companion I've encountered so far thinks she's a gazelle. She runs her ass off the moment you swing your axe at a nearby tree, or when the baddies arrive. She eventually warms up to you if you do the things she wants you to do - like not swing weapons around her, not follow her or "chase" after her, etc.  

But this isn't Mass Effect. You're not here to interact with your companions to maneuver them into a er position. They seem to be helpful additions, but I haven't gotten far enough to see how helpful that is. I've only played 10 hours of the game, which is honestly not much but to get an impression of the game. From what I have gathered, I can say that the game does need a lot of work, there are still quite a few adjustments, tweaks, and bug squishing that needs to happen. But with that being said, I'm having fun. 

Still not keen on spelunking though... don't want to fight the mutants, eeeeek!

 

TTRPG Babble: Delve - A Solo Map-drawing Game

I've been quietly stalking some youtube channels who talk about solo-ttrpg games and stumbled over a map-drawing game called Delve. 

The premise is fairly simple: You're part of a dwarven settlement who has been sent to delve deep into the depths of a mountain to find a special type of crystal. As you explore your mountain, you draw cards that indicate what you find - resources, trade goods, remnants of former civilizations, natural formations, etc. Then you can build your own rooms - all of which needs to be drawn in, of course.

The size of the map is determined by what paper you have to work with (or not, you could always add more pages to broaden/lengthen your mountain).

The game requires a set of cards, a piece of paper, pencil and eraser. That's it. Oh, and candles if you're playing during loadshedding in South Africa, but that's not a design feature. ;)

In my second play through (which has been far more successful than the first one), I've yet to discover the void crystal, but I have stumbled over two sleeping dragons, a magma flow, an underwater lake, a dormant volcanic shaft and built a slew of different buildings. Giving me a map that looks like this:

So far, I've thoroughly enjoyed it.