Archive for September, 2011
Game Wrap – Travel
by sagotsky on Sep.12, 2011, under dnd4e, observations, self improvement
I got a lot more mileage than expected out of the Game Wrap posts. This last topic (for values of “last” pertaining to the original list of Game Wrap topics. I’ll probably come up with more thoughts and observations later. For now this is the end though) is something I’m still struggling with, because it’s something I’m still torn on.
Game Wrap – Campaign Setting
by sagotsky on Sep.09, 2011, under GM, observations, Uncategorized
This was the first campaign where I’ve fully embraced a campaign setting. Before this I usually bit off a section of a campaign setting and ignored the rest. We’d stick to a city or town and have an adventure there, but ignore the rest of the world. It makes the game seem small and severely limits the scope of what you can do, which is why I preferred it for my 8-10 session long adventures.
I should add the caveat that when I say ‘campaign setting’ I mean something explicitly written as a campaign setting. The game before this was set in George R.R. Martin’s Westeros. I spent a lot of time rereading the books and finding resources for world info. Going into this game, I expected my experience with Westeros to be similar to using FR as a setting.
Game Wrap – NPCs as caricatures
by sagotsky on Sep.06, 2011, under dnd4e, observations, organization, self improvement
Some time ago I wrote about trying to wear NPCs as hats. I’m more of a method actor (assuming you can call what I do acting at all), so switching around between NPCs has always been a challenge for me. In a previous post I discussed my plan to treat NPCs as caricatures, defining their outward traits first, never worrying about their inner psychology.
I’d link to that earlier post, but the method sucked and the beginning of the game sucked because of it.
Game Wrap – Hold the fudge
by sagotsky on Sep.05, 2011, under dnd4e, GM, observations
I’ve previously advocated the use of fudging to fix die rolls. This game changed my mind.
Game Wrap – If I could take back any one mistake…
by sagotsky on Sep.01, 2011, under dnd4e, observations, self improvement
As I’ve mentioned, one of the themes of my last game was trying to break my own rules. Early on in game planning I came up with a crazy idea for a backup scenario. If a certain overpowered boss fight wiped out the party, the only idea I had for fixing it was to declare that the world had lost. The bad guys were too powerful. And the players would have to go back in time to slow them down, before things got so bad. The idea only got more over the top from there.
