Bad News - Delving Deeper in limbo

So, have anyone gotten any physical copies of their Delving Deeper boxed set orders yet?

I got an email asking for shipping details, and thought that meant shipping was imminent. I waited.

Then I sent a question asking if it had shipped, and got the answer that apparently the person collating shipping information had messed up. I waited.

Then I send a question, asking it it had shipped. The reply said Monday, and promised tracking info. I waited.

Two Mondays later I asked again and got this answer

"Yes, your order did ship this week.  I will have your tracking number for
you later today."

That was the 12th of February.  Guess what? I still have not gotten neither the game nor any tracking info. I have asked what's up and have not gotten a reply.

Can someone please confirm that this is not turning into a total scam? With this post I might look like the fool, but I can live with that if I get some indication of what's going on.

Good News - Wilderness arrives!

Does this look awesome or what?

I have now contributed funding for two projects related to John Wick's Houses of the Blooded, and both have been great.

Wilderness suffered a bit because the person doing the layout was in an accident and while she would survive it was a clear setback to the project. Now, John is on top of things and could muster another do finalize things. The result is amazing.

Now when it's becoming clear that more and more projects don't deliver, I'm saying that John Wick and his associates will keep getting my money. He delivers. Thanks John, Jesse and everyone else involved!

Narrative criticals

First off, let me just say I like criticals. The thrill of seeing the dice indicating that something wonderful/awful is going to happen is like no other. The drawback of course is to have to find those critical tables, rolling another die and all that which slow down the game. Maybe there is another way?

This fine post is one solution, where the damage is rolled off one small table and the game effects are narrated. Well, if you don't like those newfangled big words, made up on the spot.

Let's take that one step further in the player empower direction. If you do sand boxing, player initiative rules, right?

Let's assume you roll d20 to attack, and that low is good. Then, on a roll of 1, turn to the player that just rolled a critical success and ask them. "You just did something awesome. Let's hear what it was?" Likewise, when someone rolls a 20, ask them. "Now you have messed up. Let's hear how it went wrong." Players agency, right? As experience have shown that nobody is as brutal when describing a fumble as someone who inflict it on themselves.

Filling in the boring parts

When I posted about empty dungeons, Joshua had an interesting idea in the comments.

You can have interesting rooms be miles apart, as long as you're willing to let the players traverse those miles without playing out each 10' square in between. Tell them how long it takes and the resources consumed, and dial it back in when it's time for the next important decision.

 This reminded me of something I heard on the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast. Robin talked about how he did when his players were just passing through some terrain, like those miles mentioned above. He suggested you ask the players how they did pass through that terrain. They got to narrate, and establish colour for their character and the question is never if they are going to make it through those miles, but how it looks. He also suggested you could have them roll for it, but ot to invalidate their narration, but to see how much resources they used up.

Pair this with the idea of Saturday Night Specials in the dungeon, and the new school idea of shared narrative power and I think we have a winner. Everyone get a chance to look cool, and those who crave detailed crawling can narrate it as much as they like, even to the extent of pulling in other characters and making rolls.

Personally I never managed to make wilderness travel very fun. It's either a few rolls on survival skills or something improvised if there are no skills around, and then it's done. Neither suspense nor a feeling of trekking in the beautiful and dangerous outdoors. Next time I'm letting they players talk instead.

Using weapon speed factors as recoil

In Mongoose Traveller, some weapons have a recoil number. I like that implementation, since it allows you to fire a big gun and then that recoil number adds to your initiative next turn. Simple, and effective. Now imagine if there was an easy way to use those pesky weapon speed factors from 1st edition AD&D? Maybe there is.

How about you do the same thing? Sure, initiative is a very different beast in AD&D but considering how many hacks of that system there is, yet another wont make much of a difference.

So, roll 1d10 for initiative. Then add that weapon speed, and count up from 1. You could probably use it both with individual and with group initiative. One size fits all, eh?

Let me know if you try it, or have already tried it out. I think is sounds neat, on paper at least.

Looking for inspirations? Look no further

This morning I read the post about the Banner of the Seas on the Ancient Vaults & Eldritch Secrets blog. I just needed to share my enthusiasm.

That blog is so full with wonderful inventions and funny glimpses into the world of adventure where the items, gods and monsters of the blog live and appear. If you read no other blog than that, you will have fodder for games from now until the end of time. Damn is it good, or what? Thanks for sharing!

Some crowdfunding insights

I started to post a comment on Joseph Bloch's blog, and realized it was a post unto itself. Here it is.

I was never a supporter of Dwimmermount, so for me some of the noises coming from people have been hard to understand. But, I have now at the start of the year been reviewing some of the crowdfunding campaign I have been contributed to and contacted some of them for news. I think I have realized a few things.

First, if you set up such a project, thing long and hard on how long time every step will take.

Secondly, review that time estimate with a critical eye. Now double the time estimate. If the estimate is more than one year, try to find ways to do most of the work ahead of time, before going public.

At this stage I think you should probably re-think the whole gamble if you can't push it down below one year. I gave Chaosium the benefit of the doubt, but I would not do it for some random dude with a blog.

Thirdly, make sure you update regularly. Those who are stakeholders after the campaign have finished should be able to see what's going on after you took their money. Preferably, keep everyone posted on how close you are to the planned schedule.

Fourthly, make sure everyone else gets update too! This is something very few do! The thing is, for some high profile campaigns, even those who did not chipped in will hear some of the Chinese whispsers that spread on the net. If someone hears the wrong thing, rumours will spread and the next thing you know "facts" about you taking the money and running is all over the net. Regardless it will probably hurt you.

Now, sitting on the first row, without being involved in crowdfunded publishing myself, it's very easy to have opinions. Take these my thoughts for whatever they're worth.

Lynn Willis has left us

I just read on Michael Curtis blog that Lynn Willis is dead. I remember reading on Chaosium's webpage Charlie Krank posting that Lynn was ill and that he had stepped down from work. It was a reminder for me that even people that have been in the business since I first started gaming are mortal.

Those names on the credit pages on the games I handled at a young, tender and impressionable age were names of demi gods living in a far off realm. Thanks to the net, it has become easy to get in contact with all those people and see how many of them are friendly and communicative individuals. It pleases me no end to sometimes be able to say "Thanks!" to those who have shared the dream.

Now I wish I had taken the opportunity to say thanks to Lynn. His name is one of those I've seen on the games I've played since way back. Memento mori.

Non-Antagonistic play - DM vs Players the other way

I was listening to the Narrative Control Podcast, and they talked about how to generated interesting conflicts in a game. Basically, regardless if you believe the game master's job is to create a story for the player characters to participate in, or creating interesting situations for the players to create a story from, you will still need conflicts.

This reminded me of the old question of to what extent you should have any element of antagonistic play, i.e. to what extent the GM should make it hard for the players. Note, not the characters. The thing is, some players might take it like it's targeted towards them, even when the figure in the cross hairs is their characters. Now, let's assume "interesting" conflicts means something that makes it hard for the player character.

The neat little trick mentioned on the podcast was attributed to Rob Donoghue, and I thought it was quite neat.So, the idea was to not attack the PC, since some players will take it personally and attack back! Instead, attack what the PC is invested in. I thought that was quite cool. Among the really smart game masters this might be yesterday's news, but to me this was something new worth pondering. If in the emergent play one character has started to be involved in something like a mercantile organization, or a church, you put them in dire straights and see what happens.

My experience with the kind of players that might take troubles for their characters like a personal affront is luckily something I have been spared. I have not had that much experience with a wide open sandbox either (I always had the dungeon walls limiting the player choice somewhat), so now I'm catching up and learning the tricks. I think Rob is onto something good. I will try to use this a bit more consciously in the future.

dT&T, just saying

You have noticed that there's a Kickstarter for a new edition of Tunnels & Trolls out, right? Yeah, I thought so. I put up my two yatmas for a hardcover of the new book, and after that there will be fewer Kickstarter pledges from me for a while. I need to wait in some deliveries.