30 Days of Gaming

Day 26: Dreamation

2007-01-27T21:40:00.000-08:00

It's Day 26 and our second full day at Dreamation. My game quota was mighty low as I only barely squeeked in two hours (and that was just set-up and two rounds of Samurai Swords). ::laughs::

Eruditus and Tyramon were much more involved today. They started the morning with a game of carry: a game about war. As its title suggests it's a game about war, the Vietnam War to be precise. Eru was impressed enough with the game that he had to buy a copy afterward.

What followed was our two hour foray into feudal Japan. It was just a bit too involved for my state of mind so we shut it down after a few rounds. I'm looking forward to playing again when I'm willing to focus on the map.

Eru later ran a second session of his Artesia: The Five Thrones game. This session had half the number of players as the Friday session. I sat in on the last hour of the session and a lot of fun things were taking place. The duel of wits between the mad king and his sister was fantastic. Tamara finally convinced him that his wife was dead.

Day 25: Dreamation

2007-01-26T21:56:00.000-08:00

Today was our first full day at Dreamation. Eruditus and I started the day off with a bang. His Artesia: The Five Thrones game was packed. Not only did all 8 player who signed up show up to play, but we had three others hoping to get in if people didn't show up. It was an interesting mix of folk, some who were new to both Artesia and Burning Wheel, some who knew Burning Wheel inside and out, and another who had been pouring over the Artesia book hoping to run a game soon. There were a lot of fantastic moments with all of the players, and we got a lot of good feedback regarding the scenario as well as the system and how it has been tweeked for Artesia. It was an incredibly positive experience.

Afterward I went into a playtest of Brennan Taylor's new game How We Came to Live Here. It's a fantasy game loosly based on Native American myth and cultural beliefs. Again, it was a fantastic session. His system has some great ideas involving debt, and using peoples traits for and against them. Good stuff.

Two games met my maximum capacity for gaming today however both Eruditus and Tyramon continued into the night.

Day 24: Dreamation

2007-01-25T22:15:00.000-08:00

Today's gaming was another day of character creation. When we got to the con Eruditus realized he accidentally left all of his Burning Wheel materials at home: books, characters, everything. We weren't too concerned as we expected his Friday morning game to be too short of players to run, it was running early on Friday after all. That would give us plenty of time to recreate characters for the Saturday night session. But then I looked at the sign up sheets - his game was full to over-flowing.

So, from 9pm until 2am we were up recreating Artesia characters. Talk about being tired in the morning.

Day 23: Character Creation

2007-01-24T22:22:00.000-08:00

Just because we haven't updated the blog in nearly a week doesn't mean we've stopped gaming.

Dreamation is tomorrow and Eruditus still had to hammer out some characters for his Don't Rest Your Head game running on Friday night. He had names and character concepts but that was about it. So the three of us got together online and created characters.

Tyramon is funny. He'll complain that he's not good at writing but then he comes up with truly awesome material.

Day 17: Suffer Not

2007-01-18T19:19:00.001-08:00

Time frick'in flies when we play this game.

We started in with Zlata's Interstitial scene with Evan and Johannes regarding the offline war hound and the Naiven in the suitcase. This of course led into a lot of discussion on what appeared to be happening and what we should do next.

Afterward the characters went their separate ways for a while.

Johannes started prepping for war with the Valen (Color scene in the barracks with his men). Later Borgot initiated his Interstitial with Johannes by calling him to his office to make a report.

Evan went to see Borgot about possibly seeing Dwarovit. Gains had hoped to make this a Duel of Wits, but it ended very quickly with Evan getting smacked down pretty much immediately by Borgot. There was no compromise there. Poor Evan suddenly found himself having to do a job for Borgot: installing a data spike into Dwarovit.

Zlata's Building scene was to find a guy on the street who could help her get in touch with the underground resitance and with the smuggling rings. This involved an observation roll (a skill Zlata doesn't actually have), followed by a couple of circles rolls (a skill that she isn't all that good at). In the end she found him, but she won't be able to pull any info from him until the next maneuver.

Day 16: Light's Last Hope

2007-01-17T19:05:00.000-08:00

And now for something really nerdy... :)

Tyramon couldn't make it to our place tonight so we thought we'd play online for a while. Unfortunately, Eruditus and I only have one headset between us so chatting on Ventrilo was difficult (at least for me). But our fearless leader came up with a cunning plan.

We all logged into World of Warcraft, sat our new characters in a circle and role-played beside a lovely waterfall. It was a surprisingly productive two-hour session.

Day 15: Nippon

2007-01-17T06:55:00.000-08:00

We were scheduled to play Light's Last Hope tonight, but unfortuantely we were all too wound up in the release of Burning Crusade. Instead, we talked about the type of campaign we are looking forward to after 30DoG.

Eruditus is a little tired of running fantasy games in Burning Wheel (I never thought I'd say that) and is perfectly happy running Burning Empires for his BWHQ fix. So whatever we play will be using a different indie game.

After some discussion on where our story interests lie, we're going to play a high fantasy Japanese game. We couldn't deside on a system so we're going to try two different ones: The Shadow of Yesterday and Dogs in the Vineyard. We'll do this by playing two distinct story arcs within the same world, with the first story using The Shadow of Yesterday.

(Quote of the night: "Damn Clinton not having an index!")

Next up was a little world building where we settled on a list of species and cultures for our game. We then split the list up between the three of us so that we each can create for them Abilities, Secrets and Keys as described in The Shadow of Yesterday.

Looks like I get to add some Japanese history to my reading list.

30 DoG: The Halfway Mark

2007-01-16T11:11:00.000-08:00

When Eruditus came up with the plan for 30 Days of Gaming (30DoG) my initial reaction was "Oh my God, I'm going to die." Sure I enjoy playing games, but I'm also very much a loner. Just the concept of being social 30 days in a row was pretty frightening. Also the shear amount of time we were going to invest in the project worried me. How was I going to get any reading or knitting done not to mention everyday chores?

So here we are 15 days later.

On the social front I'm feeling remarkably good. Three days of online board gaming helped. I was able to sit on the sofa in my pj's with a laptop on (appropriatly) my lap and hot cup of tea by my side. We kept the strong social connection of standard board games by using a voice over IP (Ventrilo) but still maintained a goodly amount of personal space by being in separate houses.

Also, by keeping our core team of crazies small at just Eruditus, Tyramon and me, there are only two people I see nearly daily. I love my friends, but frankly, if I had to see some of them every day I'd go mad.

How about the time sink? Well, that's been an issue. It's not a horrible problem, but there are dishes and laundry that need washing and not enough time to do them. Also, the project came at a time when I wanted to prioritize my time spent writing fiction. Lately my free time for writing has been spent making 30DoG blog posts. But then, any writing is better than no writing at all, so 30DoG hasn't completely ruined my writing plans.

Come February I'm certain I'll be ~~relieved~~ happy to trim back to 3 social gaming commitments a week. But between you and me, the 7 social gaming commitments a week we have now hasn't been all that terrible.

Day 14: Battlelore

2007-01-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

We've been planning a regular night to play Battlelore, as Eruditus, Tyramon and I are all fans of the game. Today was the first time all three of us got together to play.

Don't we all look terribly serious?

The first game was between Eruditus and Tyramon. Eru broke Tyramon's winning streak from a few weeks ago. It was still a close game though.

I played the loser. Tyramon and I set up the same scenario only this time Tyramon took the army Eruditus had just been playing. It was a really close game but I lucked out on a roll at the end and won by one point.

Tyramon had to leave so he didn't get to see the final climactic battle between me and Eruditus. Again it came down to that one last victory point. The final outcome:

Day 13: Board Game Break

2007-01-14T23:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight we were at Tyramon and Katie's place for dinner and a couple of board games. First up was El Grande.

Eruditus pretty much swept ahead with the rest of us battling it out for second place. I squeeked in with one point over Katie for the second place spot.

Since Eru was taking pictures, there is also a gratuitous cleavage shot. LOL

Between games, Tyramon and Katie were making dinner so Eruditus took a break. Zei apparently thought he needed some grooming.

Our second game was Mission Red Planet. Katie whipped our asses with something like 65 points. Eru and I were tied at 34 while Tyramon had all of 11 points at the end.

Day 12 - Light's Last Hope

2007-01-13T08:01:00.000-08:00

Day 12 went smoothly and we had a good long session. We did a flashback of when Shar got her dark elven short sword and moved on to follow the orcish party back to their encampment as prisoners. The Knower of Secrets guessed that Ratslayer would appreciate Shar. I didn't want to make the interest entirly sexual so I asked Joanna what she thought the orc would see in her. She gets an Artha for bringing in her trait, Thousand Yard Stare, as they are used to Chattel and Roden withering in fear over the orc's presence. Kern hides his dagger on him.

When they get their they are introduced to The Lash, our item of note for the session. It is being weilded by a monster of an orc, He Who Bear's the Lash. The Bearer introduces Shar to Ratslayer, the chattel that scramble in his cave lair and Ratslayer's seer, another older Knower of Secrets.

Ratslayer does no know what to make of her and needs convincing - a Duel of Wits ensues between the Knower, Shar and the Chattel. After she seems to be losing Shar walks away from the conflict and out of the cave. The Chattel follow their meal and all meet Kern and a dark elf.

There is a brief scene of the dark elf following Screaver to find Kern and Shar and Screaver falling into a pit (They have seen these pits before and it seems that something is using them to trap animals). We see what is manning this trap, a troll. As Screaver tries deperately to stay out of the troll's grasp the dark elf delivers a blow to his heel and the troll begins to persue the elf. They end up in the orcish village where the troll begins a rampage looking for, what he thinks, is a skinny orc. While the dark elf is hiding from the troll looking for a place to lay low he finds the roden cart with all their gear. He recognizes Shar;s short sword as dark elven make and takes it.

Now there is a Fight! The dark elf offers Shar his dagger but she sees the short sword and insists it's hers. They spend Fate from the Artha Pool to say that it's a Superior quality short sword with an Add of 1 (6 Fate). I put three Fate back into the pool for the 8 LP Bearer. The elf aquiesseces for now and Shar proceeds to carve into the Chattel with little effort. They decide to not tussle with ratslayer just yet and turn to leave the cave only to run into the Bearer who is coming to let Ratslayer know about the troll. Another Fight! ensues.

The Add 1 weapons around the table are proving to be a big problem for the troll. His arm gets crippled by Shar but he manages to get in a Severe shot to Shar's chest and nearly kills Kern with just his left fist! They incapacitate him and bolt.

Matt offers us a Source scene that has the whip being used to leave the encampment. They run into several chattel and a couple if black hunters who stand down but start making these high pitched staccato whicstles. The players figure out that they are probably summoning their spiders and bolt into the woods.

Day 11 - The future of gaming

2007-01-12T08:58:00.000-08:00

We talked about what we have learned and about this new persepctive on gaming. We talked about setting and it's importance combined with the work that goes into creating a solid setting. Finally we talked about this game and it's directions and what we'd like to do beyond 30 Days of Gaming. We worked on a few character ideas and discussed Artha rewards and what the characters did over the course of the month of downtime with Screaver.

It was a low key game night where we geared up to approach the campaign with renewed vigor.

Day 10: Suffer Not

2007-01-12T07:28:00.000-08:00

So last night we got back in the groove of BE and our Suffer Not campaign. I'm still having a hard time getting into my character, Johannes (One of those things that constantly plagues my roleplaying). Although I'm certain, in this case, it mostly stems from the fact that he is a deeply religous man and I am not. I'm quite jealous of his devotion though and so I struggle to bring it to the forefront. But enough of me! On to the Wheel! err Empire...

Johannes, after tagging along with Zlata into Borgat's Compound, sneaks in an interstitial scene with the Iron Artificer. I attempt to engage him in conversation about Iron in hopes toget him on board with fixing up the Linemen's armor. (My meta game motives were to expose something about his recent hulling through rapid fire Jargon related questions, etc.) He ends up revealing some knowledge of the Iron from the crusades... Something a non-secular man like Dietrich wouldn't know much about. Of course his Navien is from the Arch Cotar Fyodor's brood and thus has ties and knowledge from experiences therein. Johannes doesn't grasp the significance of this (I can't roll dice for that kinda stuff in an Interstitial scene) at the moment. But when he ruminates about it later and gets clued in to the Vaylen presence on this world, there is gonna be some showdown :) The two Iron-wise men agree to meet on the morrow at the Linemen's Barracks to look at the Armor.

I went directly from this into a building scene. Johannes goes back to his barracks to prepare for the meeting tomorrow. He enters the password on his security door to his suite and I take that moment to burn the security system that will protect my Iron while I'm not in it. (Previously I had colored the security by messing with the door, but it didn't actually do anything until I burned it. And I know Eruditus would have meddled with my precious Iron if he could, so I have to keep it under lock and key.) We decide that it'd be more efficint (and cooler) to make it a manned security system. With that in mind we crafted a room with many LCD monitors reminicent of the operator's station from the "Matrix" an old, decommissioned suit of Iron armor was used in it's making. Internal systems ran the Sensors and the exoskeleton made up part of the console and "station" and the seat that the manning officer would occupy.

The next roll in the building scene was me ordering my men to operate the station for the security of our barrack. Not that hard for a strictly run paramilitary organization's leader. But it's made a little harder by me having to make the men under that order actually have the skill that the system augments. Thus, my squad all have Sensors at B3 minimum. That added a little more difficulty (still a routine) to the check, so I make that roll and lead on to the next part of the scene: another circles test to make those men have yet another skill that can be augmented by the security station "Signals". I chose not to ForK or get help on this roll and make it a straight Circles roll. Failing a 2 ob check with a B2 Circles roll gets me a difficult check and viola my circles bumps up to the next exponent B3!

All in all I felt good about the progress and things I had done with this building scene. I didn't help link anything to my teammates for the manuever roll, but having my Iron secured and not in the hands of the Artificer is a very good thing.

Hopefully Eruditus will grace us with his Building scenes so you know exactly why I did what I did with the security system. ::shudders and touches the back of his neck::

Day 10: Suffer Not

2007-01-11T19:33:00.001-08:00

Eruditus is back from Florida so we can play live and in person. Tonight we go together for our Burning Empires campaign. Gains is our fourth for this particular game.

It's been a couple of weeks since our last session, and that one I didn't play. So I was going into this session with a lot to do. Zlata picked up with a Building scene where she was sneaking a group of Psychologists into workers' barracks.

This turned into an Interstitial scene with the group she was traveling with, as well as bringing Tyramon's character into the scene. Zlata isn't much of a interrogator, especially when she's under orders from her boss, so after a very little bit of talk, she and Johannes escorted them to Zlata's boss' office. (Insert a little color of a secret entrance into the boss' compound.)

Upon reaching Borgot's office we see that he's with the Iron artificer Dietrich. Dietrich seems pretty beat up as if he's been in an accident but recovering. Dietrich leaves the room as Zlata reports to Borgot.

Leaving the office, Zlata and Johannes see Dietrich walking ahead of them. She calls ahead to him (he takes a few moments to respond) and introduces Dietrich to Johannes. Tyramon turned this into an Interstitial scene with Dietrich.

Zlata finishes up with recovering some bodies of some artificially intelligent war dogs from an earlier shoot out, and a damaged data pad from one of the people she had been sent to pick up. Both of these discoveries she will deliver to Gains' character Evan during the next session.

Tyramon had building scenes of his own. Hopefully he'll write up his actions in a post of his own. :)

Day 10 - Suffer Not, a GMs Perspective

2007-01-11T11:52:00.000-08:00

So I haven't been running my full compliment of scenes. I should be running Color/Interstitial/Building scenes for all of my involved FoNs. I did pull out two FoN scene-sets this game. The first set was bent on healing my iron Artificer to affect this manuever (since he was maimed last manuever from being hulled). I felt I had to use the artificer this manuever to make the surgery come to fruition so I counted it as scenes from the main Vaylen, the Archcotare - my FoN for the Userpation phase.

The first was the Archcotare smuggling in more of the Hulling Kits I burned last manuever (+2D advantage to Surgery rolls for field hulling). The intent was to get them in under the noses of security and the PCs. I failed that by one so I got the units in but one landed in the hands of Zlata.

The second and third rolls were the fabrication of the Iron Hulling units in hopes that I could actually hull several Lineman and gain a linked die to my manuever phase (the Lineman are the leaders of the Civilian Commune faction which I had assessed last manuever). I made the resource roll but failed the fabrication roll by one. Therefore I took the Gift of Kindness (a hulled Lineman gains a specific trait from the experience - TBD) and got the equipment installed in the Iron but didn't get the linked die.

We rolled our maneuvers. Evan's player rolled for their Assess and succeeded, thus are able to actively lower my disposition now (something I have yet to Assess for). I successfully rolled my Take Action roll bringing the Civilian Commune and thus the Linemen under Vaylen control.

All in all it was a good game and I am really looking forward to next week.

I have been very happy with how this game is being crafted. I was a little worried at first because I have seen some games that had sorta odd results (or at least the results were recorded in a narrative that had those strange results). This is going well. The characters beliefs are written into the game. I am setting up conflicts around their wants and needs. And in the process it's worrying them. I guess there is a certain level of "careful what you wish for." I like to be VERY clear - your BITs tell me what this game is about - but somehow my ideas tend to be a little more twisted then the others. Now they are scared that they won't be able to live up to the challenge or that they will feel useless in the process. I try to assure them all that they are doing a great job and that success and failure of these conflicts are what these games are all about, one way or the other we all have a great time telling the story.

Now for the problem I see happening. I have a great group of roleplayers. These are people that run when their characters are scared and look foolish when their characters become vulnerable. It's not about the winning or the losing and their characters always are rich and interesting. However, It is creating problems with the competetive atmosphere of BE. They play their characters well and then feel like they are behind because it's obvious to them that I have thought a few moves ahead. I hate feeling like my doing my job as a GM is getting in the way of them having a good time with the game.

To be honest I don't think it's as big of a problem as they fear. I think that now that they have found out about the vaylen I am going to have a hard time keeping characters alive - *sigh*

Day 9: Long Distance Gaming, Cyber Rico and More

2007-01-10T23:00:00.000-08:00

Tonight we tried an online verson of Puerto Rico. It wasn't as pretty graphics wise, as the other online board games we've played the past couple of days, but it certainly had all the content we needed and more.

Seriously, this is a great version of Puerto Rico and I'm not just saying that because I won.

We moved on to a game of Ticket to Ride. This time I came in dead last, with Eruditus and Paul fighting it out for the top spot. Eruditus squeeked by at the end even though Paul completed 4 tickets.

We ended the evening with a game to Settlers of Catan. It was one of those situations where the randomness of the board left Tyramon and Eruditus out of the game. They just couldn't produce what they needed while Paul and myself were just able to produce enough for our own growth. I ended up winning that game as well, but victories under those conditions never feel too hot.

The one thing that made the online experience as entertaining as it was, was our use of Ventrilo. Since we were actually talking to one another, we had the table talk of an 'in person' board game. If we were just using the online text messaging that's part of these games, it wouldn't have been as fun.

Day 8: Long Distance Gaming, Setters of the Internets

2007-01-09T22:30:00.000-08:00

Last night was another session of online boardgaming. We spent a little time surfing around the net for a free version of Scrabble. No dice. We then muddled with BrettspielWeld for a few minutes, only to become frustrated with our poor German skills. Finally we settled on Settlers of Catan.

The first game was between Tyramon, Eruditus, myself and a bot named IOLANI. The bot was scary with his glowing red eyes, angry frown and anti-social behavior (he only rarely traded). The virtual dice were with me and I won the game.

(click to be taken to a larger image)

Paul was able to join us for our second game. He was the great sheep herder for the session. Eruditus ended up winning that one, however I was able to sneak up and swipe Longest Road from him before his win.

Day 7: Long Distance Gaming, Virtual Rail Building

2007-01-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

Eruditus has a business trip in Florida for a few days this week. You'd think that would put a damper on 30 DoG, but we're too technical for that. We're venturing online.

All three of us play online games fairly regularly (World of Warcraft being the main one) however for the purposes of this project we're not counting MMORPGs. Instead we're trying out some online board games and our own role-playing sessions for Burning Wheel via AIM and Ventrilo.

Since this was our first night online we opted for a couple of games of Ticket to Ride on the Days of Wonder website. I had never used Ventrilo before and we figured it best to work out the kinks over a board game than a role-playing game.

Tyramon's friend Paul joined us and we played two games.

Day 6 - The Burning Wheel

2007-01-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

Day 6

I think that since we meet so often we don't really mind the bookeeping sessions. Sunday was such a session. We started out with a History scene for Kern:

Kern's family was poor and his father was a dock worker, picking up labor when he could. He was an honest man that was in an environment where sometime you do some shadey things to feed your family. He has an older sister that on occasion turned tricks (unknown to their father) and pickpocket the John while he was otherwise distracted. One man, a portly merchant of some means, was getting rough with his sister and so he used the man's own dagger to stab him in the back. His sister stopped selling herself like that.

Light's Last Hope

To prepare for four days of online gaming we will decide ahead of time what the next few episodes will be about. Thus we'll draw cards now for two episodes and decide who will do the Story scenes for them.

Personal Scenes - we discussed the idea of personal scenes yesterday. The idea being that we use items to bring in scenes from before the exodus. This was a way to bring home aspects of the player's backgrounds and establishing motivations for beliefs and instincts.

Item #4

Kern's Dagger

Spends 4 Fate for a weapon with +1 VA

Spends Fate to open end dice

Item #5

Shar's Shortsword

We established that Shar's shortsword was of dark elven make.

Here are the Artha Pool costs for using Fate to effect weapons.

Weapon Stats

+1 Va = 2 Fate

+1 Power = 2 Fate

-1 Add = 2 fate

1 Speed Shift = 2 Fate

Weapon Quality = 2 Fate

We established the rules for a whip as a weapon. It's not a particularly effective weapon in it's own right but it certainly is worth it's points when introduced into an orc encampment.

Whip

I: 1 M:3 S: 5 Add: 3 VA: - Unwieldy Strike Distance: Longest

We talked a bit about the direction of the campaign and where we want to see things bear out, particularly if we would be continuing things beyond 30 Days of Gaming. I am a planner. I like to have a goal in mind and the fun then becomes finding out what the path to that is. by saying "we have X sessions before the end of this storyline" we have to think about resource management for scenes and Artha. As such I just have to trust my initial guess on the Artha pool to determine a structure for the length of the campaign.

We also discussed some ideas on talking about what the refugees are doing for their own betterment. As characters are developed for the group character scenes may be introcued. The happier the refugees are and the better their well-being, the more Artha that get fed back into the Artha pool. Thus the characters can decise that the fate of the refugees is helped by them or dependant on them. To be fair I decided not to start to stir the pot until they get an item or two into the ziggurat.

We drew a few items and we gave them stats, spending the points from the Artha pool.

Item #6

The Lash

Whip = 2 Fate

Slow = 2 Fate

Club on end = 2 Fate

Ob +1 vs Health to heal wounds = 1 magic point (Persona)

+1 Advantage die (Whip) once per combat = 2 magic points (Persona)

Total = 6 Fate, 1 Persona

Intro: Don

Source: Matt

History: Jo

Item #7

Great Sword (Use Sweet Axe stats = 4 Fate)

Suntouched = 6 magic points (Deeds)

Gifted (Fire Spells only) = 4 points (Deeds)

Torch = 3 pts (Deeds)

Command Fire = 3 pts (Deeds)

+3 ob vs Inconspicuous (Persona)

Intro: Matt

Source: Jo

History: Don

Item #8

Suntouched (warmth only) = 4 magic points (Deeds)

Stoneskin - Acts as full platemail that can be turned on and off as a Physical Action = 4 magic points (Deeds)

Intro: Jo

Source: Matt

History: Don

By the end of Day 6 of 30 DoG the Artha pool has :

8 Deeds

11 Persona

29 Fate

We framed out an idea for the Greatsword's Intro scene involving the Elves and the Orcs in a stand-off in a cave. I thin that once the scene is stated out it will make an effective convention scene in the same vein as "The Sword." Good stuff.

Day 6: Light's Last Hope

2007-01-07T14:00:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning saw Tyramon at our place again (thanks man for venturing out a couple days in a row). I was out finishing up laundry when he arrived so I missed a little background role-playing.

We had decided to pick through the Relic decks and choose an item for our character to have had from before the exodus. Tyramon chose a dagger for Kern and it was a portion of its History scene that I missed. I did however come home in time to witness a Fight! Here are Eruditus and Tyramon scriping away.

(click image to be taken to a larger image)

Not much role-playing happened after this, however we made several items ahead of time. The hope is that by having them ready in the wings it will make our upcoming online role-play go smoothly.

First I chose an item for Shar to have had before the exodus: a Dark Elf made sword. I picture her befriending a Dark Elf while in prison and ends up taking his sword when she is released. It's sort a Count of Monte Cristo thing.

We then worked on three items: a whip that will appear in our scenes at the Orc fishing village, stone bracers, and a great sword.

Day 5: Light's Last Hope and a little Jungle Speed

2007-01-06T23:00:00.000-08:00

Day 5 of 30 DoG was pretty busy.

I had cookies to bake for Christmas at my parent's house, so I was only peripherally involved in a long discussion about Kern's Beliefs and Instincts. They ended up rewriting his Beliefs following the instructions in the Burning Empires book. It took a lot of time out of the day's game play, but it was worth the effort. Kern is much more fleshed out now.

Mendel was with us for another session so today's adventure also involved his Roden, Zha'Chakul. We stared right in the thick of it with meeting a pair of orcs in the jungle (the two that Tyramon and I had made just the night before). The orcs were easily able to hide themselves, but our adventurers had heard their gutteral speach moments earlier. Things did not look good as Shar recognized the sound of a bowstring being drawn back.

Zha'Chakul stepped forward begging to not be killed. For a creature who supposedly trades with the creatures, you'd think he'd know their language. But he didn't.

A long Duel of Wits ensued between Zha'Chakul and the orcs. Shar and Kern helped out where they could but eventually the DoW ended in a rough compromise. The orcs were still being aggressive with the humans and roden but not so much as to hurt them (not too much anyway). They have been disarmed and the orcs are trying to decide what to do with them.

*****
Later this afternoon Eruditus and I attended a friend's birthday party. She's a gamer as were many of the other guest, so of course some games eventually broke out around the room. I failed to take many pictures. Actually, the only picture I have was of a list of song requests. However, a friend's fiance wrote about the party on her blog. The fifth picture down shows Eruditus and I participating in a game of Jungle Speed with some of our peeps - yo.

Jungle Speed is a rough little game. It's a pattern recognition thing that involves lunging across a table for wooden dowel. There have been reports of Jungle Speed injuries and I'm not surprised.

When Eruditus bought his copy, I had stated that I'd never play. The game builds an anxiety level that leaves me feeling twitchy if I'm just watching people play. For folk with anxiety problems it's probably not the game for them. However, today I was comfortable enough to try my hand at a couple of games. I had a wonderful time.

Although I had a good time playing at the party today, I don't think I'll play with the crazy full-contact Jungle Speed players at Dreamation. Those boys and girls are just too rough for me.

Day 4: Light's Last Hope

2007-01-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

We've been doing a lot of character creation for this game. Tonight, GoldenVoidKnight joined us for the evening and burned up a Dark Elf for himself. While he was working on that, Tyramon and I made a pair of native Orcs while Eruditus burned up a Great Spider. Orcs are damn cool :)

The Relic for the evening was the Dusk Draped Mantle and we sorted out narrative so that I'd take the Intro, Tyramon would take the History and Eruditus would take the Source.

Eruditus started the game introducing GoldenVoidKnight's character. He has a scene at the Human/Elf encampment that ends with his being sent into the jungle to find and assist Shar and Kern.

From there Tyramon took up the History narrative. After the previous game, we had all discussed ways to incorporate more conflict into our narative pieces and Tyramon did just that. His scene began with the creation of the cloak by a Dwarven woman who then gives it to her husband to find his way home (the cloak is embroidered with a map) from his last mission. He is to safely convey a Roden priest to another part of the wartorn jungle, afterward he will be set free.

Go figure they're set upon by an Orc brute squad that's out picking off stragglers. A Fight! ensues. Those final missions never go well do they?

GoldenVoidKnight picked a couple of pre-gen Orc characters from the BW books. Eruditus did the same with his Roden priest while Tyramon played the role of the Dwarven warrior. It was an ugly fight.

In the end the Roden was stabbed in the back and the Dwarf worn down and humiliated before being struck down. While the Orcs are busy finishing off the Dwarf I took narrative control just to say that the Roden was alive long enough to sneak the cloak away from the battle (because he knew of its importance) and crawl into a cave and die - curled in the cloak of course. That was my set up for my Intro scene for the next game.

Day 3 - Word Smiths Unite

2007-01-05T05:18:00.000-08:00

So we took a little break from the main campaign. Joanna got a new travel Scrabble set for Christmas so we broke it out. I should have taken a picture of the board when we were done but alas...

It was a good game but it really was a game between Matt and I. Joanna was so far ahead at every turn. Matt and I folded when there was no pieces in the bag and we needed 70 points to reach her curren score. Oh, and I had no vowels. It took us a while.

We talked about the campaign and our plans for the next few days.

Day 2 - The Burning Wheel

2007-01-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

Let me first say that any comments or criticisms I have here are in the interest of craft and in no way takes away from our gaming experience. The stories have been great and the role-play fun. I just think that we can be thinking about gaming a little differently and by "getting good" at telling stories certain ways we can walk away with an informed approach - I like this and I like that but I don't like that, etc.

That being said, the story mechanic we added to BW is working well with some refinement. Unlike Burning Empires we didn't want this to be a big picture game. We wanted the action to be localized and the action of the players directly effect the world around them. The story we have developed thus far has allowed the PCs to be the ones driving the content and if anyone else is invloved that we can introduce it in various cut scenes and the like. However we had a few scenes this last session that although they were cool I feel were pulling us away from the action too much. Joanna's Source scene showed the beginning of the fall of the Roden civilization and the chainmail he wore that allowed him to control the Ziggurat's weaponry against the orcs. Matt described it's current owner, a black orc with the reputation as Rat Slayer but gettin to Rat Slayer was going to be a long term goal (and I certaintly didn't have any decent Named set up for this). After discussing it I had some suggestions that I think may bring the action to the forefront. That is that the Source scenes and the Intro scenes could be more about the characters, either them facing the struggles involved or helping those who do. The History will no doubt be flashbacks (although this past History was a new character practicing his exposition about the the chainmail's past). Secondly, I suggested that instead of just scenes involving some long narrative that we should be considering whet roles the other players may take in the scene and where the conflict might be.

Otherwise, we had some interesting ideas coming out of this game. I explained the Sun Touched trait and Sun Touched-wise a little more and discussed how Searing Light worked more clearly. For Joanna's Source scene she explained that the chainmail had a series of jewels set in a deep cowl. She described a massive mutlicolored mosaic that the chainmail reveals patterns that help the wearer control the Ziggurat's sun. The cowl and other filagrie make the wearer very noticable and adds a +2 Advantage die to conspicuous rolls (5 pts). The cowl gives the wearer +3D to Sun Touched-wise (7 pts.). It was otherwise Superior Chainmail (6 pts.). That was 4 persona and 6 fate from the pool. Then Matt did his Intro scene and described the mail as grubby and beat up, specifically missing gems from the cowl. We allowed him to reclaim 2 persona by dropping the Sun Touched-wise to +1D but he also added a +2D Reputation as Rat-Slayer conferred on the wearer respending that 2 Personna. very cool!

For the next game Friday or Saturday (tonight is our Burning Empires campaign) we drew a cool cloak where we decided the Dwarves has a cultural thing for imprinting maps on clothing so we should see more of that sort of thing.

They met a new roden and tried communicating with him and Screaver again thus getting that much closer to learning Rat-Squeak. We also established that Zha'Chukal is attempting to bribe the orcs with mead for a good rep with them (Zha'Chukal is a bee-keeper). He will bring the PCs to to the orcs but it will take a solid month to make enough mead. Screaver goes to tell the refugees of their absence and now they will get a month worth of practice while the roden plies his craft.

We open up the next game convincing the orc hunting party NOT to bring them in a cage or worse, eat them on the trail. So man is introduced to the orcs and their hatred. And knowing the two main character this could only go badly.

Day 2: Light's Last Hope

2007-01-03T19:55:00.000-08:00

Our second session went pretty well. We have a guest player stepping in for a couple of sessions as he's in the area visiting family for a week. Mendel made a fun Roden apiary named Zha'Chakul.

Some pictures from tonight:

Day 1 (extracurricular assignments)

2007-01-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

So we've decided that since we're sharing the burden of narration and story telling, we'll also be sharing the onus of "after the session" and "between session" work that a typical campaign might have the GM doing all of. Eruditus will be taking care of the rules crunching that we had trouble with/need clarification on/advancement details, etc. Spring will be helping flush out the content of our adventures with her most excellent narrative abilities. And I will be responsible for bringing a little more life to the people/critters we run into during play. Eru will get a nice template worked up for ease of posting, but I'll list out our encounters for reference's sake

Screever (Or is it written with a k? Who knows with those ratlings?!)

Goland the white haired oracle child. (He'll be burned as a proper character soon, 2 LPs with Child Prodigy for certain)

Details will ensue!

Day 1 - The Burning Wheel

2007-01-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

While the other players finished up their characters I made one of my own for this session. I made a roden that was to have the first piece of the great puzzle the characters were out to solve. He was only a four LP character and I was certainly feeling it but I was excited about him. I created him with the idea that he was a little twisted. Think doctor sans the hypocratic oath - and certainly not including man in his concern for life. He craved social contact, however because he was ostracized.

After making the intro character to the world I decided I would kick off the game with the first Relic. Whomever does the first scene for a Relic draws from the GameMastery Item Deck. We decide that drawing would allow for a bit of spontanaety and would move through the process more quickly than choosing an item. I wrote up the item ahead of time using the new rules for inserting these magical items into the game.

Before starting we decided that a single persona point counted as 3 Tech Points in relation to the Technology Burner. Thus in the Artha to Tech Point ration Fate was 1:1, Persona 1:3 and Deeds 1:8.

We also hashed out how the Artha pool would work. Each season, or story arch, we would develop an Artha pool. This pool was a finite set of Artha that would be included in the game. I figured we would play a few sessions before establishing the exact amounts although I have some ideas on the basis for the pool. We established that items would be created using Artha from the Story Pool or the Player pool. Artha would be awarded as usual to a player's pool to be used as per the BW Artha rules. There would be some thematic and goal oriented Artha awards that instead of going to the characters it replensihes the pool. I talked about the idea that actions and events which allowed the refugee population to thrive and begin to support itself would drive the pool replenishment although I am yet uncertain the parameters of those awards.

We'll see if this bears out as interesting and has any real impact on the flow of the game. I am thinking that the Artha pool will begin at 12 Deeds, 20 Persona and 50 fate.

Last night I used one Deeds and 2 Persona. The theme of the game was chaos so I wanted something that was useful yet brings a little havoc to the scene. Certainly the items bearer, an ostracized roden Sawbones would help that air of uncertainty. The two Personna went toward +1D Advantage to Ziggurat-wise (help on a skill they could build upon) and bestowed an Inhuman Falsehood. Additionally, it delivered an Intoxicating Poison, focusing on its qualities as a hallucigen and bestowed upon it's weilder a Mark of Fear.

This is an important item (thus the use of the Deeds). It is a springboard for what the characters will involve themselves with over the course of the campaign.

We floundered through some pretty traditional beginnings - refugee parties sent out to do some foraging for food in an alien environment. One character gets a difficult Foraging test at ob 5 (feeding themselves plus foriegn flora and fauna and poor lighting) and fails and the two get lost with a failed difficult Orienteering test. I liked that we started out with a few tests to get them started on raising skills. They both rolled Observation for the session when they tried to notice the roden foraging as well (far more successfully). They both succeeded and got a routine Observation out of it.

They rolled to understand the roden and did well with their Blind Luck but had to rely on assumption and gestures. They started learning Rat-Squeak. Eventually the roden, Screaver, was able to get across that he was willing to offer them food (some sort of cauliflour) but asked for some of their blood in return. The characters were understandably put off and thus began the first Duel of Wits.

Both were at a disadvatage since they did not know each other's languages. Screaver was trying to talk the two out of their blood while I the PCs were really more doing some information gathering. They wanted food and such but they felt they could get out of this creature than a head of cauliflour since they had over 500 people to help feed. Instead of applying this obstacle to each skill I applied it to their disposition. Matt, playing the sneak thief/smuggler, Kern, rolled on his Persuassion with some FoRKs and help and I rolled Screaver's Haggling and both ended up with a disposition of 6 (Will + Successes -1 ob).

The first exchange really saw very little movement other than normal back and forth. The players were intrigued that Screaver was open ending Falsehood rolls and by the end of the conflict the players sorta figured out that it was probably the Relic. We all were muddling through the Duel of Wits. Having only really done it four or so times over the last year or so we were all a bit rusty but after a while we got the hang of it. Appropriately it got revealed that there were a lot more of them and that the refugees were near the Ziggurat. It ended with Screaver winning through a final Dismiss (he just threatened to take his cauliflour and go home) but the characters gaining a bit of comprimise. The comprimise was that for access to more blood than just their he was willing to offer up ...

I drew the first item card of the game and it was a potion (#48 of 110 of the Heroes Horde set). How perfect. We decided that the Roden called it White Water. It had 6 draughts left and the potion acted as a catalyst for a sort of vision quest.

After some in-character guessing of what it was all about Joanna keyed off the art and touched her forhead. "It must open up the third eye!" Shar exclaimed. Screaver was quick to affirm her guess excitedly.

So the Intro cene was over and it was up to Joanna and Matt to decide on Source and History scenes. Niether added any mechanics to the device. Matt described the process by which the elders and other refugees accepted Screaver and his "help." Then Joanna took the reigns and described the vision our local oracle ahd after taking this concoction. The oracle was a young toe-haired boy named Goland.

All in all the game went well and I can see that we're going to plug along nicely as the campaign gains momentum. One thing I have to say is it was certainly weird saying our goodbyes and following up with "cya tomorrow."

As I will be working out the mechanical aspects of the game, Joanna will be writing about the narrative and Matt will be stating out and publishing the characters here. If you have any questions for me or things you'd like to see me cover specifically please let me know.

Day 1: Light's Last Hope, ::gunshot:: and they're off!

2007-01-02T18:02:00.000-08:00

New projects for Eruditus and I start the same way, with a trip to Staples. We picked up three matching notebooks, two matching folders for Tyramon and myself, and a larger folder for Eruditus. We were now armed to document our gaming month.

We got to Tyramon's place and spent a couple hours finishing up character creation, discussed how we're using artha to burn facts about the world, and set the stage for our first scenes. Eruditus outlined our game rules here. Following this outline, we agreed that for this first session Eruditus would narrate the Introduction of the Relic, Tyramon would narrate the Source of the Relic, and I would narrate the History of the Relic.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology I was able to photograph gamers in action. First we have our fearless leader, Eruditus.

He was disappointed when he lost trait points and couldn't pick up 'manhunter'. I don't think we were too upset about that loss.

And here we have Tyramon working hard on his character Kern.

(clicking on the pictures will take you to larger images)

Next time I'll take video :)

We played for about 3 hours. Eruditus focused on the chaos of our characters' situation, being in a new and very strange world, hurt, frightened and hungry. We were sent out into the darkness to forage for food.

We met our first denizen of the jungle; a roden who called himself Screever. Kern and he had a Duel of Wits - which Kern lost (though not horribly). Screever had a potion of visions to trade with us, his price being blood.

The potion of White Water was our first Relic. It was now Tyramon's turn to narrate. We decided it fit with our story to let the earlier Duel of Wits ride. We were going to trade with Screever it was just a matter of hammering out the details. That meant taking him back to our people's camp on the shore.

A little give and take later, Screever had his blood and we had our potion. My History scene was going to be the visions given by the potion at the end of which I would draw the next Relic card. A young boy with white hair, Goland, is the people's oracle. He takes a draught of the potion.

As he collapses twitching in the sand his mind is transported to a narrow tunnel. Behind him there is light and trees and forward the tunnel narrows but forward he moves. The walls are covered with spider webs, as the passage tightens the webs cling to his arms and face. A dim glow ahead draws him forward through the sticky mess. He rips his way into a low cavern lit with glowing lichens. Stalagtites cover the roof and reach toward the floor like the teeth of a great beast. They are white and slick with moisture. The liquid drips into a shallow pool on the floor.

Goland reaches up to touch the lowest stalagtite, as his fingers touch the white surface a shred of lichen comes away in his hands. Two white roden splash to Goland, one takes the shred of lichen from his hands and squeezes the liquid into a bottle held by the second.

Goland's eyes are drawn to his reflection in the pool at his feet. It's not himself he sees but someone else, someone wearing a chainmail shirt.

Light's Last Hope: Thoughts on Character Creation

2007-01-02T10:54:00.000-08:00

Character creation has always been a long process for me. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of a week of hair-pulling. I need a character for tonight.

I'm not one to think in terms of rules when it comes to making a character out of thin air. Instead, I tend to work out a belief or two and then work on a little back story. After that I'll work out lifepaths and such.

As of last night, the character I had in mind was an honorable soldier fighting for her people. She had a belief tied to her bookish historian grandfather (present day actions will do more for our survival than the dust of history) and another about honor (honor is earned through deeds and not simply by birth) to tie her to Tyramon's thief-type charater concept.

After working on a bit of her history today, she's taken a much darker cast:

Taking the children was the final blow that brought me to the abyss. Wasn't it enough to kill our people and burn our homes? Wasn't it enough to leave us with nothing but fear and blood? But to sneak into our hiding places and spirit our children away in the night, that was too much to endure.

Once the children were lost, a rage overtook me and my soul filled with fire and ice. My bow found its mark easily. My sword broke upon the enemies' bones. Prisoners of war? No, not for my enemy. They had taken our children; they had taken my children.

A mother's heart was torn asunder and a wicked beast left in its place. "Too vicious" they said. "Uncontrollable" they said. My own people chained me and put me in darkness.

I feel no shame for my actions on the battlefield although I know I have fallen from grace. The cell beside me holds a traitor I myself imprisoned when I was an honorable solder. An honorable soldier, that seems a lifetime ago. Was it ever true?

Now I wait in the darkness with my fear and my anger, my desperation and my loss. Tyl and Marni, my sweet ones. My dreams are filled with visions of you in their hands and I weep. I pray I will see you again.

I don't scream in the night anymore. My jailers think my spirit has quieted but they are wrong. My curses are as black and silent as the night here among the stones. The beast is chained and sleeping.

Ornek visits to tell me news of war. The old man with his dusty books says the old and secret ways can save our people. Can his old ways find his great-grandchildren? I glare at his ink-stained hands and imagine my own blood stained ones around the neck of an elf captain. My burnt and blackened heart is set. Vengeance will be mine.

So what do we now know about Shar? She's a mother and a soldier, and once her children were stolen by her enemies, her quest for blood overtook any sense of military honor she may have had.

The game is taking place after she has been released from prison (probably by her grand-father) and the remainder of humanity has fled the Elven threat through magical portals. She will be further removed from her stolen children, but she will also know that some Elven enemies came through the portals with them. So a slim hope will remain with regards of finding out what they did with the children in the first place.

I think my two original Beliefs will still work. Maybe the third can focus a bit on search for the children.

1. Present day actions will do more for our survival than the dust of history.
2. Honor is earned through deeds and not simply by birth.
3. The Elven enemies know what happened to the stolen children. They will tell me what I want to know.

Day 1 - And So It Begins

2007-01-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

Mark your schedules and keep an eye on the blog, as we begin this sojourn that seperates the REAL Gamers (said with tongue firmly in cheek). 30 Days of Gaming begins now and runs through January 31st.

This was a reaction to the many people that claim to be gamers and complain that they just can't commit to a regular game. I had a frustrating year. Some of the best games I have seen and played in years materialized in my grubby little hands and I found no way to really run them through the gauntlet. Players I love all were otherwise commited. Games were happening in fits and starts while other groups, here and afar, chug along at a spectacular pace with amazing longevity. I know one group of eight people that meets twice a week for a number of campaigns and has done so for the last EIGHT YEARS.

Frustrated I said "I shall protest!" I will run an event with an unprecidented level of commitment. I am not an idle man and I am often doing one thing or another day to day, week to week. Not this January. This January I am saying gaming will take the spotlight. This January I will find an equally commited group of folks that is willing to take the journey with me and say "I can make time for my firends and my hobby."

So tonight is the first night. We are running a Burning Wheel game that I will be chronicled here. Mixed into the campaign we'll run boardgames, a few one shot RPGs run by guest GMs, a weekly Burning Empires campaign, and time with a weekly BattleLore crew. We have about six days we will run online games - boardgaming or the campaign through voice and chat. Finally we will be including a gaming convention for more gaming goodness - Dreamation '07 in Edison, NJ.

Below is a set of links that act as a rough draft of what we'll be up to and the details will be posted here day to day.

The 30DoG Schedule
Light's Last Hope - a Burning Wheel campaign

Disclaimer: Please note that we will be using several gaming products for 30 Days of Gaming. Any reproduction or reference to those games is used as a supplimental role and in no way is meant as a challenge to any copyright or trademark included. If anyone sees anything they wish to be removed please leave me a comment and I will be happy to do so.

I look forward to hearing your comments and supporting us through a fun but no doubt grueling month.

A Side Note - No doubt there are plenty of folks that game every day. No doubt our numbers are in the hundreds of thousands that play fun, exciting weekly campaigns. This is for those whom this is not the case. I hope that this starts a trend. I hope that every January more and more people can come together and game a few hours every day. This is the start of that. Participation has a few rules so that folks that support us have a yardstick to compare their experience with. These rules are not to devalue the experiences of those that fall outside of them, rather to say this experiment is intrinsically more difficult for for certain people in certain circumstances. We can't include a buddy of mine that works nights because most of us have day jobs.
- There are 3 or more players and all the players are 24+
- All players have full time jobs
- Over 2/3 of the scheduled games are face to face
- All sessions are over two hours and there should be a total average of four hours a day over the course fo the month.
- All sessions are documented (like in, say, a blog)
- The online play will be normal boardgames and tabletop role-playing games, not computer games. We will be utilizing AIM and Ventrillo to faciliate our online gaming.

Lets the Games Begin!