The sixteen year old boy stared at the golden glow that held his hand to the iron box. It didn’t hurt but his slim hand was stuck tight. This was a larger problem because the box was nearly as large as he was and much too heavy for him to lift. Strength wasn’t one of his greatest attributes. He was a slim boy, years of living on the street had denied him a large frame. Narrow hips and shoulders made most people assume he was years younger, or worse, a girl. The box was three feet across, two feet wide and almost a foot deep, and it was solid iron as far as he could tell. He took a deep breath to steady himself and cocked his head, something tickling his ears.

“Alright, finish the spell. Bring the cave down so no one can find it. The Prefect will never abuse the relics now.”

Renwyn’s eyes widened as he realized what he just heard. He opened his mouth to yell for help when the sudden horrendous sound of a Shrieker came screaming down the tunnel. The horrid wailing drowned out everything. Renwyn’s mind felt like a hundred daggers were stabbing into it. Blood began to seep from his nose and ears as the vibration shook the stones. Then the roar of falling rock downed out the horrible noise. Choking on the dust Renwyn didn’t even realize at first that he hadn’t been crushed, the pain in his skull and the agony in his lungs blinding him to all else. It wasn’t until he was digging his hands into his chest that awareness returned. His hand was free, and he wasn’t dead. His dark brown eyes tried to see around him, but everything was blackness. Crawling on his hands and knees he felt around, trying to find a tunnel, but there was nothing. He was trapped in a dome of fallen rock barely as wide as his 5’3 frame was tall. Terror, fear at the weight of crushing rock was consuming him. He clawed at the walls, whimpering and begging to get out. Then a thought crossed his mind. The Relics, maybe one of them could help him.

The thief pawed around until he found the chest, not even questioning why his hands weren’t sticking this time. He managed to find the sword and shield emblem that marked the latch. Nimble fingers twisted the symbols and he managed to open the heavy lid. Agony exploded through him as a brilliant golden light filled the tiny cavern. Curling into a ball Renwyn tried to protect his lean body. He felt as though he were trapped inside the sun itself. A voice whispered in his mind, cold and violent.

“Do you think yourself worthy of these treasures?”

Renwyn couldn’t answer. He shook before the light. Too much had happened to him. His first test from the Guild and suddenly he was buried alive and confronted with a divine voice. Shock and blackness scrabbled at the corners of his mind, but the light was unrelenting.

“Do you think yourself worthy of these treasures?”

“No!” Renwyn gasped out, his eyes clenched tight.

“Then why have you come?”

“I’m trapped. I’m going to die. They buried you! I was just hoping to find something to keep me alive!” Renwyn wasn’t sure who he was talking too, he still didn’t know what was inside the chest, but he had seen enough of the magic of the Gods to know he was dealing with something Holy, or Un.

The voice was silent, the light dimmed, not much, just enough that Renwyn could open his eyes. Painfully he managed to twist and look into the chest. Four objects sat upon a bed of garnet silk, the color of fresh blood. A golden apple, a crystal vial filled with dark blue fluid, a shimmering cloak and a statue of a small dog carved in granite. The gray stone dog stared up at Renwyn with eyes of onyx. It’s head was over large, as were its paws. Renwyn was SURE the voice came from the statue.

“Please, help me. I don’t want to die.” His voice was soft, despair and madness threatening to take away what little composure he had left.

“If I aid you, you will have to become worthy of the gifts. You will owe your soul to the service of the Gods. These gifts are not given lightly, once given, they cannot be returned or removed. Do you accept this bargain?”

Renwyn was desperate, he’d have accepted any terms. He didn’t hesitate to agree. The golden light flared again but this time Renwyn could see through it. Scribbling crimson light began to rise from the dog and float through the air, circling the boy.

“Take the vial and drink.”

Obediently the thief lifted the crystal flask and pulled the stopper. A scent filled the air, old stones and blood. Closing his eyes he tilted his head back and drained the cobalt elixir. The taste was strange, like he had cut his lips while sucking on mint. Swallowing he felt numbness spread down his mouth and out across his chest.

“Quickly, drape the silk across your body.”

Shaking the boy grabbed the cloth and spread it out, wrapping it around his shoulders as he was bid. The fabric felt cold and wet, almost like he was being bathed. It stuck to his skin. An itching sensation spread and he realized the fabric was spreading to cover his entire body.

“Now, before it covers your face, eat the apple.”

The numbness was spreading and it was hard to move his hand but he managed to dig the apple out and bring it to his mouth. It was small enough that he could get it all in so he just sucked it into his mouth and started chewing. The flavor was, bizarre. Cinnamon mixed with clove, smoke and a salty tang, like meat. He chewed as fast as he could as the silk crept up over his face. Panic shot through him when he tried to breath in and couldn’t. It was smothering him. The voice roared into his head.

“Swallow!”

He couldn’t. He was terrified. It bellowed again, demanding he swallow. Renwyn convulsively managed to swallow the chunks of apple, his numb hands flapping uselessly as he tried to claw at his throat and face, to breathe in. Then it was like he exploded into flames. Every muscle in his body seemed to burst into flaming agony at once. His bones felt as though they were shaking apart. His mind flinched at the pain, the sensation rising to such extremes that he stopped comprehending it as pain. His mind spun into blackness.

“You have been given three gifts. The Apple of Life, because of its flesh you shall not age, your wounds shall heal quickly. It does not make you immortal, merely protects you from the ravages of time. You can still be killed. The Shroud, its magic has seeped into your flesh. No mortal blade can cut you or pierce your skin. It does not make you invulnerable, merely protects you from ordinary harm. The Potion of Might; it is an elixir which increases your strength many times above that of mortal men and hardens your body to endure the strains of that strength. You have been made into a being above normal mortals. Now you will serve us, proving your worth.”

The voice was the last thing Renwyn heard before the blackness claimed him.

Got my game face on..

Getting started as a Dungeon Master of any type can be a complicated process. How do I know? I’ve been attempting it since I was 18. I’ve had a couple of successfully run games and a couple that crashed and burned horribly. Expect this. While it may not be true for everyone, or even most people, I’ve found that 50% of games will die or end before everyone is satisfied. In my case that means with the story ended while far from being resolved. There are a number of reasons why games crash and I’ll discuss Gamme Killers in another essay. Right now I’m going to just focus on stumbling blocks that I, as a DM, have come across.

One of the biggest problems I’ve found is that when I first started gaming I put too much work into a huge world and not enough work into the minutiae. The little gritty NPC’s that can make the difference between a captivating game world and a boring one are pretty important. My first couple campaigns I designed a half dozen cities separated by climates and terrains requiring fantastic transportation to travel to. I worked up the statistics for how many guards, thieves, random monsters each city would have, I worked up the maps for each ship etc. I was planned for random adventures. Then someone in the party asked me what a deckhands name was and I didn’t have a clue. In my youth I hadn’t realized how the game can revolve more around the personalities that the gamer. That game, despite having a great plot and an epic feel, failed. The players weren’t interested in just doing the numbers and it lacked a hook to make it all personal for them.

I took a different approach when I created my Saltwater’s Weep game. I focused on just one city. I designed the history of the city as if it had been founded by adventurers and basically made up people on all the levels of power. One of the most popular NPC’s is a dwarf named Shlub who’s been magically cursed to live inside a barrel. He’s a fixture at the Iron Stallion tavern. His legs stick out the bottom and he waddles around. People pour beer and liquor inside the barrel so he’s perpetually drunk. But sailors believe that rubbing his barrel is good luck. What did Shlub have to do with the greater story? Nothing at all, he was a throw away joke I tossed in to give the tavern some atmosphere. The players got a kick out of him and started going to that tavern exclusively, just to enjoy Shlub’s drunken stumbling among the tables.

The other thing I did differently in Saltwater’s Weep, was running a short campaign. I’ve used the setting 3 times. Each time I updated it to a new gaming rule set. The first time was 3.0 to 3.5 the second was 3.5 to Pathfinder. The first time I ran it the game crashed because some of the players had massive personality issues and they blew up over other shit. The second time pretty much went the same way. The last time though I was a bit gun shy so I only planned for a 6 session run. Because we gamed every week it went by fast, but the players had a blast. They accomplished a story-arc and we left it there. We’ll pick it up again when I’m ready. But I realized that because I wasn’t trying to force a story that would last for years of gaming, I gave the area they were in a bit more life and power. It was a more captivating setting. So, there is nothing wrong with thinking small, both in setting and story. That’s a problem a lot of new Storyteller’s run into. They try to create the grand epic right outside the gate and instead they should just look for creating a small fun story. They can always use it as a launching point later.

It’s semi old news, but I’m used to being a week behind.

The guys and gals over at Palladium Books need our help. With the economy where it is, and with how their motto seams to be “Well, we made that book over 20 years ago – we’re still going to print it so you all can get a copy of it” (which, by the way, makes them awesome), they’re strapped for cash to actually put their new book, Rifts World Book 32 – Lemuria – out.

So they’re giving us an opportunity to help and get some nice free stuff out of the mix. The basic $5 will get your name in the book as a donator, or for the same $5 you can put a memoriam in it. For $20, you get a better spot in the book, and a PDF version. $50 gets you a limited, only available now Hard Cover version to go along with that, $75 gets you the leatherette, cooler looking hard cover version, and then they combine all the above in one way or form until you get up to $500 for all 3, a list as a benefactor, then a ton of signatures, free unique art, the owner of the comapny will call you and ask your opinions, etc. etc. etc.

So check it out here if you want to look and help out. I’ve been looking into the whole crowdsourcing thing recently, and am surprised that more companies don’t use it.

MegaVerse Insider Opportunities

Borrowed without permission from The Looney DM

This is more of a “how I’m doing it” little article. I’m just going over what’s been going on in my life, and how game fits into it.

For starters, let me set the scene –

I’m 28, married, no kids yet. I have a full time job, plus I do night classes two nights a week (not this semester, but that’s not relevant). Add to that my social responsibilities to my family and friends, and SWTOR and Skyrim. What would normally be something I could spend time in my evenings plotting out is now an after thought – a weekly planned get together that I only think of when it’s time to drive to it.

First thing to note about doing tabletop gaming – it’s meant to be fun. It can’t be treated as a necessity, or it just ruins it. So when I mention that it’s scheduled – that’s not to make it seem like it’s a set thing that even if I don’t feel like doing it, I’ve scheduled it, so I’m doing it. Much like myself, my friends all have stuff going on in their lives. So we’ve plotted out certain times every couple weeks where we all actually have a section of time we’re not busy.

1. Pick a time where you’re not busy to game

So that may seem like one of the stupidest points – but it’s easily forgotten. You’ve got a lot on your plate, you have a deadline next week, you’ve got a family member with some rare illness, your water just broke – all these things can pull you away from game (just a side note – if your water broke and you’re reading this – got to the hospital, you can always come back to this later. I promise not to delete it on you). You can physically be to game, but if you are not mentally there – you might as well not be there at all.

2. Game journals are your friends

The most dreaded question of the  distracted gamer is “What happened last time?”. You’ve pulled yourself to the game table, taken out your character sheet you’ve given no thought to over the past two weeks, and now you have to pull that knowledge up about what had happened, what you where trying to accomplish, what the NPC’s names where, and exactly who was out to kill you. They’ve actually made something to help you with that. It’s called a notebook – it’s a new thing, I’m told. Write down important things you want to remember at the end of the session, and the next time you sit down, you’ll have all that info you just had at your fingertips. Think of it as a kind of “50 First Dates” scenario – you have to remind yourself of what you should already know.

3. Eat healthy

Wow, that was so foreign to me, it took me 4 times trying to type it to spell it right.

You’re in a hurry, game starts in 15 minutes, you get off your exit, and there’s a McDonalds, quick, easy, and cheap. What you’ve now done is added grease and fat on top of stress, and you’re about to sit and do nothing for 4+ hours. You’re body is a machine, and as Gnome Stew points out, lack of exercise and poor diet takes whatever cred you get for playing a game involving math and imagination, and throws it out the door.

Personal experience time – I just found out that I have a severe Vitamin D deficiency, due mostly to a poor diet and aversion to sunlight. Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium, run your metabolism, and the big thing – MEMORY. So it turns out that our geekish love for dark spaces indoors leads us to be forgetful and sickly. Which would explain some of the arguments I’ve witnessed at the game table.

4. Think about game

So all this time, I’ve been talking about going into game without a clue, but it doesn’t HAVE to be like that. It all depends on how busy your schedule actually is. Do you drive/walk to work? What about lunch hour? When you’re kids are around, are you watching them watch TV? Is there moment between issues at work where you need to find something to think about?

You don’t need a character sheet and dice in front of you to plan. The nice thing about playing a tabletop RPG is that your character is only part character sheet. The actual character and what drives him/her is in your head. So plot things out – think about what you’d like to happen in game. Then, jot them down in that new notebook you bought for #2. Not every one will be a winner, but every once and a while – one will stick, and you’ll be glad you did it.

5. Enjoy the game

The last thing I’ll touch on is that you should try to find joy in the game. I know I touched on this a little before, but you need to make sure that you’re leaving the game feeling like it’s still something you enjoy doing. Other issues that deserve their own article can hinder this – disruptive players, bad locations, system issues, bad dm’s/players, food poisoning – they all need to be addressed in order to truly have a good time playing. If you just go from session to session thinking “Boy, I wish Bob would stop pulling a knife on me every time I suggest that we take a break so we can use the bathroom – my wife is starting to get suspicious of how many times I “cut myself while shaving” . . . ”  - then it’s time you address the fundamental issues with Bob as a player, and get game to a much happier (and safer) place. It might mean Bob has to conference-call in his character from the local psych ward, but they have free wireless, so it’s a win win.

After 4 hours of memebase and no new ideas...

A lot of people who want to be dungeon masters or game writers experience a problem, a dread obstacle which faces any who engage in the literary arts. This hurdle is commonly known by the name of Writer’s Block. Tis a dastardly thing which strikes the minds and fingers of those who attempt to put word to page.

As many might imagine, once a person begins to suffer from writer’s block they come desperate to find a cure. They’ll do anything to relieve their mind of this dread clog and allow the words to flow free. Before you can really find a cure it’s probably important to figure out just why you’re experiencing the problem in the first place. This can be a pain in the rump. I have been going through quite a stretch of writer’s block so I can think of a number of things that cause the thoughts to jam up.

Stress. If you have a crap-tastic day and you sit down to write with all of the craziness running through your head, getting anything coherent out is going to be a bit of a problem. It’s hard to work out all the details of a fictional world if you can’t get all the problems of the real one to go away for a little while. Try organizing a space that distances you from your real problems and brings what you’re trying to bring about closer to you. Maybe put on the soundtrack to an appropriate genre movie in the background. If you’re writing fantasy, try the Lord of the Ring’s soundtrack, science fiction, Star Wars, etc. Those are generic examples. Maybe put up a couple posters or figurines of the right genre around your space, so you can look at them to keep your thoughts organized. Really bizarre one that most people don’t think about, but your sense of smell is pretty powerfully connected to your creative process. If you don’t feel like the visual and audible stimulus is working, try something that smells of the right genre to you. Gun oil, fresh grass, pine needles, there are a lot of possibilities. The point is to try and distance yourself away from what’s stressing you out. Not that stress is the only cause.

Sometimes the problem is that you’re starting too large. Myself, I’ve loved the idea of designing my own campaign setting for a long time. Been working on it for nearly 16 years…. And I’ve gotten not very far. The reason is simple. I’ve been starting too big. The thing about a lot of campaign settings is that they came about from DM’s who have run their system for years. Those DM’s might have started with a general idea, but they didn’t have the entire world pre-planned, it grew organically as part of the character’s journey. The DM was racing along, attempting to stay ahead of his party, making characters (sometimes on the fly) for them to interact with and then fleshing out the details afterword. So if you want to start your own campaign setting, start with a small area and then start spiraling out. Design a city or town, flesh it out, and give it a history. Its history will give you ideas for the area’s history, which expands your scope. Then you flush out the “present day” folk and groups in that surrounding area and allow the things to grow dynamically. As long as you keep alternating your focus on the microcosms and macrocosms back and forth, letting the ideas interact, you’ll keep from getting overwhelmed. But if you sit down and say “OK, I’m going to make a WORLD now” and then let the idea of hundreds of millions of people, thousands of kingdoms, different religions, economies and stuff all slam into your brain, you’re likely going to stall out. The most success I had was developing a lawful evil metropolis called Saltwater’s Weep and so far I’ve gotten some very good feedback. This leads to another problem that writers commonly face: isolation.

If you open up a novel you’ll generally see an acknowledgment section that the author has added. It lists a bunch of people that the writer is saying thank you to for a number of reasons. The basic thing is, you can’t do it all yourself. Feedback is pretty essential for a good writing experience. People tossing ideas around can be amazingly helpful, not to mention if you’re writing about a time and area and you’re trying to give it a real multicultural feel, ask people about other cultures. Other people’s expertise can save you a lot of time, headaches and stress. Not to mention, if you want people to really FEEL like characters have different lives and personalities, having a friend you rely on to make completely random decisions for some of the characters can really help you keep from sticking all your characters in a cookie cutter.

Truth is, writer’s block can suck. It’s worse than an Ogre Village at level 4, but planning and team work can defeat it for you. Just relax and have fun.

1. Work on my health – take care of my weight, my slipping mind, and other ailments not tied with game.
2. Create a fuller, more original world for my games to take place in – when I return to the screen – I don’t want to rely on a module to get things started. If I’m taking a break – I want to return with a bang!
3. Write on here more – Almost 3 months downtime isn’t acceptable. Even though I know no one is reading this – I wouldn’t want to have to wait this long. Unless it was a site with video gaming cats, then I might wait.
4. Learn at least two new systems this year – Last year I learned Exalted. I may be learning World of Darkness rather soon – so my goal is past that, to learn one system on my own this year. I started dabbling in Rifts toward the end of last year – so I’m hoping to pick up and latch onto that system, maybe.
5. To make it just as easy to say no as it is to say yes. I have an opposite problem them most DM’s – I give in to the players wants a little too much, so that it kills a game, cause nothing really seems challenging. I can state the list of acceptable races, one person will ask for a different one, and soon every players has an advanced race that I’m not prepared for. Things like that. They plot for something big, giving them stuff beyond what they should have, and I make it somewhat easy to get to, because that seems to be what’ll be fun for them at the time.  Something I need to step back and resolve in my downtime.

What are your game related resolutions for the new year?

First, and foremost – the news that brings me to type today. The already day old news of a new Dungeons and Dragons in the works over at WotC, and the fact that they are taking the open collective approach that helped Pathfinder take a major market share away from them. Instead of boring you with all the details, I’m just going to link you over to Critical Hits, to someone who actually has talked with the Wizard who lives by the coast, and I think has a very good outlook as to the implications of this new system. (Said Link Right Here)

I also think it’s worth noting that we all saw it coming in September, and that a major point of this is that they will be listening to the fans, and it will still be a ways away from taking over. The official article made mention of playtesting at 2013′s GenCon, not the 2012, 45th anniversary one. So right now, they’ve got a lot to work with.

Also worth noting is Paizo’s recent push, in my opinion, to sell as much products as possible in as short amount of time. They may see it as a need to cash in while still relevant - not sure. Either way – for the full Pathfinder experience, expect to pay somewhere between $50 – $120 a month ($120 when two core books come out in the same month, ie last August). Wheras I like the system and still enjoy playing it, it has this little black scar of me looking at a pile of books going “Ya, and I’m missing so much content”.

Politics wise, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has taken center stage and are forcing people to take sides. I’m against it on the basis that it solves nothing, and it is provided by people that don’t know how things work. For instance, mearly knowing what the IP address for a blocked site will get you there, and startup websites can just get blocked because a competitor reports them for “stealing their idea’s”, regardless of whether it’s true. Everyone will play the cautious role, and the internet will be in shambles. And this is just the American side of things – it’s even more whacked when you consider that the US is essentially saying that we will censor everyone’s internet.

And politics aside, personal stuff now. Lost in dual worlds of Skyrim and Star Wars – The Old Republic, lately. Feel my mind inching farther and farther away from being able to focus on my DM’ing, so I’m taking a break from that for the start of the new year. Going to make sure it’s nothing medical that I can take care of. I’m still gaming, still thinking of idea’s – just not going to sit behind the screen for a little while so I can get all my ducks in a row.

Stay tuned for my New Years Resolutions! When in doubt – copy other blog’s topics.

According to ICv2 and plenty of other sources, it looks like Monte Cook has been brought back in to Wizards of the Coast to help work on the Dungeons and Dragons franchise. Now all that’s left is the speculation of every gamer on the planet, which all instantly go to “5e” speculation.

But it’s semi warranted – if you look at WotC’s track record, they bought the franchise in 1997, came out with 3e in 2000, after 3 years developing it. In 2003, they updated and re branded with 3.5. In 2005, they started developing 4e, and pushed it out in 2008. WotC has started planning the next edition some 2-3 years after releasing the current one. So now we’re at 3 years of 4e – it’s time to bring in the game changer and start working on a new system.

Gaming wise – been enjoying Arfles Exalted game – I’m actually really impressed with the system. That, and feeling of having all that power is pretty cool. Herauk’s Pathfinder game had it’s first session post GenCon. I have yet to have a session since, for a number of different reasons.

On one hand, I have an ok story going right now, and am the butt of my players jokes for not doing longer lasting games. But on the other hand, I feel a little D20′d out.  I love Pathfinder and Paizo, but for financial reason’s after the con, I cancelled my pre-orders for a bit to catch up, and I find I’m not really missing them. I just find myself at a point of re-assessing what I want to do with my game, how to best serve my players and myself, and how to help create a really great story. I’ve been reading more systems lately, Rifts, GURPS, Burning Wheel, L5R – and it made me sit down and think about how I didn’t start with D&D – why do I find myself trying to force a derivative as my system of choice.

Mostly it’s because I have players that are in love with the system – and that really helps keep interest in your game. Also, there’s opposition to change. I encounter it now with the exalted game – some get it, some don’t. Some enjoy learning a new system, other despise it, and only have cranial space for one system. So if I where to go and tell them “Hey – we have Pathfinder and Exalted going – now I’m going to teach you GURPS” – their head would explode. Or I’d be flamed into backing down.

Been thinking also about going through and just doing a couple one shots to see if it’s something I just need to get out of my system. Those that are interested in learning a new game – come over and we’ll try it. Any suggestions?

My Father-In-Law.

Talked with him about it, as he’s the one that built it for me 5 years ago, and he’s going to look into it. As a PC Technician, I should have no reason to give it another PC Tech, right? Well, my Father-in-law has far more parts then I do, and said he should be able to get it working. So it’s less of a “I don’t know what’s going on” and more of a “he has the things I need to get it up and running”.

So my PC is some hour and a half away, with no ETA at the moment.

But all is not lost! I still have the netbook full of pictures. So I will be updating you with my GenCon travels. Just slower then I had hoped to.