The Appropriate Amount of Time

For the longest time, our little group of role players suffered from severe short attention spans.  Quickly distracted by shiny stuff, spending more time on YouTube than on the game, and setting ourselves up for failure every week.  We'd build characters, start a campaign - sometimes from module, sometimes off the cuff - and it would barely last a month before we were itching to give it up and try something else.  This was by no fault of the storytellers or the players, but rather this strange unspoken consent.  Nothing felt right.  It was very much like flipping through your Netflix queue and not being able to find anything to watch, trying a pilot episode of something new, and deciding "nah" and moving on before really giving it a fighting chance to prove itself to you.

So then along comes our current campaign - Star Wars: Dawn of Defiance.  It's big, it's Star Wars, and it's going to carry characters from level 1 to the cap at level 20 - which is a pretty bold statement considering we haven't leveled anything in any game for the past few years.  Lo and behold, it's a huge success.  I've not seen this kind of teamwork out of my players in a long while.  14 levels of advancement through waves of story and adventure means players can become emotionally invested with their characters, develop quirks with other player's characters, and grow from a mere mercenary-style annoyance to the Galactic Empire to becoming an honest-to-goodness powerful Rebellion Army.  We have paved our way through the galaxy, gaining renown and glory, making it through 7 out of 10 books in the campaign module, and we are rounding the corner towards the third and final chapter in this big, epic trilogy.  There's just one tiny, ever so problematic little thing wrong...

Yeah, I'm gettin' bout sick of this genre, buddy-boy!

We're over a year into this campaign, and I'm starting to reach this point where, even though there's more to do, and we're so near the end of the story, I kinda want to move on to something else.  Those D&D 5th Edition books are calling out to me, and Hoard of the Dragon Queen looks like it'll be amazing.  Not to mention switching from science fiction to high fantasy will be like a refreshing glass of Hell-Yeah Ice Water.  Let me put it like this: imagine if you were only allowed to watch one television show, ever, for years.  Just the one.  Even if you picked a really cool one - it's still just the one, in that one genre you picked, with that same batch of characters, in that same world, week after week, as other shows came and went.  I'm not saying I dislike the game - far from it.  But at what point do you stop, take a step back, and say "okay, television shows get to take a season off, and maybe it's for this very reason."  I think it's time for a break, but I have two fears with this.  Fear One: we'll switch games but fall back into old bad habits, which believe me no one wants.  It's the less likely of the two, but experience forces me to consider this as a possibility.  Fear Two: we'll stick with this game to finish it, but a lack of enthusiasm will make for rushed story and half-assed game sessions resulting in a less-than-spectacular ending.  Oh I think we all know what that feels like...

You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

I'll let you know what we decide.  So tell me how YOUR group handles campaigns that feel like they're starting to slow down or have maybe stretched on past their expiration dates.  How often does your group change games or genres?  And how does it feel to go back to complete a campaign after taking an extended break in a different game?  Comment - subscribe - all that...

The Critical Fail

Everyone gasp in horror.  Players, sigh in dread at the GM's delight.  For you have rolled a Natural-One - and something prolifically stupid is about to happen.  In the past, I've seen everything from player characters "accidentally" shooting or stabbing themselves and each other, to spells and bombs blowing up in our faces, and more than once has it resulted in the death of a character.  Also more than once has it resulted in arguments, frustration, dice flying in the air...

You're telling me my level 8 fighter, who's trained and experienced and has wielded a sword since he was a kid, somehow 'goofed up' and stabbed himself in his own leg?  How does one even do that?!  John McClane never accidentally shot himself.  Luke Skywalker probably should have run his lightsaber through a limb or two, but he managed to avoid self injury.  No one in Lord of the Rings ever swung a sword, missed, and chopped off their own heads.  So you're telling me the best we got when I roll a critical failure is I've stabbed myself and now I'm bleeding to death?

There had to be a better way - a solution that was less likely to cause players to want to cheat, felt more in-game and less like a punishment.  While watching Star Wars Episode III (don't judge...), during the dramatic lightsaber duel at the end when the bridge collapsed and the tower fell, I thought, "Huh.  Someone rolled a 1." - and that's when it hit me.  A new concept that would later become a house rule and forever change our gaming group's view of the Natural-One / Critical Failure.  No longer would anyone dread the failure, fearing their character was about to act completely out-of-character and do something monumentally stupid.  I give you THE ENVIRONMENT CHANGE.

Maybe we should get down first?  No?  Yeah, let's just keep going.

The house rule is simple, and I encourage you to try it yourself at your next campaign.  When someone rolls a natural-one on the D20 (or whatever the equivalent of a critical failure is in the system you're playing), something dramatically changes in the environment to make things more difficult.  It effects everyone, and increases the challenge just a little bit, but that's usually enough to make the players pause and re-think their strategy.  Maybe your arrow triggered a rock slide, and now some people are stuck while the area is "difficult terrain".  Maybe your wild shot ruptured the water tank, and now everything is flooding.  Maybe the bridge is crumbling and about to fall.  Maybe your sword shattered a lantern and started a fire, and it's quickly spreading.  Make it dramatic, make it feel like that cinematic moment when the heroes go from the frying pan into the fire, get creative.  It makes victory feel so much more rewarding. 

Just don't go overboard.

I welcome your comments below.  If you try this technique, let me know how it goes and what your players thought of it.  If you have your own methods for dealing with the critical failure, let me know that too.

The Guest GM

Over the past year or so, my little Friday Night Gaming Group has been locked in ferocious combat against the overwhelming forces of the evil Empire in "Star Wars: Saga Edition - Dawn of Defiance".  For those who don't know, Dawn of Defiance is one of only a handful of adventures released for the Saga Edition game set before WotC sold the rights off to the folks at Fantasy Flight Games.  Since I didn't have those books at the time, but I did have the full library of Saga Edition games, I went with that.  Really there was no other reason.  And I know Saga Edition gets a bad rep for poor mechanics, unbalanced combat, and ridiculously overpowered d20 characters - we still manage to make it work.  It's all in the storytelling, and Dawn of Defiance does not disappoint in that regard.  Every element you love of Star Wars exists in this lengthy 10-book-long campaign designed to carry your players from level 1 all the way to level 20!  Space battles, lightsaber duels, infiltrating a Hutt palace, visiting a Jedi temple, it's all in there.  They wanted to build something that encompassed as much of the Star Wars experience as possible, and I have to say they succeeded like none other, and none since.

This moment totally happened in our game, too!

We're not done.  Like the movies, Dawn of Defiance is broken up into 3 main parts, and we're just about to embark on the third and final chapter in our saga.  But before we moved on, an interesting concept was brought to my attention while watching the Star Wars cartoon - because yes, I do still watch cartoons, that really shouldn't surprise you by now.  Anyway, I noticed that while the entire season might have a specific goal or overall story, they made room for episodes that allowed everyone to really get familiar with the backgrounds and motivations of a single character.  What a neat idea!  We could do that.  Have a series of short mini-adventures, that may only last a day or two, that allowed us to get to know everyone else's characters a bit more.  Rather than put that burden on me, as my attention was focused on the bigger picture, I thought - who knows the player's characters better than the players?

Hell, I can't even remember your character's name half the time...

Getting the players involved at this level, letting them create their own mini-adventure to really play out their backgrounds, letting us get to know their motivations and quirks, has been a great experience.  Several players got an opportunity to be the Game Master for the first time ever.  Others used it as a chance to inject a little of their own unique imaginations into the world.  It made the universe bigger, and it allowed for a level of character growth I don't often get to see in a campaign.  I know it's not easy for a GM to give up his throne, let alone his world, to the destructive and often malicious minds of the players.  But I for one recommend it, especially if you're into the whole "character development" thing.  Players just be sure to run your entire mini-adventure story past your GM first, so there's no conflict between what you want to do and the bigger campaign storyline.

"So my character's background is like this..."    No.  Just, no.

Returning To The Pen

I feel I owe you all an apology for being gone for so long.  Life happened.  That's all the excuse I can offer that doesn't make me sound like I'd abandoned my writing like a neglectful parent abandoning his kid in a car seat... for years...  But now that I'm back at the keyboard, my fingers shuffling along at a moderate yet familiar pace, I'm hoping muscle memory will return my creativity to its former glory, newly expanded by life's experiences.

"...damn"

I know getting back on the cliched bicycle won't be easy, but if it were easy we'd all be best sellers.  My new writing schedule begins this week, and has me diligently working on new literary pieces of fiction that will hopefully allow me to regain some trust with my fans - because there's not many of you and I love you all please don't leave me - along with new blog entries every Monday to let you know how my game is going.  That's right, we still game.  Every week.

"Vin Diesel still plays D&D, your argument is invalid."

What exactly am I working on?  You mean aside from a certain fiery redhead that people have been asking for?  Oh it's way too early for me to say.  I just wanted to let you all know that I'm back, in earnest, with my heart set on sharing my stories and a mug of coffee at the ready.

A huge thank you to everyone who picked up a copy of my book.  Your responses were overwhelming and continue to surprise me and humble me.  70+ reviews on Amazon (as of today) for an unknown first-time self-published author?  That's unheard of!  You're all awesome, and you've inspired me to get back to the keyboard and finish what I started.  I look forward to sharing my next adventure with you!