Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Zak's Question Thingy


Okay, I'm finaly getting around to answering Zak's question thingy:

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
If realm of game mechanics, I'd say the Dead Simple Lock & Trap Mini-Game.

2. When was the last time you GMed?
Last Saturday.

3. When was the last time you played?
Last Wednesday.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
An adventure based on Lorna, The Ark, one of Alfonso Azpiri's Heavy Metal stories.  Kind of like Metamorphosis Alpha, except with less clothing.

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Move on to the next player.  Gotta keep things rolling.  If I'm waiting for ALL the players, then I calmly and quietly plot their deaths.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Spaghetti, pizza, buffalo wings, beef jerky, peppermint candy, very small rocks, sloths.

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
Never physically - but mentally - yes.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Last session in Stars Without Numbers, one of the PCs who happen to have been a spy robot that could change his physical form impersonated a security officer on a space station and got swept into an illegal cage fight below decks.  Hilarity ensued and even the Boy joined in in another cage fight.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither? Yes.  Yes.  It flows back and forth and all around.

10. What do you do with goblins?
Make them tricksey.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
A UFC cage fight.  The fact that the cage fight in the game was a naked cage fight was purely my invention.

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
The Boy, after fighting in a naked cage fight, forgetting to put on his clothes and going all medieval on an agitated spectator, gutting him to death with a moly knife, then suddenly realized what he had done and slapping a Lazarus patch to bring the poor corpse back to life.

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Actually - Big Eyes, Small Mouth.  I just found it in a pile of old manga and I forgot that I had kept it.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
In the early days, Erol Otus and Jeff Dee.  Later, Elmore was my man.  A couple of years ago, Wayne Reynolds.  These days - John Kovalic. :)

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
Yes.  But then again, we are talking about my son.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
I'd say back in high school running the I3-5 Desert of Desolation series.  It has a nice Egyptian flair and fits so well into the whole tomb robbing thing.  There were a lot of tricks and traps and mysteries for the party to solve.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
A room with a big table and chairs.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
Rolemaster and Big Eyes, Small Mouth.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
H. P. Lovecraft and Lao-Tse.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Seriously non-serious people who can be serious when required.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
Joining a religious cult.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
An rpg that replicated real life physics, physiology, and psychology - scaled well from individuals to armies - and was equally effective replicating stone age to super science.  Oh - and is easy to play and whose entire ruleset can be memorized by my feeble mind so I never have to look at the book.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
Honestly, they don't.

- Ark

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Pony Roller


And those of you who think I can leave well enough alone should know better.  Ponies are Magic.

So this is Twilight Sparkle rolling up her character the old fashioned way - 3d6 in order.  Looks like she's off to a bad start.

This is for Erin Palette and her awesomely awesome Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome.  Which I missed.  Completely.  Dammit.  I only check Facebook like every other week.

- Ark

Lady Roller

By popular demand - for those identifying as female. :)

- Ark

Old School Roller


Here is a little scribble I did.  It's yours.  Feel free to put it on your t-shirts, coffee mug, your blog, or shave your head and have it as a nifty new tattoo.  But don't sell it.  I think some people claim they own the shirt or something silly like that. :)

Higher res available on request.

- Ark

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Dungeonspiration: Thinking

I was toying with dropping this column at the start of the year, but due to some kind words from readers, I chose not to, and instead just slow it down to every other week.  We'll see.  I enjoy writing the articles.  I enjoy thinking about writing the articles.  But there is the problem - my thinking is gone all different recently.

Drawing is to blame - I'm sure.  I've been drawing a lot over the past few months - rekindling my love for making pictures - which was in it's height decades ago when I was first playing D&D.  Drawing uses vastly different parts of the brain that than a lot of different activities - oh - such as thinking in words about words you are going to type out in a blog.

It's been somewhat difficult to rectify the two - writing muscle and drawing muscle.  These images take me away from my standby form of communication.  But it's not that I'm idle.  I don't -not- think about gaming and blogging.  I just - I guess I just think about it visually.  It's been hard translate.  I guess that's the word.  One part of my brain has a tough time talking to another part of my brain.

But something interesting has been happening.  When I sit down and play D&D or Stars Without Numbers or Pathfinder or whatever, my imagination has become more vivid.  I see the game very vividly - maybe even more vividly that when I was a young pimpled punk clutching the blue Holmes and dreaming.  Even the bane of my imagination - mini skirmishes in Pathfinder - play in my mind in technicolor - not just on the gaming mat.

As I read stories now - the images in my head are wonderful.  I'm so happy that this has coincided with the Vayniris Anthology Project.  I've been reading the entries and hoo-boy - the descriptive power of these great authors is giving me some excellent TV in my head.  (Thanks guys, btw.)  

It's all very inspiring to me.  I want to be more descriptive in games - fill other players with wonderful pictures - not just as a DM - but as a fellow player.  I just kinda have to relearn how to connect both parts of my brain.  Perhaps some duct tape will help.

So, I don't know if this is inspiring or helpful at all - but here it is.  Oh, and before I go - I fixed up a progress sheet for Little Miss Skyrim up there, in case any of you are interested in the artistic process of some old dude who can't draw as well as he wants to, but is sure enough trying:



Have a wonderful day.

- Ark

Monday, January 9, 2012

Cognitive Dissonance

Is it weird that:

1) I wish WOTC the best of luck with 5e and am even interested in beta testing the game to help make it an even better game,

. . . but at the same time . . .

2) I hope that WOTC fails miserably with 5e and goes down in flames, creating such a sulfur-belching crater that no game companies will go anywhere near the name Dungeons and Dragons and we can finally let the poor thing rest in peace

???

- Ark