Five-card stud, nothing wild…and the sky's the limit!"

Journeyman GM 100th Blog Post Retrospective

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3 weeks ago
by JourneymanGM in

It’s a bit overdue, but it’s time to celebrate the 100th blog post of Journeyman GM! I started this blog almost two years ago and have written quite a bit on it. So I wanted to do a retrospective of my favorite blog posts.

RPG Thoughts & Theory

Quite a bit of what I wrote were ramblings, discussions, and other fun discourses about certain aspects of roleplaying games. Some of my absolute favorite articles on this site came from that, and I hope you’ll agree. Here are 5 of my favorites:

Reviews

I didn’t do too many reviews on this site, but I was pretty proud of the ones I did. Here are the ones that I was especially proud of:

Gameplay Descriptions

I’ve heard it said that every RPG blog really just wants to tell you about their character. Maybe there’s some truth to that, and I’ve had a fair share of ones that talk about the games I’ve either played in or run. Here are a few of my favorites:

And now I have to bring up some sad news. This 100th post retrospective also marks the end of regularly scheduled postings on The Journeyman GM for the foreseeable future. Lately work for Journeyman Games and other commitments have taken the time I needed to write on this blog, and I’ve decided it’s time to move on to new things. Postings will still happen as I see fit, but in a much more sporadic fashion.

JourneymanGM.com will of course still be the home to my original Journeyman GM Creations, including my 74 page Elder Scrolls conversion for Savage Worlds! Basically, anything for RPGs that I make which isn’t related to Journeyman Games will be posted here and maintained indefinitely.

Writing this blog has been a blast and I hope from time to time that it will be revisited. But it’s time for me to move on to other things, and all good things must come to an end.

"Five-card stud, nothing wild…and the sky's the limit."

“Five-card stud, nothing wild…and the sky’s the limit.”

Fonzie literally jumps the shark

Why Every Campaign Should Plan for an End

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1 month ago
by JourneymanGM in ,

In my opinion, no campaign should begin without an end in mind. This may sound somewhat strange to gamers who are accustomed to playing games that continue on and on. But I think that without a planned ending, the campaign itself becomes weaker.

Prevent Jumping the Shark and GM Burnout

Fonzie literally jumps the shark

Fonzie literally jumps the shark

The party of heroes has just saved the world from the evil sorcerer! What’s next? Well, his apprentice, who is also his girlfriend, vows revenge on the player characters and has a plan just as sinister. And after she’s defeated, it turns out they had a son who wants revenge too. And he had an uncle who wants to destroy the entire universe once and for all. But as a consolation, he decided to resurrect the original big bad. And the resurrected big bad…uh…tries going back in time to prevent all of the heroes accomplishments from happening in the first place.

At some point, an extended campaign is going to either:

  • Jump the shark, in which elevating the stakes of the campaign takes a turn for the underwhelming
  • Lead to GM burnout where the GM has run out of interesting ideas and is no longer sure how to make the game interesting

Comparing to TV shows, Heroes had a phenomenal first season. And then a poor second season and a worse third season, then it got better in the fourth and fifth, but by that point, people had long given up. Imagine if Heroes had been a miniseries ending at the first season? The result would have been a much stronger, and much better remembered, show. Or to use a movie example, wouldn’t The Matrix have been a lot better if they’d just stuck to one movie?

Having an ending in mind prevents these fates from happening. The GM isn’t struggling to up the ante and in danger of running out of new ideas.

Players May Not Keep the Same Schedule

People have changing lives. They may be available on Wednesday nights for a while, but once they graduate from college, get a new job, or have a baby, they may no longer be able to maintain their typical roleplaying game time. And if people need to drop out because of life commitments, your campaign might fall apart. It’s hard to recruit players into an extended campaign that they weren’t around for at the beginning.

By saying up front that a campaign will last for so many months or take about so many sessions, you’re making it easier for players to commit to a game. They can decide for themselves if they’ll be available for the time. If things are getting hectic, they may decide to hang out for another few weeks if they know that the ending is drawing near. This also means that, worst case, if your friend is running a campaign that turns out to be terrible, at least you can push forward to the end that’s coming instead of having to slog through for an indefinite time or drop out.

Avoid the Firefly Phenomenon

Sci-fi fans around the world have shed many tears over the fact that Joss Whedon’s Firefly was canceled after 14 episodes, despite being an original and promising show. This has led to what I call the Firefly Phenomenon where fans of the series lament the fact that the show ended far too soon due to external circumstances and left a lot of great stories on the table. There’s been a number of excellent shows that have suffered a similar fate (my personal favorite being Awake), which could have been so much more, but were canceled early for any number of reasons.

You may have a fantastic campaign in mind, but if your “viewers” (i.e. the players) aren’t able to follow through for whatever reason (which might happen, as explained above), your massive, multi-year campaign will fall apart, possibly resulting in the Firefly Phenomenon. Your players, or you yourself, may have been really excited in the campaign, but if external circumstances might prevent the campaign from lasting so long, planning it to be shorter will be better down the road. And in my experience, it’s really hard to restart a campaign that has ended too early.

Create More Satisfying Arcs

Babylon 5 was a sci-fi television series planned from the start to last 5 seasons. There were planned arcs throughout and events that happened early resulted in a payoff much later. Contrast that to Lost or the revived Battlestar Galactica where things just kept going on and on and people were wondering if the writers really had an end in mind (did the Cylons really have a plan?). If you have an ending in mind at the start, you can have a definite beginning, middle, and end and wind up creating a more satisfying series overall. Not a “what direction are the writers taking us next” situation.

Allow for New Ideas

Contrary to what some D&D/Pathfinder players believe, there are a lot more roleplaying games out there than just Fantasy. If a campaign has an ending, it means that the group can move on to one of those other ideas and try something different for variety. After being supers, you change to spies and after spies you change to space marines. With an indefinite end, you’re playing the same type of character, well, indefinitely. With a definite end, there’s the option of trying something new.

I’ve had great results overall with campaigns with a definite end in mind and I think others would too if they tried it. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Coming next week: The Journeyman GM’s 100th blog post!

Pile of Dice

Thoughts on “Goblin Dice”

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2 months ago
by JourneymanGM in

I recently read a fascinating blog entry at Ponderings on Games called Goblin Dice. He sums up the term pretty well:

D&D’s d20 is a prime example of what I’ve taken to calling a “goblin die”. You roll high, a goblin dies. You roll low, a goblin lives. No one doubts the eventual fate of the poor goblin. It doesn’t matter if it’s killed this round or the next. But it’s still fun to roll those dice, just as it is fun to fight the scrambling goblins. Hence, goblin dice: good for determining the fate of goblins. Not so good for determining the fate of heroes, or worlds. They are terrible for anything important.

The author goes on to point out that, because of this binary pass/fail mechanic, a number of problems with this ambiguity occur. This was even parodied here in the web comic DM of the Rings where whether or not Frodo managed to destroy the One Ring came down to a single d20 roll and the DM rolled…a 10. Well, did Frodo destroy the Ring or not?

Part of the problem when interpreted this way is that a d20 roll is often seen as a result on a continuum. A 1 is an absolute failure, a 20 is an absolute success, and everything else is in the middle. I suppose one thing that I like about “cinematic” systems like Savage Worlds and the good ol’ d6 System is that they avoid this problem by having open-ended die mechanics. You can’t judge your dice result of 1 to infinity as a continuum, so you compare the result to the target number and it’s pretty obvious by how close you were how much you succeeded or failed by. Roll 10 under, you definitely failed. Roll 1 under, you barely failed. Roll 20 over, you definitely succeeded and probably won a medal for it. Granted, this can still result in Goblin Dice if you’re not careful, but I think it’s a step in the right direction.

Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space avoids this problem by having different levels of success. Just hit the target number? You get a “Yes, but…” result, meaning you got what you wanted, but it didn’t work as well as you hoped. Get it by a moderate amount? You get a “Yes” result, meaning it happened just as you wanted. Get it by an extreme amount? You get “Yes, and…” meaning it turned out better than you’d hoped. The inverse happens with failure as well.

I encourage gamers to read the whole article at Ponderings on Games, it’s a really a good read. And feel free to share your thoughts, here or on the original article.

Lego Eowyn Angry

Gaming Tips from Lego The Lord of the Rings

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2 months ago
by JourneymanGM in

Lego Lord of the Rings Cover ArtWhile at the public library I’m spending my AmeriCorps service year at, I ran into the Lego Lord of the Rings video game. I’d played the first two Lego Star Wars games with my brother years ago and, after getting a chance to play it for just a little bit, decided it was so much fun that I would get the game myself! I destroyed the Ring, got all the mithril bricks, rounded up all the characters, and proudly achieved 100% completion. I’d say it was well worth it!

But that doesn’t explain the offbeat title of this blog post. Can a video game like Lego Lord of the Rings really teach us tips about how to play roleplaying games? Absolutely!

Have Some Fun on a Serious Quest

The Lego series by TT Games is noted for their humorous spin on the movies they represent. Lego Lord of the Rings continues this tradition by throwing in some humor. Sure, part of it is to entertain little kids, but part of it is just to make the game more fun to play.

One of my favorite things is the running gag with Eowyn wanting to fight, but not being allowed to. For instance, when the Wargs attack, Eowyn excitedly pulls out a sword and…

Theoden: You must lead the people to Helm's Deep.

Theoden: You must lead the people to Helm’s Deep. And make haste!

Lego Eowyn Angry

Eowyn: Awww! [Throws down her sword]

Sound like any players you know? A battle comes up, but they don’t get to fight and they get mad.

There was also some outright absurdity. While Boromir is trying to steal the Ring from Frodo at Amon Hen, Frodo builds a catapult in order to fire off a stone and distract him. Eomer’s horsemen do kind of a synchronized dance as they circle around Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas. Lurtz keeps firing arrows at Boromir, but when he runs out and he’s still not dead, he switches to some unorthodox ammo like brooms, bananas, and chickens.

Lego Lurtz and Boromir

I say embrace it. Let these things be fun. Sure, the quest can be serious and the stakes be the fate of the world, but ultimately roleplaying games are about having fun. Sure you don’t have to actually let them fire off bananas, but at least let them entertain the idea!

And for added fun, throw in a Mithril Disco Phial!

Non-Combat Diversions are Good

There are some interesting diversions in Lego Lord of the Rings. For instance, the Pass of Caradhras involves causing avalanches in order to clear rocks that block the way. Freeing Theoden from Saruman’s hold requires building traps to catch Grima Wormtongue so he won’t disrupt Gandalf. Camping on Weathertop leads to finding firewood and gathering food so that the Hobbits can cook up something to eat. I’ve actually had some games where what they’re making for dinner (complete with a Cooking roll for the quality) is actually a really fun moment in the session. Let this happen and enjoy it!

Sometimes Not Fighting is Just as Interesting

The second level (after the Prologue level involving Isildur defeating Sauron) features the four Hobbits spending most of the level avoiding the Black Rider on their way to Brandybuck Ferry. This means tossing rocks at branches, stirring up bees, and even lighting a bridge on fire. I found this to be pretty interesting overall. This was an enemy that couldn’t be defeated, so clever methods had to be devised in order to avoid it.

I think we need more of that in roleplaying games. Sometimes I think we get stuck in the D&D mentality of kicking down the door and killing everything inside (while also expecting it to be level-appropriate enemies). But interesting scenarios can happen when you are up against even just one enemy that is way out of your league and you need to think of some creative means of avoiding it.

It’s Okay to Split the Party to Pursue Different Objectvies

After Amon Hen, there are two groups of characters traveling simultaneously: Frodo & Sam and Aragorn, Gimli, & Legolas. You can swap between the two at will and continue with their stories and sometimes this is necessary. Personally, I think that there is no problem at all with separating the party like this if they are working towards a common goal. Indeed, this is most obvious at the end where Aragorn leads an attack on the Black Gate solely for the purpose of aiding Frodo and Sam.

I plan to write about this more at some point in the future (perhaps more officially than in a blog), but I think it would be really interesting to have a campaign where your party splits and then occasionally you swap back and forth between two sets of characters each working towards their own goals. Splitting the party to pursue different objectives can be a very interesting way to have a campaign become a saga.

Large Parties are Lots of Fun!

I think one of my favorite parts of the game was right after Rivendell when you had a grand total of nine in your party. And Lego Lord of the Rings didn’t skimp on that, no you have eight people following the lead character around on the overworld! It was a lot of fun walking around Middle Earth and switching between characters to use their special abilities and grab the goodies scattered all around. And levels like the Mines of Moria were really epic having a group just as large working together to fight off Orcs.

I definitely like having large parties because it makes things seem more epic. Granted, you probably need a system that can support it. I’ve found that Savage Worlds scales pretty well with larger groups, especially if many of the extras are, well, Extras. Dungeons & Dragons is usually okay if you just add one or two (under the players’ control, it’s no fun if the DM is rolling the dice!) but can still be somewhat cumbersome. Still, if you can pull it off, it can make things much more interesting.

Explore!

The final lesson is to allow for lots of exploration! Unlike previous Lego games where you have a central “hub” (such as the Mos Eisley Cantina), Lego Lord of the Rings takes place all over Middle Earth. You start in Hobbiton and throughout the course of the game you travel all the way to Mordor (of course, one does not simply walk into Mordor!). Getting from here to there over a perilous journey can be one of the more interesting parts of a roleplaying game. In fact it’s one thing that I think The One Ring does especially well (as described in my previous review).

So there you have it, several lessons in roleplaying games that a video game taught us. Isn’t that cool?

Lego Lord of the Rings Characters
And yes, I’m fully aware that the title is actually Lego The Lord of the Rings, but I think that the initial “the” sounds redundant and breaks the flow so I drop it.

Steve the Badger

When a Stuffed Animal GMs a Game

1
2 months ago
by JourneymanGM in

Kobold Enterprise is hosting this month’s blog carnival where they ask about Epic Moments of GMing. As it turns out, I had one just last weekend at WittCon X hosted by the Wittenberg Roleplaying Guild! You see, I was part of a game run by this GM:

Steve the Badger

That’s right, I was part of a game that was GMed by Steve, the adorable stuffed animal mascot and patron deity (long story, described here) of the Wittenberg Roleplaying Guild. Basically, Steve came up with the game and didn’t tell even me about what sort of game he was running. Because he can’t speak, Steve required players to ask him questions about their situation, but of course he knew what sort of questions they might ask and anticipated their responses, giving them answers that fit his storyline.

I should mention that you should pay no attention to the man behind the GM screen who is occasionally rolling dice as part of the Mythic GM Emulator, a tool for creating scenarios on the fly as if a GM was there. You ask questions, roll dice to see the results, and then figure out what the results mean in the context of the situation. From time to time, random events happen that affect the story. But yeah, pay no attention to that man behind the GM screen. Steve planned the whole thing, not me.

The game was very over the top by design. It was used with the Risus system and any sort of character was allowed (we had characters such as a Robot with Heart, an SMG-Wielding Squid, and literally an average John Doe). The tone was designed to be frivolous and the game was only scheduled for one hour, so things got a bit wild as you’ll see.

The first session he ran was definitely the more interesting one. It turns out that Steve’s treasure was actually his girlfriend (none of us knew about her!) who had been kidnapped. She was trapped inside of a well just down the street, but this well had a number of very clever traps including a machine gun and illusion-producing machinery. On the way, the heroes met guild member Andy K. who gave them the sage advice to just beat stuff up in order to save Steve’s girlfriend.

The Man Behind the GM Screen: Time for a random event: Positive NPC. So someone is here to help you.

Player 1: Is he powerful? [Steve shakes head yes]

Player 2: Is he someone we know? Is he in the Roleplaying Guild? [yes]

Player 1: Is he Andy K? [definite yes]

Player 2: [after much laugher] Is he going to join us? [no]

Player 1: Does he have some advice for us?

The Man Behind the GM Screen: [rolls] Increase warfare.

Player 1: So I guess he’s telling us to just beat stuff up! Thanks Andy!

TMNT DonatelloAfter fleeing from the machine guns and dropping into the well, the heroes discovered that although there wasn’t a mutant race down there, there was one mutant: Donatello from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He told them that a crocodile, who was a leader of the mafia, had eaten the other Ninja Turtles and was holding Steve’s girlfriend hostage. So the heroes set off to stop him.

When they arrived, they discovered a crocodile in a pinstripe suit smoking a cigar. John Doe tried to fight him, but unfortunately got swallowed, only to find the other Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles inside!

Player 1: I try and stab him [dice get rolled]

The Man Behind the GM Screen: As you move into stab him, he opens his mouth and completely swallows you. Oh look, doubles on the roll so another random event. [rolls] Another positive NPC. Hmm…

Player 1: Didn’t we establish earlier that the other Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got eaten?

[Everyone realizes what this means and laughs!]

The Man Behind the GM Screen: Alright, so Steve says that you discover the remaining three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles inside. Wow, great planning Steve!

While the robot cut up the crocodile’s pinstripe suit and cigar in order to throw him off his game, John Doe tried to convince the Turtles that he was an innocent civilian and they had to rescue him. This gave them enough motivation to help break him out and defeat the croc once and for all. They rescued Steve’s girlfriend and saved the day!

The second session had some interesting moments, such as a whole band of bureaucrats guarding a phylactery containing Steve’s enlightenment. Across the two sessions, I had a lot of fun having a stuffed animal GMing the game and I was surprised at how cohesive his game wound up being. I’m sure that this will be a game that we’ll be talking about for years. Ultimately, an epic GM moment!

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