#RPGaDay2019 Week 3

#RPGaDay2019 Week 3

Well this week’s entries are taking longer than expected. Some of these are really stonewalling me. The past two weeks just rolled off my frontal lobe as I thumb tapped them into my Samsung’s memo pad. Alrighty, let’s do this.

15. Door- Do you loot the room or kick down the door? I kick down the door! As a creative person in any hobby, the hardest thing to do is kick down that door that blocks you from your passion. It could be a metaphorical door like writer’s block, or it could be an actual physical barrier like not having the income to purchase the necessary tools to be creative. I would say that motivation is my biggest, most heavy door to accomplishing my goals as a creative person. I like to jump from drawing to writing to painting minis to playing guitar to terrain building and the list goes on. Without motivation my stamina drops to a lethargic level and I move on to something new or back to an old standby. For me that old standby is writing. I like to write, but without a deadline that has consequences, my motivation wanes quickly. Another type of door could be the one that keeps you from going pro. Breaking into the industry as its most often called. I can’t provide any advice or insight to that one as I haven’t figured it out myself.

16. Dream- I’ve often wanted to include a dream sequence in a campaign but it sounds too cliché to me. Most of the time I hear about other GM’s doing it, they say they don’t tell the players until it ends. That’s all fine and dandy but I feel like there should be subtle clues dropped to the players to indicate they are dreaming. This way they might figure it out ahead of time and might just attempt to perform daring feats because there are no perceived consequences. It’s fine, I’ll just wake up like nothing happened. Or will you? I propose that there should be some sort of consequence. Maybe the thief who dropped his dagger during combat wakes up and misplaced his prized dagger. Perhaps a character that died in the dream has recurring nightmares and takes a level of fatigue for the next month. It’s all too easy just to say nothing happened. I guess I’m a dick GM for thinking this way. Oh well, c’est la vie.

17. One- One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do. Two can be as bad as one. It’s the loneliest number since the number one… I was just reading a post about a guy running one campaign for over 40 years. Yes, that’s just one campaign. I can’t imagine the stamina and motivation it would take to run a campaign for 40 years. To be honest, that sounds dumb to me. Why would I limit myself to one game for 40 years? I gave up D&D 5e after 3 years because it limits what I want to do with characters and because those rules lawyers can go fuck themselves. I switched to Savage Worlds due to the variety of settings it has to offer and the fact that characters can take multiple actions.

18. Plenty- Back in the days when I was gaming at my Friendly Local Game Store, I would do my best to provide plenty of handouts for the players to keep. These would usually consist of paper folders full of setting info, gazetteers, and anything I thought the players should have. I highly believed that this alone might get some of them involved in the setting but as time went on, I’ve come to the realization that players don’t want to be bothered with reading. I’m guilty of this sometimes as well but that is primarily limited to one shots or convention type games. I still believe that throwing plenty of handouts to the players makes for a better game, especially if some of them are personalized to specific characters. You can usually tell which players at the table appreciate these gestures because they will thank you after the session. Even if they don’t, I can tell by their excitement. It makes you feel good inside as a GM when you see how excited they get and your excitement builds off of it.

19. Scary- What are the best methods to make your games a little scarier? I’ve been thinking about this one for some time because I was hoping to include a little Cthulhu style horror into a DCC Lankhmar game I want to run (after Con on the Cob). I started looking at how other Cthulhu style games implemented insanity and I think I’ve found one that I can steal. Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing looks like a pretty good sanity system to use with DCC. That will help me and the players judge how insane the character is but how do I make the game feel scary? I think the best method to use is one that I need to work on to be a better GM. You need to be very descriptive. My typical description goes like this: The cave like room is 20 ft. x 30 ft. with vaulted ceilings that have stalactites. The walls have vein like structures throughout. A better method might be: As you enter the cavern the stagnant air tastes like putrid decaying flesh. Looking around, there are purplish red stains littering the walls. You could swear the walls are throbbing slightly, almost in rhythm with your own heartbeat. Hanging from the ceiling are ivory stalactites with a clear jelly like substance slowly dripping. You stare in amazement as it seems to take forever for the ooze’s surface tension to break and smack the floor with an obscenely loud PLOP!

20. Noble- We’re all familiar with using nobility in our games. Sometimes they are pompous asses and sometimes they are very helpful. They can even be a source of information or income to the characters. What about false nobles? That’s an interesting thought. As a GM I think I might try using an imposter pretending to be a noble. They would need forged documents and a source of wealth in order to fool everybody. Maybe they could have just cast magic on everyone to make them think they are noble. That would be some powerful illusionary magic for sure. Would the characters even ever come into contact with this false noble? I suppose they would otherwise this is just a pedantic waste of time. Eventually the characters will need to find out what is going on. To not do so would be boring and the characters might even feel like they owe the NPC some sort of loyalty by this time. This could be an interesting plot hook to keep on the back burner.

21. Vast- My favorite RPG system is Savage Worlds and while it’s far from perfect, it is extremely vast in the number of different settings. It ranges from undead cowboys to Wiseguys in Vegas and everything in between. If you can’t find the setting you’re looking for, then I’d say you probably haven’t looked hard enough. The system is easy enough that you can make your own setting if need be. Lots of people have published free content under the Savage Worlds Fan Logo including myself so look some more and ask around if you can’t find what you’re looking for. Chances are that someone else has already made it.


P.S. If you've been living under a rock like Patrick Star and haven't heard yet, The Wild Die Podcast continually produces great episodes for all the Savage Worlds fans. Their last episode was a very interesting topic on publishing content under the SWAG (Savage Worlds Adventurers Guild) program on DriveThruRPG. Definitely worth a listen if you have any aspirations of writing game content.

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