Heavy Meta Gamer

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.

Magical hunter boots: Sensi-Paws, by Firat

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

The Fluff

Firat is proud to introduce its latest addition in their Vibration Savvy Footwear line: Sensi-paws by Firat.

Sensi-paws truly allows you to unleash the hunter within you by letting you be one with nature and feel the earth speak to you through your feet.

The Meta

Sensi-Paws, by Firat (Hunter's Boots )
Level: 4
Item slot: Feet
Power (Daily): Move action.

You gain tremorsense 5 until the end of your next turn.
Sustain minor.
Every turn while this item is active, you can spend one extra minor action to add 1 to tremorsense. Maximum tremorsense 10.

What do I have to say for myself?

I think I love making sponsored magical items for DnD.

This time, I try to go beyond re-fluffing an existing item and create a new one from scratch.

With this item, I picture a ranger with a bow closing his eyes and concentrating on his connection to the ground - allowing him to visualize his quarry, hidden within a dense gas cloud.

I'm not exactly sure about the power level of this item. My older games were always very short on magical items and I always carry the feeling that I risk giving away too much power too soon.

My original item had less power and more robust restrictions. I've been told I was probably making it just too restrictive to be useful.

Let me know what you think about this one.

Welcome to "Heavy Meta DM"

Eric Maziade — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 23:20:00 -0400

Hey welcome to the new look of my blog. The old name stank and while brainstorming with ChattyDM] - I was aiming for "Meta Dungeon Master's Inn" and talking about my attempt at playing a "heavy metal bard", the name "Heavy Meta DM" came up.

If you don't know me, all you need to know is that besides everything else, I enjoy being a Dungeons & Dragons (tm) dungeon master... Meaning that I enjoy sharing time with buddies, inventing fantastic stories with them.

Being an analyst and an engineer, I love game mechanics - enough for me to often be thinking about the game while playing it, trying to understand how it works, how to make it better.

This is basically what we call "meta" in games : thinking about a game as a game.

I love role playing and as a DM, I love to try and make the game interesting for all my (greatly varied) buddies... Thinking "too much" about how to make this happen is when I get to be the "Heavy Meta DM".

(And I sing much better than I play guitar)

So come on in! But mind the walls - the paint is still drying around here.

Greywulf and Feroze's Tuning Songblade

Eric Maziade — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:41:00 -0400

Today, I've thrown a "challenge" to Greywulf.

He's getting rather good using Daz Studio to render 3d characters, so I asked him if he could produce a bard playing "air guitar" with his sword - this is the concept behind Wallice using Feroze's Tuning Songblade.

Not only did Greywulf deliver, he delivered fast and in a rather awesome manner.

Hopefully, he'll allow me to use this rendering for a future project

Click on the picture to go to Greywulf's website and see this thing up close.

Dungeon Reality Show

Eric Maziade — Sun, 24 May 2009 12:36:00 -0400

The Setup

Our heroes, escorting the caravan towards the Oracle of Spellgard meet up with Wallice Wighthawk, an old acquaintance. At the same time, they all are whisked away to the "Reality Show Realm" where they are forced to entertain a large audience.

For this session, I asked my good friend Phil ( the ChattyDM ) to don the mantle of DM while I tried out the new bard class.

We agreed upon running his version of Blood Bowl a.k.a. the "Dungeon Reality Show". I gave him carte blanche with my scenario - mess it up if you like. I'd pick up from there on my next session.

For those unfamiliar with the scenario - the players are whisked away to an enormous stadium where they must entertain the crowd as the "half-time show" of a weird ball game. The ball players - a team of zombies versus a team of skeletons - are not even aware that they are in break and are still playing.

Only prep ChattyDM asked of me was to prepare "sponsored" weapons for the event. Once the players were in the realm, they were given a sponsored weapon - at any time during the match they could look at the "camera" and plug away the weapon to get a free action point.

The setup was chaotic - and the real-life setup was too. The game was set up for my birthday (never too old to geek out with buddies), during day time. This meant that the children (a 2 year old, a 1 year old and a 6 month old) were about with the chaos they entail. We were ready for it - my group is a group that never has any trouble when comes the time to goof off :P

True to form, Phil doesn't loose too much time in setting up the scenario and coaxing the players to follow a plot line - in a short exposé, we learn (and agree) that at one point in our lives, we unwittingly signed a contract forcing us to serve as entertainers in another realm.

Lets Play Ball

We all were introduced to the contract through Wallice (my PC) and now our number was up and we had to serve. We were automatically whisked away from the caravan and smack into the middle of the court yard where teams of undead where mindlessly fighting for a kruthik youngling serving as a ball.

I'm a pretty analytical person and the last time Chatty was DM for us, I got stuck in "analytical mode" - not allowing myself to be immersed in the game, but more examining the workings of Chatty's craft.

Sadly, "meta gaming" mode really impedes my ability to role play and be creative the way I like to be as a player.

Nevertheless, I had a few cool tricks up my sleeve with the bard (great new class, by the way!) and I couldn't wait to try them out.

Turns out the dice were against me this day. I've been taught that a DM's dice don't roll well for a PC.

It all started with initiative - we rolled it and were made to run for the center of the stage where we had to do some "crowd pleasing" actions. Think of it as a free-form "skill challenge". Nobody had a clue what to do, really...

I fumbled the initiative.

Looks like the bard won't get to the stage first

Rolen, the ranger, is always that fastest on his feet and went first, running through the field, dodging the undead and getting on the center stage. Wanting to show off his bowmanship, he looked at the sky.

What do you want to see there?, asked Chatty.

Pretty awesome question, if you ask me. I've rambled about "sharing narrative control" in previous posts, unknowingly thinking more about "sharing story control". This is a prime example of a way to do this.

Rolen was looking for something cool to shoot at - he didn't know precisely what. The DM gave him a bunch of fiery lanterns way up high to shoot. Good enough for Rolen.

Kudos to Chatty's imagination (and Rolen's good aim, of course) - the arrows hit the lantern and it exploded, splashing fiery liquid all over a few spectators who caught on fire.

The crowd went wild for this.

The rest of the group went in - Arkanys and Dali wowing the crowd with teleportation, Marisol breathing fire... I don't remember exactly what Iris did, but I think Benerra took out a blimp with a single dagger.

Wallice eventually got to the stage, feeling his music would have a hard time to complete with the others' magics and physical prowess - it would have been a better opening act.

Still, he did hold a sponsored signing blade and thought out a nifty way of bringing it in.

So Wallice ran towards the center of the stage, dragging his blade on the stone to get it vibrating (think of a tuning fork) once on the stage, he stopped over some glowing glyphs and raised his magic sword. ( By the power of Grayskull! )

The glyph went aglow and basked the bard in glowing purple lights while he started playing "air signing sword", adding some signing of his own. Felt like a pretty cool intro to me. I don't remember what skills we chose to represent this - I remember I had a pretty cool bonus to add to my die roll from the bard's stats alone!

I fumbled.

Making this the first "loss" for the skill challenge.

A Bard's Curse

Second round starts and the players do some more mayhem as the undead felt our presence and started climbing on the stage. Good opportunity to use the bard's power to buff the other players in a show-offy way!

Of course, the round passed by and there were basically no more undead left within reach to warrant the use of the bard's powers. This is where I managed to let go of my "meta mode" and tried channeling "the bard".

The show must go on - the bard let loose the sponsored blade and sang a song narrating the exploits of my fellow adventurers. (Which I actually sang). The effort gave me a nifty extra bonus (+4) from the DM. So I rolled.

And fumbled.

Marking this the second "loss".

Role playing the wounded artist (easy task), the bard started blaming the crowd, the stage... and eventually cursed at the sponsored equipment.

This is where time stopped and the show's producers argued with Wallice. Looks like they don't like their sponsored products to be treated this way. Wallice had them check the "batteries" on the sword. Something must be wrong!

I got a free reroll out of that hilarious segment (kudos to Chatty's imagination, again!)

And fumbled.

An Instigator's Guide to Mayhem

The bard was trying to make an impression on the crowd (I switched for Rock to Country - maybe the genre is failing?), when Arkanys, after having been warned that harming the ball would bring out the Zomboni... slew the ball.

Everything went silent in the stadium. The scene vanished (causing the people still on the stage to fall down!).

The Zomboni appeared and started gunning for us.

The monstrous beast can roll over players, chew them to bits and spit them out - not a pleasant way to spend an evening.

It managed to hurt most of us and threatened to roll over three paralyzed PCs - probably killing them right there.

Marisol managed to call upon her holy powers to strike the beast from a distance, causing it to slow down. This seemed to be just enough of a delay for the paralyzed to shake it off and counter attack.

It was a close call, but the Zomboni got defeated and the crowd cheered on.

At the end, we were offered our sponsored weapons as gifts as well as a contract to remain as paid entertainers.

A few players jumped at the opportunity to roll new PCs (it had been in the air) and the rest were sent back to the caravan.

Conclusion

I loved seeing Phil handle my players.

I love how he coached and supported the ones less familiar with their characters, how he allowed everyone's creativity to affect the story - even the instigator among us.

While its a hard task with our group, I really like how he tried to handle the dead air and stimulate the players towards action - proposing to delay action instead of waiting for imagination to strike.

All in all a pretty entertaining and insightful session. And a pretty cool geek-man birthday party.

Thank bunches Phil!

The Court of the Final Might

Eric Maziade — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:57:00 -0400

I'm trying to organize my notes for my next session, I've started setting it up in a clean wiki, which is now publicly available.

Its mostly interesting for my players, I guess and, if interested, I will give them space within the wiki to put in their own content.

You can see it from here (work in progress) :

The Court of the Final Might - I finally managed to pick up a name for the campaign!

I'll soon be posting a recap of our latest game - hosted by none other than Phil the ChattyDM

Hopefully in the days to come

Skull and crown by Chaldonius

Meet Eldak "Grissom" Serpenthelm

Eric Maziade — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:11:00 -0400

Summervale. The village is rather small. A few farms, a few shops - not sure there's even 100 people living there.

Everything in the village has been razed. Mary buildings are burned sometimes by fire, sometimes by acid - the other buildings have been trampled. Bodies everywhere - burnt, frozen, torn apart.

Nobody, it seems, survived what had happened here.

Near the edge of the village lied the corpse of a gigantic creature. An elderly man was looking at the corpse at various angles, looking rather puzzled.

The heroes quickly joined the old man.

"You too, young woman, are intrigued by the presence of irregular creatures?", he asked Marisol.

Marisol was very suspicious of the old man's presence. Nevertheless, they both examined the creature's corpse at their feet.

The old man, who presented himself as Eldak Serpenthelm (I know my last name sounds villainous, but I did not choose it) identified the creature as being a mixture of a dragon's head, a giant's torso and the lower part being reminiscent of a lion. Definitely not the creature that escaped our heroes.

I had a kinda-skill-challenge based scenario here where the players could examine the remains and find clues and theorize among themselves about what was happening.

It turned out that I mostly role played with Marisol while most of the other players were either falling asleep or talking about something else. I failed to notice this at the time and probe whether this part should be kept for next session.

I felt that the analysis of the corpse was cool for me - medieval CSI typed - and it made sense too! I had fun with that... but I think my "Grissom" was too clever for his own good and he solved most of the puzzle for himself.

Arkanys, feeling that the old man knew more than he let on, tried to frazzle him with death threats.

The old man was not impressed and started a small philosophical argument - which Arkanys fled in order to help save a child stuck under some rubble.

During the exchange, Marisol notice that the old man and Morrigane were secretly exchanging glances - as if they knew one another.

They went on to try and gather some information from the child. The child was ordered to hide under the bed as soon as the creature attacked the village. He heard screams and destruction for a while, then he heard a second creature come in and fight the first creature - their fight is what destroyed the whole town.

This is where I started noticing that I was loosing players. I cut short on the kid interrogation and just had him plain give them the info.

Arkanys notice that Eldak was listening on the conversation.

He immediately threatened to end the old man's life if he didn`t tell him why he was listening in.

"Well, I'm trying to understand what has happened here, what do you think? Why are you here? What are you always so eager to end a man's life, young Shadar Kai?"

"Life is meaningless, old man. Only death has meaning."

"Ah. So young... so foolish, still! Did you not yet figure out that it is the measure of a man's life that brings meaning to his death? How can you worship death and have no respect for life?"

One of my favorite interaction of the whole game session.

At this point, I would have expected my players to discuss about the clues and come up with some theories much cooler than what I came up with.

But with only two players actually role playing, and a few others nearly sleeping, that didn't happen.

Annoyed by the old man's presence and the obvious fact that he knew more than he let on, the players went to confront Morrigane. She too, seemed to know more.

Morrigane did not really resist Marisol. She rapidly revealed that she and Eldak were both members of a secret society - the Valaistu.

Durign the game session, the organization had no name. I just came up with it.

The Valaistu are monitoring the appearance of strange creatures around the world in an attempt to find and stop their creators.

According to their sources, some organizations are working towards the creation of gigantic creatures and wreak havoc ever 100 or so years. Every time the cycle starts, enormous creatures fight one another around cities, causing enormous destruction and death.

The caravan is actually a front operation to try and spot potential recruits. While the heroes have not yet proven themselves, the Valaistu still requires their help - the creature fights have started ahead of schedule and they have not yet gathered enough information.

Eldak soon joined them.

"I cannot gather much information here - the creature from the Kobold's lair won the fight. From what your party has told us from the Keep and what I could see from the remains, both creatures seemed to be from the same creator... I suspect he wanted to keep only the strongest one."

"We need to go to the Oracle", said Morrigane.

"An Oracle is too unreliable-"

"It worked for Adelinde - these adventurers proved that much. It is settled then. We are heading towards Spellgard...

Adventurers - we would like you to join the Valaistu. At the very least, we would like to hire you to try and gather information from the Oracle of Spellgard. Will you join us? Will you come with us?"

That was my clever way of biding all the previous adventures into one cohesive whole. Arkanys figured out part of it during the investigation.

But, I had failed at emotionally connecting my worn-out players to the quest.

They agreed to follow - but not to join the order. But looking back on the session and comparing it with my notes, it feels like I've railroaded this show something fierce.

I don't know if I should help my players find a motivation to help out... this feels just like some more railroading.

Actually, I need to find out more about my players and their backgrounds - help them find their own motivations for adventuring... and weave some of that into my campaign.

I also need to find some cohesion within my group - for there aren't really any reasons for them to stick together.

What I plan to do is have a little role playing session by email, where I will poke at their (potentially secret) motivations to go see the Oracle.

I think I should see if we can cut back a bit on the goofing off. I have nothing against goofing off, but I feel the role playing part of the game would have been much more enjoyable if there had been less distractions.

My players seemed to have enjoyed the game and so did I at first... but I am left with a feeling that this game session - which I tried to tailor to please my role players - ended up pleasing only myself

Or maybe its the introspective eye of the DM that is never "good enough" speaking.

The PCs are now all level 2. Most of them have received a magic weapon. Next session, should my players decide to actually go there, should mark the actual beginning to the Spellgard scenario.

The amazing Medieval CSI picture is (c) AnimaFantsy.com which, sadly, is a dead link.