2021 Gaming Plans

 For 2020 my gaming plans went through hoops of fire as the pandemic changed how my game tables worked. The FLGs where we all met could no longer host (and still can't under current lockdown rules), and was shut down for lengthy periods. The gamers in my group ranged in age from 30 to 60+ and enough of us fit the "older, with complications" category to not want to risk casual exposure for gaming. 

Early on, like the week my state (New Mexico) shut down everything back in March/April I researched online virtual tabletop (VTT) options and settled on Roll20 as a primary venue, with Astral as my backup. 

For Astral I have so far only interfaced with it as a player. Onebookshelf graciously offered a one year premium subscription to publishers on Drivethrrpg.com I think to stimulate us all to produce content that was compatible with Astral, which has a fairly limited content set compared to Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds. So far my experience with Astral has been Call of Cthulhu-centric, and it handles the game just fine. Quirks include: lack of voice support, an odd way of delivering handouts to PCs, and a background music option that can be fun and annoying at the same time.

For Roll20 I have invested heavily, which means I'm pretty well committed, so good thing I enjoy using it for the most part. I feel it could handle "spontaneous" content a bit better (trying to type in or click to set up complicated dice rolls is annoying in all of these systems so far) but it's approach for me as a GM works well. The problem with Roll20 is that it handles games for which it has some level of support generally quite well, but if no one has bothered to build content in the Roll20 charactermancer or the publisher hasn't arranged to set up purchasable support in the shop for its ruleset then the only games you can run without that support are those for which you will find the rules/mechanics to handle adequately on the baseline support of Roll20. As an example, I ran Cypher System and Call of Cthulhu using just the available character sheet from their free Quickstart product and otherwise used my physical rulebooks for the campaign I ran just fine....and while even the free level of support is enough to run, say, D&D 5E easily in Roll20, I think I'm hesitant to run Savage Worlds without some compendium data, and I wouldn't even bother with Traveller right now, which appears to have no support for the modern edition of the game on Roll20 at all (that I can find).

I ruled out Fantasy Grounds for one reason: cost. Too much cost, unfortunately. After two years of paying for Roll20 I might have spent as much on it as I would just getting the foundation necessary on Fantasy Grounds, but I'm kinda hoping we're back to physical tabletops by 2022 you know? Gotta dream!

So this is a long way of saying: what I plan to run for 2021 is driven by what I can manage to run in either Roll20 or Astral Tabletop. Right now, that list is pretty tightly defined to:

D&D 5E

Pathfinder 2nd Edition

Starfinder

Cypher System (even though no rulesets are available, the cards all are, and the charactermancer sheet works great)

Call of Cthulhu

I also have Scum & Villany RPG's setup on Roll20, may try to run that at some point.

I can readily run (thanks to available compendiums, when I am willing to buy them if I think they would be helpful):

Alien RPG

Esper Genesis (the core rules just released as a compendium)

Warhammer Fantasy

Zweihander (the core player rules are free!)

So yeah, that's essentially "what I can run" without taking precious free time to try and learn to code in the charactermancer. So...in a nutshell, these are the games I have on the table, so to speak, for Roll20 gaming this year.

Now for Astral Tabletop, aside from the ongoing games in which I am a player I might well use it this year as a GM to try one of these games that I am interested in: Cyberpunk Red, Sword Chronicles (more on that one in a future post!) and maybe GURPS. I have a campaign for GURPS set in ancient Egypt I've been working on for months now, and I really want to run more GURPS this year, it's a game system that fits my current mood for gaming well these days. All I need is a group of like-minded players who find an historically accurate campaign in the late bronze age to be tantalizing and I'm set!

So, for 2021 so far, my plans look like this:

Saturday Group: this is the "long haul" group that can remain focused and benefits from a GM who is not frayed from midweek work stress. As such, it tends to be better at long term campaign commitments.

1. Get the group through their current D&D 5E campaign. I am expecting they will like to grow it to a logical conclusion that ends around level 10-12, but we'll see. 

2. Get the group back to a new Pathfinder 2E campaign as soon as possible and never look back at D&D again.

3. Alternatively, get at least a 10-20 session Cypher System campaign using Godforsaken to run Realms of Chirak going as soon as feasible.

4. Propose Esper Genesis at some point.

Wednesday Group: this is the group with more "stressors," including a GM who is harried and overworked midweek but liked having the midweek game because it sometimes helps me decompress (but sometimes work won't let me and sessions are missed). It has at least one player who can only attend every other week, but we've stopped trying to run alternating campaigns for my own sanity and he instead makes characters which can have an excuse for their lack of presence every other session. Because it is hard to focus on this week, I tend to prefer running shorter and sometimes more experimental campaigns on Wednesday nights. I frequently fantasize about someone else running on this night, but know I'd probably not want to play if it isn't GURPS or Call of Cthulhu (the only two systems I seem to enjoy as a player). For this night the plan is:

1. Run Starfinder's Fly Free or Die adventure path to its natural conclusion. This will last until at least June I predict. By running a programmed module series I have taken some of the burden off my shoulders.

2. Look at what I can run after that that fits the same "easy to prep" approach I've got right now. Probably will run a Call of Cthulhu campaign after the Starfinder adventure path concludes. Maybe the Alien RPG? A possibility!

My Wishlist....things I'd still like to do but don't know where they fit in, include:

GURPS Egypt campaign

A Numenera Campaign

A nostalgic revisitation of D&D 3rd edition (don't ask; I'll elaborate in a future blog post)

So...we'll see what time and the unique nature of VTT permit for 2021! Can't wait to revisit this post in twelve months.

What I'm Playing These Days: Traveller, Savage Worlds, D&D 5E and Mythras somehow in action!

First, for those interested I finally got around to updating my Video Game Review index. Now all the video games I've reviewed, in one spot! I was wondering why I don't do more paper and pencil game reviews, when I realized that really, what happens with PnP is that you can tell which games I like by what I produce....if a game is on my radar, you know I like it because I'm doing content for it.

The last two weeks have been weird for my local gaming circles. I have regular groups that meet on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and a prospective five part game on Mondays or Tuesdays in which I am getting to be (gasp!) a player are all ongoing.

Wednesdays are currently rotating between a D&D 5E game set in Enzada and a Traveller game which is two sessions in. This Traveller group is in the same sector of space as the Saturday group, but exploring a different subsector. We also have a possible new D&D 5E campaign budding once Enzada dies down, and this new campaign will explore Lingusia's Western Nakamura Isles.

Saturdays are hopping with an active Traveller campaign, and a long running D&D 5E level 15 campaign currently on hold. The Traveller campaign is an exploration of the Sirianthus Sector, which I'd started working on years ago but is now getting fully fleshed out. Last night I was unprepared for anything specific but the group agreed to an experiment, and I finally ran a game which hit two milestones: we played Savage Worlds as a fantasy RPG for the first time (it was very effective at the genre, and I love the Fantasy Companion) and I ran the game in my Altavir Campaign setting, which I had previously been considering for use with any number of systems from Fantasy AGE to 13th AGe and T&T. Well....tentatively at least maybe it turns out Savage Worlds will be he default system for Altavir going forward....I really enjoyed applying the Fast! Furious! Fun! ethos of SW to fantasy. We had some encounters with lead-lined skeletons, moss men and a gant scorpion in a quest for the ancient tome of evil, and a side quest involving a local witch and her evil temple. I'm hoping the rest of the group is up for it, but I think I could be pretty satisfied rotating between Traveller and Savage Worlds Altavir on Saturdays.

The final surprise was a pick-up session during the holiday of Mythras with a friend of mine who is running a historical campaign set late in the Crusades, involving what amounts to a game of ruthless opportunists cutting a bloody swathe through the holy land in searching for a lost relic in the form of Christ's cross. It was a fantastic game, more so because the GM runs games the way I like them (and I am a really particular player!)...I think the group plans to meet for Tuesdays with a planned story arc of 4-5 sessions. Definitely going to keep making this one.

I also learned that I really, really love playing Mythras when someone else is the GM.

Revisiting Neverwinter Online

Neverwinter Online has been out for a little over three years now, and judging by the regular updates on WotC's home pages it appears to get a new content update every time they release a book expansion for D&D 5E these days. I had dived in to Neverwinter back in 2013 (an initial impressions review here, followed by my "lost interest" phase here) with all the hope that it would live up to its predecessor, D&D Online from Turbine, which I had played extensively and was quite invested in.

Lomng story short: Neverwinter, in 2013, was not quite what I needed to replace my addiction back then to games like D&D Online and World of Warcraft. In 2013, that is.

Cut to 2016! I've all but given up on ever truly understanding or appreciating the nuances of Guild Wars 2, and while I continue to play and enjoy The Elder Scrolls Online, I have also grown to wonder why it feels like all quests in ESO seem to fall in to one of the following three categories:

1. Bored noble elf who is tomb robbing/inspecting ruins/digging for artifacts/just being a prick deigns to let you suffer through the task on his behalf, and usually with little acknowledgement of credit.

2. Angry/sorrowful ghost either tries to stop you from righting a wrong it did, or begs you to wright a wrong it either did or failed to stop in life.

3. Desperate soldier convinces you to do what his entire army appears unable to do, mostly because they are apparently standing around waiting for you to show up and end the local conflict on their behalf.

Yeah....after a while there's a pattern that emerges from many TESO missions, and not even the awesome Razum Dar can save you from a sense of bored familiarity at these moments.

Enter Neverwinter! With a recent modest upgrade in my PC (to a better i5 setup with a 960GB SSD) thanks to a friend of mine, I've been able to run certain games at max or near max capacity that used to chug on my older rig. Neverwinter was on my "see how it runs now" list, and this weekend, recovering from an illness, I had some time to kill....

Anyway, it turns out Neverwinter has gotten much more robust than I recalled, and had really fleshed out. I still need to play longer than the 23+ hours I sank in to the game leveling a half-dozen characters up to 18-20th level, but I spent a healthy amount of time with Forge adventures as well as taking the time and effort to figure out the bizarre coin economy that Perfect World likes to implement in all of its titles, a sort of weird freemium shell game that they keep in place so you have to be careful figuring out whether you need certain marks, zen coinage bought wish cash, astral diamonds acquired through "means most obscure," auction house trades and still others that don't seem to become relevant until much later in the game. It's not probably much more difficult to decipher than the way such coinage/marks have worked in other titles such as WoW, but the inclusion of RMT in the process makes one want to be careful....

But really, that was only about 5% of the process. Once I had the inventory/item/crafting nonsense figured out so I knew what stuff was relevant and what I could effectively ignore for the time being, then it was much easier to focus on enjoying what the game had to offer that I was actually interested in. Also, I spent about $10 to get some zen coinage, which I can tell you two things about:

1. I bought some keys for the lockboxes, and outside of some training manuals for companions I was nonplussed at what I was getting.
2. I converted some Zen into astral diamonds to pick up companions and stuff on the auction house. What I discovered was that certain things were worth it (if the AD cost was low) but most stuff in the AH was vastly overpriced for the level I was at. If i make it to 70 I'll let you know if that changes.

Anyway, the quests:

First, the storylines in Neverwinter have grown considerably since release, and if D&D 5E has a module release out, it's also in Neverwinter as a scenario pack. The scenarios appear to all be free; they get your cash through zen sales to buy vanity items, special gear and gods know what else. Fine with me! It does so far appear that you can ignore the RMT element of the game and play what one might call "the base game" with no loss of experience.

The basic storylines up to level 20 remain quite entertaining. I hadn't gotten past level 12 when I played before....I really lost steam back then....and it felt like leveling was going faster and making more sense this time to me. An effect of visiting it at the right time, or a reflection of changes and improvements? I couldn't say.

Then I dived in to the Forge scenarios. When I was last playing Forge was fresh and weird but appeard to be very limited. Well, it's still kind of limited, but between 2013 and now people have really taken the Forge system to the nth level. I played some amazingly interesting scenarios, and finding the cream of the crop was now quite easy, with various agents and billboards everywhere providing you advice on what to explore.

Some of the Forge scenarios were so good I took notes on ideas to steal for my weekly tabletop session. That good. 

I have one character of each class type going on right now. Sadly there are only seven classes currently in the game, up 2 from 2013. I had sort of hoped they would have expanded it a bit by now. The classes still have a style/feel closer to D&D 4E in terms of language and thematics, but don't let that dissuade you....those thematics actually convey quite well in an action RPG, which Neverwinter most definitely is.

Back when I was into it before I had bought an extra character slot or two on sale, and had gained access to drow and tieflings. Since then, dragonborn and some weird elf variants have been made available. When I clicked on the "buy dragonborn" option it took me to a page where I could buy the dragonborn pack for an insane $74.99. WTF. In the general in-game store I think I spotted an option for like 2,000 Zen though just to unlock the race itself (no frills), equivalent to $20. Hmmmm. Not sufficiently excited about dragonborn to spend any of that, though.

So Neverwinter looks like a fine game now, with some robust user content in the forge that really stands apart from other MMOs out there. It's got me thinking about it....obsessively!.....which is something I haven't done for a while (in fact only Destiny and The Division have gotten me there in recent years).

I'll report further along as I finally break the 20s in level and start seeing the mid and upper tier of the games. Intrigued to see what the Neverwinter take on the various D&D 5E scenario books are like.

Mini Review: Dhampir Options on the DMs Guild

Time to get back on track with my planned mini-reviews of the many downloads available on dmsguild.com! I've collected about 50 books from  the site now. Many of the offerings are pay-what-you-want but most are very cheaply priced. The most expensive offerings appear to also be the most popular, but that rule isn't exact....some of the coolest books I've found have been free, or cost a $1 or less.

Creature Crucible: Dhampirs ($1)

This one is Creature Crucible: Dhampirs from Mark Craddock, who provided a copy for review. I'll contrast it with two other Dhampir options that were PWYW; I wasn't quite willing to pay for the other non-free options as the one Mark worked up and the two free options were more than fine for my dhampir needs. CC: Dhampirs provides 2 pages of content (plus a front, back and cover page) for $1.00. The dhampir is a racial option originally provided in Pathfinder (my 3rd edition D&D knowledge prevents me from recalling if he existed in that edition but I am certain it was not a racial option in 4E). The CC adaptation features 1 point modifiers to stats, live twice as long as normal humans, have fangs, can spend a hit die to drink blood and recover hit points, have dark vision and necrotic resistance. The blood drinking effect can be done once, but requires a short or long rest to recover again. You also get some sample name ideas to choose from.

Pros: the CC dhampir is a straight up racial option for D&D which provides a blood-drinking version of the dhampir.
Cons: not much. It doesn't have any subrace options, but other than that, it's quite functional. It's blood drain attack and lack of sunlight sensitivity makes it a reimagining rather than a recreation of prior edition versions of the dhampir.

Dhampir 5E Race Option (PWYW suggested .70)

The second dhampir option is the Dhampir 5E Race Option, a spiffy PDF with 3 pages, 1 of a splash cover and 2 pages of content. Some of the features of this version of the dhampir are identical (or close to it) with the CC version, such as darkvision, long life, and a tendency toward neutrality. However, this dhampir is more robust than normal (with a +2 Con modifier in addition to later subrace bonuses), gaining advantage against poison and resistance against necrotic damage as well as advantage on death saving throws. This is offset by sunlight sensitivity, in which the dhampir gains distadvantage on attack rolls and perception checks when in direct sunlight. This is also thematically appropriate, but this version of the dhampir does not drink blood (or at least gain any measurable effect from attempts to do so).

This version also has subrace options, including the dreadblood, who can burn a hit die to gain a saving throw bonus against charm and frightening effects; the nobleblood which can burn a hit die to compel another creature to take an action; the feralblood, who can burn a hit die to engage the druid's wild shape ability but with no limit on how long you remain in creature form (yikes!) The only use limit on these are the dhampir's willingness to burn hit dice.

Pro: For a free option its not bad, and it provides three subraced options.
Con: My DM sense makes my skin crawl when reading the subrace abilities. They are cool --too cool-- and move the dhampir from a "fellow with vampiric ancestry" to "mini vampire, but with no blood drinking rules or limits." YMMV but I would be hesitant to let this one at my game table...maybe for a trial test?

Playable Race: The Dhampir (PWYW, suggested .70)

The third dhampir option, Playable Race: The Dhampir, available for viewing at the minimum cost of free is a 6 page booklet with 3 pages of content. This dhampir starts off with a +2 Charisma modifier, darkvision, and a tendency towards chaos and evil rather than neutrality, and he also comes with fangs. Unlike the CC dhampir this one can drink blood and gain temporary hit points as an action, and without restraint equal to your Charisma modifier....so the only limit is the temporary hit point rules themselves (which prevent the effect from stacking iirc). Oh, this dhampir can live to be 700 years old, too, and has no sunlight sensitivity, officially making him the most badass dhampir yet.

Breaking from convention, this dhampir lets you pick subrace by your origin race: dwarf elf, halfling, human, gnome or orc. Apparently tieflings, drow and dragonborn don't produce dhampir offpsring. The bonus features for these subraces are just elements of the base race (ex: stonecunning for the dwarf).

Pro: This third option isn't too bad, and the temporary hit point gain isn't all that powerful, since it can never be more than 5 hit points at a time. Being able to have a dhampir that is not human is also a plus.
Con: it's not an entirely faithful adaptation of prior renditions of the dhampir, but it does work. It's missing sunlight sensitivity, and the bite attack is not typical of the prior dhampirs of older editions.

Forbidden Bestiary: Creatures of Shadow ($4.99)

The Forbidden Bestiary: Creatures of Shadow is actually a monster tome, but includes a playable version of the dhampir. This version is a template, applied to any creature born a dhampir. The racial modifiers are in line with 5E principles, but the key effect identified here is blood drain from a bite, which can be quite formidable (2D6+proficiency bonus) in both damage dealt and healing gained. The limit is that the dhampir suffers a hit point loss and HP maximum reduction until he feeds again.

Pro: this is a cool template and lets you make anything a dhampir if you so desire.
Con: it's really better as a DM's template for monsters, and I wouldn't let players get their hands on it.

Summary:

Get the Frobidden Bestiary since it's useful to you as a DM, but for dhampir racial options I think I'd suggest using the Creature Crucible version or the Playable Race version. That said.....both versions could benefit from having sunlight sensitivity added to reflect the race's legacy of aversion to daylight, and then you could add subrace traits such as "daywalker" that remove that sensitivity. The dhampir could benefit from a more expansive tome of options down the road, and either of these interpretations would be a good starting point. I am not a fan of hit die-cost superpowers however, so am leaning against the use of the Dhampir 5E Race Option version.

The Lost Lands: Bard's Gate Kickstarter

With a few weeks to go the Lost Lands: Bard's Gate Kickstarter is the latest mega-manual to come out of the Frog God Lair. Check it out:



I'm in for the $100 level for a 5E edition. I waffled on The Lost Lands: Borderland Provinces Kickstarter and regret it (when I finally landed my book copies through retail I was incredibly impressed). The Kickstarter is covering 5E, S&W and Pathfinder editions, this time cleaning up the process by letting you elect your preferred edition in the backerkit section. I've cancelled other KS's to make room for it, in fact.

I'm sincerely hoping 5E dominates as a request; I'd love to see older Lost Lands tomes converted to 5E (though converting the S&W versions is easy enough). In fact I'd really love to see Razor Coast converted to 5E although based on the history of that particular production I'll assume such a conversion is likely a pipe dream for now!

Kickstarter: Ultimate NPCS - Skulduggery

From Nord Games, which has previously done a card game and bookmark Kickstarter is a new sourcebook of NPCs for S&W, Pathfinder and D&D 5E called Ultimate NPCS: Skulduggery. It looks interesting, and the art on display is very nice....I am not sure of Nord Games rep for book creation but it seems like they have fulfilled prior Kickstarters ....anyone back something from them previously? I'm inclined to take the risk and jump in for a $30 soft cover copy of the 5E book.

They definitely do one thing right, which I hope future multi-system Kickstarters do: they are putting different entries in at the front for each edition (letting me pledge right off for a 5E version, for example) rather than making generic entries and waiting for the actual results in the survey at the end of the Kickstarter. Hopefully Frog God will do this for future Kickstarters (there seems to be a connection to Nord Games as I learned about it from  Frog God email).

UPDATE: it's already hit the funding goal (cool). The metrics are rolling in....by breaking out pledges by edition, this gives everyone a chance to see interest level by system and book type (PDF/print). D&D 5E is in the lead, followed by Pathfinder, with S&W a distant third. Interesting stuff....this could suggest less about "system use" and more about "system need," though. Designing quick NPCs for S&W is now a big deal...but the need for stat blocks for D&D 5E and Pathfinder is never-ending and great.

GM Dedication and the ease of game prep time

So here's the situation: I started thinking about prepping for a new Pathfinder campaign. This led to an initial moment of excitement, then gradually dwindled to a series of increasingly odd headaches and phantom pains that I realized were due to the painful conditioning of just how onerous and problematic the task at hand was going to be.

Running Pathfinder requires a lot of time. Prepping a game properly requires a lot of time. Being a Pathfinder GM requires.....dedication. Perhaps more dedication than I am capable of mustering anymore.

In the time it would take me to stat out one interesting NPC or opponent for Pathfinder, I could produce a dozen 5E foes or two dozen S&W or C&C foes. In the time it takes me to properly read up on the player's choices of race and class I could completely learn two or even three entire OSR game systems from cover to cover.

I feel bad. I know my players want variety....they want weird classes with weird options; they are all burned out on the same core classes in every iteration of D&D. Something like Class Compendium can't interest them because....despite the fact that my crew is largely of the right age for the OSR crowd.....they still crave more complexity as players. But Pathfinder does not offer what I as the GM need, which is less complexity.

I could wing it all....and may end up doing so.....but I don't know about you, but that usually leads to a less satisfying experience with Pathfinder. I mean: why run a game that requires short cuts and concessions as the GM to find time to prep and run for, when you could play a game that actually designs the GM experience to be a streamlined, smooth process to begin with?

I haven't got any good answers yet, other than to push hard to keep my current 5E game going on Saturday for as long as possible....stall any change! Yeah, that's the ticket.....

If I stall long enough maybe Paizo will release Pathfinder 2E, now with 200% more player-friendly crunch and 50% less GM prep time requirements. I can dream, anyway!