Heavy Meta Gamer

Mouse Guard - First Contact

Eric Maziade — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:46:00 -0400

Learning to play Mouse Guard has me figuratively standing on my head, my feet helplessly flailing in the air in desperate attempts of achieving that sacrosanct performance level I always strive for.

Truth be told, from my understanding, Mouse Guard plays in the exact opposite way I have ever played RPGs.

MG is not exactly about you playing a character that reacts to its environment - its about you and your buddies working together to build a story.

This should - and could - be my holy grail for sharing narrative control.

But it seems that it also wants to be some sort of torture device aiming to make me feel inadequate at something I used to feel I was good at.

Kind of like high school.

I Like The Game - Really!

So far, all of the game's concepts are fabulous. My inner artist is in awe of the wonderful stories we can weave. My inner game designer is in awe of the elegance of the rules.

I am in awe of how it fuels what I now perceive to be the main goal of the game : building a story together.

Its not about leveling up your character. Not about solving puzzles and riddles. Not about finding the best tactical strategy to defeat wave after wave of enemies.

Its not even about finding the best action for the situation.

[Mostly] Pure storytelling.

Top-Down Though Process

As a software engineer, I am quite fond of the "top down" process. It consists of starting with the goal and fragmenting it in smaller problems. You solve these problems by fragmenting them in even smaller problems.... until you get to a series of problems simple enough to solve with code.

(Yes, I made a programming analogy! I'm sure it made everything clear! I'm delusional!)

Well, I don't normally play RPGs this way.

In my traditional RPGs, I expect the DM to give me an environment with which I will interact to get to point B, which is usually more-or-less implied by the DM.

I look for solutions in the environment provided by the DM.

In Mouse Guard, not so much.

I first need to decide what I want to happen - Not what I want to do, but the outcome of what I will do.

The actions of my character are "merely" the justification of this outcome.

The description of my character's actions, along with their results, might be tasked by a skill challenge; the outcome of which would decide if what I want is actually what happens, or if an unexpected twist comes up instead.

How alien[ating]!

So, your arrive in front of this river, you see, hot on the tracks of the lost patrol, when suddenly, the tracks disappear.

What do you do?

I look for tracks, or traces that would hint me whether they tried to cross the river

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

That's not how it goes: I must tell what I do, based on what will happen. Let's try again.

Looking for tracks, I find evidence that the patrol tried to build a raft to go across the river. However, the current was too strong and they were carried further down the river where their raft crashed on a bit of land, smack in the middle of the river, where the patrol is stranded.

Ah! A skill challenge ensues - which I nearly succeed. The failure means I get a part of my goal, but an unexpected twist happens.

Alright, so you find that evidence and the destroyed raft... as well as the patrol's lifeless bodies, maimed and partially eaten.

In the corner of your eye, you see movement - a fox is near, and he still is hungry for more.

(Did I mention we play mice?)

This was one of the easy situations to deal with - and it ran much less smoothly than that...

There is no correct answer

Striving for performance, striving for the correct answer is not what this game is about - not only can it hamper creativity but, truth be told, failure often yields more interesting results.

(I'll repeat it later on, you'll see)

After all, do we really like adventure stories with no twists?

This is a story about Mario Cheese, who went into the first castle he came upon, beat all the guards senseless, rescued the princess, and came back home.

The End

In storytelling, failure often yields more interesting results.

Mouse Guard actually has mechanics that reward failure!

Check this out: you gain skill levels by successfully using your skill, but to gain a level, you need to fail at least once.

A rule that allows you to - *gasp* - learn from your mistakes!

Even better - you actually get bonus actions for the "player round" (more on this in a future post) by actually using your character's traits against yourself during a challenge!

The character I play has a well-developed trait making him very compassionate. This is a trait I can easily play against my own character in negotiations, for example.

We rarely speak about it, but people can do pretty stupid things out of compassion!

So?

I really like the game, but its original mechanics seem to be throwing me off and are making me struggle to a near-personal level.

The game is not just challenging - its challenging me. It is making me face perceived inadequacies. It is shaking part of the foundations of my social equilibrium. (Is it a game or is it therapy?)

And it is still a blast to play! - truly a testament to the awesomeness of the group I have the privilege of playing with.

I can't wait to gain a better understanding (not an intellectual one, but a visceral one), so I can bring concepts of this game - if not the game itself - to my other gaming groups.

I'll try and share with you my appreciation of the rules as well as my struggles with getting a grip of the game over my next few posts.

If you have not already, be sure to check out Chatty DM's report of these Mouse Guard sessions as well for ever more insight on the game.

Vote to help find a good name for GameTable?

Eric Maziade — Sun, 30 May 2010 09:22:00 -0400

I've been planning to come up with my own version of GameTable - now called OSU-gt - for a while.

I've actually ended up joining the dev team, but at this time, our objectives do not seem to be compatible. I planned an architectural redesign the whole thing - mainly to allow third party plugins, update to latest technology and potentially plug in a better graphics engine. They are working on stabilizing what they already have to push out a 2.0 version. They don't seem to have enough time on their hands to really look over what I plan to do.

I'm not "mr. Free Time" either, so I hate spending what time I had spare for this project on waiting to get my ideas approved... so I decided I'll branch my version out and see what happens. More details on my short-term objectives later on.

Right now, I need a name for the project.

Update

I've had an interesting offer from the OSU-gt team. Maybe I won't branch out after all

Revenge of the dailies

Eric Maziade — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 09:31:00 -0400

Painting walls, hauling furniture and chatting with ChattyDM for the better part of a day can yield some interesting discussions.

While I've been planting the seeds of a return to DnD within my old gaming group, my DM (let's call him Steve, because that's his name) is considering selling his collection of 4th ed books, having moved over to Pathfinder. Seems like none of his other gaming groups liked 4th ed.

ChattyDM was wondering what his other players didn't like about 4th ed. While I didn't really press the matter with Steve, it got ChattyDM to tell me *gasp* one thing that... let's say itches him from 4th ed.

Daily powers.

Not hitting with a daily power is frustrating.
Using a daily power makes the players want to take an extended rest instead of a short rest. Always.

Not hitting with a daily power is frustrating Alot

Yes. While some dailies have a miss effect, some don't and missing becomes an even more frustrating event.

I've play-tested this house rule in the game I played yesterday night in my head and it worked perfectly:

A missed daily that has no "miss" effect is automatically regenerated after a short rest.

Using a daily power makes PCs want to take extended rests.

I know of this - this is why I collect scroll and potions and never use them. In computer RPGs, I hoard them and use them just in the fight with the final boss.

At the end of Dragon Age, my bard chugged down so many potions, it had to ask the dragon to wait while she went peeing.

Scarcity of resources make them more valuable - I tend not to use them, in case a better opportunity to use them present itself.

I do have a clever house rule here... but first, I need to say that most of the times, players can take an extended rest after a fight. I take an extended rest after every day at work. I don't have a problem with players always taking extended rests.

I love the idea of creating situations where it is not a good idea to take an extended rest - it enhances the stress of using dailies (or of extended resting).

Back to the clever house rule. If you can, remember your first level wizard in 2nd ed, when it missed its only spell and was scared of taking out its sling in case a monster would notice him, spit on his face from a distance, removing the last of his 1d4 worth of HP?

My house rule builds on the same mechanisms we used back then to deal with it:

Suck it up

What are your feelings on 4th ed and dailies?

Original Alot, from Hyperbole and a Half, which you should be reading.
Red Dragon from Dungeon and Dragon's 3rd Edition Player's handbook. Wuss adventurer added on it by an artist I don't know.

PSN Store lacking features

Eric Maziade — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 23:35:00 -0400

I love my PS3. I have nearly more games after a year of PS3 than I had during my PS2's life time... and I loved my PS2.

The PSN - PlayStation Network - is great. I love that it is free. I love that you can buy games online - even though my wallet sometimes do disagree.

One of my good buddies recently got himself an XBox 360 Arcade game system (found a pretty sweet deal too!).

So I went to his place and we browsed the XBLA (XBox Live Arcade) - which is the "equivalent" of the PSN Store.

I use quotes here, because XBLA is actually far superior to the PSN store.

And I'm not talking about the quantity of games (even though, IHMO, it beats PSN's offering), their price (PSN seems overpriced to me) or even the quality of the games offered (won't play them all :P)

I'm talking about the store itself - the way it is browsed, the way the games are presented.

See, every game we saw on XBLA had a demo, some screen shots and a short description - just about everything you need to make a basic educated decision on your purchase.

The games were also neatly displayed and easy to navigate.

When I came home to my PS3 and was treated to the grid layout (yes, I know I can change it to a less horrible layout), lack of any relevant information on games and prices that always seem to be 5$ too expensive, I've started to get XBLA envy.

See, I think the PSN store has the capacity to be a very (and I do mean //very// profitable venture for Sony and game developers, but - as I seem to notice in a lot of Sony products - it lacks some vision.

PSN does a very poor job of selling the wares it show - they are (outside of the main page), badly showcased, provide very little information and really do nothing to stimulate the potential customer from parting with his hard-earned money (or too-easily acquired credit).

When I go to a game store, I can pick up a box and look at the description at its back. Look at the screen shot. I can talk with the guys at the counter. I have just about every resource at my fingertips to decide whether the game is of interest short of actually trying it out.

On the PSN, I am nearly forced to whip up a laptop and ask the Internet what it thinks of the game I'm looking for.

PSN is basically forcing me out of the store, away from the "purchase" button.

That, as far as marketing goes, is usually a no-no.

In the no-brainer category.

What do I need from the PSN?

A decent description

All games should have a decent description. What game type is it? What age is it for? What is it about? Why would I want to play this game? Why is its existence relevant to the rest of the world?

What we currently have is always nearly useless, informationless blabber.

Screenshots

What does this game actually look like? PSN can do this, it just never actually bothers to do so. You have to buy to see.

Gameplay Videos

Like the screenshots, PSN can actually do this, but few developers really bother to provide. Again, I ask, what is it that I am purchasing? What do you have to hide?

Demos

Yikes. XBLA has a demo for every game out there. On PSN , if you're lucky, you get the demo a few week after the game comes out. The main game and its demo are not even linked together. If you stumble on the full game and are interested, there's nothing to get you to the demo, if it exists. There's nothing to tell you whether the demo exists or not.

It is my belief that demos should be mandatory for every PSN game. I know it taxes the developers but really, in the end, it will only stimulate sales. Except, of course, if the game is bad. In which case it will hurt the sales.

Do you think Sony wants to sell PSN games? No - they'll want games that are good enough to get friends of customers to purchase as well.

Ratings

Community ratings would also help towards closing sales. I'd love to see community reviews, but I would expect that moderation of such things would be way to bothersome.

Platform Clarification

PSN can sell games for PSP or PS3. What tells you this is a little logo under the game's icon. That's it.

How cool is it to download a PSP game or demo when you don't own the device? Not much.

Games should be either categorized by platform, or you should be allowed to filter them out.

Conclusion

I think Sony should invest and push the store forward - it can be improved to deliver even greater content and boost its rentability through simple, basic selling techniques - its not even marketing efforts yet (almost), its just the equivalent of having a competent salesperson in the shop.

Did you know you can propose and vote on ideas and features related to the PSN?

Check these out: All Games Should Have Screen Shots All Games Should Have Demos Community Reviews Clarification on Platform

StartCraft - The Board Game

Eric Maziade — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:32:00 -0500

I've had the pleasure of sitting with my friend, co-worker and business associate Alain and his brother for a night of StartCraft : The Board Game.

Lets skip analyzing the packaging (pretty & impractical) or the material (very nice - lots of figures, good quality).

We jumped right ahead at going through the rules book - it took us roughly 30-40 minutes for us to be able to start wrapping our heads around the concept.

Its not that the rules are overly complex, but there are many of them and the rules are not organized in a way that seemed to work the same way our brains does - and we're used to sifting through technical data.

In fact, I couldn't help referring to the rules book as the "specs book", as I felt like I was sitting in front of a client who was trying his best to tell me what he wanted his software to do!

When we got the gist of the basics, we dug in head first: we each chose a faction out of the six available factions, drew planets, prepared our starting units, built the space map and were on our way.

Playing the game itself is nice - you get an elegant RTS feel: every turn your workers gather resources from the territory you control (either crystals, gas or victory points). With the resources, you can upgrade your buildings, build new units or purchase technology to upgrade your existing units.

Commands

Giving commands to your units is done using a game mechanic that holds some pretty sweet strategic action:

Each player can issue one hidden command (either build, move or research) on a planet. Players can issue commands on the same planet - in which case the commands "stack". When every one issued 4 commands, we start resolving them.

Here's the cute catch : stacked commands are issued in reverse order than they were placed. In other words : last in, first out. (Lets call it a "LIFO Command Stack" and keep the tech-head in me happy)

It gets better : commands are resolved one by one, player by player - meaning that it is possible you don't have a playable command (an opponent's command stacked on yours blocking you) - while the fluff doesn't make any sense, the strategies you can use to delay opponents were quite entertaining and satisfying.

Combat

Combat was interesting - its a mellow deck-building concept. You have a "combat deck" from which you draw cards to build you hand. These cards give stats to your units (simple attack vs defense) and can also contains technologies to boost your units.

I say "mellow", because you can't really choose the cards you use other than by adding technologies. The rules variation are not many and there is no way to thin the deck. Basically, you won't play with deck statistics as you would in Magic The Gathering or Dominion.

I probably should call it "hand building" - you can manage to draw a lot of cards during your turn - always having to drop down to 6 cards at the end of the round. This is how you can plan your attack slowly and build your hand - and not your deck.

While the system is fairly simple and enjoyable, it seems to be biased in favor of the attacker. Since the attacker decide which creatures attack which creatures, he's the only one that has a chance of grouping his units together against his enemy. Combined wit the fact that equals attack and defense scores means the attacker wins - so it ends up being much easier to attack than defend... good for the Zerg's natural strategy and less so for the Protoss...

Passage of time

The game time is limited by a "timer" and lasts only up to three "eras". The eras are made out of a stack of cards, all containing joyous events that happen at the end of a round.

During the game, if you cannot do one of your commands because you are blocked, or if you choose to cancel a command, you can draw an "event card" - but you can't look at it! You also get event cards when you do research.

Event cards trigger the change of eras - once you've used all of the first era's cards, you move on to the second era, then third, in which the end of the game can be triggered - one of the ends, that is, as there are multiple victory conditions through which the game can be ended.

Victory conditions

The basic winning condition is the first player that achieves 15 victory points (which you get at the end of a round, depending on the victory point zones you control).

Every faction (2 per race) also has its own "special victory condition" - which is where the whole thing started falling apart for us.

They all seemed benign at first: you win if, at any time during era 3 you have 3 bases. Another wins if he controls 6 resource zones during era 3. Another one, if he controls more zones than any enemy during era 3, etc. etc.

Every faction as a condition to meet during era 3 (except mine - I'll get to that later).

Problem is : all players but one easily realizes his victory conditions within 3-4 turns... way before we get to era 3. So as soon as we turn era 3, we've got a tie.

My winning conditions

I like to play play the underdog. I always build a bard or something similar. If someone says a class is unplayable, I'll play it (Bothan Noble? Really?). So, I jumped at the only race that didn't have an "era 3" condition.

My victory condition: every opponents need 20 victory points instead of 15 to win. you win when two "the end is near" cards are played... which, I didn't know at the time, is the condition for the end game.

You see, "End is near" cards are only found during era 3 - at which point all of my opponents have already completed their victory conditions.

And I don't think we ever passed the 10 points mark before 2 players meeting their conditions.

The Verdict

Game time : We played only 2 games so far and the second one took nearly 2 hours.

Learning curve : Steep. The 1st game took roughly 5 hours. If we had a learned player teaching us (or better rules), it could have taken us half that time.

Balancing : Either we missed something important, or the "special victory conditions" should be completely dropped. They killed the game for me.

Enjoyment: The game itself (sans the victory conditions) is very enjoyable.

We'll have to play it a few more times to see if I'd bother shelling the money for it (it nears 100$ around here!).

We'll consider letting the victory conditions go and just use the points system the next time and enjoy the true RTSiness of the game.

Hocksprocket Corporation's Claw of Elevation [R&D Report]

Eric Maziade — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:28:00 -0500

Claw of Elevation R&D Report,

by Kreegle Hacktardy, head engineer,

Description of the item:

The Claw of Elevation is a foot-long magical rod. The rod has a leathery texture and its bottom half can be gripped as solidly as any sword.

The rod can be aimed as easily as a hand crossbow. When activated, the top part of the rod splits from the bottom part and travels at great speed towards its destination.

Fitting a rope to link both parts proved to be impractical - we have tried fitting a tube of holding within the device, but the containment ward reacted poorly to the separation and the rope was banished to an unidentified realm.

We have finally managed to link both parts of the rod magically - there's no more rope to handle. This also rids us of the previously reported problems of getting tangled in the rope, or of fitting the rope back in the tube before being able to reuse the device.

Drawback of this solution: the current device can not be separated by more than 50 feet. Passed this distance, the top part sling shots back to the bottom part, causing probable injuries.

We recommend pairing the Claw of Elevation with the Hocksprocket Gloves of Holding to prevent injuries related to misfiring the device.

Once the top parts collides with its target, three claws extend from it and attaches itself to most porous material.

So far, we have successfully attached to various types of rocks, bricks and wood. The claws do not seem able to attach to solid metal, such as certain type of shields.

At any time, the wielder can activate the rod again to reunite both ends - if the wielder has gripped the bottom part of the rod solidly enough, he will be pulled towards the top part of the rod. Again, we strongly suggest that this item be paired with the Hocksprocket Gloves of Holding to prevent unnecessary bruises of free falls from using the Claw of Elevation.

Maximum range: 50 ft. Maximum weight pulled : 800 lbs

Advanced Techniques

When testing the device on goblin test subjects, to determine the effects of grappling a live being instead of a building wall, our technicians found interesting unforeseen characteristics of the Claw of Elevation.

If the wielder has more weight than the Claw's target, the target will be pulled towards the wielder.

While this might be bad news if the wielder has attached to a loose brick or boulder, it also allows to capture smaller live targets and bring them closer to range.

However, if the target is heavier, the wielder will be pulled towards its target, which might not be a tactically strong maneuver.

In any case, the wielder which does not intend to move, should plan his feet firmly to prevent chances of accidental movement.

Once we work out the remaining kinks in the Claw of Elevation, I would recommend starting a new project towards foot gear that prevent unwanted mobility of its wearer.

Good bye ChattyDM.net - hello Critical-Hits.com

Eric Maziade — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:36:00 -0500

As some of you might know, ChattyDM.net is soon to "close" and be merged with Critical Hits - another pretty cool RPG blog.

I was goofing off in Chatty's comment board and suggested he get himself an audio bumper for when users switch to his category on the new Web site.

Here's what silliness I ended up coming with (click on the "play" button below...):

Critical Hits!

Chatty DM

Playing as a grown man

Rollin' 20s

Way in his thirties

What will he write next?

We can only guess

(I kinda like the "Critical Hits" scream!)

What the future holds

Eric Maziade — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:18:00 -0500

Wow are things slower than slow around here!

People who know me in the net might have noticed my prolongated absence these last few weeks (or have they been months?)

Lots of stuff happening in real life slowing this end of my activity spectrum. A large chunk of it is my mom's cancer diagnostic and the preparation for the treatments (surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy) that are to start in a few short weeks.

While my DnD playing has just about stopped (my regular group has been tougher to gather), my love of board games has been rekindled.

I have also had the pleasure to be invited as a regular player to a game of Star Wars RPG by Franky (one of ChattyDM's buddies) and had the pleasure to be invited at their table during a "Geek Out Day".

"Geek Out Day" came not too long about I learned about my mother's condition and was a very welcome event - I absolutely loved the games I played (Chinatown got to be on my "to buy" list) and especially the company I was with. The movie was cool as well. Can't thank you guys enough!

Since then, I've been toying with the idea of doing some sort of "Geek Out Fridays" - I have a lot of friends who like board games and we all have lots of board games. Maybe that'll be something to blog about :P

My soon-to-be-wife, in a successful attempt to cheer me up, planned a surprise "geekout" last Friday and invited all of regular group of friends to play board games - of my choosing, none the less!

I had to let go of my planned evening of Dragon Age and instead had tremendous fun playing "Citadelles" and "Le Cercle". Many thanks to my buddies and to my fiancée for the amazing evening!

I've also had a request directly from Simon - the boy for whom I DMed more than a year ago - for another session of DnD. He asked me if they would play the same characters and if they would get to level 2.

For this blog, it means : be ready to hear my thoughts about board games and some more Dungeon Master prepping (letting go of the training scenario I discussed earlier). All of this sporadically, of course

PC Origins Scenario

Eric Maziade — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:51:00 -0500

I'm planning another session as a DM for a group of kids... its been over a year since they played and, this time, I'm considering trying to make this a more recurring event, provided they like their second experience.

The first time we played, they used simplified pre-gen characters... but to really suck them in, I figure they need their own creations.... it'll also help them grasp the value of treasure.

I mean, who cares about the vampire sword at the end of the game if you're not going to be playing the characters again? (Of, in this case, if you weren't aware that we could continue playing some other time).

Character creation is cool, but time consuming. I fear my group of 10-year-old would grow tired of looking at catalogs of powers, feats, skills and stats and would much prefer jumping in their game.

What I plan to do, is have a quick player creation session - we pick races, classes and base stats. Players only get access to the basic "at-wills". A little jam session to help them come up with back-stories, with a few prepared stories for the more introverted kids.

Then we jump in the story... in which they will grow into their powers - learning more and more about strategies, unlocking extra powers and choosing skills.

By the end of the second session, they might end up with full level-1 characters and a good grasp of the basic rules.

That's the basic plans... I'm still brainstorming by myself at this point, but I feel this idea has great potential for learning and making a few enticing "player origins" sessions.

On the road to Spellgu- postmortem

Eric Maziade — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:13:00 -0400

I have had feeling that the players my group were not enjoying themselves as much as usual during my last few games.

I felt we had a good start with my retooling of the Kobold Keep scenario. I felt most players genuinely enjoyed themselves, despite my shortcomings as a new DM.

Every session after that felt a bit less than the one before and I desperately tried to grab my player's attention by (at least trying to be) varying game styles and appealing to their various play tastes.

The more "custom fit" I felt a piece of adventure was aimed to please a certain type, the less it actually did.

In fact, after the "Kobold Keep" scenario (which I already had DMed twice before), the best game we had was one I barely had any preparation for!

I had gigantic red flags when a few PC threatened to simply dump the storyline to go do something else... I might've failed to read the signs properly.

The PCs personalities were not jiving with the rest of the group, so I put their lack of interest in the storyline to be an effect of said personality.

I ended up with 3 players wanting to change their PCs - 2 of these were my 2 best role players: those on whom I secretly relied to carry the story forward.

One of these role players - who had so far shown an amazing lack of interest in the game so far - didn't feel ready to roll a new PC yet.

"Fine", I thought - lets us give her time to come up with a PC she really cares about so she can participate in bringing "magic" to the game, as I was accustomed to.

The last game I DMed contained a few fatal mistakes:

Excruciating long combat (3 effing hours!)
I was too tired (after the combat was done, we took a break... and I fell asleep. So there was no proper ending to the session)

So the game - ended up feeling rather pointless.

Last time we played after that was pretty cool and fun - everyone had new characters, every one knew their powers and how to use them, energy was high, people were creative.... and I wasn't the DM.

This game was supposed to be a one shot, but I had to ask if my players wanted to continue the old game or just let it go.

My question was met with an eloquent silence.

"Guys", I said, "if you don't like the game, I much prefer to know it now". See, I don't want to DM if they're not enjoying it.

I mean, I love to DM and I feel I can do much better than I did provided I stop over preparing and if I can help my story-driven players find a hook they like (and a PC they care enough about to try and actually learn how to use).

But I also love to play and, quite frankly, Steve is an awesome DM.

What came out of our little discussion is Steve proposing we do "tag-team" DMing - a style I was actually quite accustomed to "back in the days".

Basically, we share the overall plot and switch DMing duties after every "episode". We each have a few "signature" NPCs which the other DM cannot mess with. Everything else is fair game.

I love that idea (of course) and no one really opposed it. (Whether that was in response to the look of disappointment that was surely on my face, only time will tell. Or someone. Later in time).

So, basically, my game is pretty much defunct and I only have one player actually interested in knowing where the story goes.

I might DM it for that player - with open invite to other interested players.

For the time being, I go from "meta DM" to "meta player". (And happily so - I might feel melancholic from my loss in DMhood, but there really ain't any hard feelings. Only soft ones.)

If I get enough time to resume programming duties on GameTable, I might do online one shots. Shout out in the comments if you'd like to try it out some time.

What I learned

Don't over prepare

I perform best when I improvise. Having too much prepared stuff (like a pre-made adventure, like Spellgard), I obsess about "getting it right" and clamp up my creative muscles.

Shut the eff up

The "meta" side of me enjoys watching the "featurettes" of a blu-ray movie. I love to see "how its made", how some scenes were actually improvised and different from what was planned.

Turns out that's not something to share with players. While I might enjoy how much I screwed up that planned encounter and saved the scene by doing something different or how this clever plot twist everyone went "oooh, clever!" is actually something I just made up on the verge of panicking, it can actually ruin the suspension of disbelief for some players.

Say yes

I already knew that, but I didn't know it enough. I shouldn't hesitate to dump *anything* that was prepared to follow a path the players show interest with. For me, I fell that going all "improv" is the way to solve this issue.

Don't waste too much time to introduce the cool

All I had time to play was filler stuff to get to level 2 to play Spellgard - which, ironically perhaps, I didn't get to play.

My plan was to allow the players to find their own motivation to get there and I failed to provide compelling reasons to get there with all the filler material.

I still feel I made an interesting job of packaging it all together in something that made sense, but probably too little too late.

In the future, I would try to avoid wasting too much time setting up the cool and just go into it.

On the road to Spellguard - the final mile before destination

Eric Maziade — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:27:00 -0400

I hadn't gamed with my fellow players for months - two of them now had new characters and another one had none. She retired her old character which didn't do much for her and didn't have time to prepare a new one.

I had a scenario ready to introduce the new characters and bridge our current situation to the "Tower of Spellgard" scenario. I was a bit bummed out to be missing one player - one who is usually a strong role player.

I love having one or two role players - they really help me move the story forward and make it more interesting for the occasional "lurker". And I'm mostly a role player myself.

This threw me a bit, but I could adjust my scenario and come up with a cool encounter and an intro to Spellgard.

Two things were preparing to bite me in the arse and change my plans : I was prepared for Spellgard one month ago and due to many events happening in my personnal life, did not find the time and energy to re-absorb it. I was really stressed out about playing in Spellgard and scared half-brainless about running it wrong.

The second thing is that I played with ChattyDM's gang the night before and I didn't get enough sleep. In retrospect, I was probably too tired.

In any case, my entrance scenario was something I was ready for and that I replayed countless times in my head. I even test-played the encounter a few times to make sure it could be interesting.

The setup was as such:

The group was in the caravan, on their way to Spellgard. On the road, they picked up a brainless barbarian, carrying with him a magical chest which, he said, contained a magic thunder rock given to him by the gods to make him rich and popular with women of his tribe.

He ran tests on it and knew that it made the ground tremble when he hit it with a stick. His tribe's shaman put it in a magical protective chest and sent him to the city to get it inspected by some very important mages.

While they were conversing with the fellow, a screeching sound was heard from the sky. When they popped their head out of the caravan wagon to see what made the noise, they heard some kind of a loud flapping noise.

Aiming straight for the caravan was a big dragon made up of sown together parts of other dragons. In its claw, it struggled to hold a swordmage while its rider - an armored man - was wrestling with a diminutive mage... Which I thought was a pretty cool way to throw in new players!

The players in the caravan braced for impact. The swordmage managed to slash at the dragons' wing in hopes to change its aim.

The dragon was deviated, but still crashed on the wagon. Upon impact, the armored rider teleported out of its armor.

The caravan wagon was broken, but no one was seriously hurt. The chest, however, was opened and the thunder stone was visible inside.

They recognized the "patchwork dragon" as the creature they had "freed" in their first adventure and that probably tore at the small village they had visited earlier. It now seemed to be aiming for them.

The combat started and seemed to keep all of my players quite engaged. The dragon had no qualms about using its breath and fear weapons and giving them the hardest time possible.

The dumb barbarian also participated to the battle, but could only act if the players instructed them. As a minor action, a player could scream an order to the barbarian. On its turn, it would choose one of the commands randomly and obey it.

The players quickly noticed the ground near the point of impact was cracking when the dragon was walking upon it.

The players rapidly devised a plan to have the dragon crush the thunder stone, which involved asking the barbarian to jump and grapple the dragon. In no time, they managed to collapse the ground and send the dragon and most of the players fighting underground. My way of having the terrain change and keep things interesting.

A few players managed to stay on top and used their ranged attack to shoot at the creature.

Underground, the dragon made use of its could of darkness to try to surprise its prey. After a few clever ruses and tactics, they heroes managed to slay the beast.

The combat lasted nearly 3 hours. Yes. Three hours. During the whole time, the players were actively engaged but I felt that the energy was getting low and called a break for food.

We were supposed to resume play after food, but I was so exhausted I actually fell asleep. It was running late so the game ended in that weird phase : we had what I perceived was a good fight and I think the players involved had fun too.

But there was no reward and no feeling of conclusion. I did buy some time for Spellgard, though.

Here are a few things I struggled with : the two levels of height in combat and fighting in a cloud of darkness.

For the height levels my instincts told me to calculate height and use distances, but my understanding of the rules was to avoid using height. So I mostly downplayed the dragon here and allowed the higher grounds to shoot down with inpunity.

For the darkness, I had planned a few cool scenes to take advantage of that, but my play testing told me that while it was tactially sound for the dragon to use the clould of darkness, it made the combat long and boring. After a few rounds of playing "battle ship" in the magical darkness, I let it go.

I had some fun, but was too tired to conclude properly and got stuck with an odd feeling about the game. I don't think I'm pulling my players willingly in this story line... and I don't feel most of my players even like their characters.

We might have to do something drastic, next time I DM.

Next game, however, I won't be DMing - Steve (who DMed this group before me) will host a game for his birthday as DM. I can't wait to play Kellen again (a younger, alternate, version of the one I played at Chatty's).

Tales of the City Within, Session 3: The Final Chapter

Eric Maziade — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:22:00 -0400

I had a chance to play with ChattyDM and his bunch of merry players a few weeks ago and really had a blast!

For the occasion, I rolled up Kellen, a level 10 bard which I tried to make into an actor instead of the usual musician.

I warmed up rather rapidly to Phil's group and in no time I felt at home among fellow geeks.

I won't bore you with the details of the events of the game itself - better bloggers have done it before me and Kellen tried to sing about it in his own cryptic way.

One of the things that marked me the most was how group composition impacts how the game plays. My and Phil's group have roughly the same number of players, but we have wildly different compositions.

To my sense, his group is composed mostly of butt-kickers, tacticians and story-tellers - most players being a blend of these.

I could ask the shaman about how he actually perceives spirits and he could explain to me how he envisions all the workings of his magics in rather striking details.

While in combat, making our powers work together was a breeze - whenever my bard could do something to make a friend or a foe move on the board, I had suggestions from multiple players on how to make the best out of that move... making the bard an impressive cog in the butt-kicking team we were making.

Role-play wise, there wasn't much to speak about. I came in geared in, ready to role play my awkward little gnome but did not find or generate much opportunities for it.

Of course, this was to be the last game of the season aimed to close a few loose ends - no time to chit-chat and plenty of monsters to vanquish.

All and all, it was a wonderful experience that I wouldn't mind repeating if I ever get the chance

After this night of adventures, I still had to get ready and run the game I was supposed to run a month ago with my own group - the game session was scheduled for the next day and I had a few cool scenes prepared that I thought could intrigue my own players.

Kellen on Tales of the City Within, Session 3: The Final Chapter

Eric Maziade — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:38:00 -0400

I was looking for a new way of relating the events of the final chapter of "Takes of the City Within" where ChattyDM gave me the opportunity to participate.

I decided to give voice to Kellen, the bard I played that night. This is what came out;

(Yes, Kellen has a fake Irish accent)

In my town there were undead men
Turned by a magic item antique
A resolution we started to seek
When a fiery dragon in our midsts came to be

This dragon from us exacted tribute
We nay did retort anything astute
And these heroes found a merry solution
That would surely entail resolution

Well you take the artefact
And chuck it to the dragon
And what we got, it is a fact
A fraggin' undead dragon

I joined in their fight hoping to land a hand
They mystically carved soul - that I saw firsthand
Jaiel held its own all alone I don't think this was planned
Helpers dispatched in time to see Frangs rip its prostate gland (the dragon's)

We had a death priest ready for questioning
How to stop the artefact, I burned to ask him
I got near ready to coax and intimidate
And Fangs got around tore its throat and away with its head!

The rest of their plan would lead us to frying pan
To negotiate with many eyed tyran.....t
By dictating terms none of which uncertain
Perish or die, here are your options, let us strike a bargain!

On this fight we sadly must drop the curtain
To shield your eyes from violence most certain
In the end we beheld the tyrant's retreat
Through his portal the artefact we dunked - how discrete!

While best laid plans might often fail
I've been taught otherwise by bold Jaiel
That one need not plan with much detail
And in the end with might one can still prevail

Meta != Crunch

Eric Maziade — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:45:00 -0400

Not playing much gives me little fuel for blogging here...

So I try to come up with ideas that jive with the "Meta" I decided to slap in the blog's title, when I realized that I've been confusing "meta" and "crunch".

I seem to have decided that "meta" was the opposite of "fluff" - the explanations that dress the rules ("crunch").

Since I've decided to go "Meta" - or, more accurately, when my meta tendencies were demonstrated to me - I've been mostly interested about "fluff": role playing, setting, etc... making me wonder about that whole "meta" thing.

Well, turns out I got my "meta" description wrong. Meta is about thinking of the game in terms of a game, but it doesn't mean 100% focus on rules.

It basically means an effort to understand how things work.

With a "meta" mindset you could:

Find the best possible combination of powers and stats for your player (rules, min/maxing)
Study how the GM handles a particular situation (storytelling, social... anything)
Determine how the personality of your PC (or an NPC) works in order to role play

In this way, meta defines me as a player and a DM.... and well, just about any aspect of my life: I love understanding things and figuring them out.

Meta enough for me.

An interesting lunch with ChattyDM (did I post this too early?)

Eric Maziade — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:08:00 -0400

This is what you get after a mostly sleepless night, playing with the awesome Ghost Buster video game demo, having a rough morning getting the kids used to kindergarten and looking forward to a lunch with a friend.

This morning my kids woke me up earlier than usual. I helped my wife to get them ready and, since they don't go to kindergarten on Friday, I went back to bed for an extra 30 minutes of sleep.

What resulted is an odd dream - too odd not to share.

So I was diving my car, going to meet ChattyDM for our scheduled lunch. Except this time, it was at his house. So I got there: a enormous mansion. Lots of people and servants working fervently. Looks like they're preparing for Chatty's daughter birthday party.

A skinny hispanic-looking man comes to greet me: "Hey! Mr Maze!", he says. At first, I don't recognize him - but it gets obvious that this is ChattyDM, who obviously (and dramatically) changed his appearance. Chatty talks like a gangster from Godfather - the Italian accent and all.

So we talk business (biz-a-nesse) for a while... and about personal matters. The "impostor" knows everything I know about Chatty and knows about our previous chats and inside jokes.

Eventually, I just can't contain myself: "who are you?", I ask.

- Well, I'm ChattyDM, of course.

- I know ChattyDM... I've met Phil a few times. You're not Phil.

- I'm not Phil. I'm Chatty DM. We all are ChattyDM.

He pulls a conveniently placed curtain and reveals a bunch of guys sitting in front of computers, writing blog posts and constantly chatting about feats, skills and challenges.

- Uh?

- See, ChattyDM is a collaborative effort. We all pitch in. Sorry Phil couldn't make it to the lunch. Will you stay for my daughter's party?

So I stayed for the party, where hundreds of people purchased each tens of gifts. Somehow, a gift I bought for my boy got mixed in there. So I dove into the pile of gifts to retrieve it. Then the Hispanic ChattyDM tried to get away (?), so I ran after him. I had to fight countless illusions with my proton pack before being turned to goo and waking up as some sort of sentient slime thingy in a coffee cup.

Then I woke up.

I rarely remember my dreams... this is probably one of the strangest ones. I feel like I've been railroaded in that one.

Typing Monkey found on Wikipedia

Jinx Shot : bad metafluff?

Eric Maziade — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:27:00 -0400

Fiddling with the bard, I found a power I like with metafluff I dislike : Jinx Shot.

Fluff: Your expert shot renders your foe unaccountably clumsy.
Crunch: Charisma vs AC. Hit creature falls prone when missing an attack before the end of your next turn.

Keywords are arcane and weapon... no instrument there. The fluff doesn't give much - the power's title is much better here.

Let us look at the crunch to see if we can come up with a better fluff. So, the bard hits with his ranged weapon, using his charisma... and "jinxes" the enemy.

Hitting using charisma means that the bard uses his bard techniques to secure the shot and affect the creature's psyche. Taunting fits well here - enticing the enemy to attack more clumsily in a fit of rage.

To make this different than a normal bluff or intimidate during battle (you know you can do that, right?) and to differentiate wit the other bard powers (''Vicious Mockery comes to mind), we need to make the taunting more in line with the "jinx" idea.

So what could bard do to give bad luck? Really depends on the bard's style. I can easily picture a trickster bard saying something à la "your shoe is untied".

However, a bard is the ultimate performer - it can be in the actions...

Kellen aims his crossbow at the enemy, ready to shoot... The enemy catches the movement of the bard's arm, noting where the bold should land, he readies himself for a dodge. For a split second, the bard pulls his aim, a puzzled look on his face as he stares at the goblin's feet.

The enemy, taken aback by this unexpected pause, looks at his feet. The bolt hits him straight in the arm. He angrily jump toward the bard, swinging madly. In his haste, he steps on one of his boot's loose lacing and lands on all fours.

"Looks like your boot's untied", says Kellen, lifting the edge of his top hat with his free hand.

To my sense, the fluff should render a sense of the bard's action being tied to the result - not his marksmanship.

The metafluff

Eric Maziade — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:27:00 -0400

I have not DMed for a while and probably won't until the end of this month... Finding something useful to write here is a bit hard...

Luckily, I don't have to be useful - if that ever happens here, consider it a side-effect of luck.

So, metafluff, now. See, now that I've been brought to realize that I'm much more meta than I ever thought, my mind rebels:

But - I love the storytelling even more than the rules! I love the acting! I love character building!

All of that is also true, but I also love the mechanics of the game... in fact, I'm coming to realize that I love when the mechanics fit perfectly with what they are trying to describe. I like the fluff that comes with the crunch. The marshmallows with the cereal in the Lucky Charms (a bowl of chemical marshmallows? yuck! - you need the pellets of whatever to come up with a tasty treat that, perhaps, should not actually be part of a complete breakfast).

In short : the metafluff.

To illustrate, lets take a look at on of the things that got me excited about 4.0 : the Fighter class. I've never really liked the mêlee classes in DnD before - be it ADnD 2e, 3.5, whatever - to me, it always came up to : "get in there and swing". All the other classes had flavor and wonderful powers. The fighter swung his sword.

4th edition came up with wonderful powers (exploits, which sounds so much better when you understand French) that opened up a world of possibilities. Yes, you could do all of that in ADnD and 3.5, of course. But now, the rules were squarely behind it and matched the fluffy description to a T.

Spinning Sweep
You spin beneath your enemy’s guard with a long, powerful cut, and then sweep your leg through his an instant later to knock him head over heels.
Strength vs. AC. On hit, 1xW + Strength modifier damage, and you knock the target prone.

Covering Attack
You launch a dizzying barrage of thrusts at your enemy, compelling him to give you all his attention. Under the cover of your ferocious attack, one of your allies can safely retreat from that same foe.
Strength vs. AC, On hit, 2xW + Strength modifier damage, and an ally adjacent to the target can shift 2 squares.

To me here, the rules matches the description very well. The descriptions are lively enough that you can see it in your head. Lovely.

Of course, this is at the cost of the old house rules of "called shots" and what not... which ended up working okay in previous editions.

Of course, there is still parts where the meta overpowers the fluff... After all, why can a fighter attempt "spinning sweep" only once in an encounter? There's not magic in play here - what is there to prevent him to distract a foe with a blade and trip him? He spent his mojo on the first attempt?

Or maybe its a code of honor - a fighter never performs the same move twice in the same fight?

Tiefling Referee

Eric Maziade — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:59:00 -0400

This is an illustration I did to help ChattyDM pimp out his Dungeon Reality Show PDF.

Its been a while since I haven't picked up pencil, paper, a scanner and my trusty Wacom.

Oh dear... I need to write enough text to last the full height of the picture, it would seem. Well, uh... as the title suggests, this is a Tiefling, acting as a referee for a game of Dungeon Ball.

The painted vertical stripes on the rugged leather armor seem to lengthen his upper body, giving the impression that even less anomalies can get past that dreadful stare. This is one referee that will not let one slip by. Oh no he won't.

We can see him sporting a pair of Sensi-Paws, giving him an ever strong grip on the movements on the terrain.

Yes. That seems to be enough text to clear the pic! Yes!

Oh : click on the small picture for a bigger sized version!

Another alternative to Paizo's Combat Pad

Eric Maziade — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:09:00 -0400

I mentioned earlier that I grew envious of ChattyDM's Paizo Combat Pad .

Well, not playing these last few weeks gave me enough time to build one myself.

Its big : 11 x 14. Its basically a magnetic board my wife found at Wallmart.

For the writable labels, I made little slices of plastic from a CD case, which I filed with my Dremel. I painted the back for the various colors (nice to differentiate between monsters). Double-sided tape and the magnets that came with the board were enough to make these magnetic.

The little markers are simply bits of a magnetic toy I once bought cheap for the magnets - they make for nice reminders for statuses and markers.

Hopefully, it won't be too cumbersome to actually use.

Keeping tabs on initiative

Eric Maziade — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:34:00 -0400

Both time we played with ChattyDM as DM, I grew envious of his Combat Pad by Paizo.

Sadly, these seem hard to come by in Quebec without paying as much shipping and customs as the product's worth.

Today, Scott Kurtz of PvP posted (twittered) his method of keeping initiative - portraits clipped on the edge of the DM's screen.

I think this almost as brilliant as the combat pad and a bit easier to build yourself.

So until I can grab an official magnetic combat pad - one or build one myself - I'll consider hanging portraits on the side of the DM screen.