tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21814840911929159812024-03-12T23:53:23.488+00:00The Bard's LairBecause the world needs another GM telling you how to play your gamesMalikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-20923599525277197142020-05-08T12:00:00.000+01:002020-05-08T12:00:00.458+01:00
This Is A Template! If you publish it you're a numpty.
Just copy the html tags for the correct typesetting
Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-65327514425798032082012-06-07T10:30:00.000+01:002012-06-07T10:30:04.111+01:00Worlds Yet To Conquer...
In which I display some setting ideas that I really want to run with and develop at some point but at the moment have neither the time nor the motivation (due to working on my RQ world) to do so:
I want to run an RPG, though I've yet to decide on the system, set on Oddworld. Dystopian high-tech world? Check. Tribal magic-based cultures? Check. Huge conflict between Industrial greed and naturistMalikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-80852068813286567332012-06-06T22:36:00.000+01:002012-06-06T22:36:14.504+01:00Maid: Impressions
So, as mentioned previously, Maid was played yesterday. It was... not nearly as bad as I expected. Both mechanically and thematically it flowed reasonably well and did what it's supposed to do.
As you may have noticed, the post when I commented on the core mechanic was at 3:30 in the morning and so I am reserving the right to retract what I said about it due to not thinking it through Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-8150145905629278482012-05-28T09:22:00.000+01:002012-05-28T09:22:05.529+01:00Feedback Request
Yay three days in a row with new content! As you may have been able to tell from the stream of consciousness posts and random subjects this blog is mostly just for me to collate and broadcast my thoughts. That said if you have any comments on which types of posts you think are best/most interesting and also how long is too long, or too short for a post then it'd be nice for me to have some info Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-27657987051725729622012-05-28T09:12:00.001+01:002012-05-28T09:12:20.031+01:00The Non-Euclidian Nature Of Horror
(Two new followers in under a week, I'm on a roll! Enjoy the ride...)
While I wanted to move over to RQ for a while to get away from any intensive atmosphere pressure as it's wierdly draining as a GM to try to keep that going, I am feeling an itch that I will end up implanting elements into my RQ game too. My games were never very scary anyway but I always tried to keep up a pretense of a Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-3265042227560721252012-05-27T03:26:00.001+01:002012-05-27T03:26:10.024+01:00The Things I Get Dragged Into...
Interesting happenstance: I have been roped into playing a game of Maid (no that is not a bad link, this is just somewhat out of character for me...).
I've been reading the rules and so far they seem pretty intuitive and actually fairly interesting. That said, I despise the core mechanic: I just don't see the point of the multiplications of dice-rolls, it only serves to inflate the values seen Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-86866596015279567572012-05-26T02:58:00.000+01:002012-05-26T20:35:37.228+01:00Inspiration Series: Temples and Tabernacles.
Firstly, welcome to my new follower! Hope you enjoy your stay.
While there is an annoying lack of inspiration for commentary posts at the moment I shall at least attempt to post a content post. Dungeon design for the RQ campaign is going well so I shall post the results of my brainstorming sessions in the hope that it sparks something useful for you too.
In trying to define my niche, I'm Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-55447792916749067602012-05-05T16:00:00.000+01:002012-05-05T16:02:33.859+01:00Always Believe In Yourself...
This thread on YSDC got me thinking a little about how to portray Real-World religions within the context of Lovecraftian nihilism. Partly because this intrigues me anyway - as I may have mentioned before, I'm a psychologist in training - and also because my current character in my role-reversal sessions of CoC is a Catholic exorcist. Now, my Keeper has specifically stated that religious ritualsMalikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-88296271515285840592012-05-05T02:25:00.003+01:002012-05-05T04:09:33.506+01:00Orc Traitor-Beasts
So,
as there has been little activity here and I have little in the way of
properly prepared material due to me being up to my ears in exams at the
moment, I'll just throw out an interesting creature idea I've been
tossing around in my head. I like the idea of undead being specifically
formed by the method of their dispatch and there doesn't seem to be much
in the way of Orcish undead Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-21822583403320954192012-04-23T21:54:00.000+01:002012-04-23T21:54:16.747+01:00Just a quick updateGaming has been at a low point this last couple of weeks due to uni work etc, so material for posts and moreover motivation to write them has been thin on the ground. I have at least three or four half written posts which should see the light of the internet in the next few days, so rest assured this blog hasn't stalled. I have started the collection of RuneQuest players and I'm still working on Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-62786332976128175882012-03-31T18:10:00.002+01:002012-03-31T18:10:46.900+01:00Making It Interesting
This is the 'reactions' table for my wandering monsters in my sandbox campaign . My actual random encounters are generated by rolling 2d8 and then using the corresponding table, for a total of 56 different encounters (the combination of numbers is what's important, rather than the sum total of the dice). As there are different tables for each environment, it would be a tedious process to Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-33555921099099842722012-03-23T02:59:00.000+00:002012-03-23T02:59:01.293+00:00But, But, What If He Wrecks Everything?!
I made a rather rash decision yesterday. At the moment I have a lot of work going on as the end of term rushes inexorably closer and I have to complete deadlines and prepare work for my dissertation so to protect next monday's session from cancellation I am handing the reins over to one of my players.
This will be somewhat of an interesting experience to say the least. As gaming compatriots we Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-43148605857448703182012-03-21T11:00:00.000+00:002012-03-21T11:00:07.997+00:00My Style On Show
A while ago, Strange Magic published these little indicators so one can indicate stylistic preferences in GMing.
Click to make it appear roughly the same size...
The selection here shows my choices. The link above shows the full meanings of each symbol but in order from left to right, top to bottom:
- Story-based game
- Rule 0 is in full effect: GM ruling is final
- Characters can and, most Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-15430608758017224252012-03-20T13:30:00.000+00:002012-03-20T13:30:00.607+00:00...And Then They Went Home Again.
So last night marked the ending of my Dreamlands Campaign. Not the dissolution of the group or even the end of those characters as we are continuing, though on a much less contiguous basis.
I am proud though, it's the first continuous narrative campaign I've run from start to finish and it was fairly epic in scope, spanning three continents across two planets. It was a heavily modified version Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-32969137036497239542012-03-20T00:32:00.001+00:002012-04-01T14:29:30.430+01:00On Predilections and Predications
Normally I don't like to get involved in OSR vs Story Gaming as it invariably leads to nothing good. However this post by C at Hack & Slash. interested me enough to throw my own tuppence at the faceless masses of the internet. (I know the context is set against different ways of playing D&D specifically, but it got me thining about gaming in general).
Now I will preface this by Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-77703922434863374812012-03-15T00:43:00.002+00:002012-03-15T15:33:08.496+00:00In-Character Ingenuity, Out Of Character... Outgenuity?
In my post on death I said that players need to work within the limits of their characters to create a memorable character that will be looked upon kindly by reminiscences. This post is about the polar opposite, how out of character actions can create memorable situations. By this I am not referring to the inevitable joes that constitute 99.99% of table chatter. Its more about the issues I Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-3246433039325310952012-03-12T00:34:00.002+00:002012-03-12T00:34:45.398+00:00Sentience Vs Intelligence Vs Instinct
In the course of my designs on society, I have been musing on how to portray various species' societies.
Obviously at a settlement level, the differences between intelligences can be shown by clumping into technological groups can be made explicitly clear. The wild creatures live in rough family groups and make their homes in natural formations such as caves. At a primitive level, when Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-30125919635711399682012-03-10T19:56:00.000+00:002012-03-10T19:56:34.596+00:00Expansion (Society Part 1)
The next couple of posts will likely be on the current stage of my worldbuild. That is the establishment of my principal empires and societies.
I will be maintaining humans as the dominant species, for ease and because the theme of the campaign is the players being on the fringe of expansion of the empire. It's easier to obtain player buy-in for these things I find if they can relate to the Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-79956686122313188632012-03-08T17:57:00.000+00:002012-04-01T14:30:05.263+01:00The Transcendent Beauty Of Esoteric Miscellany
I am a rather pretentious person. Who isn't if we're really honest? But in relation to RPGs, I am of the opinion that the GM should be allowed to have fun as well as the players, and perhaps at their expense.
In particular this manifests as a sort of literary ADD on my part. I pride myself on being a fountain of cultural references (it's one of my few useful qualities), and Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-26345510504405595072012-03-07T10:48:00.000+00:002012-04-01T14:30:28.922+01:00On The Heroics Of Laziness (Or The Laziness Of Heroics?)
So, Monday was Call of Cthulhu night but as I'd started the RuneQuest posts I figured I'd let that go first.
Monday's game got me thinking about Pulp and Purist gaming in CoC. Obviously there is a scale rather than a binary distinction but it is an interesting relationship to explore I think. My games tend heavily up toward the pulpy end of the scale. One of my players has pretty much 0 Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-57634664237859438812012-03-06T13:00:00.000+00:002012-03-06T13:00:08.787+00:00"I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own!"
In which I discourse on the remainder of the available races and, perhaps more importantly, show my working as to why some more traditional choices have been shunned from my world.
Trolls: The descendents of the mountains themselves, born from the great rocks struck from the cliffs by magic in time gone by. I have a soft-spot for Trolls (ironically, as they have literally no soft-spots. This Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-77657907608385665262012-03-05T23:12:00.001+00:002012-03-05T23:13:26.262+00:00Just To Clarify
Just a quick note to say: A couple of people have been a little confused as to why I started my worldbuilding with defining the player races, rather than by making a map or plotting a history.
I've decided I'm going to do it by first defining the societies that will have a major impact on the players, followed by the map to show the terrain that could support harmonius living Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-80812720835198560592012-03-05T14:26:00.000+00:002012-03-06T01:21:48.978+00:00You Want To Play As A What...?!
The title being my reaction when one of my players decided he wanted to play as a pixie. Granted it was in response to my questions from yesterday's post, but even so...
A few of my issues about balance and such I have worked out now. This link gave me a good insight into what my problem was. I was trying to work this as 'Combat as Sport', where any one individual can take on any one otherMalikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-83631102380266223182012-03-04T13:00:00.000+00:002012-03-05T14:26:36.289+00:00On The Frustrations Of Diversity In FRPGs
(Apologies to anyone who started looking at this for CoC content, I'm on a bit of an RQ binge at the moment, the indescribable horror will return eventually, honestly...) Little thing first: I'm always amazed at just how often posts like this are actually needed by the community. Surely it's common sense that you should ask your players what they're comfortable with and not push those Malikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2181484091192915981.post-18666996418987945572012-03-03T10:11:00.000+00:002012-04-01T14:30:55.083+01:00An Open Relationship With The Story? (and other quirky questions)
As I'm trying to settle into the routine of posting regularly, my post topics have been all over the place. I'm trying to aim for quality over quantity of course but I think what I need is a project to focus on. By no means will this be the sole focus of the blog but just to warn you that I'm going to start preparing a sandbox world for an MRQII game that will materialise at some unknown time inMalikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00963296511881431115noreply@blogger.com2