søndag den 29. november 2015

LAN in Dalmose

As I've mentioned before, we are working on setting up a LAN in our local community of Dalmose in western Zealand in Denmark. I've already posted various ideas, but this post will include addresses, dates, and further information. Note that all of this has not been 100% decided yet, so everything is subject to change.

What is it?
In 2016 our local community will be hosting 2 official LANs. LAN stands for Local Area Network, and refers to connecting multiple computers together in order to play the same game, at the same time, together or against each other. Instead of sitting at home playing over the internet, we're gathering people at our local community for a weekend to sit in the same space and play together or against each other.

LANs have evolved to include more than just computer games. There are sleep overs, breakfast, booths where you can buy electronics, and competitions where you can win prizes. We have Souless-Gamer running our LAN, and they are organizing three competitions: Counter Strike, League of Legends, and Hearthstone. They are also trying to recruit the Copenhagen Wolves Counter Strike team.


When is it?
We'll be hosting 2 LAN parties. The first one will May 27-29 and the second one will be November 4-6. The first one will be a start-up event to give us some experience since it's the first time we'll be hosting it. Souless-Gamer has some experience with it, and we're hoping to learn a lot at this event. We've set the limit to 100 people, but are expecting less than 50 to sign up. The LAN in November will be our first real LAN where we're hoping to attract over 100 people.

The LAN parties will run from friday afternoon (around 17:00 or something), until sunday noon (12:00). The reason we picked the two dates is because I'm expecting the LAN in November to coincide with Extra-Life and we might host some Extra-Life event. The party in May is set exactly 6 months before to give us some warming up and experience.

Where is it?
 Both LANs will be held at our athletics hall in Dalmose called Dalmosehallen. The address is Stationsvej 53, 4261 Dalmose, Denmark. It is located between the cities of Slagelse, Næstved, Korsør, and Skælskør in western Zealand in Denmark.

What makes this different from other LANs? 
The first LAN in May will be a standard LAN to give us some experience, but the LAN set up for November will include several unique features not available at other LANs in Denmark. This will include Magic the Gathering, Warhammer 40k, and Dungeons and Dragons tabletop roleplaying game. Magic and Warhammer will have competitions, and I'll be running the D&D event. I still haven't decided how to run it or if we're even going to make it competitive like the rest of the events at the LAN party. I did come up with an idea to make it competitive, which you can read about in the previous post. Hopefully this will attract more attention to our LAN and give our local community the attention it deserves.


In the middle of February I'll attend another LAN setup by Souless-Gamer and I will definitely review it here. Next week, however, I'll write a little about christmas calendars, especially those related to tabletop roleplaying games. If you have any ideas on articles that we should write about, let us know on our Facebook page, or leave a comment.

lørdag den 21. november 2015

Competitive Tabletop Roleplaying Game

This week I had a meeting with my local community about setting up two LANs at the athletic hall in 2016. The first one will be set up at the end of spring and will focus only on computer games and will be a sort of initiation for most involved. The second one will be set at the beginning of November, around Extra-Life, and will include Warhammer 40k, Magic the Gathering, and Dungeons and Dragons. We'll have competitions for Counter Strike, League of Legends, Hearthstone, Warhammer, and Magic, and I therefore started to think about how to make D&D competitive.

I've surfed the internet a bit, and there are TRPGs that are competitive. There are also a variety of suggestions on how to make D&D competitive, but nothing that I have found would work. I have come up with my own suggestion, which is a first draft and definitely will need more work.



Setup
The game will require two dungeonmasters and a headmaster. There will be two teams of players ranging from 4 to 6 players. Each team will be given a dungeonmaster who will serve as the judge for that specific team. The two teams will then compete against each other.

The rules will be D&D 5e, and the players will have to use either premade characters or create their own characters before the competition following the rules set down by the dungeonmasters and the headmaster. These rules will most likely be similar to the Adventurer's League set down by Wizards of the Coast. The two teams will play in each their own nation, which are two identical nations created by the gamemasters. The adventure itself, NPCs, etc will also be created beforehand by the gamemasters.

The goal will be for the team to ensure that their nation wins the war against the opposing nation, which is done by completing a variety of tasks based on the three core values of D&D: combat, social, and exploration. Each task will take 3½-4 hours after which the party may look at the back of their quest card to see the consequences of their choices, in case they succeed at their task within the allotted time. It is the DMs responsibility to help the players complete the task within the time while still enforcing the rules. There will be 3-6 tasks, depending on the length of the competition, meaning that the competition will range from 12 to 24 hours.

Setup - Example
Two teams of 5 players each sit down with a dungeonmaster each. A headmaster is present but currently not necessary. Each player is given a premade character created by the gamemasters, which have created a mortal nation of humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings opposing an elemental nation with air, earth, fire, water, genasi, and arcane spellcasters. The gamemasters have created an assortment of quests and corresponding questcards with consequences described on the back (or a blank space where the headmaster can write down the consequences). The gamemasters have creatd enough for a 24 hour game consisting of 5 tasks and a potential deathmatch at the end. 



Start
When the players have created their characters and the gamemasters have setup the game, each party will begin with a 30 minute introduction where the characters are summoned to a war council where the leaders of their nation will explain them the situation and what choices they and their opponents have. They can't explain the consequences of their choices because they don't know what the opponents are going to do, or whether or not the players will succeed in their task. The three available quests will cover combat, social, and exploration.

Start - Example

The mortal players are gathered at a council meeting in the city of Aspenta where the leaders explain that an elemental force is attacking the continent through magical portals. The players are given three choices: either go to the front line and help close these portals (combat), investigate strange reports of corruption within the human nobility (social), or travel east to gather the sylvan creatures and druids of the Jungle of Asia (exploration). They are warned that the enemy team, who is playing elementals, are also given three choices: to force their way through the portals to create a beachhead (combat), to magically infiltrate the human nation (social), or to send scouts east to the jungle to look for potential future targets.

Let's say that the mortal team chooses to reinforce the portals, while the elemental team chooses to magically infiltrate the human nation. They don't know what each other have chosen or are playing, but the dungeonmasters inform the headmaster so that he knows and can prepare the consequences of the quests. Each party is given a questcard with a description of what they are supposed to do, and each team plays 3½-4 hours to try and complete their task.



Consequences
Using the three core aspects of D&D gives a rock-paper-scissors type of game mixed with D&D rules. It is possible to create five aspects, or even simply use the three aspects and give each party 5 choices. It is also possible to give players multiple choices under each category, all of which are key aspects of TRPGs. The players will have to succeed at their quests in order to gain the potential benefits.

Consequences - Example
Let's say both teams succeed in their quests.

The mortal team players 2 combat encounters where they fight their way through a battlefield past a number of elementals to reach the portal, and then spend 40 minutes at a skill challenge with the some party members protecting the spellcasters. Within 3 hours and 50 minutes, the party succeeds and the portal is closed.

Meanwhile, the elemental team ends up playing a covert game where they use skills and magic to infiltrate a human city and its nobility. They end up with one combat encounter against a number of guards that they quietly kill and cover up their deaths before they succeed at using magic to get the local lord on their side. They use this advantage to get half the mortal army to desert from attacking the portals.

The headmaster had, beforehand, decided that combat wins over exploration which wins over social which wins over combat. When the dungeonmasters give the headmaster the results of the game, he writes on the back of the questcards the consequences of the games. The mortal team is informed that even though they closed one of the portals, half the army deserted due to internal corruption, and thus the elementals succeed at forming a beachhead elsewhere on the continent. The elemental team is informed that the mortals focus on the front line, meaning that their infiltration tactic is successful and half the mortal armies desert, leaving the continent vulnerable for invasion. The elemental team is now in the lead with 1-0.



The psychological effect
In the next couple of games, the parties learn what type of party they are up against. They slowly learn about their composition, strengths and weaknesses, but most importantly, they learn about their choices. A psychological effect is incorporated where each party needs to outwit the other party.

Psychological Example
At the first two tasks, the mortal team tries to fight back against the elemental team, which is simply outwitting the mortals, and thus winning 2-0. With the information gathered, the mortal team now understands that the elementals are outwitting them, and thus they decide that frontal assaults aren't working.

As a second choice (just for info) the mortal team chose to go to the Monastery of Aspenta to have the knights there set up an inquisition to ensure that the elementals couldn't corrupt more nobles, and any nobles already corrupt would be dealt with (social choice). The elementals chose to travel to the Great Bay. Now that they had the human nobles under their influence and a beachhead on the continent, they decided to search for the best location in the bay for their next plan. After a short underwater adventure, the party summoned a volcano that caused a tsunami that destroyed the elven lands of Aiania, which is why the elemental team is now winning 2-0.

As a third choice, the mortal team gets the following three choices:  Travel to the ruined elven lands and fight the elementals storming the shores from the Great Bay (combat), travel to the dwarven mountains of Berun to gathere the aid of a dracolich in the Underdark (social), or travel east to gather the aid of the halfling druids in the Jungles of Asia, which is the same choice as in the beginning of the competition (exploration). They learn that the elemental team's choices are: Using portals and volcanoes turn the rivers of the continent into lava and lead the elemental armies into the humans lands following these rivers (combat), gather the air elementals, genasi, and spellcasters to cause a rain of salt over the continent to starve out the mortal races (social), travel east while the armies invade the west and prepare a beachhead on the shores of the jungle (exploration).

The mortal races know that the elementals are outwitting the party, so they won't push along the rivers of lava. They also know that they usually stay away from the jungle and think more large scale. They guess that the elementals will start a rain of salt, that can only be countered by the halfling druids of Asia. After the game, the mortal team is informed that their guess was correct, and they are now only losing by one point 2-1.



Draw
It is possible for each team to choose the same type, in which case the result would end in a draw.

Draw - Example
As a fourth choice, the mortal team gets to choose between attack the firelands that have erupted in the human lands (combat), gather the Five Companions who rule over the skyship army of Ur'Lah in the south (social), or travel into the Dungeons of Berun to gather magical items and artefacts to help them against the elementals. The elemental team gets to choose between attack the Jungles of Asia with the use of air magic to counter the druids present there (combat), or travel south to Ur'Lah to destroy the Five Companions who have gathered an army of skyships (social), or gather the wizards to have meteorites appear in the sky causing darkness and destroying the Arterian Citadel with a meteor storm (exploration).

Both parties choose to travel south to Ur'Lah and each end up both helping and defeating the skyships. In the end, the elementals haven't done a significant blow to the Five Companions, only destroying half of them, while the mortals end up with only half an army of skyships. The competition still stands at 2-1 to the favor of the elementals.


 
If a team fails
If a team fails at one of their tasks, then it doesn't necessarily mean that they lose. If the opposing team also fails, or chooses a task that specifically means that they would normally have failed, it ends in a draw. If a team fails, however, a draw results in a victory for the succeeding team.

Failure - Example
Near the end of the war, the mortal team decides to attack the elemental forces over the Great Bay (combat). The elemental team is tired of outwitting the mortal, especially since the mortals seem to have guessed their tactic. The elemental team therefore decides to assemble an army at the volcano in the Great Bay and attack the remaining skyship army. Both parties end up playing a number of combat encounters, but the elemental team doesn't finish all the combat encounters before the end of the 4 hours, even though the DM tried several times to quicken the combat and plans.

If both parties had completed their task, it would have ended in a draw, and since the last part of the competition is a potential deathmatch, the elementals would have won 2-1. Since the elemental team took too long planning their attack and executing it (probably cause it's getting late), then what would have been a draw has ended up being a victory for the mortal team, setting the competition to a 2-2 draw and initiating the deathmatch.


Deathmatch
The deathmatch is an arena fight between the two parties. It is a pure fight where the party gets to use any resources they have gathered throughout the competition. It is set in a location created by the gamemasters beforehand and only comes into play if the competition ends in a draw. The deathmatch continues until one party has been defeated.

Deathmatch - Example
With the mortal team having won the Battle of the Great Bay, they now force their way on to the volcano. The elemental team was defeated by the skyships and were forced to retreat back to the volcano. On the volcano that the elementals summoned, a great battle between the mortal races and the elementals take place, and the two parties end up facing each other.

During the deathmatch, most players perish, except for one of the mortal characters, who successfully defeats the fire genasi and thus wins the competition for his team.



Next week I'll be writing some more about our LAN project, which will be combining tabletop roleplaying games with tabletop miniature wargames, card games, and computer games. This article was only one example of how to combine all of it. If you have any ideas on articles that we should write about, let us know on our Facebook page, or leave a comment.

søndag den 15. november 2015

Warhammer 40k

I've been looking at playing some Warhammer 40k tabletop roleplaying game, more specifically Deathwatch. Because of my lack of knowledge on the Warhammer 40k universe, we have decided that I should be a player. Still, I have made a few thoughts about what kind of game I would run if I was the gamemaster.


What is Deathwatch?
First of all, to those who don't know it, Fantasy Flight has created a tabletop roleplaying game based on the Warhammer 40k universe, which initially is a tabletop miniature wargame. It is set in a dystopian science-fantasy setting. It is called 40k because it is set in the 41st millenium, 38.000 years in the future. In this future, the space marines are genetically engineered superhuman soldiers. Space marines are divided up into "chapters" of 1.000 soldiers, and some of these are specifically trained to join the Deathwatch, a group of elite space marines that are made up of various chapters. In the tabletop roleplaying game, the players take on the role of the space marines that make up a squad in Deathwatch. The players are then sent out on special missions and play through their character's service in Deathwatch.


Adventure 1: A Growing Shadow
If I was the gamemaster to such a game, I would create a number of adventures, but due to my lack of knowledge on the Warhammer 40k universe, many players might not recognize Warhammer in the games that I would host. My first adventure would be an invasion game where the players are given any and all resources they desired to invade a planet from a bug-like alien species (I would probably use the Tyranid). The invasion game would be short, especially with all the resources given to the players, but as soon as they go for their exit, they discover that their way off the planet has been sabotaged. Investigating this mysterious turn of events reveal that the people that Deathwatch has been invading the planet for, has been corrupted by more powerful entities (I would probably use Daemons).

The players would now need to find their own way off a hostile planet where all (or the majority of) their resources have been taken away. Creative players would come up with a plan, which I would reward by making possible. Most players would probably try to find a ship, in which case I would either let them steal one, or find a rogue trader that can help them. If the players can't think of anything themselves, I'd send them to the leader of the invasion forces, which hasn't been corrupted yet (not until the players reach him).

If the players go speak with the leader of the invasion forces, they would discover that he too just recently has been corrupted, and they would have to defeat him (he would be the boss fight of this game). Defeating him would lead to a rogue trader that can help them recover a special ancient ship. The players could also skip the boss fight and go directly for the rogue trader or even steal their own ship. Eventually, they should get off the planet, which would mark the end of the adventure, and give the players their own ship that they could use in future adventures.


Adventure 2: Brothers in Arms
Players are playing Deathwatch characters, and their mission in this campaign would be to invade this specific world. Once that is complete, their services to Deathwatch would be over. With the daemons corrupting the invaders, the players would have to defeat the daemons before they would be able to invade the planet. With their own ship at their disposal, they can now travel throughout the galaxy to find the leader of the daemon forces and a means to defeat it. This means that once the party has left the planet, they would have a choice between three adventures.

Their first choice would be to gather more space marines from one of their chapters to aid them. As they arrive to the chapter's home world, they discover that the daemon's influence is much more widespread than just the one planet they were supposed to invade. They are launched into a space battle. If the players aren't into space battles, this part can be skipped. The players then discover than an orbital platform has been captured and sabotaged. It is being steered towards the planet and if it crashes it would cause massive destruction. The players are sent on to the platform to secure it before it crashes. This will save their chapter's headquarters, and earn their favour, which the players will need in the end when they attack the daemon infested planet. I might add more to this adventure, but that is my initial plan.




Adventure 3: Last Stand
Another choice would involve returning to the deathwatch headquarters (is there such a place?) only to discover that it has been completely invaded by the daemon's influence. The players will be allowed to join their brethren on the surface for one last stand. They don't stand a chance, but that is alright, because the Deathwatch plan to lure as many of the daemon's forces to the planet and then destroy the planet. If everything goes according to plan, the planet that the party is supposed to invade will become the Deathwatch's new headquarters.

First the players are set to protect one specific place on the planet. During this last stand, the players will be sent out to destroy certain compounds that serve as planetary defenses. Once the defenses are down, the party will be able to enter more ancient parts of the planet in order to activate some kind of ancient device that will cause the planet to explode. They will have to protect this device until it explodes, effectively giving up their lives, or they will fail. If they succeed, they will be saved at the last minute. If they fail, the daemons will have access to information and devices that would make the final invasion incredibly difficult.


Adventure 4: Forbidden Weapon
The third and last choice the players would have would be to go to a planet in search of an ancient device that can be used as a powerful weapon against the daemons. This is a more peaceful mission where the party finds themselves on a mysterious planet. They will end up in mysterious vaults and dungeons, only to have to fight their way through traps and sentries in order to recover this forbidden weapon that has been hidden away. Maybe I could use this weapon as a plot twist somehow. This adventure would require more details, but this is basically it.


Adventure 5: Into the Rift
Once the party has gone through all three missions, they will have to track down the leader of the daemon. They will have gathered an ancient device from their homeworld, which they can use to track the daemon. This leads them into a mysterious anomaly (I'm sure there's something like this in the universe. Something to do with Chaos probably. I would have to look into it). Within the anomaly they discover a mysterious alien daemon base or something, which they need to infiltrate, blow their way in, and get into the heart of it to defeat the leader of the daemon.


Conclusion
This is as far as my thoughts has gone. I would probably create a sixth adventure where the players would have to return to the initial planet and invade it again, removing the remaining daemons there. I would have to read up a lot on daemons, or use another race. Doesn't really matter since we're not playing this game, but this is what I would create if it was me, and my first step would be to read up on Tyranids and Daemons and create the first adventure.

As a player, I'll probably play a Storm Warden Techmarine inspired by my previous Deathwatch character, maybe I'll even try to copy it. I'm definitely looking forward to playing Deathwatch again, with yet another gamemaster that has the lore under control.


Next week I'll be writing about our plans for combining tabletop roleplaying games with tabletop miniature wargames, card games, and computer games. All of this is being done officially in the western part of Zealand in Denmark, and I'm hoping to have it up and running in the autumn of 2016. Read more about it next week. If you have any stories or ideas on articles that we should write about, let us know on our Facebook page, or leave a comment.

søndag den 8. november 2015

Extra-Life 2015

This weekend we streamed 24 hours of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.

We assembled 913.52 USD putting os on the 29th highest donations on the D&D team. The D&D team gathered 98,291.29 USD, placing us on the 5th largest group to gather money for Extra-Life. We thank all of our participants, donators, and sponsors for your contribution, which has gone directly to the Children's Hospital at Providence in Anchorage, Alaska.






The Game
The game was a modified version of the Princes of the Apocalypse premade adventure by Wizards of the Coast. It was modified so that it consisted of small 4 hour adventures that were placed in my homebrew world of Aresia. This meant that viewers could log on to our twitch streams and follow the stories at 4 hour increments. Every 4 hours we had a 15 minutes break followed by giveaways that were sponsored by Farao's Cigarer, Færge's Kælder, and Dreamstone.
The first adventure we played was "Trouble in Winterhaven" where the party explored rumours about monsters present in an abandoned hut outside the village of Winterhaven. They only discovered a nest of stirges. They were also sent to clear out the Alune Lair outside of town, which was infested with zombies. They cleared out 3 rooms before we ended the adventure abruptly, saying that the characters simply cleared out the rest of the zombie lair.

The second adventure was the "Tomb of Moving Stones" where the party experienced an earthquake that created a sinkhole. They discovered a mysterious dwarven tomb in the sinkhole, that the leaders of Winterhaven knew about. They didn't want the part to investigate the tomb, but in the end they made their way down there anyway. They encountered Larrakh, a mysterious cultist of the Black Earth who tried to recruit the party into the philosophy of the Black Earth. This adventure ended with Larrakh escaping after being attacked and fleeing from Winterhaven.

The third adventure was the "Sacred Stone Citadel". The party travelled to a mysterious fortress in the Cairngorm Hills that housed the cult of the Black Earth. They infiltrated the fortress and captured its leader, a man called Qarbo. Investigating the dungeon beneath the fortress revealed that the cult of the Black Earth hired orogs, ogres, and even used an umber hulk to keep dozens of prisoners working in underground mines. The party freed the prisoners and chased out the cult of the Black Earth, leaving the Sacred Stone Fortress abandoned.

The fourth adventure was "The Sardonyx Knight". The party was called to Rivenroar where they met the Earthwalker Imdarr Relvaunder who tasked the party to retrieve the body of a Sardony Knight called Hamas Bourne. The body was being freighted from Harken in the north to Rivenroar to be interred with honors, but it had never arrived. The party discovered that the group travelling with the body had been ambushed by the cult of the Black Earth. When they returned the body of Hamas Bourne to Imdarr Relvaunder, the Earthwalker revealed himself to be the necromancer who had raised all the zombies at the Alune Lair. He tried to get his vengeance, using Hamas as a newly created zombie, but was slain in the process.

The fifth adventure was the "Lavashield Orcs". A tribe of orcs known as the Lavashield Orcs was coming down from the Zephyra Peaks and raiding the nearby valleys. The party travelled to the valley to protect it and ended up at the Dellmon Ranch where they prepared its defences. The players successfully defended the ranch from the Lavashield Orcs. After the orcs had been defeated, a water elemental sprouted forth from the well in the middle of the ranch and attacked the players, who easily destroyed the monster.

The sixth and final adventure was the "Dangerous Secret". A druid hired the party to travel to the Scarlet Moon Hall in the Cairngorm Hills and infiltrate the druid circle there to discover the secrets of the Rite of the Wicker Giant. Investigating the hill around the hall revealed a group of hell hounds, which drew the attention of fire cultists who summoned a fire elemental. When the fighting erupted, many of the druids in the area didn't know what to make of what was transpiring, but when the elemental went rampant, they fled. After the players defeated the fire elemental, a dragon by the name of Verthicha came forth from Hell through the dying embers of the elemental and eventually brought the party to their final resting place, except for the dwarf Aldric, who avenged his fallen comrades with the help of Kord, the Angel of Strength.
 
 
Donations
We received many donations. Some of these donations were made to influence the game.
$5 was donated for NPCs to “Mention Tabby, the most awesome mercenary EVER!”. This became such a common occurrence that even the players started saying it.

$15 was donated to "include an exciting twist at a key moment in the game, such as a betrayal. This could be an NPC that betrays the players, or an NPC that betrays someone else to the players' benefits." The twist and betrayal was the fact that Imdarr Relvaunder, who was a benign Guinacoia (priest of Lithor, the Angel of Earth) was actually the mysterious necromancer, and that he had sent the party on a quest for an undead that he had hoped would help him have his vengeance upon the party. This NPC was even one that two of the players had gotten to know over the course of a few months.

$25 was donated to give the Dungeon Master a reroll. I wanted to use it to help some of the villains escape, but they all made it away alive without needing to resort to any rerolls, so I never got to benefit from this donation.

$25 was donated "for having one of the bad guys (or an innkeeper) say "I see you are busy reducing the worlds idiot/retard population to just yourselves."" It was mainly the villains who said this to the players, who threw it back in their faces by pointing out that the villains were calling their followers and guards for retards.
 
$25 was donated For the very cheap healer!". This healer was supposed to be a representation of the American healthcare system. When the players were fighting the fire elemental at the Scarlet Moon Hall, they required healing. I sent in a cleric that came to their rescue and started healing them. I pointed out that she was a representation of the American healthcare system, and they immediately started to talk about cost. True enough, the NPC was supposed to bill the party afterwards. I live in a country where we didn't have to think about the hospital bills when our son died. This is why we started supporting Extra-Life, to help out families in the US with potential financial issues of having children at the hospital. This NPC showed that everyone knows how the US operates when it comes to healthcare, and also shows that it should be changed.

$50 was donated "for adding more dwarf specific". As I've mentioned, we changed the Tomb of the Moving Stones into a dwarven tomb and two of the dragonborn prisoners into dwarves to accomodate this donation.

Part of the $90 giveaway (the wooden snake sculpture by Dreamstone) required me to give the party a break at some point during the game. At the Scarlet Moon Hall they drew a lot of attention to themselves when they drew the attention of the hell hounds. This should have drawn the rest of the druids into the fight, and fighting should have erupted all across the hill. I decided to give the party a break and keep the fighting only to the small area where the players were.


$150 was donated to add a special red dragon called Verthicha. I decided that Verthicha would be Drake's, the Angel of Air (and a red dragon), avatar and consort. She came up from Hell after the party defeated the fire elemental, and the money was also donated to show how powerful Verthicha actually is. In the end, she simply breathed fire on the party dealing 90 points of damage to most of them in a single attack.

For every $192 (which is 1,337 DKK) that was gathered, the party gained an "extra-life". In the end they had 4 resurrections, which Drake used to bring back the four players that Verthicha had slain.

The first threshold of $400 meant that the players got to experience elemental weather. They experienced everything from earthquakes (which opened up the Tomb of Moving Stones) to tornadoes, forest fires, and torrents of rain and floods.

The second threshold of $800 meant that the players got to fight an encounter against an elemental. I therefore summoned a water elemental at the Dellmon Ranch for the party to fight.

 
Future Plans 
This was the second year we ran Extra-Life. We gathered more money than last year, but the experience wasn't as rewarding as the first time we did it. I think the first time we ran our Extra-Life game, it was a unique 24 hour live streaming experience, but now it has already become a chore. Gathering sponsors and advertising for the event was something I did this year to change it a bit, but in the end I believe that the work that was put into the event didn't live up to the reward. There just isn't the same incentive for Extra-Life in Denmark as there is in the US. I will therefore definitely not gather sponsors and giveaways next year. I doubt that we'll even run Extra-Life next year.
We will definitely run some kind of unique roleplaying event, but I believe that we will attempt to run a LAN/roleplaying event instead that will advertise for our local community. We're taking this one step at a time so we'll see how it progresses.


The next two projects we have running is our gamemasters game that begins in December, and my own 3.5 adventure that begins in spring/summer of 2016.


I'm not sure what I'll write about next week. I have just run a 24 game, I'm very ill, and I haven't gotten much sleep. I will therefore surprise you. If you have any stories or ideas on articles that we should write about, let us know on our Facebook page, or leave a comment.

søndag den 1. november 2015

World's best Gamemasters

It is always debatable who the world's best gamemaster is, because a lot of it is subjective and comes down to what you, as an individual, like in a gamemaster, and what type of game and what roleplaying game you enjoy.

Chris Perkins 
That said, Chris Perkins probably holds the title of the world's best gamemaster at the moment. This is both because he has a large following due to being the gamemaster for Acquisitions Incorporated, and because he is a game designer for Wizards of the Coast and has released many great games. He even worked on the Star Wars Saga roleplaying game. Amongst professionals he is sometimes referred to as the best, and thus he probably has the most votes. The reason I like him is because of his articles The Dungeon Master Experience.

The Dungeon Master Experience
The Dungeon Master Experience is 106 articles written over a few years. These articles are great because many players and DMs can relate to what Chris writes about. He uses his own games as examples and inspiration, but what makes it truly great is the simple way he explains things that seem hard to overcome and hard for experienced gamemasters to teach others. The way he plays the game is truly enjoyable, and the way he uses the rules and bends them as they should is inspiring.

To take an example, then look at this article. He begins by explaining that he likes to reward players who resort to solving challenges in other ways than hacking their way through it. He shows an example where a player tries to disguise himself as a warforged in order to bypass a challenge without the use of violence. He even explains how he would have rewarded the party if they had continued with their ruse, even if they had rolled a 1. What makes this specific article so great is the fact that Chris explains that the rules are there to be followed, and that DMs shouldn't simply look away from the rules and avoid dice rolls. Instead, they should reward the party in other ways. He bends the rules, letting the players roll a diplomacy check, but ignoring the fact that there should be a lot of insight rolls. As he explains, "Sometimes the rules are more what you'd call "guidelines."", as he quotes Captain Hector Barbossa.

If you want to read more about Chris Perkins, I suggest Powerscore's blog about him.

Monte Cook
My personal favourite gamemaster is Monte Cook. You might know him from D&D 3.5 and Call of Cthulu. He also created World of Darkness and Numenera. The reason I like him is because of his earlier works on Planescape. Planescape is a setting for Dungeons and Dragons created by Zeb Cook, which is similar to Monte's Numenera in that it goes outside the box. You can clearly see Monte's influence on Planescape.

Planescape
There are many campaign settings to chose from when playing any type of roleplaying games. Many gamemasters also create their own settings. All of these are very similar, in my experience, but Planescape is extremely unique. It's a D&D setting that focuses on the otherworldly. You can go to Heaven and Hell, but more than that, you can go to ANY Heaven and Hell. You can go to the Greek version known as Elysium and Tartarus (known as Carceri in the game). You can go to the Norse version known as Yggdrasil or even the Native American afterlife called the Beastlands. To make things even better, he has created a centre for it all, a spire that goes up forever, but at the very top (there's a top even though it goes on forever?) there is a city that lies within a torus that floats above the spire, which is ruled by a being so powerful that she defies even the gods. All of this is only the tip of the iceberg that is the complexity and innovative setting of Planescape.

If you want to read more about Monte Cook, I suggest Powerscore's blog about him.


I'm hoping to write a blog next week about our Extra-Life session. We'll be playing from saturday morning until sunday morning, and hopefully I'll have time sunday to write about it quickly. If you have any stories or ideas on articles (I could try to write Gamemaster Experience articles) that we should write about, let us know on our Facebook page, or leave a comment.