My Autumn Frontiers campaign is largely inspired by Rob Conley's "Points of Light" supplement published by Goodman Games, and I recently wrote him an email asking if I could publish some of the details of my evolving campaign world as a "living" addendum to his published product.
I'm pleased to report that Rob gave his blessing to this effort, which will hopefully result in a short PDF that I'll make available as a free download. A lot of the detail of our game is still scattered throughout my notebooks, so it might take a while to distill it all down into something worth publishing. Stay tuned...
Showing posts with label points of light. Show all posts
Showing posts with label points of light. Show all posts
Monday, November 2, 2009
Friday, October 17, 2008
Back in the Hot Seat After a Long Absence
More than a year after I GMed my last multi-session RPG, I sat down with a group of friends last night to delve into Autumn Frontiers, my new fantasy sandbox campaign.
It’s difficult to express how much my gaming ethos has changed over the weeks and months that I’ve been brainstorming and sketching out this setting. In years past, I produced self-contained adventures that — while drenched in detail and very engrossing — offered little in terms of sandbox play. This was fine, because the players I gamed with were part of this paradigm as well. With few exceptions, they expected a “plot” and were only too happy to move along it.
Since then, though, my sentiments have changed. Starting with a chance encounter at Ars Ludi, I’ve voraciously sought out articles and blog posts from the likes of James Maliszewski, Jeff Rients, Ben Robbins, Rob Conley and Sham the Quixotic Referee. Their quirky return-to-yer-roots notions really set off a cavalcade of ideas in my head — made all the more relevant when you consider that I missed old-school D&D entirely, having started playing RPGs in 1994 with d6 Star Wars. The whole effort was made manifest when I picked up Goodman Games’ Points of Light supplement (co-authored by Rob Conley, btw). My game grew legs and took off, if only in my head. And even if the players barely scratch the surface of the world, it was certainly worth it.
And so, on a Thursday night in October, we met at Ben’s place in Chicago. Four players showed, including two I’ve never gamemastered for. With little more than character sheets, a rulebook and a blank hex map, we cranked up the heavy metal and got to gaming.
It ranks as one of the most singularly satisfying GM experiences of my life. Everyone was in-character and one the same level — namely, a semi-campy mashup of Conan-style swaggering, played out against the backdrop of a frightened, depopulated medieval frontier village. The “tavern” where the party met was just few rough-hewn benches tucked in the corner of the village blacksmith’s shop; Garron, the one-armed forgemaster, sold ale by the mug and kept his smithy ringing late into the night, helping weary travelers shake off the cold with beer and helpful gossip.
Each player had received a randomly generated rumor via email in the week prior to the session, and they eagerly presented these hints in-character as the PCs gathered in Garron’s workshop. There was a great moment when the highborn wizard harumphed about not wanting to go risk his skin exploring the ruins of Tora Norrith, but the spirit of adventure on out in the end. The PCs agreed to depart at sunrise, and we had a nice little scene where the characters bedded down in an abandoned barracks.
The overland trip to Tora Norrith (just a few hours' hike, given the topography) was an absolutely golden wilderness scene, festooned with Survival rolls, foraging attempts and even some discovery (the druid stumbled across an ancient quarry site carved with dwarven runes; the thief had the presence of mind to make a charcoal rubbing of these runes, which will help out immensely if they choose to investigate further).
We had a few stumbles with the Savage Worlds rules, including forgetting all about the soak roll when the druid took a crossbow bolt to the chest (he survived). And I’m still learning how to effectively run NPC enemies in Savage Worlds. But all in all, it was a great first adventure and — get this — our next session is scheduled for this Saturday! So soon — gotta go prep!
It’s difficult to express how much my gaming ethos has changed over the weeks and months that I’ve been brainstorming and sketching out this setting. In years past, I produced self-contained adventures that — while drenched in detail and very engrossing — offered little in terms of sandbox play. This was fine, because the players I gamed with were part of this paradigm as well. With few exceptions, they expected a “plot” and were only too happy to move along it.
Since then, though, my sentiments have changed. Starting with a chance encounter at Ars Ludi, I’ve voraciously sought out articles and blog posts from the likes of James Maliszewski, Jeff Rients, Ben Robbins, Rob Conley and Sham the Quixotic Referee. Their quirky return-to-yer-roots notions really set off a cavalcade of ideas in my head — made all the more relevant when you consider that I missed old-school D&D entirely, having started playing RPGs in 1994 with d6 Star Wars. The whole effort was made manifest when I picked up Goodman Games’ Points of Light supplement (co-authored by Rob Conley, btw). My game grew legs and took off, if only in my head. And even if the players barely scratch the surface of the world, it was certainly worth it.
And so, on a Thursday night in October, we met at Ben’s place in Chicago. Four players showed, including two I’ve never gamemastered for. With little more than character sheets, a rulebook and a blank hex map, we cranked up the heavy metal and got to gaming.
It ranks as one of the most singularly satisfying GM experiences of my life. Everyone was in-character and one the same level — namely, a semi-campy mashup of Conan-style swaggering, played out against the backdrop of a frightened, depopulated medieval frontier village. The “tavern” where the party met was just few rough-hewn benches tucked in the corner of the village blacksmith’s shop; Garron, the one-armed forgemaster, sold ale by the mug and kept his smithy ringing late into the night, helping weary travelers shake off the cold with beer and helpful gossip.
Each player had received a randomly generated rumor via email in the week prior to the session, and they eagerly presented these hints in-character as the PCs gathered in Garron’s workshop. There was a great moment when the highborn wizard harumphed about not wanting to go risk his skin exploring the ruins of Tora Norrith, but the spirit of adventure on out in the end. The PCs agreed to depart at sunrise, and we had a nice little scene where the characters bedded down in an abandoned barracks.
The overland trip to Tora Norrith (just a few hours' hike, given the topography) was an absolutely golden wilderness scene, festooned with Survival rolls, foraging attempts and even some discovery (the druid stumbled across an ancient quarry site carved with dwarven runes; the thief had the presence of mind to make a charcoal rubbing of these runes, which will help out immensely if they choose to investigate further).
We had a few stumbles with the Savage Worlds rules, including forgetting all about the soak roll when the druid took a crossbow bolt to the chest (he survived). And I’m still learning how to effectively run NPC enemies in Savage Worlds. But all in all, it was a great first adventure and — get this — our next session is scheduled for this Saturday! So soon — gotta go prep!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Rations and record-keeping: Fun?
Question for you OD&D DMs out there: Do you make your players mark off rations or man-days of food during wilderness campaigns? I have a strong desire to do just that in Autumn Frontiers, my burgeoning Points of Light/Savage Worlds mashup setting — but I’m also conscious of the lameness of such record-keeping, especially in the casual group that I’m expecting for the game.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Putting Points of Light through the creative meatgrinder
This past weekend, I went ahead and put Goodman Games’ Points of Light through the ringer. I gutted the setting, redrew the map, discarded a quarter of the content, reworked another quarter, inserted my own goodies — and had an absolute blast in the process. In retrospect, I think the Goodman team would be proud of my efforts. After all, Points of Light is nothing if not immanently gameable, as Jeff Rients so eloquently put it.Most of this weekend, you see, was spent sitting in a coffee shop in St. Louis, killing time while my fiance busied herself as a bridesmaid for her friend’s wedding. I had no role in the wedding, which meant I had huge blocks of downtime while the bridal party shuttled around the city for photos, hair appointments, champagne brunches, etc. So I plopped myself down in a coffee shop, pulled up Points of Light on my laptop and started hacking.
As I’ve mentioned in a few previous posts, I’m hoping to run a sandbox-style fantasy game using Savage Worlds as my system of choice. I took the Wildlands map from Points of Light and dumped it into Photoshop; an hour later, I had the beginnings of my setting: a savage frontier punctuated with crumbling castles and keeps, the population reeling from a recently-concluded military campaign that ended in defeat for the invading empire. The army has retreated, leaving a shocked populace that now has to deal with invading orcs, hobgoblins, ogres and more.
I tried really hard to avoid scripting plots or connecting too many dots — that’s for the players to do, after all. But the seeds are definitely there.
Update: Goodman Games may be the best game company on the planet. I was planning to write an email asking for blank maps of the various kingdoms for my players to draw on. They pre-empted my request by releasing said maps last Wednesday. Wow. Get 'em here (PDF).
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