24 August - Ancient

 

If I'd kept up with the RPG-word-a-day, one of today's choices would have been 'Ancient'.

I would have chosen this one because today is my 54th birthday.  It's also the 9th anniversary of this blog.  It's hard to avoid the feeling that the time (or at least peak) of blogs has passed (and that podcasts are on the way out too), but that's probably just my extistential crisis talking...

On Cheap DVDs

It would be surprising if my readers haven't noticed that streaming tv is now a Big Thing.  Perhaps only those of us who work in Charity Shops (Thrift Shops for those of you in North America) will have realised the corellary - we're now getting bags and bags of DVDs every day.  As a result most are selling them at 'please-take-them-away' prices (in our case five-for-a-pound).*  Even tape cassettes sell for more.**

*Sometimes the message doesn't come across.  A lady commented to me that we seemed to have a lot of DVDs.  "Yes", I replied "We can't sell enough of them - they're five-for-a-pound."  "Good", she said, "I'll bring you some in". 

**We can't even sell DVDs or cassettes to those bulk-buyers who give us 5p-a-kilo for books

But, of course, that provides an opportunity.  I've got an completist friend who's now got almost all the MCU films (and many of the tv series) on offer.  I'm not as committed as her*, but even so, I'm now up-to-date with that output.

*Being 30 years older, I value my time and storage space a little more.  I won't be spending 20p on 'Ironman 3' in a hurry.

In such a completist mode, I recently got all the 'Star Wars' DVDs.  I watched 'Solo' for the first time and realised what a turkey it was - and why Disney hasn't got a "Star Wars Anthology" series to rival the MCU.  On the other other hand, I the next night I watched, 'The Last Jedi' and enjoyed it.

As an aside, my favorite rendering of a Star Wars film is just 5mins 36 sec long...

When First Lockdown dawned I bought the complete 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' in order to recapture some 90's vibe.  I didn't watch them all, mainly because it's no longer the 90s (which made it creepy watching as a 50-odd-year-old).*

*But also because I got caught up in the whole continuitiy issue with 'Angel'.  And then the things came out about Joss Wheedon being a dick (see "creepy" above).

In prep for Second Lockdown I bought box-sets of "Blake's Seven".  What can be wrong with watching a beloved series from my adolescence?*

*I don't know, I still haven't got around to it.  But don't worry, it's definitely blog-fodder!

This week I've been watching the first season of 'The Expanse'.  Those of you who follow will know that I've read the first couple of the book series that this is based on.  Despite the fact that the fact that the pictures are always better in your head*, this is a great adaptation, and I'd recommended it.

*My vision of Detective Miller (in his hat) would have been played by Dennis Franz c.1983. But I'm old - my picture of asteroid mining is still framed by von Braunn and Isaac Asimov.

The point is that if there's anything out there that you to watch cheaply, you can probably get it on DVD (and you may be able to chuck some coin to charity at the same time).

RPG-a-Day: 'Failure'

OK, so I have failed spectacularly in keeping up with the RPG-a-Day posts.  

But I think it was worth the attempt, and I'm going to carry on with the words (perhaps not all of them) as prompts for posts.  At my rate, this will give me material for the rest of the year!

Also, I've got my hostages to fortune...

Kickstarter Watch: Medieval Marginalia

 

Link here.

On offer are 12 minis (for £38.00) from Andrew May of Meridian Miniatures and other projects  (with a strong Kickstarter track record), more or less directly copied from the marginal illustrations of medieval manuscripts (do follow the link and compare the minis to the source materials).  It was fully funded in half an hour, and unsurprisingly so.

Here's one of those tempting Kickstarter that's produced a delicious idea, but you wonder if you'll ever use.   I think the answer with this one is that if you had the figures, you'd damn well create a scenario to fit!

Idea: party of adventurers after a hazardous journey through the wilderness are glad to know that their next stop will be at the Abbey of San' Umberto, renowned for its hospitality to travellers (and, the more learned of your party point out, its magnificent library and scriptorium).  But when you arrive, the usual welcoming party isn't waiting...

Now, would you play that as a medieval fantasy (think Dolmenwood or The Midderlands) or a Cthuhlu Dark Ages?  And would you let you're players know which it was?

RPG-a-Day 2021: 3 - 'Image'

Today I'm going for one of the subsidiary choices - "Image".

For a long time I maintained that I don't have a visual imagination.  This went hand-in-hand with "I'm no good at art" and "I couldn't possibly paint minis".  It's wasn't until relatively late in life that I was disabused of that.  

Of course I have a visual imagination!  Just look at the post I did yesterday on maps.  I chose to read  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (and thus got into fantasy) because of Pauline Baynes' wonderful illustrations.  I picked up my first Robert Heinlein (and thus got into Sci-Fi) because of cover art.  And if it's surprising to some that I can remember the first book I bought, it is in part because of the striking cover.  I don't remember any of the plot (no doubt smuggling and dastardly foreigners played a part), but I can shut my eyes and see the object.

It was the cockatoo on the spine that did it...

So how does all this feed into RPGs?

Well, I think I've save some of the answer for when I talk about Inspiration, but in a word that's it.

Whether I'm GM-ing or playing I like to find images that represent what's going on.  Of course, in the days of VTT everyone now does that, and much to the enhancement of the game.   

Done properly it creates feedback - I find an image for a character and, suddenly, aspects of that image seep into character development and how I'm playing them.  

A case in point...

Bolton the Mage

I can't remember how far I was into character development when I found this image.  I had stats and knew that I was looking for a Magic User (was it before or after seeing the picture that I decided that he wasn't 'a Wizard', he was 'a Mage'?).  I think I had a name, but not much else.  Armed with the picture, I developed a character who liked the finer things in life and who prefered to use his brains rather than brawn (though he was surprisingly handy in a fight).  Of course, it helps to have cliches to fall back on!*  And as the game progress, so extra bits were added - some were mentioned once and fell by the wayside, others stuck (his love of jewels, and over-fondness for dolphin-burgers).  The cigar became significant - it became a tool through which he projected his magic,  The GM even developed a "Hamlet moment" for him, whereby he got a bonus if he paused and smoked one. And of course, when we came to a city that had a Eunuchs' Guild...

*In this case I was thinking of Nichloas van Rjin and Nero Wolfe.

Yes, all this character development could have come out through other means.  I'm merely saying that an image is a good tool for the imagination.  Most of us have more than one source to pick from.  Other people get the same result from finding the 'right' accent.  Some actors claim that they don't get into character until they find the right hat or pair of shoes.  Whatever it takes.  This is a game of imagination, and we all need props.

"But!" I hear a cynic cry "Surely this stiffles the imagination!  Theatre of the Mind - that's where it's at!"  I suppose done heavy-handedly there is a danger of this - of creating a visual railroad (much like saying your Elf can't use dual weapons, because your mini of him only has a sword and a bow).  But that underestimates the power of the imagination - if every picture speaks a thousand words, how many combinations of those words are there?  Humans (even more so "Players") are adapt at interpretation.  Two people will look at the same picture or read the same book and come away with different things.  They will latch onto to different aspects and may choose to block out others.  I look at the picture of Bolton above and and see "fat man with cigar" someone else will look at him and see "be-jewelled bearded dandy".  From these initial impressions, two (or more!) interpretions may branch out.

Just a few pictures taken from the pages of this blog.  Who can say that they're not inspirational?

"I have a little, ah...  'job' for you."

Who wouldn't want to fly around the
 'Verse with this crew?

#RPGaDAY

RPG-a-Day 2021: 2 - 'Map'

 

Today's word is an easy one for me as it allows me to rehash one of my favourite RPG stories.  When my FLGS group celebrated the first anniversary of our delve in Barrowmaze I decided to have a hard-copy made of the progress we'd made.

End of Day 1

...and a year later

I was annoyed when Snappy-Snaps got in touch to tell me that it wouldn't be ready at the time they'd promised, and thus I'd have to pick it up on the way to the session.  When I got to the printers, it turned out that the lad who'd took my order had confused centemetres and inches.  That ruler lying on the map is a foot long...

Last week, someone posted on the Old School Essentials FaceBook group about all this.  "Why do you grumpy old sods hide things from your players?" he said*.  "I give my players the whole map and let 'em at it!".  Well good for him, and good for his players,  That's the game they want to play.  Exploration (of the 'dungeon') isn't their priority.  But I found it a bit odd.  I'm old-school in my approach.  I like mapping and record-keeping.  Why is that?

*Not really, but words to that effect.

Well there are those who will insist* that Dungeons & Dragons is primarily an exploration game (and by that they don't mean exploring one's character or motivations!).  So, when played in that Old-School** way, mapping is an essential part of resource-management.  

*Ad nausium sometimes.

**Note I use the initial capitals here that I avoided in the previous paragraph.

For me, it's because maps and imagination are closely linked.  I've posted before about R L Stevenson's 'Land of Counterpane'.  Technically the poem's not about maps but the link is there; and I'm not the only one who has lain in bed looking at cracks in the ceiling and instead seen rivers and coasts.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

My introduction to fantasy was Narnia.  Not The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, but The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  I picked up a copy of that in the school library because I liked the picture of the ship, but it also had a map!  Even better was the one in Treasure Island which had all sorts of strange symbols on it.  I've always loved coasts and islands.*  The first book I bought with my own money was Enid Blyton's The Island of Adventure**.  For years afterwards I'd doodle island maps.

*Inevitably our holiday desitnations when I was a kid.

**In a secondhand bookshop opposite Exeter Catherdral while on one of those holidays.  I must have been about 8.

Treasure Island

My next literary map was of Middle Earth, and I'm sure I don't need to write much about that one.*

*Partly because once one starts, where do you stop?

Of course, it all got rather out of hand in the fantasy genre.  All the sub-Tolkein writers determined that books had to come in threes*, have over 800 pages* and must start with a map.  Joe Abercombie** famously reacted against that and resisted having maps in his books (but they're just too damn useful!).

*At least!

**Who I rate very highly.  Follow the link and read his eloquent and amusing dismissal of crap maps.

So why do I like maps and record-keeping in my games?  I'd like to say that it's because of all this.  But really, it's because I'm anal.  There is a joy in making the unknown known.  I know that capturing the butterfly and pinning it to the page is unnecessary, but it's a question of control.  I must be a micro-managing control-freak.*

*No accident that I became an archivist then (and though I was bad at it, that was solely due to vice and laziness).

EDIT

After posting this, I was reminded of my first book-with-a-map.  How could I forget the Hundred Acre Wood!  My Mother used to read Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner to me in bed.

#RPGaDAY

RPG-a-Day 2021: 1 - 'Scenario'

Day 1, and as I said in my Day 0 post, I've been caught hopping.  I have nothing prepared.  This is going to be even more stream-of-consciousness than normal...

When I think 'RPG Scenario' my mind goes to one-shots.  I know this isn't really what the word means in this context, and that a published setting can also fit in there, but because I tend to think of these as 'campaigns', one-shots and 'short-campaigns' are what I'm going to talk about.

I'm very lucky in that since I returned to role-playing two or three years ago, I've fallen in with a couple of regular crowds.  One, at my FLGS, plays the Barrowmaze mega-dungeon as an open table.  The other, which is an on-line crowd (the membership of which is fluid) I've met since lock-down.  In neither of these cases do we often play one-shots.

But thinking off the top of my head, there are a few one-shots I've played in the year which I don't count as scenarios - for example, the Flash Gordon using the Index Card RPG and the attempt we had at playing Under Hill and By Water.  Is this because they weren't following a 'published scenario'?

And in the Wasters games that are my current expression of the hobby, we have a 'job/mission' to go out and complete, as we did when we were playing Odd Sci-Fi.  Why don't I see these as 'scenarios'?  They obviously are.

There are definitely some games I've played that I do consider 'scenarios':-

• 'Hole in the Oak' - the module from Necrotic Gnome which I GM'd over three or four sessions.
• a scenario from the Call of Cthulhu starter set that I ran at home
• 'Without Warning' - another Call of Cthulhu game set in the Arctic

None of these were less enjoyable for being a 'scenario'.

So to me, a scenario is

• short and contained (not a campaign)
• structured
• probably published

Hm, if I'm not careful I could start writing about the difference between a sandbox and a railroad.  And that's a more involved thing.  Certainly you can have a published sandbox, and not all scenarios are railroads.

Perhaps it's because of the nature of the games I play and the people I play with - the OSR is supposed to free-flowing and to abhore railroading - that I don't think in terms of scenarios when I look back at the sessions we've had.  No doubt I am kidding myself!

I think I've talked myself into the conclusion that in RPG terms I equate 'scenario' with 'published module'.

The dictionary definition of 'scenario' is a description of possible actions or events in the future, but in this context, my mind is latching onto the subsidiary meanings: - a setting, in particular for a work of art or literature and a written outline of a film, novel, or stage work giving details of the plot and individual scenes.

I've never tried to write a 'scenario', but I have had a go as creating a 'setting'.  I see that one of the words of the month is Inspiration, so I shall talk about it then.

#RPGaDAY

RPG-a-Day Month: Day 0

August is RPG-a-Day month.

I'm so out of touch with blogging and the blogging community that I hadn't realised until today.  I therefore haven't got anything prepared.  But I've always enjoyed reading the posts generated by the prompts.  So I'm going to give it a go.

#RPGaDAY