Messages

421

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: RPPR Community AP Podcast site

« on: November 12, 2010, 11:33:34 PM »

I like what you did with [spoiler]Samhain as the basis for a mythos occurrence. By the way: I'ma be "that guy" for a second and tell you that it's pronounced like "sow-in". I love using real world mythology and tying it into the mythos like that, though. I thought you did a good job there. Also, I like how you handled the results of occult roles - i.e. the yellow sign = negative energy according to celtic mythology. I thought that was clever.[/spoiler]

Edit: The only thing I wasn't a fan of was that at a few points you seemed to be telling the players how their characters felt in a given situation. Example: [spoiler] When you told one of the players that her character felt angry/wanted to shake some sense into the guy that said he felt compelled to go back to the "haunted" area.[/spoiler]

Looking forward to the rest.

Well, I was trying to show a bit more of the sanity loss coming forward - no one in the group has ever played the system before, so I was trying to show some of the effects of san loss. I probably did go a bit too far with a couple of those touches.

As for the signs, [spoiler]wait until they run into clockwise spirals.   [/spoiler]
We (hopefully) will be playing again on Sunday. We'll see how well I can finish this up. I think, depending on how many players show up, we might finish this week or go two more sessions. We'll have to see. Thank you for the feedback!

422

RPGs / Re: What Are You Playing Now?

« on: November 08, 2010, 07:49:04 PM »

Running: My first Call of Cthulhu game, A Pleasant Night in Emerald Grove... for seven players oh god why did I think this was a good idea...

Running: D&D 4E Dark Sun sandbox-y style game, with my regular group (six players, we never have a full house).

Working on: See also: Running

Working on: Setting up background for a Legend of Zelda D&D 4E game. (Veeeeery small concept work, I've got enough on my plate.)

Working on: Converting a 3.5 pirate-y ocean-y island-y oneshot I wrote into a marketable 4E campaign. (Not likely moving anywhere for a while.)

Playing: Oh, lord, I wish.

423

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: RPPR Community AP Podcast site

« on: November 07, 2010, 09:41:37 PM »

I wrote the scenario over the span of about a week, with some excellent advice and religious advice from a friend of mine. The players have gotten roughly... I would say about a quarter of the way into the scenario in terms of gametime, but there will be events that will take a lot of game-time for them to use up, so I'm guessing about a third is done, in that case? I've never run for such a large group before.

So, for good or for bad, that is my writing. If it sucks, by all means, let me know. I do not like fake praise, and good constructive feedback is what I'll need if I ever want to write it up as a professionally designed published scenario, which is my hope.

424

RPGs / Re: Ahahaha what have I done (CoC Oneshot)

« on: November 07, 2010, 02:05:02 PM »

Game is up on the community AP site. Let me know what you think!

No game this week, everyone's busy. We'll finish up at some point in the future.

425

General Chaos / Re: Introduction

« on: November 07, 2010, 01:25:14 PM »

Hi, my name is Mike, and unlike my avatar, I look nothing whatsoever like Bruce Campbell. 

My introduction to RPPR came in a very round-about way - through Dwarf Fortress.
Someone mentioned Boatmurdered over on the Giant forums, and they linked the Something Awful Let's Play forum. I followed, like it, signed up under the same name there, and eventually found my way to Trad Games Discussion, where I lurk like a terrified kitten. I saw a few things from Ross there, then I believe I was actually sent here by someone doing an LP of 4E D&D. I found a link to U-Boote Heraus, and I've been listening ever since.

I just ran my first Call of Cthulhu game last week, and I'm due to be running another tonight. I've got at least two years of APs saved to my computer from my group's weekly D&D games, but unfortunately since a lot of them involve copyrighted music, I will not be posting them here. I will, however, be trying to put up any oneshots we've done without such bits of potentially-illegal clips. 

As for me? I suppose I work well as a DM since I'm already the earthly embodiment of evil - I work for for the Tax Department.  I'd like to try and set up my own production company in the future, working on games and mixed media projects.

Love the podcast, love the APs, and the forums seem great.
Hi all!

426

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: RPPR Community AP Podcast site

« on: November 07, 2010, 11:49:43 AM »

Sorry to double post, wanted to make sure this gets noticed. 
I re-encoded and re-uploaded the file. It should have the proper metadata and name conventions now.
Thank you!

427

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: RPPR Community AP Podcast site

« on: November 07, 2010, 09:54:58 AM »

I just realized that I failed to follow the style guide for the tags. Apologies, I thought I had looked for it last night, but it looks like I screwed that up. Should I re-encode and re-upload?

Edit: Evidently I encoded the damn thing in mono anyway, re-encoding now. It's my first time working with Audacity. Sorry about that!

428

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: RPPR Community AP Podcast site

« on: November 07, 2010, 01:02:34 AM »

I just uploaded the first part of my CoC campaign, A Pleasant Night in Emerald Grove. It tops off at approximately four hours, thirty minutes... so I apologize if that's a little on the long side.
Any way someone could give it a listen, or at least skim it and tell me if it's passable?

Also, if I could be made an Author to do the post, that would probably be the easiest thing. Thanks!

429

RPGs / Re: Ahahaha what have I done (CoC Oneshot)

« on: November 06, 2010, 08:15:06 PM »

Working on getting the recording posted to the community AP site soon. 

We should be doing the second session tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes. Unfortunately I know for a fact we won't be able to play as long, and I'm not sure how many people will be able to make it on time... We'll have to see.

Some highlights of the first game:
-One player got his NPC girlfriend to second base.  People want weird things.
-Another player indirectly got at least one of the NPCs brutally killed by trying to keep her safe... in a building whose walls were covered in blood.
-First player managed to get in a fight, steal the guy's car, then thought it would be a good idea to run him over with his own car. The whole time they were in front of the police, and when the policeman tried to stop him after he got out of the car... attempted to steal the officer's gun and kill him with it. I'm sensing a trend.
-Two of the characters have been literally doused in blood.
-One of the players has gone temporarily insane!

Not bad, for my first time running CoC and my first time running for 7 people.

430

RPGs / Re: Tablepocalypse now

« on: November 04, 2010, 08:43:35 PM »

Because of this thread, when I left my job today I went straight over to one of my area's two game stores. I live in Colonie, NY, near Albany, so while the area's sort of urban, it is far from big city.

When I went in, I bought two books, but then I watched. And I saw a game store, on a Thursday night in November, with at least 35 people between two floors. They were doing a healthy amount of business - I watched a couple of books get sold, many many comics, a good number of Pokemon cards, and a group of players started a Magic: The Gathering draft.

In the back of the store, a 4E game was starting as the players filtered in. A few different folks were weighing in on the Dark Eldar faction in 40K. Upstairs folks were playing in a Pokemon tournament and the aforementioned MTG draft, while others perused comics. The kids playing Pokemon were just that - kids. They were talking about their day in a local high school, and one of them picked up a box of Munchkin when she was downstairs.

I know the owner of the store, and he has enough income from his operations to constantly expand, try new products, and employ quite a few different employees. He does have the benefit of also running Eden Studios (All Flesh Must Be Eaten), but that's far from his store's main source of income.

As I left, a dad came in and was showing his young son a role-playing board game.

Dying hobby? We'll have to see.

431

RPGs / Re: Tablepocalypse now

« on: November 03, 2010, 08:26:53 AM »

Wizards just announced a third Neverwinter Nights game the other day, as an MMO. I'm guessing it will use 4E rules, and I shudder to think how they'll adapt any of it to real time. It will be marketed as a WoW killer, when the industry doesn't realize that it isn't possible to make a WoW killer, you need something new to beat them. But with revenues like that, no one will try anything new, and as the company making the MMO is Cryptic Studios, it will be big for three months and then crash.

Wizards, if they tag their financial future alongside of an MMO, are done. And I hope they realize that before they go that far. Thank god for Paizo and Pathfinder.

432

RPGs / Re: So... 4E will have a Web based Character Builder

« on: November 02, 2010, 07:35:26 PM »

My group has just started playing 4E, and I'm the only one with a subscription, but I'm the one running things. I only own like three of the books, the PHB and both Dark Sun books, and I shelled out for the essentials rules handbook and player book, but I don't really plan to buy more. The character builder costs enough each month as it is, and I shelled out more than I'd like to spend again on 3.5 books. The existing services of the character builder and the Monster Builder have been more than enough.

Are they planning on changing the way the subscription works? I checked the Wizards home page, but I didn't see anything new. I have noticed that they keep skipping updates but continuing to bill - that's beginning to wear on me a great deal.

433

Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: An Open Letter to Ross so-called Payton

« on: October 31, 2010, 01:31:54 PM »

I work at a state tax department. The branch I'm in does some reaaally tedious stuff, and there's sometimes a long break between calls, so something I can just pause when a call comes through is pretty nice. For a while my unit worked on pure correspondence work, sorting and trashing mail, and U-Boote Heraus was invaluable for keeping myself awake for two of those terrible, terrible days.

I actually came on for the APs, and now I'm listening to the podcast as well for help on running games better. I dread the day I run out of backlog material to listen to, but I understand that you guys space things out for a reason.

I suppose my take on things is that the system is not broken, so it doesn't need to be fixed. You have a very reasonable update schedule, and you've been able to stay very regular on it while I've been listening, so I personally would say keep at it. The long games are always a treat, and even the short updates are still funny, so I've got a lot to say thanks for and nothing to complain about. Keep at it!

434

RPGs / Re: Ahahaha what have I done (CoC Oneshot)

« on: October 31, 2010, 02:17:16 AM »

Well, having run the game now...

Crowd control was muuuuch smoother than I anticipated. The problems were still there, and different ones than I had predicted, but overall I believe everything went fairly well.
The rundown of the prep:
I had figured out what skills each of the 12 pregens would use during the week, figured out how much leeway I was willing to give people in choosing their own skills, but I hadn't actually put pen to paper on the sheets themselves. "Surely I can write them up in only a few moments, all of the information is right here!"

Yeah, uh, like character creation has ever gone fast in any system that has variable, random stat generation. I had three less hours than I had originally budgeted today to work on things, so all of my cool prepwork ideas went for nothing. I had to finish prep while the players were actually here, and they ended up transferring most of the information to the sheets themselves. Lost about an hour and a half to that, but it sort of helped because the players picked up some knowledge of the skill system, which sped things up spectacularly.

The game itself:
No plan ever survives contact with the enemy. I know that, I knew that, I've known that since high school and when I stopped railroading as hard. I did not expect the players to be as focused as they all were, which actually ironically bogged things down a little. I expected them to try to do more than one thing at a time, not all focus on one area. I also didn't expect one player to steal a man's car, then try to run him over (and succeed) for chasing after him. Especially not a character who is an aspiring policeman. But eh.

The players were actually fairly subdued, which was both good and bad. No one got talked over, people were very respectful. But three of the 7 final players left about an hour before we quit because they were falling asleep. Gone, I suppose, are those halcyon days of staying up until 3 in the morning on a Saturday. Ah, youth.

The game went well, all the players expressed satisfaction, and nearly all expressed a desire to continue. The plot of the scenario itself is not nearly finished, and I believe it might turn into some sort of mini-campaign. I have a recording, so I'll have to review that sometime I'm not so exhausted. One guy who's played with us semi-regularly before was really excited about a mini-campaign, which in itself makes me feel like I achieved some part of the plan.

Oh, well, anyway... Ross, Tom, and the rest of the gang, thank you for inspiring me to pick up this system and give it a try. The players had a blast, and I actually legitimately managed to scare them out of game, so it was a good time all around. Next time, I'm aiming for at least one player crazy and one dead. 

435

RPGs / Ahahaha what have I done (CoC Oneshot)

« on: October 28, 2010, 09:15:42 PM »

Soooo... In one week, I've decided to run my first Call of Cthulhu game, write my first Call of Cthulhu game, and... teach myself the Call of Cthulhu system. Oh, and apparently there could be as many as eight players.

And the game is Saturday night.

Ahahahaha what have I done.

I'm not incredibly worried - I've listened to a lot of the recorded games, and I've been DMing various versions of D&D since 2001, so I'm not new to running games. But I've never done Call of Cthulhu, neither have any of the players - simple system, but still new. As far as I know, none of them are new to gaming, in fact most are part of my regular gaming group.

I have a few plans for moving things along - the scenario is very time-based, and I know what the cult is going to be doing at each half-hour mark, how their plan is proceeding, and how it can be influenced by the players.

I guess I'm looking for a few recommendations. Any suggestions on running a game for such a large group? I've thought about printing out little cards for each pregen to show their main skills a little bit easier, for weapons, and for any spells, so that constantly referencing the book won't be necessary. I also thought about trying to get some creepy public domain music (we record our sessions) if people start to drift, but I have no idea where to find what I'm looking for - sort of a Celtic-sounding drum loop and creepy flutes, for a fertility cult slowly preparing to summon their god. None of the 'free sound effect sites' seem to have what I was looking for - any good sites for that kind of thing?

Also, love the site! The RPPR crew has been awesome teachers in running better games!