Mapping

Found a nice little freebie program: http://www.cadstd.com/. I am thinking of doing all my gaming maps with it from now on. The usability is superb if compared to any ordinary graphics programs or to the specifically gaming related map making softwares. The easy to use scaling and overall intuivity and precision have all made me like it quite alot. The end result is not very flashy, but clarity is superb. Simple tools for simple people! Yay!

All Misty-eyed

This morning I had to scrape my car's windshield. So the summer is over. Weird, I don't mind; actually I think I've been missing autumn and winter. Why? Dunno. Autumn just looks kinda pretty what with the fog and hues of brown and yellow. Makes me wanna draw again.

Just checked my library balance. I ow them 40 euros. I'm thinking of actually paying it someday soon, as all this talk of autumn & winter makes me wanna read books and sip cognac. Gotta be careful, at this rate I'll start coveting a rocking chair.

Oops He Did It Again & Anticlimax in Brewery

Day before yesterday we played some RQ. You might remember that there was a tingling cliffhanger to be reconciled. It was and now we have a bleedin time travel paradox on our hands. Made the old brain pan hurt, it did. It certainly was very surprising to be plunged into the future, but wait! There's more! We met Lydia, whom we thought to have died in the past of the past... ermmm ... Damn quantum leaping! Anyway, met as in trying to kill savagely. And, you may have guessed but I did not, thus came yet another cliffhanger. The session ended there. Tommi certainly has internalized the Golden Rule of Sequels: "Keep them thirsty babeee! Keep 'em thirsty! They'll beg for more! Beg I say!" I was all like WTF!!!! and OMG!!!111eleven!!1.

While entertaining these new style of plots Tommi is using are more in the genre of Sword Opera than the old gritty Fantasy Realism. I think the change is for the benefit to our gaming experience, but requires careful dosing. In excess this spice might spoil the broth, in the vein of "Been there, done that, don't care."

Yesterday was my turn. The session was riddled with technical difficulties originating from the webcam we tried to use. It was of limited usefulness anyway and I think I will not be using it anymore. The old password - named web map will have to suffice. Writing that one up as a failed technical experiment. Also, Jari was not able to participate from the beginning due to him failing to complete the necessary government negotiations in advance. But that was all OK in the end.

How did I fare then? Remember that last week I thought that: "Kunnian Miehiä could be a nice, tight and immersive investigative scenario, with some prior roleplayingg (if the players are wise). This means that I should go for mood in my descriptions and stress the 1st person view. The mystery angle should also be stressed."

No. It did not happen. The players took the straight and hard road and opted not to investigate in advance. Because of this they neglected to take advantage of the sewer system as a entry point and because of that Jekaterina searched the brewery single-handedly, while Bert and Eckie sat outside.Becausee of this I ran the brewery part on fast forward, so no 1st personanglee and mood descriptions for me.

The traps worked wonders. That is: exactly as I thought they would. Hiding the traps in familiar things already harmlessly encountered before (Stack of boxes and the metallic door) proved very effective and the pacing of the traps was so distracting that the players forgot their prior intentions of searching the place thoroughly.

I do not know how fun they were to play.Probablyy not very. I'm counting on the fortitude of the grand plot here. Will the clues given in this session be enough to keep up the interest remains to be seen. Certainly not one of my best, this one.

Having some troubles with the tender-eared neighbors. They are claiming that the little fella barks at daytime and have complained to the house manager. I installed a voice activated recording software so the truthfulness of their complaints remains to be seen. Our strategy is to snare them for lying and presenting the evidence to the administrative board.

Weekend No More

Had a craptacular Friday at work. Did not get everything done until after 9 p.m. So we did not go bowling, but instead to the bowling after-party. I drinked quite much and I think I was not presenting my best sides. I was not confrontational or anything, just overly enthusiastic. Don't get me wrong, I had fun, am just hoping I did not ruin anyone elses evening. And, for the obvious reasons I spent almost whole Saturday sleeping.

On Sunday I went to help Seppo, our director from the summer theatre to move some of the moveabe screens that still were at Hietasaari. We talked a bit about the production and how the crew never seemed to fire up during the rehearsals and season. He seemed to be as frustrated as I was. My decision about not doing this kind of productions anymore strengthened yet. Still, I would love to do something small, where amateur theatre has it's strengths. Someday.

After that H and me went to see her parents or my parents-in-law. Was an okay trip and indeed it was great to have a change of scenery, if only for a few hours. (Plus there was fantastic cake.) Will have to remember to travel more. Our older dog has not overcome his anxiousness about car travelling, but Pyry did not mind at all. He's a really easy going chap.

Two game nights this week. One of Tommi's RQ and one of my WFRP. I think I made ok work with the preparations to my game. (I even wrote some inspired fluff I'm going to launch soon via email.) At least I am more enthusiastically looking forward to unleashing my brain children on my (un?)suspecting players. I have been concentrating too much on things at large, and forgotten that the trick is in the details. And I had forgotten how fun it is to write some own material, I just hope some of that fun will convey to the actual game. And with well prepared session it is easier to suppress my nice GM instincts, or so I hope.

New Visuals

Decided to do something about my postings seemingly being the length of an continental otter, on average. So, lo and behold: new visual appearance with wider lines! Problem solved!

Of course this new template is also butt ugly, I'll have to edit it so that the colors are less spontaneus-epileptic-seizure-inducing.

Today I have no programmed activities. Finally! After I get tired of lying on sofa and exploring my naval cavity, I think I'll flesh out the missing material for WFRP. That means at least 4 maps/floorplans and 10 NPC's plus a page worth of notes.

State of Affairs

It seems that nowadays I only blog about gaming. Surely there must be something else happening, I hear myself asking. Well, mustn't there? Well...

Today is the last of the puppy gatherings Akuutti organizes. Next week is the phone registration for beginner obedience training by Oulun Koirakerho. This morning I heard from a fellow dog walker that they only have twelve places, so I must be very snappy in order to get in. It would be very nice to get some guidance in training, as Pyry seems to be quite talented in that respect. Iddleness is the worst possible condition for our canine friends. It is begging difficulties.

On theatrical front, there has been some interest in resuming in our impro groups activities. Specifically: Jukka sms'ed about contact impro (kind of a cross between theatrical freeform impro and modern dance), but I really would prefer some old fashioned drama impro instead. Don't get me wrong, contact impro certainly is very educating and athletic, but it is not what I am looking for just now. I certainly have no interest in embarking on any of the productions YT is going to present for reasons I have visited earlier in my blog. So it seems that my theatrical exploits have come to an end. For now. I have been in the process of writing a play, but really I have not gotten anything presentable done.

So I have concentrated on gaming: Yesterday we had an absolutely delighting RQ session. We had some rum, and Jaakko made couple of drinks so we were perhaps a tad foolhardy. (But not overly talkative, as at least I experienced some numbing of tongue from the rum -> I know now why pyrates articulate their points mainly with ARRRR!) We killed some monster and took their stuff, and it was good. The plot seems to be quite evil, and we are taking a setback after another, but I atleast am having fun. And Tommi had prepared an absolutely brilliant cliffhanger in its purest form for us. Consider me teeming with curiosity about next weeks session on Wednesday.

We also managed to get a slot for my WFRP session on Thursday and I have a lot of preparation work to do for it. I'm also plotting some new gimmicks such as Oscars. Each player has a 10ex Oscar to deal out and if everyone gets one, nobody get's it. I have others too up my sleeve, but now is the wrong moment to write about them.

On Friday, we'll go bowling. Yay! Blacklights, beer and throwing heavy objects, that'll be a bliss. What? What I remember from last time, it is very fun.

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Was

In preceeding blog entry I visited the importance on finding a suitable style of play for a given story conflict. So, after having opened my big mouth I feel compelled to apply my grandiose assumptions to my own RPG - sessions.

In the following WFRP session the players have a choise: either they can choose to play Kunnian Miehiä (of which Verivelka will be an optional part) or Edistysklubi and if they do not go for any of these, Pyhättö will be played. So, in which style should these be played?

Kunnian Miehiä could be a nice, tight and immersive investigave scenario, with some prior roleplaying (if the players are wise). This means that I should go for mood in my descriptions and stress the 1st person view. The mystery angle should also be stressed.

Edistysklubi is mainly intrigue based, so this calls for extensive contact with NPC's. Here the style allows for a good deal of roleplaying, so I must present the NPC's in a dramatic way but let room for the PC's actions and reactions to them. I could let this be a bit more freeform so that the PC's have time to deal with the city and explore it. So I should reward the PC's if they show signs of curiosity or initiative. This scenario also calls forward a bunch of pregenerated burghers, etc. so that the interactions can be more interesting. Maybe some props are needed too, now that I think of it.

Pyhättö conversely requires a more tactical approach. So here I should maybe pregenerate some maps and sitreps so that my actions can better express the fog of war.

So, I'll let you know how things went after we have played. Thinking this through provided some surprised, as I thought that I already was well prepared to run these adventures. It appears that I was not.

Back to Basics

'"Kvack! What was that?"

"It sounteed liike a scream... and it waas a dwarf if I am nåt mistaaken."

"Jaa und ve are alles here... nein, wait! Vhere's Willy, that kleine bugger?"

"Theer he kommer running. And screeming, too. Not honorable får dwarf, that."

"Donnerwetter! Was ist that!? It's a spider... no.. it's haben man's body.. vhat unter himmel..."

"It is a scorpion man. Or they are! Scoli! To my side! We'll slice them! Kvack-two-four, kvack-two-four!"

"Sure, pal."

"Saeldis kommen sie! Ve vill take this direction! Hurensohns! They throv rocks!"

...'

We played some RQ yesterday. It was a good old dungeon bash where our group returned to a cave system in which some of the older members of the group had already been in, in order to get some clues concerning Sonja's doppelganger.

The session was not fun per se, but there just is something very satisfying in proceeding into a mysterious cave conquering obstacles (Freudian explanation, anyone?) and I enjoyed myself immensely, regardless of being very tired and beginning to have sore neck.

This got me thinking, why? The poo-poo humour was not the reason although it did not hurt. Part of the 'why' was the tension created in exploring unknown in it's very basic form. 'There's a dark corridor and you do not know what's next.' You can't get much more basic than that.

The cave system was also nicely designed in this regard as there was a constant mystery of how do the inhabitants survive here, what is the meaning of these idol's they seem to worship and so on. Tommi also remembered to place clues our character's only heard. So there were constantly several parallel 'mystery archs' of which smaller ones were constantly born and later resolved and the main one developing whole time: "what is the purpose of this underground habitat, what is it's history and how do the doppelgangers connect to this".

So essentially it is a mystery, and we have only a very limited but clear way to try to solve it: to proceed deeper into the caves. There is not anything vague about it, but on the other hand we can predict the following event on only a very miniscule timeframe. So it is back to basics. And it works.

This style of play was not very immersive, as everything happened on a map. Nay, tactical map.
And it did not provide very much incentives for roleplaying, as there was no reason to interact due to everyone knowing excactly as much. Indeed, too much roleplaying would have distracted from mystery solving.

So, is this roleplaying at all? I'd say yes. Yes because this is a very long campaign that forms mosaic of very different style of adventures and that mosaic is - when observed at a suitable distance - a very nice roleplaying epic, in which in addition to roleplaying the expoits and development story of a character, also the group is roleplayed a a whole. Yesterdays individual tile in mosaic was not in itself so much actual roleplaying as it was painting the milieu and a sort of voice of the author filling in a prominent gap in story.

For example the adventure with the haunted house was very immersive, but with that style one cannot pull off a segment of the story like this. Also there has been some adventures with more ample stimulants (and room) for acting in character in previous adventures, but a change of pace was clearly needed for rhytmical reasons. So I think it was a quite good judgement call to incorporate this kind of adventure here.

This is a very good thing to remember about campaign gaming. There is no need to get stuck with only one style of play, only because the story remains the same. It is one of the more challengin aspects of being a GM to be able to tell what style fits a given basic plot or story conflict.