The New York Times recently published an article about Wizards of the Coast’s announcement of the next iteration of Dungeons and Dragons. I had heard rumours. I wonder if they ever considered just running with the games they have, like what Pathfinder is doing?

It has been a busy month writing wise, it’s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short and I’ve been plugging away at my first novel. The reason I’m telling you this is because I’m learning loads about writing that I think will extend to preparing good sessions for your players.

Make Notes

I have a tendency to put words down without thinking about what I’m actually saying. It’s not a good plan. Make notes and plan out everything, even if the planning is where you leave things. And let’s face it, planning is all you need. Good GM’s have a good outline, even if that’s all kept in their heads.

Keep it all

Don’t throw your ideas away, you can often rework something to use later. Some of my favorite scenes so far have been from my own noted that I reworked as dialogue into the text.

Cut the boring stuff

Don’t force the characters to work through boring stuff.

Keep on keeping on

You might have a lot of prep to do and a load of things waiting. Do what you can when you can.

Have fun

If you’re not enjoying it then your players probably won’t. Take a break or change things up to keep it fun.

Do you have any thoughts? Share them below.

Already almost a week in the past, Icon 2011 was loads of fun. I only managed the Friday, but there were plenty of familiar faces and I got to try my hand at convention level Magic The Gathering for the first time.

Magic

I’ve played Magic on and off since high school, and I was a little worried that I’d be up against serious players that were years younger than me, but those expectations were thankfully shattered. We played booster draft and although I only won two rounds, everyone I played was super friendly and each game a load of fun. I’d guess that most of the guys (and they were all guys) were between the ages of 20 and 35 or so, and more than patient when it came to questions about the rules. If I learnt anything playing at Icon it was that you just need to go and play, don’t make assumptions about other players, rather go and have fun.

Role-Playing

Positive feedback on my module, Storm of Souls, which ran in the morning. I didn’t watch any of the role-playing or get involved beyond writing my module, but judging by the number of people around on a Friday I’d say that role-playing games are a great reason to take leave, or that role-players are generally unemployed.

I managed to score some of the controversial D&D Fortune Cards (3 boosters in total of Shadow Over Nentir Vale) and must say I don’t think they are as bad as everyone feared. Firstly, you only need one booster to use them in your game, so 6 boosters will cover a party of 6 players. You can then build a deck with as little as 10 cards (there are 8 in a booster), allowing you to customise your deck to suit your characters fighting style and strengths. I haven’t played with the cards yet, but the advantage to the player is pretty small, considering that you only ever have one card in your hand at a time per turn. To me the main advantage (to the GM as well) is that players will probably tighten up their tactics to maximize the effects of the cards, which means faster combats. My main criticism is that only the rare cards have proper illustrations on them, which I think is sad coming from a company that produces games like Magic the Gathering. Secondly, I picked up 3 swaps in my boosters, which will make me less likely to buy these cards again, unless I find someone who’s willing to trade or the cards see a lot of use at the table. Still, I’m excited about seeing my deck work at the table, and I’ll let you know when I give it a test run.

Comics

I went to my first ever Icon looking for Spider-Man comics, and won a door sized Mary Jane poster because of it. I was also introduced to Warhammer 40,000, which led to role-playing games, so comics for me will always be where it all began. Comic books are still well represented at Icon, and if I had had more time and money I would have filled out my X-Force collection, or my Amazing Spider-Man collection, or my… well, you get the picture.

Warhammer and Warhammer 40K

I got a lift to the Con from a friend who was just bitten by the Warhammer bug, but unfortunately there was no action on Friday except for a demo game of Warmachine, which seems to be hugely popular. I must say though that, after spending a week packing up my home, Warhammer is one of the most difficult hobbies to cart around. It’s almost like being the logistics guy for your own horde of Orks (in my case), and is likely to end up with more than a handful of carefully painted miniatures hitting hard floor at one time or another and a huge load of stress, so I don’t blame them for not showing up on the Friday.

LARP

Big things are happening in the LARP world, and I’ll leave that for another post, save to say that you need to give it a try. The LARPers are great people and LARPing in South Africa is growing stronger all the time.

If you were at ICON 2011 let me know what you got up to, leave a comment and share your experience.

This week saw the premier of the final Harry Potter movie and the launch party for Magic the Gatherings 12^th edition. It’s almost like magic is everywhere, and really, it is at the very core of the fantasy genre. Magic is an integral part of fantasy and fantasy gaming, from magical creatures to spells and worlds formed by raw magical energy. In this article I’ll look at magic in terms of world mechanics and as a story device.

Defining Magic

I could look specifically at magic in this article, but then write a similar article on mutation and super powers that wouldn’t add anything new. Rather, let’s group magic, super powers, psionics, amazing technology and everything else that is “abnormal” and call them “world mechanics”. I’m using broad strokes here, but let me explain. Mouse Guard is a game (and comic) with little magic. Mice can talk, but they possess no powers as such or magical artefacts. Mouse Guard’s “world mechanics” are interesting because we can play as mice in a world terrifying to mice. Dungeons and Dragons, on the other hand, lets us use magic to fight magical creatures, and we can become powerful beings that can take on terrifying dragons through the levelling up mechanic. If you think about it, levelling is a type of magic, you would never gain such abilities in real life even with dedicated training. Thus the world mechanics for D&D represent a world that is full of magic. So, I’m going to use “world mechanics” and “magic” interchangeably in this article.

Magic has Boundaries

Magic needs to have boundaries, without these boundaries players will feel cheated and confused. Can my wizard become invisible if he casts an invisibility spell? Boundaries (rules) set this out for you. The boundaries then, like I said above, define the world at the same time. Frodo’s ring had power to corrupt, so we understand that in The Lord of the Rings magical items may have a risk involved when they are used.

Magic breaks Boundaries

Firstly, as a story element, magic breaks boundaries. Magic lets your characters and NPC’s do things that they would not normally be able to do in the real world. Flight, as an obvious example, is only possible through magic. Because of this, you need to think outside of reality and be creative when designing your sessions and include encounters and NPC’s that bring the reality of the game world into focus and let the players experience that world. It’s no good running a fantasy game where everything is normal by everyday terms, and I’d argue that a normal day even in terms of your fantasy world would be too boring for your players, but there needs to be an obvious difference between the two worlds. A note of caution though, sometimes subtlety really pays of with regards to the differences in your fantasy world and our own, you do want it to all be believable in some way.

Furthermore, magic gives you a reason to break the mould with you game, within reason. In a recent game I introduced a series of earth-nodes that needed to be used in sequence, and did not let players move as they wished between the nodes. I explained this difference as a consequence of the spell plague, which the players were happy with and I could then stagger encounters out between the different nodes. Because magic and the mechanics of your game world represent the weird and wonderful, take inspiration from the setting and let your creativity flow.

Magic is often Limited

Magic has its limits, which is important to remember. If any world mechanic is limitless, it becomes worthless in a way. If everyone can fly, you will need ways to cut that ability at some point and you need to work out the repercussions of giving everyone such an ability. In my opinion, magic becomes more interesting if there is less of it. In the Lord of the Rings, there are only a handful of magical users, which makes characters like Gandalf and Saruman stand out amongst the rest, magic is thus strange and valuable.

Potter Fans at the Premier

At the end of the day magic represents a great device for telling the stories we love, that’s why so many people fell in love with the Harry Potter series, The Lord of the Rings and so many other fantasy stories. Use magic well and your games will be that much more interesting and captivating.

If you watched the last Harry Potter, or played MtG during the release party or have any other thoughts about magic, leave a comment. Let’s talk geek

Follow our Pathfinder campaign as we face monsters, dungeons and the insanity of the Wednesday night gaming group. See the first part of the series here.

The First Session

Funnily enough, our first session was scrapped as far as its placement in the whole campaign. I can’t actually remember why, but I think we spent some time going over the town and campaign setting, as well as introducing our characters. The result was that what actual story developed was insubstantial and easily discarded. So, without any further ado, we’ll have a look at the characters and a little about the players too.

The Setting

We are using the Dungeons and Dragons town of Fallcrest (3D Model), a town with a river running through it and a series of caves beneath it. Some of the characters have lived in the town or in the area for some time, while others are new arrivals.

Thorn Ravengrin

A tiefling rogue with red skin who likes to show off his white tattoos by wearing only leather pants and a cape. He carries a longsword into battle, which he wields in his right hand, since his left hand was lost in a dungeon trap, where he had to cut it off to escape. His infernal heritage is interesting, as Thorn’s father, Yawldaw Ravengrin, was a Half-Fiend with babau ancestry.

As the campaign has progressed, Thorn has shown an obsession for anatomy and wishes to re-construct the hand he lost. To this end, he has collected several hands from dead foes and studies them in intricate detail.

Thorn is played by Little Johan, who recently became a father and thus owns his very own hobbit.

Rapid Wind

An Elven monk wearing peasant clothing and carrying a long spear and sling. Because he’s mute, Rapid Wind keeps a chalk board around his neck (a nifty little prop to role-play with). It is apparent that something terrible happened in Rapid Winds past, which is why he can’t speak. Rapid Wind practices an elven form of unarmed combat known in the common tongue as Leaping Foot, a bastardised description derived from the elvish name for a style that looks more like a dance than a fighting form.

As the campaign has progressed, Rapid Wind has become very fast, reaching a speed of 55′ at level 3 (at level 4 he can use his ki to move at 75′). He has an old horse companion, Gunthar, that he has saved several times from near disaster during our sessions.

Rapid Wind is played by me, and is probably the most difficult character I’ve ever played. I’ve never played an elf before, except as a GM, and found it challenging to think like an elf, but luckily there’s the Lord of the Rings trilogy to help out. Also, as an introvert, playing a character who can’t speak means that I say very little at the table. Still, it’s been fun playing Rapid Wind, and not being able to speak is worth a load of laughs.

Stander Vrok

A half-giant cleric of the church of Torm. Raised by dwarves, Stander was the first character to have his own theme song, which was “Stander Struck” to the tune of “Thunder Struck” by AC/DC. So far the church of Torm has been an important element in the story, even though Fallcrest has only a small congregation.

Stander has had recurring visions and his focus on his quest is unswerving. Despite his size, Stander is not very strong and has often found himself in need of healing, even though he is the party cleric.

Stander is played by Willem, recently married, at who’s wedding reception we all sang along to “Stander Struck” like there was no tomorrow.  I’ll also mention that he and his lovely wife walked in to the Darth Vader theme song, so you have to give him props for that! Willem was the GM for the first few sessions.

Densharr Tailchaser

Densharr is a Catfolk who loves to sing (practically all the time). Our party bard, and composer of the epic ballads “Stunder Struck” and “You can’t stop the rod”. Densharr comes from nobility within his clan and is rather well off, and thus supports most of the party. He is often seen taking notes which he hopes to use in composing a major saga.

Densharr has often exhibited the cunning of his kin, and although he seldom gets directly involved in fighting, he has directly influenced the course of many battles and bolstered the resolve of the rest of the team.

Densharr is enthusiastically played by Francois, who I hope will be releasing a sound track of the campaign near the end of the year. Francois keeps track of our wealth and maps out any locations that need mapping, thanks to the power of grid paper!

Gimp

The Blue wizard, this little goblin kin is small for his race, making him quite hard to spot. He focuses his magical skills on support magic rather than combat spells and creates many of the items the party uses.

Gimp is the most learned member of the party, and often knows something on any given subject. He has recently been spotted talking to  something over his shoulder.

Gimp is played by Big Johan, who is also the current GM at the time of writing. Johan also GM’s another campaign that Francois and I play in, a D&D 4th Edition game, which is why let Johan get away with more than any GM really should.

Serisia

Serisia is also a tiefling and an assassin in the making. She is the only female in the group, and possibly one of the most level headed. Not much else is know about her, but that’s what you get when dealing with these shady types.

Serisia loves her sneaking about, and her acquisition of a magical ring of invisibility means she’s pretty good at it.

Serisia is played by Andries, the local mathamagician. The force is strong with this one, or else he just knows a lot about Star Wars.

Conclusion

Other players brought their characters into the game at different times, I’ll introduce them during the relevant parts of the story.

Icon 2011 is booked from the 15th to the 17th of July. More information at http://www.rpg.co.za/.

I’ve written a D&D 4th Edition module for the con, called Storm of Souls:

In an age forgotten, seven exquisite weapons known as the Soul Blades were forged. Legend says that the weapons were lost for a time, until a wise magus sought to reunite the weapons. For a long age he sought the weapons, but only managed to recovered six. The seventh weapon, it was said, had a will of its own and strove to flee the magus, leaving death and sorrow in its wake. Now rumours of the Seventh Blade’s return are being whispered in fear. Can the six sister blades be found? Can heroes be found to wield the weapons in this time of need? What secrets lie within the weapons themselves?

This is Dungeons and Dragons with a special twist that will have you wanting more. Be part of the six heroes that take up the mythical Soul Blades in the quest to destroy the Seventh Blade.

Dungeons and Dragons 4^th Edition for six players and a GM.

See you there!