Can't get away from that Elf (a)

One of the problems I have faced, being a gamer, is shelf space. RPG books, Miniatures, terrain, collectible card boxes, board games, and accessories created from items that you dream up new uses for, all clutter your respectable living space. At one point I had four 3' x 6' bookshelves filled with just gaming books; the other stuff filled two closets.

The problem with this is the fact that all the items in the closet end up being stacked on top of each other and you have, at times, an 8' stack of gaming stuff and you need something from the bin at the bottom of the stack. At that point I:

"...trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,"

Ironically, this happens to coincide with a recent post from a friend, called GenCon: Models, that mentions the multitude of terrain he witnessed at Gencon. In my draw down of gaming material, I given away almost all of my terrain, including a couple sets of Dwarven Forge to supplement a friends collection.

The next portion of my gaming redesign was to redo my closet to be more 'gamer' friendly. I was able to accomplish this by installing an Elfa System form the container store. I haven't done this previously because the system is not cheap. My wife was able to find a pre-used system that had enough to do four closets at about 15% of the store price. This allowed me to create a multitude of short shelves to store things like minis or games without have to stack them too high. The Elfa System also has specialized pieces like drawers you can install, but nothing specifically for gaming.

To finish, if you have a free wall and want to maximize space use, I highly recommend a shelving system that allows you to set shelves at various heights and introduce more shelves whenever you need them. If you know another shelving system, please feel free to comment.

Downsizing

I have set a goal to downsize my gaming collection and cataloging my books. Today I worked on cataloging my Earthdawn books. As many of you probably know, Earthdawn is my fantasy game of choice. The cataloging went relatively quick as I decided to use springpad to keep a list of my books. Springpad has an iphone app that allows me to lookup items by barcode. So basically, I just scanned in the barcode for my books and I had them in a neat little folder for me to reference in the future. There were a few issues. Springpad pulls the info from an applicable source. Usually for books it's amazon, so you have to deal with entries that may not have a picture or that springpad could not find entries for, which was the case for the classic edition books.

In the end, it made a daunting task more manageable. I plan on using springpad for note-taking on the ipad during games which may be very useful. Springpad recently enabled facebook integration so that you can see common recommendations from your friends for things like movies or books. This has got me wondering if you can incorporate it like a giant web of common RPG objects. For example, people could create a random character make it public on springpad and publish to facebook so you have a veritable rouges gallery of your friend items.

I will have to look into this more in the future. If you are interested:

• Springpad
• My Earthdawn Collection

Don't Be A Dick

Happy Labor Day

I've been spending a bit of time reading other blogs and gathering advice. I recently perused a couple of articles that lamented on the pitfalls of a game master (GM) pulling dick callings. Apparently a GM is a dick if you don't allow a character to pick up his dropped weapon after a fight. I then realized that: I'm a dick. Because of GMs like me, tighter rules must be implemented to the point that there is no question on what happens on the battlefield. Then you get "better" games like Dungeons & Dragons, 4th edition where a couple of "dipshits" can't argue about rules.

That's right, I caused 4th edition because I'm a dick.

So apparently, not only does the GM have spend time detailing the whole world, but he must also assume to know all the character's daily habits and their particular brand of 'common sense', because we all know their are people out there you wonder about their intelligence. I'd like to point out this is 'common sense', not 'universal sense'.

Not ironically, I was gaming a couple weeks ago and my character had to throw down his scimitars. At the end the battle, I stated my character went back and picked them up. Not that it would be detrimental to my character, he had two more swords, but I don't see why it is so hard to manage your one character. A GM is probably a dick too, if he does not allow you to pack your backpack like a Heward's Handy Haversack. Because you always pack so the item you need is at the top of the backpack to be grabbed in 3 seconds, no matter what it is because that is what the rules state.

Now I agree that there are some dick maneuvers out there: changing an opponents actions after the player states his actions, 'targeting' players continuously for no reason, having something bad happen to a player and not allowing any sort of roll. All of which have happened to me, but I didn't think the GM was being a dick, I just assumed there was some other plot device that I was not aware of.

Fudging dice rolls is another dick maneuver. Which I find hilarious because I fudge dice rolls 'ALL THE TIME'. I find this keep players alive longer and manages better continuity to the games. All of my players know I roll amazingly well as a GM (not as a player though), and many times this has resulted in a player's death because I usually roll in front of the players. I do not GM D&D, but the scene would be something to the effect of:

A kobold runs in a chucks a javelin at your character. [roll] Natural 20 [roll] A 20 again {player gasps} [roll] three 20s in a row. You guys wanted to play with the instant kill rule, sorry but the javelin hit your character right in the eye skewering his brain, and killing your 9th level fighter. Sorry man, I would fudge the dice roll, but I don't want to be a dick.

It appears that I have gone on a rant. Not my intention, but then again, I am apparently a dick. But the next time the GM does something that you do not agree with, roll with it, play it out. If your game master 'is' being a dick, it's probably because the guy is a dick, and you should be able to tell at more than just the table.

For further reading:

• On the Most Important Thing in a Good Campaign
• Dick Rulings

The Glass Sea of Trinity

There was a recent article on Gnome Stew called Quick and Dirty Location Template. The article presents a template on how to create a quick blurb on a location for you your game with relative ease. This is an excellent template that I plan on using to detail locations for may game before writing up larger articles. Below is one of the locations I created in less than five minutes.

Name: Glass Sea of Trinity

Ambiance: A harsh desert covered with jagged chunks of fused glass.

History: Rumored to be unihabitable, high radiation level cause it to be highly avoided.

Encounters: Centicores have been sighted at the edges of the Glass Sea. Cannabilistic humanoids and a strange species of Glass Sea Roaches can also be encounters.

Treasure: Very little can be found of use in the Glass Sea, the only salvagable items are irradated chunks of glass, called glow rocks, that give off light.

Hooks and Hotspots: Some scavengers want to travel to the Glass Sea to retreive glow rocks as a cheap form of light for their town. The party is hired to provide protection while they search.

Historic Note: Trinity was the location of the first nuclear testing, the rest melted the sand and create fused chunks of glass.

Gaining Momentum

Or as I like to say, "Going into Overburn."

Just a quick note. I've recently procured the aid of a couple of friends to assist me with the Overburn RPG. I am hoping with the new infusion of Blood Burners, we can make some headway into The Burn. I would like to take this time to welcome these two to The Burn and I hope their addition bears fruit.

To expound on what I'm doing here I want to set some goals I have for the project. This is inspired by Rob Lang's article on designer notes for the Icar RPG, of which I have bee a long time fan.

As a designer, the author is often asked why Icar was designed in a certain way. This page attempts to outline what decisions were made and how this affects the style of the game. A set of Designer's Notes, you could say.

Lang, Rob. "Designer's Notes." Icar Free Sci Fi RPG - Home. Web. 22 Aug. 2011. .

If you read through the article, you will find a list of goals for creating a high quality RPG. I would like to take a moment to state my on ideas for my game.

1. Produce a High Quality Game.
2. Simplistic in Design
3. Easy to Grasp
4. Unique in Scope
5. Intriguing in Setting
6. Entertaining to Play

I plan to revisit this and see how my idea evolves as the game does. Hopefully the end result will be something that surprises my friends.

Runner's Toolkit for Shadowrun

As I was out and about yesterday, I purchased the Runner's Toolkit for Shadowrun. This fulfills my quarterly support for the local gaming shop. Although I paid 50% more than purchasing it on-line, the thrill of buying something on a spur of the moment could not be denied. Normally, I would not of have bought something like this as most of the items are just re-hashed material from the other books. Here is a list of what comes in the Runner's Toolkit:

• On the Run, one of Shadowrun’s most popular introductory adventures
• Contacts, Adventures and Sprawl Sites, a booklet that gives you the who, the what, and the where to launch runners on new missions
• The Pre-generated Auxiliary Character and Kit System, a modular system that makes character and NPC generation simple while keeping characters highly customizable
• Anatomy of a Shadowrun, a two-column book; one column tells the story of a high-stakes run, while the other details the tests and rules that players involved in the run would encounter, giving gamesters insight into how a Shadowrun game flows
• Six double-sided quick-reference sheets that, with the gamemaster’s screen, greatly reduces the time spent flipping through books to find a particular rule
• A book compiling tables from Arsenal, Street Magic, Augmentation and Unwired—it’s the ultimate shopping list for runners

It was this last book that caught my attention. I have always been agitated on how the powers that be chose to break-up the equipment list. In SR4, not only did you have the annoying task of looking up multiple books, but you had to flip through the book to find a stat you forgot, say the AP rating of your pistol. I think that this booklet here makes the set worth it. But I also got a cool Shadowrun sticker to put on my netbook. This was the icing on the cake.

An Auspicious August

So today starts a new month, and to that end, I endeavore to get back into the swing of things. I am back in my house, inventoring my gaming collection. I still have a lot of boxes and unpacking, but at least now, I can see the torch light glinting off the dragon's hoard at the end of the tunnel. Although my internet connection does not appear to be working (yet), I plan to continue to work on what I can, as time provides. There is alot that I have on my plate this month, so here's an overview.

Overburn - I am currently behind on this. August was suppose to be the month that I worked on Psionics for the game, but I am behind for July. Hopefully I can put the hornes to the grindstone and get back on track.

Omega Rising - an old sci-fi gamesite that I'm trying to get my old content back up on.

Seer's Sight - My general gaming blog. No real work to have to do here, just keep people updated with ideas.

Earthdawn Publishing Trust - Eartdawn site that I need to catch up on a lot of work on.

General Server Administration - I have recently changed servers and I need to move the rest of my files so that I can close down the extra server.

There is probaby more that I need to do and I'll add it to the list as it comes to me.