Where Are My Glasses?

It's been a while since I wrote, mainly because of a major change I went through in my professional life. So long Polycom, it's been a great ride! Outbrain, here I come...

But that's not what this post is all about...this post is about the brand-new Macbook Pro with the Retina Display that was waiting for me when I got into the office on my first day.

As expected, I was dazzled by that truly amazing display, spending hours at home just browsing for hi-res photos to marvel upon. The quality of this display is so good, that my little daughter, from the height of her 3-year life-experience, stared at it for whole 5 minutes before saying: "Dad, I love you - and your new laptop".

The problems began a few days later, when my wife called me to help her get something done on her own laptop.

I frowned at the screen, trying to understand what's wrong with it. Everything looked blurry, full of jagged edges and rough corners. I could see lines and dots everywhere, as if I was looking at a CRT display from somewhere in the 80'...

The same happened when I turned on my first generation iPad, and even (heaven forbid!) my mid 2011 Macbook Air.

After making sure my contact lenses didn't fall off my eyes (and then realizing in terror that I never owned contact lenses, or reading glasses for that matter), I raised my arms, lifted my head and roared: "Noooooooo................."

Great job Apple.

Now I grumble every time my eyes rest on a non-Retina display. And guess what, other than my iPhone and my newly acquired (yet not really my own - I hope I won't have withdrawal symptoms when the guys at Outbrain will take it from me) Macbook Pro, all other 99.999999 displays I stare at now fall under the category of Totally Crap, Barely Usable, Eye Scorcher Piece of Junk.

As long as I use that truly amazing display, I'm in paradise, but on any other (non-retina) device - cyberspace never looked so murky...

D&D Next: D&D is Back!

I was very excited to get my copy of the D&D play-test material. The roller coaster that was 2e to 3.5e to 4e was about to end, and I was very interested to see what the captains of D&D have in mind.

Well, it looks like they had this in mind:

The booklet reads like old-school D&D while taking the best of all the editions out there. You can see 2e's one-line monster stats right next to 4e at-will cantrips. You can see Basic D&D "Vancian" spell-casting next to a slightly modified version of the healing-surges system found in 4e.

Another great idea was the inclusion of character backgrounds and themes as a way to create unique, 3.5e like PCs as opposed to the cookie cutter approach found in 4e. The play-test material gave us the most archetypical heroes, but I can easily see how the system will be expanded and extended to support great character customization.

So in my opinion, D&D is now back to being D&D. The core of it - in the form presented in the play-test material - will be probably tweaked and modified, but it looks solid enough and D&D enough to my personal taste.

Taking a look at the included adventure, I was shocked at how much it reminded me of all those old, pre 3rd edition adventure module I still own. It even looks like I could run those old modules with little or no modification. In addition, it looks like the fine-tuned encounters found in 4e are out of the window, with rooms with "up to 40" kobolds in them.  The monsters stat blocks are mostly one or two liners, a thing I was really happy about - until I saw the "Special Traits" entry for each monster in the monster booklet.

I never liked the way monsters in 3.5e played out. In addition to the clearly stated melee and ranged attacks, they had this section in which tons of special abilities were listed. During the excitement of combat I usually forgot all about them, which was really annoying. Even more annoying was the fact that some of the special abilities encapsulated several traits that I needed to take into account. For example, 3.5e incorporeal means immunity from all non-magical attacks, but they are effected by supernatural attacks. And then the game was halted to look at the books to see what supernatural meant. So in that sense, I really hope that Wizards use the traits section wisely, giving just a few, self-explanatory, "classic" traits and move all other "cool stuff the monster can do" to an appropriate section (attacks, defenses etc).

To be completely honest, I really look forward to play-test D&D Next, and I really hope that Wizard's plan of providing a solid core that is easily expanded with rules modules will actually work. If they decide to revive the old Mistara campaign setting (or create a brand new old-school setting) I will be thrilled.

After all, it looks like D&D is built with an eye to its original roots, roots which I discovered when I was just a little over 6 years old, almost 30 years ago...

Hey, you know what? Proofreading my post I just realized that I unintentionally dropped the "Next" out of D&D Next in the last sentence. Yes, it feels like D&D. Not 2e, not 3e and not 4e or 5e.

Just D&D.

Campaign Workshop - The Campaign Slogan

One of the tricks I've been using to conceptualize a campaign is the Campaign Slogan.

A role-playing campaign can take years to play to its end. Unless you're building a very short campaign, one that will end after a couple of sessions, you'll need to come up with a considerable amount of plots, NPCs, story arcs, locations and adventure ideas.

Facing so much unwritten material, a lot of GMs freeze, unable to even start working on their new campaign. Even if we have this great idea, we sometimes find it hard to mature it into a fully grown campaign. We start with one story, jump to the next, introduce an NPC or two, and kickstart the campaign hoping for the best.

More often than not, this approach creates a spiral of death effect. As the game goes on, the connection to the original story dwindles, until nothing remains of the original story. At this point, many campaigns die, having too many loose-ends and unrelated strings of adventures that are going nowhere.

To solve this problem (and to help solving many more, as you'll see shortly), I use the idea of the Campaign Slogan. I can't say I invented it - I probably picked it up somewhere, but I cannot remember where...

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the Slogan:

A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious, and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. 

The slogan serves a similar purpose in the context of campaign building. It creates a general, memorable frame for the entire campaign. When building the campaign, it can be used as a phrase that conceptualize the campaign, giving it flavor, meaning and theme. When running the campaign, it can be used to make sure the campaign is still going to the right direction. If you read the campaign slogan during the course of a campaign, and find it valid - you are still on course.

Note that my slogans are there to serve me, therefore they are somewhat different from the slogans we all know from ads and commercials. My slogans are short sentences that capture the feel of the campaign in one short sentence.

Here are two examples of slogans I used in my recent campaigns:

• A demon convinces a high-priest to free it from its eternal prison, claiming that "You need to free me in order to fight me."
• A great emperor - in the face of a terrible invasion by otherworldly beings - conquers more and more lands as a way to unite the population against a terrible foe. "Rule them or lose them"

As you can see, the slogans are very abstract while providing the identity of the "main villain" and his reason for being one. They are general enough to spawn endless plots and adventures, but focused enough to provide a frame in which the campaign takes place.

I already discussed the importance of the villain, and talked about how the villain is the story initiator. 

Here I would like to stress the importance of abstraction: an abstract slogan helps you build arcs, plots, sub-plots and adventure that are seemingly unrelated, until you decide to let the players see the connection. 

If the campaign slogan is abstract enough, it would easily contain the backgrounds of the heroes, their stories and their goals, which - if you follow my steps so far - are not even in your possession yet.

Writing a good slogan is not difficult. Try to summarize your favorite sic-fi or fantasy movies in one sentence, and slogans will pop up quickly. 

Can you identify the following?

• An alien entity is using humans as slaves-laborers by utilizing advanced technology which is based on a rare mineral the humans are mining.
• An archeologist is working of an evil army commander,  questing for occult power that will make the army invincible.
• A power-hungry emperor is constructing a terrible weapon that can destroy planets, but the plans of the station falls to the hands of a group of freedom fighters.

Otherlands - Campaign Workshop

Building a campaign from scratch can be a difficult task. Building and running a successful campaign to its natural, satisfying end can be even harder.

We all participated (as players or GMs) in campaigns that started good and solid but lost momentum or had their main story line dissolve after a while. The GM might burnout and stop pushing the story forward, or the players might lose interest in the story and pull the campaign in every other direction, tearing its original plot apart. Either way – the campaign is probably doomed.

While there are many articles, blog posts and forums dedicated to campaign building, there aren't many real-life examples of the process of building a campaign. I'm not talking about examples and methods for creating the story arc for a campaign, or ways to manage that information (although eventually I'll touch on these subjects as well). I'm talking about how to build a successful campaign that will run for many sessions while keeping the players and the GM engaged.

So here it is, my own Otherlands Campaign workshop, in which I will build a complete campaign from scratch in a series of posts, sharing the process and the end results with you.

What does the process look like? 7 simple steps:

1.       Talking to the players

2.       The campaign slogan and the single-page campaign note

3.       Using character backgrounds as a basis for the campaign

4.       Sandboxing and Circles of Knowledge

5.       Building an episode guide

6.       Dealing with change

7.       Ending a campaign

Let's start with the first step of building a campaign (yes, this step should occure before you even jot your first GM note):

Talking to the players

It's important to understand that players drive the campaign's story. A GM can create a great story arc, interesting locations and unique non-player characters, but the players can ignore all that in a whim and head off to an entirely unexpected direction. There's nothing to stop them, and a GM that tries to force the players back into his own image of the campaign might make them feel cheated and railroaded.

The M in GM stands for Master, but it does not mean we GMs own the game. Therefore, it's very important to talk to the players and try to understand what interests them, what do they find boring and what do they find engaging.

If the main idea behind your campaign is fighting an undead infestation, but the 3 out of 4 players had enough of battering mindless zombies, then your campaign is in trouble. If your idea was to spend hours negotiating at the king's court but your players are only interesting in a slash-n-hack dance with the nearest Goblin clan, the campaign will dissolve and leave you and the players unsatisfied.

By talking to the players and understanding what they like and don't like, you can start storing bits of information that will be used in the next step - the campaign slogan, which I will discuss in an upcoming next post.

Here is an example of an e-mail format I use to send to the players before the game even began:

*  *  *

Hi Guys,

Before we create the characters and schedule a meeting, I'd like to get some information that will (hopefully) make the campaign more engaging and fun.

Please send me an e-mail with the following information:

1.       General character concept (one or two sentences about your characters, like race, profession, interesting background if you have one)

2.       What interests you as a player (politics, combat, mystery, etc.)

3.       Is there something you'd rather not see in the campaign, or is there something you had enough of (saving young dragons from evil princesses, or the other way around)

4.       Is there anything you want your character to achieve through the course of the next couple of levels (a title, a specific magic item, land and followers, etc.)

5.    One important note: I really appreciate it when players tell me what they would like to see in the campaign. It helps me build adventures tailored to your needs and desires.
E-mails saying "I would like to smash my way through hordes of rotting zombies in search for great magical artifacts!" or "Political intrigue in the King's Court!" or "Leading armies of Dragonborn in a crusade to rid the world of Demons!" will not be ignored!

Thanks!

*  *  *

As you get replies, you'll be able to get a better understanding of your players' interests, likes and dislikes. It may sound like a hassle (come on, we just want to throw some dice…), but a short e-mail exchange, a phone-call or a face to face meeting can be a tremendous help later on, when we move to the next step of developing the campaign slogan.

To be continued...

D&D Next: Conquering the World (Part Two)

As mentioned in my previous post, I usually start designing a campaign with the villain in mind. Taking into account that my players might have their own way in my world, I plan for them to get the bad guy eventually, but I also plan and prepare for that rare occasion in which the bad guy wins.

More often that not, the bad guy is the story initiator, while the characters (and the players) drive the story from that point. But what happens in the characters fall behind and make a blunder with their attempt to stop the villain? What happens (to the campaign, to the world, etc.) if the characters drop their quest to stop the villain, searching instead of other hooks and side-quests?

What happens in the bad guy wins?

Let's think about Emperor Palpatine as an example. What would have happened if Luke and his friends (the characters in our fictional tabletop campaign) failed to stop him, or more interestingly, didn't even care? What if they were happy staying at the Mos Eisley Cantina, enjoying the music and the occasional bar-fight, coming out for a short hack-n-slash skirmish with imperial forces or strange aliens?

As the DM, you could force the storyline you prepared down the group's collective throat, but that would just make the players feel like you're forcing a pre-generated script on them. They won't feel as if they are in charge of what's happening to them.


A better solution would be to let the bad guy have his way. As long as his way does not include total annihilation of the entire galaxy population, the campaign can still go on (and I can see ways for it to work even if the goal of the bad-guy is total annihilation...).

The key element that will allow you to do that is to ask yourself a single question about the villain:

Why?

Why does he (she/it/they) do what he does? Why trying to rule the world? Why trying to kill a god? Why spreading war and disease or do any of those things done by villains?

If you (as the DM) can answer that question, that the campaign does not end when the bad guy wins. After all, winning was all part of his plan - the first step in his plan.

What if Emperor Palpatine - using his dark side of the force powers - learnt of a threat to the galaxy, a threat so dire that he needed a strong dictatorship that will last for eons in order to prepare mankind?

What if he was planning to war another galaxy?

What if he planned to become a god made of raw force power?

So you see - even if your entire campaign was designed so that the heroes will stop the emperor and his brutal ways, after he wins, they get to see his real plan. Depending on the reasons for which he was allowed to win, you can design his real goal to better fit the players taste or abilities.

If the players ignored your story because it was boring for not enough engaging, its an opportunity to stop and think about what can you do to make them more engaged and interested.

If the players allowed the emperor to win because they fumbled in their way to stop him, because they made the wrong decisions or (and it happens) ran out of luck in critical moments in the story, now is the time to present another challenge and show them that they still have a chance.

If you like, instead of why? you can ask yourself and then what?

• Apple's stock will reach 1000$ per share. And then what?
• Microsoft's new operating system will be installed on 95% of the world's desktops. And then what?
• Android will take over the tablet market in 5 years. And then what?
• True AI will be created before the end of this millennia. And then what? 
• D&D Next will be the most successful RPG system ever. And then what?

Just remember that your villain current goal is just the first step in his plan, and the campaign lives on even if he wins.