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RPG Blog Carnival: Teaching the Game…

August 9, 2010 in Articles by Fitz | 2 comments

Welcome back!

In 1982, when I was just starting the 7th grade, I met up with a group of people who were playing Dungeons and Dragons. We played a lot over the next few years. And there were few boundaries.

We took on Tiamat, the Queen of Dragons, and killed her just to take her loot. Yes, so we might have been a bit bloodthirsty and the mighty haul was enough to keep us entertained. Perhaps it’s the bifocals I wear now as an adult, but I look back fondly on those days.

But here’s the thing. Nobody taught us how to play. We just kind of… figured it out as we went along. We were all bright, curious pre-teen and teenagers. Our parents allowed us (in a time when such a thing as D&D was linked to devil worship and suicide) the freedom to explore the boundaries of our imaginations. I don’t think we ever found them, but damn if we didn’t try.

Now I’m much older and have two little girls. They’re cute and bright and love playing games. The night that I dug out my old Dungeon! board game to play with them and my wife, I think I opened up a door to a new world. My style of parenting is a bit more open than many other parents I know. I will sit and watch movies like Shaun of the Dead, Wanted, and Legend with them even though it’s a few years off that they’ll even come close to PG-13. So when we go through and gather treasure and kill monsters in Dungeon!, we’re still pushing barriers and expanding their imaginations…

I have no idea how I’m going to get them playing roleplaying games. But you know what? I’m dying to try. My youngest is starting kindergarten this year and will be reading soon… My eldest is entering 4th grade and reading at a 6th or 7th grade level already – so they’re both going to be quick learners I think.

The thing is… Should I introduce them to roleplaying? Or do I let them learn on their own? Will I pass along my own prejudices for particular rules systems and settings? Will they get stuck in certain ruts as I do in particular roles sometimes? What’s the downside?

The upside of course is… I know what they’re playing. I can answer questions as they come up. And I get to play along with them. Ultimately I’m just a big kid. I know this. My wife knows this. We’ve all accepted it.

So I guess to heck with it… Soon we’ll be having family game nights that won’t involve Chutes & Ladders or Candyland… Maybe the girls will see it in their hearts to dare attack Tiamat’s lair!?

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Dungeon Dressing – What’s a dungeon anyway?

December 28, 2009 in Advice, GMing, Inspiration by Fitz | No comments

When you see the term “Dungeon” – what comes to mind? I typically think of a few different things…

  1. The great TSR gaming magazine published for from 1986 to 2007.
  2. A board game published in 1975 by TSR to simulate some aspects of Dungeons & Dragons.
  3. A place where people were imprisoned or tortured.
  4. A series of connected rooms containing possible encounters or combat opportunities.
  5. A power metal/thrash band from Sydney, Australia from 1989 to 2005.

Though I still have a few issues of Dungeon magazine squirreled away in boxes and a copy of Dungeon! the board game, I can truthfully say I’ve never heard any music from Dungeon the thrash band. That said, let’s focus on #4 because we can kind of roll #3 into it.

We often encounter dungeons when we play roleplaying games. Adventures like the Temple of Elemental Evil come to mind when I think of dungeons and dungeon crawls where you enter with your friends and try to survive as many levels and encounters as possible to escape with your loot.

But if you look at the general description, a dungeon in gaming terms is just a bunch of rooms connected by corridors. That could describe just about anything, couldn’t it?

A while back, Johnn Four raised the concept of “5 Room Dungeons”, which are awesome. Just enough space to create a unique situation for a group of players. But what I loved was that they weren’t all underground in medieval settings. Sure, some were. But mixed in were temples, swamps, islands, and other locations that didn’t have to be underground. What a concept! (You can download many of the 5 Room Dungeons at Johnn’s Roleplaying Tips site.)

So we know about dungeons in the medieval sense. Usually these were sets of rooms that existed under existing castles, keeps, or other buildings to house criminals, political prisoners, torture devices, and so on.

What about other places? Why can’t a modern building be a dungeon? Think about a modern hospital. Aren’t the floors in a hospital designed in a manner similar to different dungeon levels?

What about…

  • Spaceships or naval vessels?
  • Laboratories?
  • Office buildings?
  • Cave systems used by freedom fighters or terrorists?

Aren’t they all dungeons of a sort? Multiple rooms connected by corridors. Each room may or may not have “stuff” in it. Each room may or may not have guardians or traps.

So as we go through some other topics in this series, keep in mind that dungeons don’t have to be in fantasy settings or historically-based adventures. A dungeon can be any set of rooms connected by corridors.

Think about that the next time you walk through your house, your school, or your office building.

Next time we’ll talk about doors and what you can do with them in various settings.

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Player-Character Bonds… How do YOU find an emotional bond with your character?

September 29, 2009 in Advice, Seeking Feedback by Fitz | 7 comments

Funny little story…

This past weekend, the gaming group I’ve been playing with decided it was time to put the sandbox campaign we’d been playing on hold and start something new in November. At the heart of the decision was the fact that the campaign just never “clicked” for everybody involved (two players and the GM). And I have to say that some of that lack of “clicking” was definitely my own problem.

Question MarksThe issue was that I just never bonded with the character. Whether it was my understanding of the setting, or the background I’d chosen, or some other hidden factor, I really don’t know. But the emotional bond just wasn’t there.

What was funny to me was that the GM had created a story early in the campaign that I really attached myself to. My emotional bond was to that story – not to my character or the world – but this small thread that even the GM mentioned he had no idea what he was going to do with.

For the next campaign with this group, I not only have to find a solid character concept that works in a party setting – but I really have to focus on finding an emotional bond with the character. Without that connection, I might as well be simply playing a board game and moving a piece around on a game board.

So here’s my question… What are the different ways YOU find to bond with a character? If you don’t find that bond immediately, what do you do? I’m curious and would love to learn from the collective wisdom of the community. :)

–Fitz

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