R.W. Krpoun's Blog, page 18

Flipping through the 126 channels of junk I have access to, I came across The Alamo, circa 1960, directed by and starring John Wayne.

I saw this when I was around 6 years old; we went as a family to the drive in theater. We had a huge station wagon, and we had a foam pad my dad would throw on the roof and I (being the youngest at the time) would lay on it and watch from there because being very young I would often get bored and fall asleep.

So I’m six. I’ve never heard of the Alamo, but I knew about Davy Crockett from the weekly series starring Fess Parker, and I knew who John Wayne was. Being a kid I didn’t pay much attention to all the talking, but there was enough violence to keep me away until the climactic final fifth of the movie.

I watched the battle scenes with calm interest, knowing that Davy Crockett could not lose, and that John Wayne never died in movies. But as the movie played on even a six year old could see that the battle was not going well, and I can recall silently urging to defenders to keep fighting, because with Davy Crocket on their side they could not possibly lose.

You can imagine my shock when Davy Crockett (played by John Wayne) was fatally wounded. Over fifty years later I can still recall my dismay. I doubt I have ever seen a movie plot that caught me as flatfooted as The Alamo did.

Being a kid, I got over it quickly; after all, Davy Crockett was on TV every week and John Wayne was still making movies, but I’ve never forgotten that night or that movie. Funny how those things stick with you.

While I’m running a 5e campaign with only a few home rules inserted, the setting is mine. I enjoy reviewing game settings, but seldom have I found one that I would use without extensive overhauling.

Too may settings, and D&D in particular, simply create a plethora of creatures and non-Human races, pack in Human nations based on brief descriptions or straight rip-offs of medieval Europe, pack it all into a metaphorical cannon, and fire it at the map.

I hate that. I run longish campaigns, usually 50+ weekly game sessions, and to make that work you need continuity, politics, and a sense of a living world. The PCs should hear news and rumors from day one, and as the game years go by and the PCs become more wealthy and powerful (usually), their interest in such matters should sharpen.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and political systems are equally intolerant. There should be those struggling up the structure, those on top fighting to hold their position, and others losing ground but fighting to hold or retake ground; plus those looking to destroy the entire edifice. In this regard the daily news is a great assets: the same struggle is being played out locally, regionally, nationally, and globally every single day, some politically, and some via violence.

Where I run into difficulty is the fact that I have the visual arts skills of a color-blind beetle. I have to take an existing map to make things work, and in the fantasy genre few maps measure up to my standards.

For my current campaign I am using Faerun because there are a staggering number of maps available in a wide variety of scales. Then I took the base concept from Shadow of the Demon Lord, seasoned with a hefty dose of War Hammer Fantasy extract, added a pinch of a Middle Earth in the midst of a protracted war against Sauron, and stirred well. I gathered the evil races into four major and two minor factions (tossing in the Skaven because frankly, the Skaven are the bacon of fantasy setting cooking), each with their own goals, plan, and tactics, and set them loose.

Happy fantasy settings don’t make for good gaming; you need war, hardship, economic ruin, and looming disaster (basically, base it on Detroit). You need the players to feel outnumbered, out-gunned, and hunted from the start, because down deep players want to be heroes and bad-asses, and to be those you have to face, and defeat, long odds and terrible risks.

Anyway, that’s my view of creating a gaming setting.

So last week I played (GM’d) 5e for the first time, my first return to a d20 system since 1983. I even bought two sets of chessex dice for the occasion, and I’m not a big dice consumer, have used dice rollers on my phone for the last few years.

While the combat system is still based on what I remember from the brown books and 1E, the advantage/disadvantage system is very handy, and I liked that instead of specific rules by creature, damage is codified as a weakness for, or advantage against, certain types of attacks, resulting in the target taking double or half damage.

I particularly enjoy the emphasis on resource management, forcing the players to weigh taking rests to restore abilities against the sure knowledge that the GM will have NPCs busy preparing for the intruders.

The skill system is a bit bare bones, but there is still enough there to make scenarios based on role-playing viable. That was always a sticking point for me with the older versions of D&D: I’m not against combat, but I enjoy GM’ing investigative scenarios as much or more.

Having MapTools virtual table top is also a big plus; every one of my players has a laptop at the table, and gone are the days of trying to draw a battle map on a plastic-coated hex map (I have zero artistic ability; in fact, I’m pretty sure if the visual arts had a measurable weight I would actually have a negative number).

One session hasn’t made me a complete convert yet, but the campaign stretches ahead of me, and I expect to give the system a full and thourough workout before it is done.

THe Kindle version of the book went live 90 minutes ago. Here’s hoping!

It turns out Amazon has really improved their cover maker service, which saved me a great deal of prep time. SBW has been submitted, and will be available within 72 hours, with the Kindle version selling for $2.99.

Here’s hoping it finds an audience. Meanwhile, I am turning to a project that stalled last year, with the hopes of re-vitalizing it and publishing it before the end of 2019.

Work is proceeding apace, despite a busy week and complications with the purchase of a lawn tractor.My target date for publishing is Saturday, with the Kindle book available by Sunday.

I’ll post another update no later than Thursday.

Just finished the third edit of Scared But Willing. Now I need to make the necessary changes the edits revealed, format the manuscript for Kindle and print copies, create a cover, decide on a dedication, write a blurb and ‘about the author’.

When all that is done, I’ll complete the publishing process on Amazon and within 24 hours the Kindle copy will be live.

I’ll post another update no later than Monday evening.

On an aside, the third edit of Scared But willing is moving ahead on schedule.

Back in 1983, I quit running AD&D (1E, they call it now) and vowed never to return. I was fed up with the endless spell lists, the dominance of the spellcasters, the dull combat, the invincible players characters, and the coming Second Edition only looked work.

I kept gaming, however, and generally ran a compilation of systems I found more to my liking. As the years went by I checked out 3E (some neat ideas, but too sprawling), and 4E (I hated the adventures, which were focused upon encounter areas rather than an entire map, and endless feats and abilities).

Then I came across 5e. I checked it out as was my custom, and I was intrigued. It was still magic-heavy, but the spells had been tweaked, and the munchkin types had been banished to supplements. I liked the advantage/disadvantage system as both elegant and practical. The rules addressed many of the issues I had had back in ’83, such as game balance, and adding features like the long and short rests which I liked.

To cut this short, later this month as my current weekly campaign ends, I will be starting a weekly 5e campaign, hopefully to run a year or more. My usual five players are highly motivated, and I think the chances of a good campaign are high.

As is my custom, I have tweaked a rule here or there, and I have largely restricted the player to the Player’s Handbook, but every GM puts his or her own stamp on a campaign.

The campaign site is here, if anyone is interested: https://darkage.obsidianportal.com/

Scared But Willing is now entering the third round of editing. The second edit tends to take the longest, so we are move fairly close to schedule. The June publishing date is still holding true.

The plot is holding up, no major changes required, just some name editing and a few points that needed adjusting.

The first edit on Scared but Willing is done, and the second will begin Wednesday. I added about 800 words in this first review, just tidying up the plot and details, and will add a few more before it is over. The June publishing date still looks viable.

More news as it develops.