RPG Blog Carnival: Terrain, Seasons, Weather (oh my)

And so the RPG Blog Carnival rolls into town once more, this month's topic is "Terrain, Seasons, Weather" - and how you use them in your games.

Inspired by a post I read about the impact of describing the sky in our GM narratives, and an interesting comment on my last month's carnival submission regarding the narrative and mechanical effects of terrain types, I'm interested in how people use terrain, weather, and the changing seasons in their games - narratively and mechanically.

To participate, simply write a blog post connected to the prompt and post a link to it in the comments of this post, for example:

• How you use weather and terrain in wilderness travel?
• Games where the seasons are important to gameplay?
• How you use the changing of the seasons, and the festivals that mark their turning?
• Do you use something interesting like hex flowers to generate changes to the weather?
• Reviews of relevant resources?
• Anything else related to the topic!

At the end of the month I'll do a wrap-up of all the submissions and the carnival will move on to somewhere else.

On that note: the RPG Blog Carnival has been running since 2008 but now it needs more hosts for 2023 - if you'd like to host please check out more info on the carnival and fill in the sign-up form here.

DIY Blood Bowl Sevens pitch

I have a soft spot for Blood Bowl that goes back to the 90's (anyone remember the polystyrene "astrogranite" board?) and I've been keen to dust off my newer copy and get it all painted up.

One of the best things I think that came out of Blood Bowl being OOP all those years was the Sevens format, 'cos let's face it GW games can be overlong and the idea of lunch break gaming has always appealed! So here's my take on a Sevens board:

Basically I just masked off the lines on one side of my regular Blood Bowl pitch and stippled some white primer in (to try to match the existing effect of the lines).

Blood Bowl Sevens pitches are 11 squares wide and split into three 6 square long areas between the end zones, each team has its own scrummage line. Note I didn't put the end zones on so my board is 18x11 not 20x11 but for the purposes of the rules it will work just fine.

It's not terrible, and more importantly it's not £30. Looking forward to playing some games on it...

An exploration of travelling in TTRPGs

A new month rolls around already and June brings with it the topic of "Travels, by Wave, Cloud, or Portal" from Seed of Worlds for the RPG blog carnival.

Exploration is something I love about TTRPGs and something I want to play more of (and get better at) but I always found the rules for it lacking in modern D&D editions.  The hexcrawl-traversal procedures of the old school I find too heavy - I'm more narrativist than simulationist I feel - although not as heavy as the time I played Barbarian Prince...

Image credit: ThemeFinland

So, between these poles of "nothing" and "too much" what is there? I decided to go through my RPG book collection with a lens on the theme of "travel"...

It's hard for me to think about travel-based games without mentioning the hot-mess science-fantasy-wagon-train pointcrawl that is Ultraviolet Grasslands.  The places, people, and art are inspiring - but in a game that is ostensibly about travelling, how do we travel?

A destination is chosen, a known number of days away, and the caravan departs. There's a roll to see how ill fated the journey is, and one to see what is encountered. Time and resources are adjusted (there is caravan management and good-old OSR resource-management) and you've arrived. You could flesh the whole thing out into a multi-scene session, or a single montage.

I talked a while back about Skycrawl/Downcrawl and how much I love the procedures therein, it's literally a game (setting?) built around exploring and discovering new things (for the GM too with all the generation tables).

Travel in these games is heavily procedurised but pretty rules-light; the "difficulty" of the journey is set out in how-many-boxes-do-we-need-to-check-off style and the players go about checking off the boxes.  Each day they can press on (checking the boxes), rest, or retreat - with opportunities to gain and spend a meta-currency called "Tack" which prevents them from getting lost.

There are moves for players to be able to expand the map or add detail to it, which I personally think is wonderful.

Side note: I keep meaning to talk about The Wildsea - which is another game I own which is pretty much about exploration.  There needs to be more hours in the day, or perhaps just fewer working hours.  Travelling the rustling waves feels conceptually similar to Downcrawl; 

Wildsea travel similarly involves setting a track (boxes to tick off) and, similar to the starship combat in Stars Without Number, allocating the PCs to their stations. Rolls are made to see if the ship makes progress, the crew encounters anything notable, the cartographer maps the area/route, and so on. When the track is filled, the party arrives.

I think these are what I like.  I'd like the journey from one place to the next to fit nicely into a session (sometimes) - but this is something I need to explore more.  The journey forms the scenes of the narrative, which I like, but the number of scenes is unknown (due to different levels of success ticking different numbers of boxes) which isn't helpful in this context...

Interestingly, if you crossed these systems with the traditional hexcrawl you would probably get something like Yochai Gal's wilderness rules for Cairn v2...

On a very different tack, I purchased a bundle on itch.io purely out of curiosity about Wanderhome.  It's not my usual cup of tea but it's about travelling, which I have mechanical interest in, and a while back I got hooked into Patrick Stuart's musings on "soft", Ghibli-esque D&D.  This is a much more narrativist game, with places along the road created and fleshed out in play by the players.  It's pretty much all about the journey - but I can't say I fully understand, from reading it through, how it's supposed to be played.

I do like some of its ideas and especially on how to build places, essentially by combining templates, which is something to file away for inspiration...  Of course, every game has something you can steal to make your other games better.  

So, what are your favourite travel mechanics or systems that I can steal from?

PSA: The RPG Blog Carnival is looking for hosts for 2023, you can find out more and sign up here (it's incredibly easy and actually quite fun). Thanks to Seed of Worlds for hosting this one!

Changing gears: on the beauty and realisation of short campaigns

When I, or my group(s), run a game there is a tendency to build each session on the previous ones, weaving a story based on what went before and where it feels like the characters are heading.

This ends one of two ways:

1. Everyone has a blast and the campaign finds a natural and memorable conclusion
2. More frequently people drift away, or burn out, or something else means we never get finished

This month's RPG Blog Carnival topic, changing gears, has inspired me to post my thoughts on having more short snappy games - especially now life and work interfere more!

I would totally recommend switching games every few months. Switch system, switch setting, switch DM, maybe mix up the player group slightly. Decades-long world defining campaigns with the same group are not the goal, and I feel getting less and less likely.

Changing up games is more fun. We get to play more new games, we get to finish more campaigns, we get to switch out DMs which helps with burnout. As a player it feels more satisfying to finish a shortish 2-3 month arc than plough through a multi-year story. As a DM it's more satisfying to run that shiny new book and wrap it up ready to run the new-new book...

Why not try out a different genre? Image credit: Paddy-One

Changing up games is less pressure. If we don't like a system or setting then it's only a few sessions. There's less fear of a campaign finale falling short. There's more chance of getting to that finale with the same group of players who started! If someone can't make it for a few weeks they can probably (hopefully) join the next game...

If a game is a big hit, run a second season like a TV show. Axe it when it runs out of steam (like a TV show) - and bring it back for a reunion in 10 years with the original cast.

The only problem I have with short campaigns is keeping them short. I like to meander, I like to find out what happens to the characters. I dislike prep (too much like the planning I have to do for work) and I don't plan ahead. Here's what I have learnt:

1. Work out what the main elements of your setting are and how they are connected (I spent a fair bit of time talking about my ideas about this in the past) 
2. Use those connections to plan out a series of plot points. These are stepping stones, anchors, the landmarks on your campaign road trip. Depending on how long you want to play for, and your tendencies, either plan more (and don't sweat about hitting them all) or less (and fill in the gaps when you feel inspired by events in play) than that number!
3. Build an adventure around each plot point. Don't force them. They don't have to sequential. The plot point can be the hook ("thieves guild want to steal the crown") or the twist ("find out the necromancer is the Duke's father") or background ("the goblins lay siege to the city") for the adventure, but it's better if the adventure isn't the plot point itself so the outcome isn't predetermined.  No railroading.

Let's say we want 2-3 months of weekly sessions, so let's go for 10 adventures. We can skip or add 2 and still be about right, let's not sweat it.

We know the things, NPCs, places and antagonists we want to work the story around and we know we want 10 adventures.  The classic "3 act story" suggests there are (variations on) nine generic plot points:

1. Exposition - setting the scene and the status quo
2. Inciting Incident - something propels the protagonist(s) into the story
3. Turning point 1 - The Point Of No Return 
4. Confrontation / Rising Action - tension builds, stakes are raised, obstacles emerge
5. Midpoint - gaining confidence, taking action
6. Turning Point 2 - everything is going so well ... then
7. The Dark Night - oh it's all gone wrong
8. Climax - but the protagonist (usually) pulls through and wins in the end
9. Denouement / Conclusion - what happens after? 

I dislike using the "3 act story" template (because I don't think it works for our medium) but I think some of the plot points are crucial: we need an Inciting Incident and a Climax, really, and I think it's good to start with some Exposition/Setup, so that's adventures 1 (setting the scene), 2 (the Inciting Incident that launches the campaign), and 10 (the Climax, plus often the Conclusion in montage). 

We need seven more plot points adventures... 

Perhaps better inspiration for plot points are found in the Hero's Journey which is analysed and explained very well by the AngryGM here? 

Or better aligned with our medium (but perhaps less deeply analysed in the Gnome Stew post that brought all this fresh into my mind) is the Heroine's Journey?

Find a structure that works, for you, but they're all basically:

• Players get a feel for the world and some of the key players
• Something kicks off that gives them a Quest
• They explore, learn, find artefacts and information, make friends and enemies, win and lose
• There is a final confrontation to end the Quest, and we see how the world is changed

Let me know your preferred structures or go-to plot points in the comments?

You'll get better each time, and if you keep changing gears there's always a next time.  Thanks to Lair of Secrets for hosting, and thanks to Of Dice & Dragons for maintaining the Carnival - check the archives or sign up to host here.

Test minis for Warcry

 A while back I got into Warcry, a light and fast skirmish game which is perfect for time-strapped modern life!

The previous Blood Bowl minis were a pre-test for these to try out Army Painter Speedpaints - although hopefully some Blood Bowl is on the cards sometime.

Huanchi skink and a Jade Obelisk cultist

I wanted some nice contrasting colours and as I wasn't feeling restricted to a colour scheme (as I have been with Infinity) it was fun to experiment.  I knew I wanted jade green for the cultists and went from there, and I really didn't want to go green for the slinks so I picked orange as a nice counter to the cultists' purple.

These are Army Painter Speedpaints from the starter set, I've seen people complaining about them "reactivating" (i.e. not drying) but I find that makes blending and mixing colours easier...

I'm liking it so far, and having fun finally, just need to get the rest done!

What's on your hobby table?

On creating elements for a setting

When I saw this as the title for the April RPG Blog Carnival my mind started ticking over campaign and setting planning and how I want to go about it.

Image credit: cosmicgrooveart

It's easy to just start building things that will never get played and I think a solution is:

• to break prep into separate and reusable elements (I've talked about this before)
• to only plan what you need

So, leaping off from that into the void, what sort of elements and what does each need?

Places

TTRPG games generally involve some exploration, and even if they don't the scenes have to be set somewhere.  Places are everywhere from towns to rooms to dungeons to continents and planes!

In my opinion, Places are often containers but I think they need the following themselves:

• Flavour descriptions / scene setting (depending on scope and scale)
• Rumours / things to interact with

As well as being the basic things you need for a dungeon room, these settle nicely with the start of a "three act" story - Set the scene, call to action - so can often lead to setting up a sidequest nicely.  Can we run the full mile and prep some of the rest too?

• Rising action
• A climax
• How the place is left changed

Oh - there's a location based adventure!

Antagonists

TTRPGs are about conflict and resolution, and where would conflict be without antagonists to rub against our protagonists (the party) - these are the factions and moving parts!

Blogging back for March, and thoughts on April and beyond

Sorry for not being more active, real life takes its toll once again.

I haven't really had any time to read around the blogosphere or to get anything written, but here's a whistle stop tour of the (active) blogs that sent me hits in March, as a thankyou!

of Dice and Dragons, of course, has been keeping the RPG Blog Carnival rolling - please go show your support if you can, there are still some slots available to sign up to host in 2023 I believe!

Seed of Worlds has several very readable recent posts, and many better and more frequent blog link lists than I do (or can)

Hobgoblinry showcases some Oathmark Orcs and some Mordheim Skaven and terrain

Sea Of Stars has not only been hosting the March carnival but is also embarking on an A-Z blogging challenge for April (good luck!)

DIY & Dragons has a 2022 in review (not just gaming) in a smorgasbord of interesting things

and Shuttered Room has been cataloguing creatures, all the way to Z! (more talent and tenacity than I)

I'm planning on getting back on this horse every month, as part of my bid to be a more sociable blogger, and trying to participate in the Carnival and just see what great stuff is going on.

Dungeon23 has burned me out but I'll hopefully be back on that as well ... I have a whole shelf of stuff I could review ... comments welcome on anything you'd particularly like to see more of!