Player Profile: Risk James

D&D really isn't known for its LARPers.

More often than enough its just a bunch of guys around a table, dressed in whatever casual clothes they can find. I haven't had any real problems with my players being unhygienic, though there have been a few who wore things that I really questioned they have the courage of braving daylight in. Risk, my middle child, absolutely loves dressing up. I don't know if its the fairy tale princess part of her girly nature that's causing it, or if its that she absolutely loves playing D&D. My wife was able to rummage through her old belongings and found a sewing kit she no longer has a strong use for. Obviously, she passed it down to Risk, who has been making dolls and outfits for said dolls.

But it seems the more Risk plays in my campaign, the more objects she seems to add to her wardrobe. It first started with a cowl and a few impromptu items to add to her outfit... but now she has a full uniform to wear when we play. She's made a sword sheath for a sword I carved out of cedar for her, a hand-sewn bag full of yellow-colored cardboard, a cape from one of my old shirts, and an impromptu set of caltrops. I've never seen a player so hyped about her own character.

Risk also has a plastic hinged box I was able to get from my work to hold her playable gear in. She's made a spot for her preferred miniature, her dice, her character sheet(s), and a pencil. Even with her atrocious handwriting, she has multiple pages for notes littered inside as well, which keeps track of the party's equipment and shared treasure. I've been working on getting a dry-erase piece to glue to her lid, so she can easily take notes for fun. 

Now, I'm sure you're wondering at this point, "Why does this child have such a strange/cliche name?" Risk's player is obsessed with the Undertale franchise, notably Frisk and Chara. Her player has had a bit of trouble coming up with unique character concepts - she's nine, give her a break - and the first name that came to mind was Risk. Her player also has made an alternate in case she ever takes a dirt nap named Chara... there's no changing the name to make it unique for the alt. As for her last name, don't look at me. Some creative spark linked James as a surname, and she had never heard of the Rick James meme in her life. (Speaking of alts, Risk has a druid in a side campaign I'm running named Chocolate Nutella. Don't ask.)

If there is anything that Risk is known for, its her crowbar (tm). For a thief, she really isn't very subtle (aside from pick pocketing), and usually goes to town with her weapon of choice. Her player usually peppers every attack with a full description - "I swing and try to knock off his skull!" or "I try to break his spine with the crowbar!" Time after time again I try to explain that called shots are much harder to do, but after so many sessions, I just say it happens with no special effect if her attack lands. Theatrical explanations make combat that more exciting for everyone, and as long as the players don't expect more, I'm fine with it. With that said, if they do happen to land killing damage, I'll exaggerate the result they were looking for, and once again everyone is entertained. Breaking a guard's spine has been one of Risk's proudest moments.

If you're been reading my blog this long, you've seen the subheading that refers to "crotch-punches." Risk was the first one to establish this phrase, and its extended to her younger sister Scooby. Here and there it'll switch up to "I kick him in the crotch!" As a girl, I don't know why she assumes every one of my NPCs on the battlefield, monsters included, are male, or even possess genitals. Perhaps its some tie to Internet Rule 30. If she can roll high enough, I'll allow the paralyzing blow on a male NPC, but most of the time we don't see 19s or 20s. Childish excitement aside, Risk is the most engaged player in my campaign. She always is looking for something to do, and is always trying to talk to an NPC. She's also the one who is continually asking me when I'm going to run another game, is the one who has the most memories of our campaign. If it wasn't for her continual prodding of what I was doing, I probably wouldn't be playing this game either, and I can say I appreciate all her enthusiasm and enjoyment of every roll of the dice.

She's really going to be an incredible DM one day.

They're not toys, they're miniatures!

The last few entries, I've been complaining time after time again about what gets to me about gaming with the three kids who share a household with me. Out of my standard practice of ranting, I'm going discuss something a little different here.

Today's point of positive discussion has been in lieu of miniatures, and the fact that my kids LOVE them. Yes, I said that in caps, and I used such a strong word to describe how the Growly Goats™ feel about my minis. I've collected them in a huge dosage whenever WotC released the sets of miniatures in 2003... probably about five hundred dollars worth of them. Even though I spent a sizable sum on these plastic figures, I've chucked my entire collection into a zippered bag and just let them roll around however they felt like. Some are missing arms and weapons, but the majority of them are intact- WotC did a decent job on their D&D line... but I've also purchased a few sets of MageKnight figures, and I'd say, oh, 90% of all of those have split in half. They're garbage to me. Actually, I still can use them, they're just detached from the bases they came with. I'm getting off topic here.

Anyway, when I finally had decided "get serious" about running a campaign with my kids (Yes, I said get serious about a game with kids), I let them first make a character, and then pick a mini as their avatar. Most players are like, "eh, give me that dude with the shield," or I've heard "He looks like a spellcaster, I'll use him." As long as it wasn't too far off from their character concept, everyone was content with what I had if they didn't bring their own. But the Growly Goats™? They went berserk!

I had forgotten how much young girls enjoy playing with their tiny pieces of plastic, and now that they had full access to over two hundred different characters instead of just a few dozen ponies or Barbies, they went into overdrive. They took hours to finally settle on what they want, and if I don't set what they have aside I end up shooting myself in the foot. Each session would have to begin with another half hour dive into the minis bag, and almost every time they've had a different choice to use for their character!

I've also had to deal with requests to use their own toys as minis. Thinking intelligently, this actually is a useful idea for a DM... but I don't have a lot of happy townsfolk in my games, nor do I have four foot tall ponies. All of my D&D miniatures are to-scale as well, sacrificing detail for conformity across the standard. I wish my minis had the facial expressions of some of those toys, but when your facial room is about the size of half an eraser, something's gotta give. Now legos have been seen as a promising endeavor, but they've lost half the building blocks in the sofa and only have humanoid lego minifigs... and papa doesn't have deep enough pockets to buy more legos.

This would be the ideal scenario.

After six sessions, the kiddos still have problems leaving my miniatures alone. I run grid based combat in the typical 3.5 edition style - flanking rules, two squares minimum for a charge, attacks of opportunity- its hard to beat that mentality out of me after using it with good results. With Scooby the Red at the table, there's a five year old who wants to ruin every single tactical advantage by grabbing each figurine on the battlemat and doing the Charleston across the dungeon floor with them. If I ever run a game where I have possessed monsters, I'll be sure to give Scooby full access to show how that little goblin flies sixty feet across the room in only one turn. Now, in her defense, my other players were a bit enthusiastic with the minis too, but now they've learned how to count squares, and that nine times out of ten its better just to let the DM move things. You don't want to hear me when I'm pissed off that my BBG has been pulled off the throne and has joined the party behind a closed door. It doesn't end well for anyone's eardrums.

I will have to get a shout out to Wyloch's Dungeon, because its turned what my kids have access to into from around two hundred, to whatever the hell I can print. I've invested in a cheap printer from Walmart and an ink refill kit to deal with the demand. Thus far my workhorse still stands on four legs, fingers crossed. The foamcore bases also help differentiate the players from my monsters; however, I'm wanting to make custom miniatures myself, and that advantage would end up disappearing. (If you are interested in printing miniatures for your role playing game, I suggest watching his tutorial. That's the tutorial I use, and I follow it pretty much to the tee.)

They use binder clips here, not foamcore, but you get the idea.

As a DM for over a decade, it really is refreshing seeing players get excited for my games. Even though its just a plastic doll session with dice rolling, I'm really happy to see eager players. I can truly say that my kids have shown more appreciation for my campaign than anyone else has. If you do have kids, I suggest you run a session with them, even if its a simple diceless one, you'll at least have a better appreciation for your own game if your night is a total disaster.

Although I'm pretty sure you're going to have a blast.

All Aboard?

Why hello there. Its your favorite step-dad DM, here to whine about another aspect of gaming with his step-kids. Today's grand topic: Railroading.
What is railroading? I'll shove you down the abyss of TV Tropes and cite what morsels they have for our topic.

"In short, the GM takes any measure necessary to ensure there is only one direction the campaign may proceed — his planned direction. This can manifest in any number of imaginable ways; some of them subtle, others ... not so much."

Shamelessly stolen from TV Trope's topic.

Historically, railroading has been a nasty word in the tabletop community... Type1ninja has even resorted to referring to it as by saying, "If there’s a word for 'hissing, foaming at the mouth, smashing through walls, tearing out my own hair,”' then that word." Being pulled by the nose to get something accomplished is something I admit I absolutely hate... Final Fantasy XIII comes to mind.

So, you'd think as a DM, you go through all these lengths to avoid a linear plot and allow your players to have whatever agency they so desire. You'd think the PCs would get so immersed that someone knocking on your door would make them jump out of their seats. And, you'd think nobody would say they're bored.

But yet again, we're dealing with The Growly Goats™, and we get to throw all we assume about tabletop gaming out the window- unless it was incorporated in Candyland.

I've done a great deal to read through published adventures to try and adapt them to a flexible, off-the-rails style, but I'm not really having much luck. My kids won't take any hooks that these modules cast, no matter how tempting they are to follow. Piles of gold to kill a goblin chief? Nope, not tasty. Free reign to a castle if you do a fetch quest? Bass Pro customers get better luck flinging their strings out of their pontoons to catch bass.

Let's look at our first example, with Risk - our nine-year-old thief- and Scooby the Red - our five-year-old fighter. They recently had turned in a small fetch quest (don't look at me at how I got them to actually get into the dungeon) and were hanging out around a tavern, and I hadn't a whole lot of ideas as to what to do next. The party was goofing around and I had nothing planned at the end of the quest, but had wanted to set up a lead for them. Scooby looked out the window in boredom, and saw a random villager dragging a huge bag down the street.

Scooby goes to inquire, and my mook tells her someone paid him about ten gold to dump this bag into the lake, no questions asked. I'm not sure what was in her head, but my youngster inquired how much he'd sell that bag for. He asked for double the price, and it easily whittled down their coffers. Couldn't sell lemonade this easily.

The fox is in the henhouse, repeat, the fox is in the henhouse- my players have a hook, and they're eager to investigate something strange. Scooby takes the bag, returns to the tavern, and the party gathers around the bag in the main hall. Cue the creepy music - they find a gruesome bag of satyr legs, arms, and heads. You'd think, "Whoa, this is super creepy, mafia style stuff going on here!" and you'd have a ton of questions.

This guy is about as surprised as the average gamer would be at a bag full of body parts.

But we're dealing with The Growly Goats™ here, and we get to throw our baby out with the bathwater. So, what does our glorious party do? They ditched the bag in their room for some poor sod to deal with, as its too damn gross. Seems our hook wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

Its been two sessions later, and the party doesn't even remember our bag of corpse parts. I hope they're not going to go back to that tavern... else they're gonna have a lot of explaining to do. Then again, maybe I do hope they go back. I'd love to see what they do. Maybe this plot hook still has a juicy worm wriggling on it.

Perttu Vedenoja has suggested "giving the players an interesting NPC to buy those supplies from as a hook recommended though - showing instead of telling what this roleplaying part of the game is and so on." I've tried doing that suggestion too. I had thrown them into Dunnsmouth, and there was a crazy cat lady who had poison lining our walls. Shadowneko, our resident magic-user, was able to read all the mason jars' labels, and noped the hell out of there. "She's got about a gallon of arsenic, and there's no way I'm going to stick around!"

The only real way my kids will get anything done is if I throw them in a new spot and don't let them leave. After they've recovered from jet lag, I plop down a few scene elements. My most recent incursion was a bench that, when sat upon, throws you into the ethereal with a failed spell save. They absolutely loved that, interacting with a device and trying to figure it out.

Honestly, I really don't know what to do for the rugrats here. At least they're not offended when they go Amtrak.

Into the depths

I've been a gamer for over fifteen years now. Yes, a decade and a half. I've had tons of friends join up to play crazy campaigns of D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder, spending hours upon hours chugging mountain dew and nearly inhaling pizza. I was younger, and had plenty of free time to spend with friends... but as time waned on, that ran out, along with friends whom I'd still want to play with.

Within the last few years I married my beautiful wife, and along with that I adopted three step-kids. I thought before that I didn't have time to spend with friends, but now? When you have to be papa, that *kills* your free time. "No more D&D, at least until the youngest is gone," I had told myself.

But then things churned around in my head. This was a game, and well, kids play games. Why couldn't I run something with the rugrats? The idea was simple, get them adhered to the rules, and run what's familiar to them.

Alas, that was a lot harder than I had expected. Getting them to pay attention to a turn based game was a task I had to be creative in. I started them all on Fate Core, and used what my daughters had aplenty: My Little Pony figurines. You think your player wanting to be a drow was bad? Try all three of your kids wanting to be Twilight Sparkle.

The session went well, but it seemed short lived. I had difficulty wrapping my head around Fate's aspect system, let alone its smaller plus-and-minus rolls. If I had trouble with it, my kids wouldn't have a chance in hell. So the novel of character sheets I printed went into the waste bucket, and I gave up hope.

Eventually my RPG itch started irking me once more, and I wanted to run a game online for friends, the new D&D edition. We all know how planning goes, right? Everyone says they'll be there at your kegger, and the snack bowls are filled... then you get called with doctor's appointments, work, and parental duties. I was never able to coordinate a proper time to run a game, thus throwing the hopeful towel at the wall and kicking the puppy across the room. That yelp still rings in my ears.

My middle child, who we'll call Risk for sake of character identity, had saw all the work I planned and all the dice I had sprawled out across the table. Risk remembered "the Pony game" and wondered if this was anything like that- so I did what any other hopeless man would and ran a game with a nine year old girl. The session went quite well, enough to where the five year old heard all the giggling across the room and begged to join in. I couldn't ignore the requests too long, and had to manage not one but two character sheets.

The thing with 5th Edition D&D is that there's a good amount of reading on it. The system isn't as bad as 3.5, let alone Pathfinder, but to ask a kindergartner to find her proficiency bonus is a long walk to the park. Character creation took a long while too, but what limited my party the most was the skills and DCs. Time after time I'd ask them to make skill checks, then would have to work quick arithmetic to calculate *their* bonus. Its troublesome enough having to manage all my NPCs and the plot, and when a player has difficulty finding out if they made their roll... well, you get the idea.

I had to find an alternative. I don't really know how I came across it, but somehow I came across the OSR scene. The purist in me hurled chunks at the print quality of older D&D books, let alone the organization of the content within. However, my youth reminded me of playing Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, and it shoved me into full retro-grognard mode. Second edition was what the old Infinity Engine used, and it wasn't a huge jump to adjust to what was in First edition.

Greedy research dropped Lamentations of the Flame Princess in my lap, a well-crafted retroclone. My empty pockets grasped the free, artless PDF they hosted on their website, and I inhaled page after page. I was able to spare a few coins, and got ahold of Death Frost Doom... and could only wait for the weekend to kill PCs.

The session went quite well, though I had to work on garnering a way to explain the saves and stats- but it was MUCH easier to explain what each thing went. OSR characters could easily fit on an index card; the less academic work for anyone with a third grade reading level, let alone someone who could barely recognize numbers, the better. The use of adopting OSR's "rulings not rules" stance works quite well when working with children.

My only real problem is... the only thing my kids want to do to NPCs is "hit them in the crotch."

I don't have the heart to raise the difficulty for them. They're having too much fun.