This post was originally written, on Nov 30 of last year.  I am re-posting it as part of my Thanksgiving Leftovers.  The timing of this article is releveant, even if some of the references in it are now a bit dated.  So enjoy some warm Leftovers.  

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This coming Sunday is my last Iron Heroes session for the year. Yes, its only just the beginning of December, but as my gaming group does each year, we take a hiatus from our gaming during the busy holiday season. It is a time honored tradition in our gaming group, dating back to some time in the mid-90’s. It is a time that has some mixed emotions: relief, inspiration, and a little anxiety. It is also a time to slow down and take stock of my campaign and do some much needed future planning.

In today’s article, I will discuss how to put your game on a holiday hiatus, what to do with your time off, and how to come back from hiatus when its all over.

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You…Will…Not…Win!

We are running a bit late on the weekend wrapup, but it has been a busy week.  First, for those of you not in the States, this is the week of Thanksgiving, and for DNAphil, and family, that means a road trip to visit my Parents.  Prep for the road trip has dominated this week with packing and prep.  For that, I have been a little late on the weekend wrap up.  

This past Saturday was the Finale of my 3-year Iron Heroes campaign.  The final session focused on the epic battle between the heroes and the Demon King, as they attempted to stop him from destroying the world.  The fight last three of the 4+ hours in our session.  It was a great fight, and we had a lot of fun.  It ended with Kelven, the Vessel of the All Father standing over the Demon King, firing arrows into him, declaring, “You…will…not…Win!”.  It was great end to the longest campaign I have run.  I am going to be sparce on the details here, as I will be writing a full article about in the near future.

On Sunday, I got to game again, as Sargon ran the next installment of our Dawn of Definance campaign for Star Wars SAGA.  It was a good session, as the plot got deeper into who was trying to set us up, and as we tried to put the fix on the Sabbac tournament.  We did have nice combat on some landing platforms on Bespin, where we Jedi got to break out our lightsabers and do some damage.  My dice were somewhat compliant, and I did pretty good.  I had a few slumps, but ended the combat by taking out the final two battle droids in two back to back turns.  

This weekend, I will be at my Parent’s house, and so I there will be no gaming for me this week.  Though I will be working on my Spycraft campaign.  The campaign does not start until the end of January, but I am in the process of setting how I want to run the game, what the initial story arc will be, working on character concepts with the players, and starting to pratice some of the new rules.  

Part of the Thanksgiving tradition is the next-day leftovers, so in step with that, I will be re-running an older post, that I wrote, before I joined the RPG Bloggers Network.  So for most of you this post will be new. 

On Monday, I have my next installment of Lessons from the Long Campaign running over on Gnome Stew, and I will link it over here, when it posts.  

So for my gamers and bloggers in the States, enjoy your turkey and Happy Thanksgiving.  For my international readers, enjoy Thursday.  Come back tomorrow and get some tastey leftovers.

Leaf On The Wind strikes again!

Hello all. Last week was a very productive week for me, in terms of gaming. I finished off the last few pages of the Spycraft 2.0 rulebook. A very crunchy game indeed. I am not doing anything with it for the next week, as I am working on my last Iron Heroes session for my campaign. After that game is done, I will start to gear up for my new Spycraft campaign (coming in January).

On Friday, my Spycraft group went and saw the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. Watching the movie gave me great ideas for what I want my game to look like, and how I want to run it. The movie pumped up my players, who are now more anxious to play than before. Again, all of that has to be tabled for one more week.

Over Saturday and Sunday, I worked on some gifts I am giving my players, at the completion of our Iron Heroes game. I have a few things in mind, one of which I am sure will be ready for Saturday, the other I am checking on now, and hopefully will be ready. I would like to tell you more about the gifts, but since I know some of my players read this blog, I won’t give anything away yet, but will be sure to show some pictures next week.

On Sunday, I we played Spenser’s D&D game, the third installment of Keep On The Shadowfell. It was a much better game than last time, when our party had a total dice failure. This game was well paced, and action packed. My Warlord got a real workout. I got to use, my encounter power, Leaf On The Wind, three times during the game, and was successful each time. The power is basically a strike with your weapon (in my case a glaive), and then you (or an ally) can switch places with the opponent.

One of the things I love about 4e is that while the power sounds pretty simple, i was able to use it in a number of different situations. In one case, I used it to set up a flank with another party member, in another case, I used it so that I could shield our Warlock from another attack by putting myself between the monster and the warlock. The third time I used it defensively, to move a monster out of range of other party members. I think that the real power of the 4e system is not in individual powers, but rather how those powers work with the other player, and in conjunction with their own powers.

In all our D&D session was quite enjoyable and everyone at the table had a good time. We have one last session before we take a break for the holidays. It will also be the conclusion of Keep on the Shadowfell as well. The party is very excited.

As for this week, I am giving myself a challenge. I have a few things that I need to write this week:

• My final session notes for Iron Heroes– This is the last session of the 3-year long campaign. The heroes are about to confront the Demon King and try to stop him and his ritual to open the seal and release the Titians back onto the world of Elhal.
• Gnome Stew Article– I am writing another installment of the Lessons from the Long Campaign. This week’s article will be about Delivering the Epic Scene otherwise known as, Frodo reaches the Mountain. In time with the writing of my final session notes, I am writing about how to set up and use the Epic battle in your Epic campaign.
• My D&D Adventure Sheet– I have created a little sheet that I use for keeping track of all my healing surges, action points and other goodies, while I am playing. I have not seen anyone else with something like this, so I thought I would share it with you.

That is it for me this week. Please come on by and take a look, and good GMing to you.

A few years ago I read an article on Treasure Tables about How Different RPGs Define the GM’s Role.  It was interesting to see how different games, as well as games from different time periods, defined the GM’s role within the game.  After reading a number of these I decided to try to create my own personal Definition of what being a GM means to me.   I decided rather than writing my own definition on my own, I would hack together one from all the different GM descriptions from Martin’s article.

After reading them over, I copied the phrases and definitions that I liked the best, and then cut and pasted them into a single semi-coherent description:

The Game Master, or GM is the participant in the game who acts as moderator, narrating adventures and representing other characters involved in the adventure who aren’t controlled by the players. Most importantly, the GM is responsible for introducing complications to the story, in the form of crises, moral dilemmas and occasionally a plain old villain; and then to describe the consequences to the players’ choices and mesh them into a cohesive whole that fits within the context of the game.  It’s never the GM’s job to plan what will happen, rather the GM’s job is to create a scene for the players, and from then on, only respond to the player’s actions.

Depending on the situation, the GM may determine what happens arbitrarily (for the best possible story), or by referring to specific game rules (to decide what is realistically possible), or by rolling dice (to give an interesting random result). The GM should be open to the suggestions and improvisations of the players and the players should be the same with regard to the GM. Together, everyone works to build a great story.

It is the GM’s primary duty is to make sure the other players have a good time. As the GM, you are in charge of interpreting and enforcing the rules, yet you are also an entertainer — you must struggle to balance your two roles.  The job calls for quick wit, theatrical flair, and a good sense of dramatic timing, among other things. You must possess creativity, sound judgment, and the ability to improvise in unexpected situations. Game Mastering takes extra time and effort, but the reward of watching the players revel in the game setting and plot you have created makes it all worthwhile.

Inspired by and Quoted From:

• Dungeons and Dragons-Dungeon Master’s Guide, 2nd Edition (TSR, 1989)
• Alternity - Player’s Handbook (TSR, 1998)
• Burning Wheel - Core book, Revised (Burning Wheel, 2005)
• Dogs in the Vineyard - Core book (Lumpley games, 2004)
• GURPS - Basic Set, 3rd Edition, Revised (Steve Jackson Games, 1999)
• Little Fears - Core book (Key 20, 2001)
• Primetime Adventures - Core book (Dog-eared Designs, 2004)
• Silver Age Sentinels - Core book, 1st Edition (Guardians of Order, 2002)
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Core book, 1st Edition (White Wolf Publishing, 1992)

I do not own all the games above, nor am I interested in playing all the game I have quoted, but their definitions did strike a cord with me.

This personal definition has, for me several important factors, that are key for my personal style of gaming:

• Create complications– Part of what I do, is to take the player’s suggestions for how to solve a problem, and then complicate it, by adding in unexpected events.  This keeps the players on their toes, and keeps the game exciting, for me and for them.
• Never Plan The Ending of A Scene– This quote comes from the Dogs In the Vineyard RPG.  The idea is that I will set up a scene, but then put the outcome of the scene into the hands of my players.  Using complications, I make the journey through the scene more exciting.
• Arbitrator of Player Actions– As a GM, I have different tools for how to resolve player actions, and there are times for using each one.
• Deliver a Good Product– As a GM, my job is to create a game to entertain my players, and that means I need to work hard before a session, to do my prep and to create a session that my players are going to enjoy.  During the game, I need be entertaining to help deliver a good experience.

Now that I have a definition, I can use this as my “mission statement”. It gives me a statement that I can use to compare my GMing to, so that I can see if how I am running my sessions, matches up to what I believe I should be doing.  It is also a statement I can share with my players, so that they are aware of my style, and that my style meshes with theirs.

Here is my question to you all:  Using the definitions from all the RPG’s listed  in the article, what is your own personal GM Definition? Go out to the article and piece together your own and share it with the group.  I am curious to see what elements we have in common and more importantly what are the things that we do not have in common.

I think we have a new record….216 Points of Damage.

It’s Wednesday and I am just writing my Weekend update.  Things have been pretty crazy at work, and last week was a writing week.  The kicker is that I am not short of ideas for writing, I have a short list of articles, that I have not had the time to get written.

This past weekend, was my Iron Heroes game, which also marked the 3rd Anniversary of my campaign.  This session was the second to the last one for my campaign.  The campaign wraps up in two weeks.  In this last session, the heroes entered the Ebon Spire, the Palace of the Demon King.  They fought their way up to one of the Demon Princes.  During the combat, Kelven the Archer, had a confluence of events that lead to him breaking our campaign’s record for the most points of damage done in a turn.

It started with a little buffing from Severis, the Archmage.  Severis used a spell that increased the threat range on Kelven’s bow out to 15-20.  Then Kelven fired 4 arrows, each one threatened.  As a 16th level Archer, Kelven has an ability that automatically confirms a threatened hit.  In the end, after much dice rolling, Kelven dealt 216 points of damage to his target.  It was a total overkill, as the target had less than 100 HP, but it was so amazing to watch.  There was much celebration at the table.

In the next two weeks, I write my last session for this campaign.  It has been 3 years of work, and it has been an amazing run.  I have a very exciting ending in store for the heroes.  I cannot provide any details now, but I will be writing about it in two weeks after the game wraps up.

I am down to the last 3 pages of the Spycraft 2.0 book.  This mammoth rule book has been one of the crunchiest d20 based games I have ever read.  At the same time, some of the additional rules, are very innovative, and I cannot wait to use some of them in a session.  This book also has a great GMing section, a section that varies from game to game.  I found the GM section of this book to be quite informative, talking about mechanics, as well as tips for running good Spycraft games.

As for this week, I am going to be writing both an article here, and one for Gnome Stew.  I am not sure when either will post, but I will get working on them tonight. Until then…good GMing.

Yesterday, my latest Gnome Stew post: Lessons From The Long Campaign–Prep Only What You Need, was posted. Head on over to Gnome Stew and take a taste.