Looking forward to WBCOOP 2011

Coming in January. Did passably well in the two previous ones I’ve entered. Maybe this will be my breakthrough year! 😉

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IARPG 2010 judgment

We’re in a lull. Lots going on at home … getting ready for baby #3, and trying to navigate the demands of a second job as a piano teacher. (Check out http://www.keys2happiness.com for more info.)

Ian’s Awesome RPG was … not quite so awesome, this year. It was partly not having quite so much time to devote to it, but I think the main problem was the creativity block that can come with playing in an established setting. The game was set in the Firefly universe, and … well, it was just okay, not really too awesome.

I guess there were some awesome moments. Sam deciding to play a pilot, and then asking if his pilot could be blind. We talked through how that could work a bit, and I don’t think either of us had really gotten set on the idea, but then Billy chimed in with his opinion that that would be the worst idea in the world … Sam and I locked eyes, and it was ON – the ship would definitely have a blind pilot.

Fitting your plot into an established world is probably possible. But if you don’t already know how to do it, I recommend that you don’t. (I think I mean established TV or movie world – I’m sure it’s much more possible with pre-established RPG settings, etc.)

 

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Frisbee inventor dead at 90

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100212/lf_afp/lifestyleussportfrisbee_20100212212840

As an Ultimate player and a disc golfer (not to mention a flutter guts player and Cower player), I have to note Fred Morrison’s passing.

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If I cared about stats …

… I would be perplexed by the occasional stats spike I get.  Yesterday there was a spike of about 500% of what I usually get.  Of course, what I usually get is “not much”, so 500% of that is also not much.

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Playing Traveller via IM

Started a game of Traveller with some friends recently.  We’re playing online, via instant messaging.  It’s kind of like playing live or on the phone, except for the multiple threads that tend to develop on IM … and when the action gets fast, it’s easy to miss things.  Everyone is having fun so far, though, and we expect to overcome the format/medium problems with more experience.

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Play by email/play by post

Haven’t really considered this option for making roleplaying games work in connection with libraries until now … I’m considering making something like that happen with a gaming group I have that isn’t connected to the library, and actually it’s going to be more about instant messaging, but still, these other possibilities came to mind because IM is time-intensive, like playing in person, but setting up something for teen gamers to play a looser game by posting on a message board might be worth thinking about. 

Since I’m just starting to think about it, I’ll leave it there, though if anyone has any experience with this, I’d love to hear about it.

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Faster combat in 4E?

I’m pretty sure that one of the goals of the designers of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons was to speed up combat. I alluded to this in earlier posts, but I haven’t played enough to really know yet whether they have accomplished that goal. I do think the dynamics of combat have definitely changed for the better, and I could tell, in the one session I’ve run so far, that we were rolling many fewer dice.

All that said, here’s what Rich Baker, Senior Designer at Wizards of the Coast, says about his play experience in Dave Noonan’s (another WotC staffer) game:

“Overall, I’m noticing that the epic-level fights take a little while to play out. I don’t think we’ve actually shortened the amount of time necessary for the typical battle all that much. What we have done is to increase the number of rounds you get in each fight. In the 3.X environment many fights were done in 3-5 rounds. We’ve got a lot more 8- and 10-round fights now, but the fights take about the same time, so individual rounds go a lot faster.”

This sounds reasonable, especially because of both player characters and monsters having more hit points at lower levels (with the exception of minions, of course). I’ll definitely watch for it.

Edit: Heh … just reread and realized that Rich is talking about “epic-level fights” – which is level 21-30.  So I actually don’t think I’ll have any basis for comparison for 20 levels or so.  Still, it’s an interesting observation …

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