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DrGames's page
392 posts. 1 review. No lists. No wishlists.
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It is an RPG, but it is an online game.
Does anyone else in the Forums play?
I have played a fair number of MMORPGs, but I confess that I am having a hard time getting into Guildwars.
Greetings Gamers!
Most years the gang from Zhalindor get together and play a fun, light hearted adventure. There are several systems that we have used for the holiday session including: "It Came from the Late, Late Show", "Og", "Meddling Kids", "Bunnies & Burrows", and a host of homebrew, just for the holiday session systems.
This year we are going back to Bunnies and Burrows. The Party will be taking on the roles of bunnies asked to save the world from the EEEEEEEEEeeeeevil conifers! Mu-hu-ha-ha!
Enjoy this short, teaser video to get an idea of what lies ahead for our intrepid group!
Enjoy the video teaser:
Teaser Video
In service,
Rich
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1 person marked this as a favorite.
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Fellow Gamers,
I have started to put together some videos of interest to gamers on Tech Topics. There are four so far.
They are all posted here on YouTube:
Gamer Skillz Videos.
What are some other topics that you would like to see covered?
In service,
Rich
A lot has been written about player types, e.g., "power gamer", "actor", "explorer", etc., and how to best accommodate the player style in play.
I don't recall seeing as much about GM types.
Let's chat about that topic.
Here are a few off the top of my head:
(1) Entertainer - the GM is interested in having fun and in providing for fun. Consistency, uniqueness, and ego signature take backseats for this type of GM.
(2) Novelist - the GM has a story to tell. The players take part in the process, but ultimately there are wheels in motion that will continue whether the players take action or not (or in the worst cases - despite what actions the players take).
(3) Simulationist - the GM loves wargames. Ultimately, RPG sessions are contests between the GM and the players in this type of campaign. The GM can make the sessions very fairly balanced, but make no mistake in the end these sessions are competitions between the GM and the players using a fixed set of rules.
(4) Friend - this GM is most interested in having the players like and love him. He is going to give the players what they want in order to appease them. Consistency, challenge, etc. are less important than the players liking the GM.
What other types are there?
In service,
Rich
The Original Dr Games site since 1993
Check out my latest album of gamer music! Ancient Aires and Marches
Rich Staats' new Gamer Album.
Amazon review:
Quote: I've supported some albums for gamers on Kickstarter (KS), and being honest my bar wasn't very high when I downloaded this album.
Wow! Was I surprised. I supported the team of Ann McCallum & Rich Staats for their KS back in 2014. Rich's first album, Day of the Mantid, was some traditional instrumental music with some simple, but addictive tunes.
...
This album is layered, complex, and powerful. Some of the tunes could be played on Game of Thrones or Lucifer without missing a beat. Some of the songs are deeply affecting and disturbing. The Caves of Chaos is listed as a live recording, and you wonder what the audience was feeling as the narrator descends into obvious psychosis over the course of the song. Oi vey! It is super creepy and soooo well done!
I cannot recommend this album enough!
When is the next album coming out?
Do you have a mailing list? You need one if you don't !
The Original Dr Games Site since 1993
Greetings and Happy New Years beloved Gamers!
One of the practices that my gaming group observes is an annual holiday, lite gaming event where we play using an alternative system and generally with a relatively silly theme.
It is a great way to have fun and help to prevent GM burnout.
Players generally see the end of the creative process in developing and refining adventure ideas, but they don't get to see the sketches, the scaffolding, and proto-ideas.
Unfortunately we did not get to do the Holiday Session this year, but I thought that the Paizo Gaming Crowd might enjoy seeing the one-page notes for session ideas.
They are scanned and in a PDF file at: One-pager holiday session ideas .
The four systems were: game systems for holiday session.
In each case, my thought was to have an opening movie with the elements identified in the one-pager.
The first part in the Meddling Kids was a song as the backdrop to the video.
Enjoy! I would love to hear your thoughts.
In service,
Rich
The Original Dr Games Site since 1993
GENCON is right around the corner.
Who is attending, and, if you are, will you be presenting any events or selling any wares there?
I will be going and will be running several events. Hope to see you at some of them!
Gen Con LLC | Gen Con Indy 2014
Game ID Event Title Start Time Duration Actions
SEM1458651 Complete GM Series: World Creation Fri @ 2:00 PM 2 hrs
Location: Westin :: Senate II Cost: $0
SEM1458654 Complete GM Series: Creating Engaging NPCs Fri @ 5:00 PM 1.5 hrs
Location: Westin :: Senate II Cost: $0
SEM1458653 Complete GM Series: Creating Engaging NPCs Sat @ 5:00 PM 1.5 hrs
Location: Crowne Plaza :: Pennsylvania Stn A Cost: $0
RPG1458649 The Trouble with Goats Thu @ 1:00 PM 3.5 hrs
Cost: $4
RPG1458650 The Trouble with Goats Fri @ 10:00 AM 3.5 hrs
Cost: $4
This site has some of the videos that I have used for gaming sessions:
Dr Games Videos (Scroll down a bit.)
Does anyone else use videos for their games?
What has worked well? Not so well?
In service,
Rich
the Dr Games Site
I love to use props to help set tone and aid players with visualization of things in my campaigns.
Currently one group is doing a mini-Call of Cthulhu campaign set in Jolly Blackburn's "Shattered Frontier" (Old West) setting. I've used videos as a way of logging the campaign for the players. Here s the most recent Gopher City update.
There are more including the intros for the 5e Playtest sessions and the regular, fantasy campaign videos here --> Dr Games YouTube Video Site. (Most are family friendly. A couple have some rough language, but no nudity, drugs, violence, or sex.). ;-)
Do any of you use either commercial or self produced video for your campaigns?
By the by, if any of you are coming to GENCON, please top by on of my seminars and say howdy!
In service,
Rich
Http://www.zhalindor.com
Maybe I am the only one, but some settings that make for great books and movies don't seem to translate well into RPGs.
Here are three broad categories that trend that way.
A great book setting that is relatively dark and hopeless makes it hard to role-play in for long stretches. Even Call of Cthulhu modified the rules after the 2nd Ed. to include sanity increase rules and recovery. Something like Westeros where successful, noble characters end up betrayed or dead or both (and then come back as hideous undead critters) has some significant challenges too. You either have to tone down the dark atmosphere (modifying the feeling of the setting) or risk depressing or driving away players. Try the Red Wedding on a couple of PCs and post about how that worked out for you. ;-)
Books where a singular hero or heroine is wildly more powerful that his or her peers is a tough setting to game in. Everyone wants to play the (fill in the blank), and if you have a whole herd f these special chosen characters then you're breaking canon. So, you end up modifying the setting for playability.
There are some games that make great one-shots that are hard to sustain through a campaign. There just isn't enough depth to keep things going. Bunnies & Burros comes to mind, especially if you're using the breeding and energy rules. Jolly Blackburn lampooned this in his Spoof game Dawg where characters had to roll to avoid doing things dogs would do like chase cars or sniff at things.
What is the collective wisdom?
In service,
Rich
Www.drgames.org
Just curious how many of the faithful have seen it?
In service,
Rich
www.drgames.org
I had an interesting experience this past weekend.
I was watching a movie with two of my friends. The movie was ”Halo-4: Forward unto Dawn.” One of the viewers, Varmint, have played all of the Halo games and was a big Master Chief fan. He was very upset that the movie portrayed Master Chief in the less than gentlemanly manner. He raved on that in the course of all the games no matter what the circumstances. Master Chief had always been very polite and kind.
When I pointed out that non-commissioned officers in my experience comported themselves with less-than-perfect language under hostile situations, it did not help. :–)
It occurred to me that the reaction that he was having to Master Chief similar to what might have about a religious figure or a hero from the 1950s and 60s.
Has master chief become one of the key heroes for today?
Has he outstripped US presidents like Washington and Lincoln?
I put together a short video that captured some of my feeling about the reaction this weekend.
You can find it here under Master Chief's Etiquerre lessons.
It did get me thinking.
In service,
Rich
This is a posting to get some creative juices flowing.
One shots are fun. They lead to different kinds of behaviors than campaigns by both the DM/GM/Ref/Keeper and the players. More on that later.
Some of the Pros --- a stream of consciousness: requires less commitment, easier to prep for, can be time constrained w/o hurting feelings, allows exploration of less developed notions, can address niche ideas and gaming systems, can be wildly different emotional feeling than a regular campaign from hilarious to soul searingly terrifying, and can focus more on a traditional game view as opposed to a player centric view from behind the screen. Here are some equally chaotic thoughts on some Cons: less emotional and intellectual buy-in and effort from the group, less continuity, less tailoring to match player style, less room for forgiveness if the DM has a bad night, more chrome/descriptive narrative required for context as each scene is described, mechanics focus over setting, no time to develop sweeping themes (i.e., appeals to power gamers and simulationists, but doesn't do as much for role-players, explorers, and story-teller archetype players).
I like one-shots, but mostly as a balance to a long standing campaign. Here some examples of one-shots my Zhalindorian faithful have run over the years: It Came from the Late, late Show, StarWars interlude, One shot intro using Xena & Hercules rules, Rolemaster one-shot run by the dearly departed Joe Gaskill, and the purely silly Legend of Slugotha that was based on Scooby Doo mixed with Call of Cthulhu (the Scooby Doo character is a shoggoth named Schoogie-Doo - who my son played with pants wettingly funny panache).
Here is a small sample of some gaming systems that might be suitable for one-shots (Staats RPG library - needs to be updated).
Here is an alternative that can encompass the best of both worlds, long standing campaign and one-shot fever. You could form a group that does troupe-style gaming and do series of one-shots and mini-campaigns. The key to Troupe-style is that you rotate the DM.
In service,
Rich
The Original Dr Games since 1993
Greetings Netizens,
This thread is intended to have DMs share some of the most useful gaming aids that they have used in 4e games.
Here is my top X list:
* Dry erase vinyl grid
* Condition tokens (wooden tokens that are placed under the minis or counters to show what conditions the character or creatures is afflicted with)
* 3x5 cards with condition descriptions
* Campaign Cartographer(tm) (I do all the major, pre-planned encounters in CC now - the difference to the players between a quick drawn sketch on the battlemat and a nice, color CC map is huge.)
* 3x5 cards with pre-generated treasure
In service,
Rich
Gaming site with adventures, battlemats, and music
I just added a new song for an upcoming adventure to my site.
Gaming Music by Dr. Games
The new song is called the Caves of Chaos. If you listen to it from start to finish it tells a story, it grows on you!
Enjoy!
In service,
Rich
The Original Dr. Games
Greetings Netizens!
There have been some decent video game module creation tools for a long time.
With the recent simplifications to some of the 3D modeling tools, e.g., Art of Illusion, Blender, etc., I thought it might be fun to produce some 3D visual props for my players.
As a test case, I put together a fun, silly example just to see how well the technology might work.
Check out the following, fun example:
Singing Bunnies & Kobolds - DEATH TRAP!.
Has anyone used 3D tools extensively as a source of props for your gaming sessions?
In service,
Rich
The Original Dr. Games site since 1993.
Greetings Netizens,
I am heading to St. Johns tomorrow to visit my youngest daughter, who is a chef there.
I asked a few folks about what to do there as a gamer.
The best response I heard was:
B - eaches
O - cean
R - uins
I - nterminable
N - o
G - amers or Gaming Shops
Did I get that right, or have some of you had a different experience?
By the by, I try to avoid the "red, angry, burn-me" that rolls across the sky.
In service,
Rich
www.drgames.org
My kids loved the Harry Potter books and movies. My take was that most of HPtDH was fluff. As a humorous poke, I condensed the entire 2.5 hour movie into 27 minutes. Just in time to watch it before Part 2 comes out! Harry Potter the Deathly Hallow(Part 1) in 27 Minutes.
In service,
Rich
www.drgames.org
My group is using 4e now, and it is very nice for a group of folks with jobs and kids that get 3-4 hours every two weeks to play.
I've added a lot of non-combat backstory to keep the interest level up on the part of the players.
You can find some of the background here at the Bold Beginnings WWW site.
What has your experience been in trying to run non-combat encounters in 4e. I do it, but if I had not cut my teeth on earlier editions, it would be hard to pick-up. The rules are mostly geared towards combat and very, very tactical combat (e.g., counting squares on a mapsheet) at that.
In service,
Rich
The Original Dr. Games site since 1993.
I was asked to write a monograph based on personal combat experiences over the past ten years.
Would this be of any interest to my fellow Paizo-ittes?
In service,
Rich
The Original Dr. Games since 1993.
Overview of the Campaign at Bold Beginnings Homepage.
Campaign Logs at Campaign Logs.
It is 2152 Y.O.L. Good King Levi, the king of Tumeria, gave a huge land grant to Duke Kernan that includes the Gedri pass through the Yagha-Tsorv mountains. The nobles in both Tiola-Moldre and Xanduru complimented King Levi on his astute choice.
Your liege, the Duke of Kernan, now stands to be either a hero of the Lands of the Overlord or a new falstaff for Al Alfredo. The import of getting his new holdings under control has not been lost on the Duke. He's put his knight marshal, Reginald, in charge of organizing groups to scout out the new domain and determine appropriate military strategies.
The knight marshal has chosen members from dependable families to serve in these groups. Your party is one such group. Initially, the Duke, no stranger to fighting and warfare, has asked that the groups have their mettle tested in and around the Duchy of Kernan before being sent south to serve for family and duke! So, you expect to spend some time in the neighborhood of Balcon, the seat of the Ducy, to show your worth to the knight marshal.
You are very motivated to do your utmost for the Duke. First, your personal honor and the honor of your friends and family depend on the success of your endeavors. Second, the Duke is offering land grants and titles of nobility for those who perform well. Third, the Duke has authorized the parties to retain large shares of what treasures they recover from outlaw groups. All booty must be displayed to an official of the duchy, but the word is out that these officials are quite lenient in dispensing the goods back to deserving parties. The Duke is not encouraging rape and pillaging however! In fact, attacks on innocents or seizure of legitimate property is punishable by death! A band of twelve adventurers was recently beheaded for just such actions in and around Gedri pass. You are strongly inspired to ensure the Duke does well.
If you are in the Washington, DC area and would like to join us, please contact me at zhalindor@verizon.net.
Greetings!
Proposed Gaming System: Modified Conan (from Mongoose publishing), basically a D&D 3.0/3.5 variation (OGL)
Why now?: I got back from Iraq about a year ago and spent the past twelve months fixing up my house and re-acclimatizing to the USA. (I can almost get to sleep now without my loop-tape of small arms fire going in the background.)
Commitment: I'm looking to put a gaming group together to play every two to three weeks, the day of the week is flexible, either weekend or weekday.
Campaign Concept: The setting would likely be at the end of the First Age in Zhalindor.
Examples of an earlier campaign are found at Mark Thomas' excellent site: Kernan Campaign log (Thomas) and on my WWW site at Kernan Campaign log (Staats).
The humans at the time were slaves of the Slith Lords. The Slith Lords started colonizing the northern continent, but we know from history that something went wildly awry in the Slith Lords' plans.
The humans ended up waging a war against the Slith Lords, winning their freedom, and ultimately bringing the end to the Slith Lord's empire and imprisoning the seven Lords.
How that all happened remains much of a mystery ... but, you, you the players will flesh out this period on the border between history and mythology.
Meet the Mother of the Gods! See Lord Eldar before his apotheosis! Match wits with the Trickster! Defeat a great evil! Free your people! Have your tales told for ten thousand generations!
Are you ready for the challenge?!?!
Sharpen your wits and your axes!
Let the games begin!
in service,
Rich
The original Dr. Games site since 1993.
A billion years ago (or so it seems) in this very galaxy, we did not have all of the very cool gaming props that are out today.
While I finally wrapped my head around the idea of playing 4e on a semi-regular basis, I have ended up buying a bunch of the geomorphic terrain and monster paper counter sets.
No matter what systems you run, these props are very useful. The quality is good, and in some cases the props actually can act as a creative spark for session ideas.
I'm just saying.
In service,
Rich
Please visit the Original Dr. Games site.
I hereby claim this empty thread in the name of Acme.
OK, what traditional gaming alignments, e.g., LG, N, CN, etc., would you apply to the various US political parties and candidates and why (in gaming terms)?
In service,
Rich
Go to The original Dr. Games' Site.
Gentles,
I will be running some sessions of Khymir at GENCON.
Please check out my events at GENCON and say "hello."
The events are posted on my WWW site at: www.drgames.org
More on Khymir: the RPG at http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/9329/khymir-rpg.htm
I'm thinking of doing some one-shots this summer using a non-D&D system.
If you are local and interested or will be visiting the DC area this summer and able to play, check out my WWW site at:
The original Dr. Games on the WWW.
In service,
Rich
This is one of my favorite campaigns that I participated in:
http://www.geocities.com/dr_games/noframes.htm#KERNANLINK
Go to Kernan Campaign.
In service,
Rich
Go to www.drgames.org.
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