Author: Jeff

S1E4: The Quest – Gaming Systems

Published on by Jeff

We found some nice treasure while Questing for the latest RPG related news:

Here is some quick RPG News!

CCP Games

CCP Games, creators of the successful space MMORPG EVE Online, have announced they will be harvesting stories from within the game to create comic books, a TV series, and possibly even films set in the EVE universe. EVE has never set records for the size of its userbase, but it’s long been known as a game that generates some of the best emergent gameplay in the industry. From battles involving thousands of players to in-game confidence schemes involving currency worth tens of thousands of real dollars, it’s likely you’ve heard about players’ exploits even if you haven’t played the game. CCP is now looking to bring the EVE universe to a wider audience, and rather than having a group of writers dictate all of the lore, they’re letting the players take part. They’ve set up a site where users can share their tales and vote on those of others. CCP has partnered with Dark Horse Comics to make a comic book out of the stories, and with a production company to make a live-action TV show.

SWOTR:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/07/16/bioware-teases-swtors-2-4-pve-and-pvp-content/

WIZARDS OF THE COAST:

http://company.wizards.com/content/magic-2014-core-set-launches-today

The Nature of Attributes

Your attributes are how your character’s make-up is defined. The gifts you where born with, your physical and metal charactirisitcs.

There is a sweet spot for attrubutes though, nobody wants to be the guy who is stupid, ugly and physically impared. By the same token, playing Adonis isn’t as much fin as one might think either, and its not fun to run games for.

You can play any attributes scores, but you may have to change your core concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_(role-playing_games)

Do you need skills in an RPG?

Generally speaking, skills are needed in most RPG’s. These are how you, as a character seperates themselves from the pack. What you can do in the real world help define your role in sociaty, and skills in an RPG are no different.

Don’t let skills dictate the role-palying though. They are there to enhance your experiance, not define it.Skills should be used as a way to help tell the story but if you if can out RP the NPC, then good on you!

Don’t get carried away either. Some games can have to many skills. As a GM you don’t want to spread out the need for skills to much because it will overly complicate not only your storytelling and slow down your characters effectivness.

Combat

While not every game NEEDS combat, conflict is almost always inevitable in some stories. After all, how do we grow without overcoming adversity?

Comabt can become a problem though. It slows down te flow of games and can become overly mechanical. You need to keep the players engaged in the story. You can do this through narration or just speedy combat systems like the New World of Darkness system.

As a player or GM, you should always strive to make combats fun for everyone and keep peoples attention. Don’t let the mechanics limit your creativity.

If your characters find themselves in a huge mass battle, you may find it tough to feel like you are making a difference. You are the heroes of the setting, and your charaters should almost always have some way to affect the tides of battle. Be it through heroic oppertuinits like L5R or small raids away from the fighting that can stall the enemy just long enough to give your side the edge, Mass Combat can be a solid tool for epic storytelling.

House Rules – the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Sometimes the rules just don’t fit the style of story you want to tell, but you can make it happen with a couple fo tweeks. Thats what house rules are for.Sometimes you can just make a couple of small tweeks like changing how inititive works, to adding in entire new rules systems for doing things.

Personally, our groups almost always ad things like hero points and drama dice as a way to allow the players to help tell the story!

The sky is the limit for house rules though. If a rule gets in the way, change it!

Does System Even Matter?

Well, the answer is maybe. While the players really do make the difference, sometimes the system can hinder the storytelling styles of both the GM and the players. The system is how your characters interact with the world around them, and some systems do not work well for some worlds.

If you want a Pirates of the Carrabian or Princess Bride style game, you may not want to strugle with the mechanical nature of d20 when the swashbukling system for 7th sea is already built for that.

Systems can also become so much a part of the setting that the setting itself does not work outside of its original shell. 7th Sea and Legend of the Five Rings became Swashbukling and Oriential Adventures in d20 3/3.5, but lost almost all of their charm and wonder.

Choosing Your System

A lot goes into choosing a system, but in theend it comes down to knowing your style of play and the story you want to run. Choose a system that meets your needs, and allows you to tell the type of story you really want to tell.

Final Thoughts

Every system has its pros and cons, and all that really matters is you have fun. If something doesn’t work, change it!

The post S1E4: The Quest – Gaming Systems appeared first on The Quest.

S1E3 – The Quest: Parties & Characters

Published on by Jeff

We found some nice treasure while Questing for the latest RPG related news:

http://www.talltalesrpg.com/
http://www.l5r.com/2013/07/19/q-workshop-and-aeg-announce-l5r-dice/
http://www.margaretweis.com/shop#!/~/product/category=5447006&id=22891059

Alignment

Remember that your alignment is a tool to help you role-play, not a leash to limit you. There are aspects of alignment that will restrain your character and make you, the player, consider that the actions you are contemplating might not be what your character would do.

Role-playing is about being someone else, and alignments can help you define who that someone else is and guide you through their life and decisions, rather than your own.

Many, many games have alignment systems. Look at games other than the one you are playing when considering how to RP your alignment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_(role-playing_games)

Unbalanced vs Balanced Parties

Having a balanced party goes beyond class and level. Your personalities can conflict and cause an unbalancing of a group.

You can run a balanced game of like characters with great success. Don’t limit the role you choose to play in a game based on what others are playing, but keep in mind how you will be able to interact with them.

The traditional D&D party can be a good start, but isn’t needed, and can get a little boring to play over and over. Think outside the box.

Avoid being a Mary Sue! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

Playing the Sidekick

Not everyone always gets to be the hero, and sometimes the sidekick can be the most fun to play. Whether you are Dick Grayson or Sancho Panza, the sidekick is always in intractable part of the story, even if not the focus.

Sidekicks can be some of the most beloved characters in a story as well. Han Solo is, in essence, a sidekick to Luke Skywalker for much of the story. Sure, it can be argued that Han is a “co-hero”, but really, that comes a little later.

Few people remain the sidekick forever.  Han becomes one of the main heroes of the Star Wars universe, Dick Grayson becomes NightWing.

How Easy Should it be to Change Your Character in a Game?

This is a complex question, and the variety of answers is just as complex.

The most important thing to think about before making any changes to your character is, “can I change this through role-play?”

While changing a character can be a mechanical change on a character sheet, the intent of role-playing games is to experience life, and life can change us as people. Let the game change your character, roll with the changes, and if you don’t like something about the character, role-playing the character trying to change that thing about themselves.

Character Naming

What’s in a name? The answer can be harder than one may think.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130724-names-psychology-meaning-royal-baby-william-kate/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fb20130724news-namebab&utm_campaign=Content

Naming a character is a lot like naming a child. This name will help define who that person is and what they will accomplish in their lives. It affects the way others see them, and often, how they see themselves.

There are a lot of resources that one can use when choosing names, and several different methods as well.

Here are a few places to look for names:

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1582979200

http://www.behindthename.com/random/

http://www.babynames.com/

Remember that your name should be something you remember. You should not have to look at your sheet when someone asks you who you are. Make the name something that helps you define the character you are playing.

Final thoughts

Your character is important, but don’t be a hindrance to your party. Add something to the story and have some personality without being obnoxious.

Remember, there is always an honorable way out!

motivator

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S1E2 The Quest: New Players

Published on by Jeff

Getting into Role-Playing can be a daunting task. There are a few things you need to understand before you start playing in any game.

Things to Remember

Remember, it’s just a game and games are meant to be fun for everyone that plays.If you are not having fun, don’t ruin it for everyone else.

Be on time! Nothing will anger your GM faster than being a flaky player. Not to mention that all to often your fellow players are going to be stuck waiting for you.

Be consistent! If you don’t have time for a game, just say so. GM’s write story for your characters (or they should), and if characters are sometimes “absent” for no reason, the story gets messy.

Bring your character sheet, note paper, pencils, and your own dice!

Know your group. Before heading to a new game or starting an adventure with a new group, it’s your responsibility to ask about what’s expected with you.

Ask questions! When you ask questions, actually learn the answers so you don’t have to keep asking the same things over and over. You are playing a game that requires you to use your imagination, and the fewer times you have to step outside of your imagination to ask a question you have already asked, the more time you can spend rapped in the story.

Don’t metagame! Metagaming is when you use information or knowledge learn out of character in an in character way. DO NOT DO THIS! It is cheating and it will make the storytelling experience less entertaining for everyone else.

Be a team player! You are a unique and special flower, just like everyone else. Part of being in a collaborative storytelling game is cooperation. Don’t be “that guy”.

Your character isn’t always the center of attention! Sometimes the story will be focused on you, sometimes it won’t.  Help the players around you by being respectful of their time in the spotlight. You are not a reality TV star…you don’t need constant attention to be validated.

Try Something New! When something doesn’t work out the way you want, do something different.

Play Your Character, Not Yourself! The very essence of Role-Playing is to take on the role of someone other than you. If you are just playing you, what’s the point?

Bring appropriate “Snackrifices”! You heard me…snackrifieces must be made!

And most importantly…Don’t be a tool. If people are not having fun, look around and see if you are the reason. The last thing anybody wants is to be “that guy”.

Final Thoughts

Again, have fun! Go out of your way to help others have fun and never forget that it’s just a game.

Also…don’t record podcasts in the middle of Ragnarok. You end up losing a lot of your show!

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S1E1 – The Quest: Character Creation

Published on by Jeff

Building Your Concept

Ego Types

The Innocent

Motto: Free to be you and me
Core desire: to get to paradise
Goal: to be happy
Greatest fear: to be punished for doing something bad or wrong
Strategy: to do things right
Weakness: boring for all their naive innocence
Talent: faith and optimism
The Innocent is also known as: Utopian, traditionalist, naive, mystic, saint, romantic, dreamer.

The Orphan/Regular Guy or Gal

Motto: All men and women are created equal
Core Desire: connecting with others
Goal: to belong
Greatest fear: to be left out or to stand out from the crowd
Strategy: develop ordinary solid virtues, be down to earth, the common touch
Weakness: losing one’s own self in an effort to blend in or for the sake of superficial relationships
Talent: realism, empathy, lack of pretense
The Regular Person is also known as: The good old boy, everyman, the person next door, the realist, the working stiff, the solid citizen, the good neighbor, the silent majority.

The Hero

Motto: Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Core desire: to prove one’s worth through courageous acts
Goal: expert mastery in a way that improves the world
Greatest fear: weakness, vulnerability, being a “chicken”
Strategy: to be as strong and competent as possible
Weakness: arrogance, always needing another battle to fight
Talent: competence and courage
The Hero is also known as: The warrior, crusader, rescuer, superhero, the soldier, dragon slayer, the winner and the team player.

The Caregiver

Motto: Love your neighbour as yourself
Core desire: to protect and care for others
Goal: to help others
Greatest fear: selfishness and ingratitude
Strategy: doing things for others
Weakness: martyrdom and being exploited
Talent: compassion, generosity
The Caregiver is also known as: The saint, altruist, parent, helper, supporter.

The Soul Types

The Explorer

Motto: Don’t fence me in
Core desire: the freedom to find out who you are through exploring the world
Goal: to experience a better, more authentic, more fulfilling life
Biggest fear: getting trapped, conformity, and inner emptiness
Strategy: journey, seeking out and experiencing new things, escape from boredom
Weakness: aimless wandering, becoming a misfit
Talent: autonomy, ambition, being true to one’s soul
The explorer is also known as: The seeker, iconoclast, wanderer, individualist, pilgrim.

The Rebel

Motto: Rules are made to be broken
Core desire: revenge or revolution
Goal: to overturn what isn’t working
Greatest fear: to be powerless or ineffectual
Strategy: disrupt, destroy, or shock
Weakness: crossing over to the dark side, crime
Talent: outrageousness, radical freedom
The Outlaw is also known as: The rebel, revolutionary, wild man, the misfit, or iconoclast.

The Lover

Motto: You’re the only one
Core desire: intimacy and experience
Goal: being in a relationship with the people, work and surroundings they love
Greatest fear: being alone, a wallflower, unwanted, unloved
Strategy: to become more and more physically and emotionally attractive
Weakness: outward-directed desire to please others at risk of losing own identity
Talent: passion, gratitude, appreciation, and commitment
The Lover is also known as: The partner, friend, intimate, enthusiast, sensualist, spouse, team-builder.

The Creator

Motto: If you can imagine it, it can be done
Core desire: to create things of enduring value
Goal: to realize a vision
Greatest fear: mediocre vision or execution
Strategy: develop artistic control and skill
Task: to create culture, express own vision
Weakness: perfectionism, bad solutions
Talent: creativity and imagination
The Creator is also known as: The artist, inventor, innovator, musician, writer or dreamer.

The Self Types

The Jester

Motto: You only live once
Core desire: to live in the moment with full enjoyment
Goal: to have a great time and lighten up the world
Greatest fear: being bored or boring others
Strategy: play, make jokes, be funny
Weakness: frivolity, wasting time
Talent: joy
The Jester is also known as: The fool, trickster, joker, practical joker or comedian.

The Sage

Motto: The truth will set you free
Core desire: to find the truth.
Goal: to use intelligence and analysis to understand the world.
Biggest fear: being duped, misled—or ignorance.
Strategy: seeking out information and knowledge; self-reflection and understanding thought processes.
Weakness: can study details forever and never act.
Talent: wisdom, intelligence.
The Sage is also known as: The expert, scholar, detective, advisor, thinker, philosopher, academic, researcher, thinker, planner, professional, mentor, teacher, contemplative.

The Magician

Motto: I make things happen.
Core desire: understanding the fundamental laws of the universe
Goal: to make dreams come true
Greatest fear: unintended negative consequences
Strategy: develop a vision and live by it
Weakness: becoming manipulative
Talent: finding win-win solutions
The Magician is also known as:The visionary, catalyst, inventor, charismatic leader, shaman, healer, medicine man.

The Ruler

Motto: Power isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
Core desire: control
Goal: create a prosperous, successful family or community
Strategy: exercise power
Greatest fear: chaos, being overthrown
Weakness: being authoritarian, unable to delegate
Talent: responsibility, leadership
The Ruler is also known as: The boss, leader, aristocrat, king, queen, politician, role model, manager or administrator.

Fantasy

Fighter – focused on combat abilities, but almost entirely lacking in magical abilities
Rogue – focused on stealth and social skills, and capable of high-damage special attacks balanced by sub-par resistance to injury
Wizard – featuring powerful magical abilities, but physically weak
Cleric – specializing in healing and supportive magical abilities

Other Notes

Remember, when you are designing your character, be sure to understand your GM’s vision for the campaign. The one thing always will ruin your fun, and the fun of others in your group, than having a character that breaks immersion at every turn.

Another good trick when making your character is to ensure you are playing something that is compatible with, or even compliments, the other characters in the party. Be sure to talk to the other players to get ideas. Creative storytelling is what Role-Playing is all about, and you have at least 1 other person you can bounce ideas off of when making your character. Use them.

It often helps the GM, and the other players, if everyone agrees to a predetermined “connection” to the other characters. This can simplify writing a back story and can make it easier to get started quickly. Also, a particularly harsh GM can always manipulate that connection for a better story.

Character History

Never limit yourself to the basic information under your “class”. There are always ways to expand, and deepen, your character.

7th Sea’s “20 Questions” is a great place to start. I could not find an actual copy of these (without Piratingstuff, don’t do that!), bvut I did find a link to a form where they listed them: http://vaelis.forumotion.com/t79-seventh-seas-twenty-questions

Another great resource for both players and GM’s, when making characters, is http://www.obsidianportal.com/

Alternative Methods

Advancement/Development

  1. Don’t be afraid to change something that’s not working
  2. Roleplaying beyond your character sheet
  3. Grow your personality based on what happens to your character
  4. Set goals for your character

Specific Types of games

LARPing

When creating a LARP character, please keep in mind the physical considerations such as,
Racial features – i.e. height & weight. Its ok to be short or tall as an Elf, but long beards and obisity are not really Elven triats.
How you look is how you look, you don’t get to look like the dashing hero if you look like Michael Cera, but that doesn’t meen you cannot ACT like the dashing hero.

Tabletop

You can do anything, be anyone. You are a butterfly in the sky! Fly twice as high; but keep in mind your roleplaying limitations. While there are skills you can get in games to help make up for your own shortcomings, try to play a character that you can actually achive. If you are not good at solving puzzels, maybe you should play Wattson and not Holmes.

Final Thoughts

Never be afraid to reach, but remember that Role-Playing is supposed to be fun for everyone. Its a colaberitive art form, and you get to be a part of the epic storytelling you and your friends can dream up. Role-Playing is about telling a story and sharing in a “choose-your-own-adventure” story where you and your friends get to be the kick-ass heroes that save the day! Your imagination is your only limit, and with a little tender loving care, even Scrouge can expand his thinking and imagine greater!

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S1E0 – The Quest: What is LARP

Published on by Jeff

Series:  1 – Episode: 0 – What is LARP

Show Notes

We would like to welcome you all our “pilot episode” of the The Quest. In this episode you will note that we called it “The Quest: Advancing Live-Action Role-Playing”; following this first episode we have decided to expand beyond just LARP and into all Role-Playing, including LARP, Table-Top, CosPlay, and anything else RP related.

What is LARP

LARP, first and foremost, is an acronym for Live Action Role-Play. Urban dictionary has 6 possible definitions ranging from “the closest internet addicts get to reality” to “a type of game where a group of people wear costumes representing a character they create to participate in an agreed fantasy world.”

But really, it can be boiled down to being a fancy name for playing pretend.

LARP’s grow out of a shared desire to experience fantasy storytelling in a physical way and is rooted in the games of “make-believe” we used to play as children. Its a way to act out play-fighting and costume parties in an improvised theater type of environment.

The history of LARP is a contentious one, but it dates back as far as 1976. Most people think of LARP’s as a place for a handful of nerds to get together and pretend to be wizards, but some major events in Europe have as many as 7000 players annually.

LARPers, or people that LARP, can range from your stereotypical basement dwelling Nerd to highly successful business persons, lawyers, doctors and even jock professionals like Firefighters and Marines. In the modern age of “Sheek Geek”, it has become not only acceptable to openly enjoy the things that interest you, but the geek sub-culture has become so pervasive that things like LARPing are becoming almost “cool”.

There are a number of types of LARP that use a wide variety of rules. Everything from “Storyteller” games like Minds Eye that resolve character interactions through Role-Playing descriptions or simple tests like Die-Rolling or Rock, Paper, Scissors, to groups like the Society for Creative Anachronism that is more of a reenactment group than a LARP.

Many of the most popular LARPs are what are called “Boffer LARPs”. These groups use custom made padded or Latex weapons and simulated combat, often alongside creative and collaborative storytelling. LARPs span all genre of fantasy including Medieval and Sci-Fi but by far, the most common tends to be European Medieval Fantasy.

LARPing has been portrayed in several films like the documentary’s Darkon and Monster Camp as well as feature films like Role Models, Little Brother, The Wild Hunt, and the up-comming Knights of Badassdom. While these films may not always portray Live Action Role-Playing in the most positive of lights, they do often show the social stigma of LARPing.

Despite the often ostracized nature of LARPing, it is a way for people to express their shared love of interactive, improvised fantasy storytelling with one another. It is a social escape, not that dissimilar to going out and getting drunk…only probably won’t find yourself hugging the toilet with a killer headache the morning after a LARP event.

Types of LARP

Some quick topics about LARP types can be found here:

Boffer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam_weapon

Storyteller: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind’s_Eye_Theatre

Battle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagorhir

Places to Get Garb

Museum Replicas: http://www.museumreplicas.com/

The RenStore: http://stores.renstore.com/StoreFront.bok

eBay: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l2632.R2.TR2.TRC1.A0.XLARP+C.TRS0&_nkw=larp+costume&_sacat=163147&_from=R40

Final Thoughts

This is our very first show and we know we have a long way to go. We hope you enjoyed the show and we hope to be able to bring you more very soon.  Please bear in mind that this show was unscripted and we know it didn’t really cover anything substantial. Our future shows will be MUCH better organized!

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