Two can keep a secret, if one is the GM...

Thanks to my wife watching this almost continually for the last couple of weeks, I starting to think this would be a good idea...

I mean, it starts as a weird mystery series (with very odd moments, almost like Twin Peaks) before descending into Saw territory with so many slasher-film tropes.

Damnit, I need to watch something else before I take this too seriously...

WILD Character Creation (take 2)

Last night we put the band back together. Well, as best we could.

Edge (left), Stoo (via virtual reality, which worked surprisingly well) and Debs

On many occasions I've mentioned the most involved gaming sessions in my gaming history were with a few players - Edge, Tetch, Stoo and my lovely wifey. Those were some of the most intense and creepiest games when we played Mage, Kult and later WitchCraft. And I was eager to try to recapture the magic again.

Admittedly, Stoo lives miles away and had to appear via the wonders of Skype, which didn't work too badly (he could see us all and the table and everything!) and Tetch is on holiday somewhere, we thought we'd run a little trial session and see if the character creation for WILD worked.

I did a trial char-gen before, but thanks to writing the key-phrases on the WILD Cards, this worked a lot faster and easier.

Cards you say? Yes, the weird and wacky thing about WILD is that character creation involves cards. WILD can mean that your character's inner-most fears or memories can surface while dreamsharing, so it is important to have some depth to the character's history and background prior to gaming. Creating a character in WILD involves making a traditional Tarot spread using the WILD Cards.

Stoo's character creation layout.

I think it worked this time. Players who came to the table with an idea in mind for what they wanted their character to be and do still had what they wanted, but with some additional elements they hadn't considered before. Those who came without an idea had a pretty interesting launching point to get them started.

The next phase involved using a handful of spare cards each player had to create a relationship between the characters, common locations, events or people. For such a small group, there may have been too many cards involved, but that's what playtesting is all about. But it strangely worked - a location ties the characters together, and added an NPC and a person in one character's past that may have repercussions for the whole group. Not only does it tie the characters together without the "you're in a bar" first session, but it gives me as the DM (DreamMaster) some ideas for elements to draw into the game.

I talked them through the rules (not that there are many) and it all seems to make sense...

Next will be the first game. I don't know how it'll go - I have an epic and bizarre game designed for them, but it'll be the first time I put the rules into action, so we'll see how it goes.

Until next time,

LLAP - and Stay Multi-classy!

#RPGaDAY2015 - How Was It For You?

I've had a few requests on Twitter from people asking if I was going to do a summary post about #RPGaDAY2015. Well, I wasn't going to - in fact, this is really breaking my "month off from social media" plan that I had instigated to recover from the frantic posting that probably bored everyone throughout August. But, I never want to let anyone down, so here goes...

So, how did I think it went?

Okay. I think it went okay. It seemed to reach a lot of people, seemed to go to a wider audience, but I'm not sure how well it was received. The same people who put in the effort and enthusiasm this year were the ones who openly embraced the concept last year. There were some who were new to it and joined in enthusiastically, and I hope everyone enjoyed it.

What was better this year?

I loved having guests on the videos. Thank you everyone who got involved and joined in - a lot of those people who joined me on the videos were too busy to join in with every day posting, and that was a great way to get them involved. Not only that, it meant that those people who watched didn't have to sit through 31 boring videos of just my ugly face - they could watch segments with far more interesting, exciting and attractive people than me.

Active participation?

On the whole, the basic concept is to get people talking on social media about the positive things that tabletop roleplaying can do. The thing that spawned it (#BookADayUK) was basically just a photo of a book as a response to the question, so getting people actually talking or blogging beyond that is a massive success.

I've heard from people saying that the questions are a great source of encouragement to get them writing blog posts and more, which is fab. Thanks everyone.

It's great to also see so many people joining in with the daily videos, recording their own and posting them. I know it's a huge effort - hell, mine took months of planning and I was relieved when the last one was uploaded. Thank you again.

Feedback?

Feedback on the whole has been mostly positive. I'd say around 90% of the comments I saw on the various medias were positive, encouraging and from people enjoying it. There's always the people who didn't, of course. Those who didn't like the colour of the image, or the choice of questions - they weren't interesting enough, detailed enough, too vague, or just plain boring to them.

And, of course, I had my daily disliker on Youtube who, regularly, about 9am every morning would click Dislike on the video. On one occasion it was disliked before I could even post the video on Facebook/Twitter/G+... Someone was very keen, and spent an awful lot of energy to make sure that the videos got that little dislike. It wasn't all of them, but it was enough to be noticed. Each dislike was like a stab in the back.

A few people didn't get the point of the project at all - #RPGaDAY2015 (and its predecessor) was about positivity. I noticed that a few follow-up questions appeared on various media. Thank you for trying to join in but you missed the point entirely. You can do what you like, but I won't be joining the dark side with all that negativity.

And next year?

At this moment, I honestly don't know. I think I was a little too invested in it this year, and took all of the responses way too personally. If I do it next year, ALL of the questions will be submitted by other people. Frankly, I think I've run out of ideas.

Of course, it does take up lots of time when I could be writing.

Saying that, the biggest benefit of #RPGaDAY2015 was that it has got me writing again. After a massive drought of words that hit about Easter, WILD's game system is pretty much sorted, and the writing is progressing...

...that is, until I get distracted again.

Above all, thank you all for taking part. I hope you got something out of it, and it reminded you that our little hobby is a great one that makes great friends.