Thanksgiving this year was...not the best.
Initially.
Let me explain...
I've mentioned before that Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays if not the favorite. I love everything about it. My family has a tradition of watching the balloons getting blown up the night before and than getting together early Thanksgiving Day to watch the parade on TV over pancakes and bacon, than hanging out, talking, playing with my nephew, cooking and eventually eating an awesome early dinner made by two of the greatest cooks in the world, my Mom and my sister. Oh! How could I forget my other favorite part of the day? After the parade I get to watch the National Dog Show!
My family is small. Very small. It always has been. Even when it was larger with my grandparents around, I really only had my Mom's grandparents. It was still small. As a result, it is a very tight family unit. We have our falling outs like any other family but various factors have shown us that, well, we are all we got. So we enjoy this holiday a lot and are truly thankful for each other.
Anyway, for one reason or another, this year things started off great but ended on a sour note to some extent. The dinner was kind of a wash out. My brother-in-law wasn't feeling well. We had just the tiniest of fires in the oven. Don't worry, everyone is OK.
I have been down a lot recently and this should have really put me over the edge but it didn't. I am still thankful we got together, thankful everyone is fine and thankful that we saved enough food for leftovers.
There is always next year...if you're not Mayan I suppose.
Anyway...
Yesterday, my ex-wife invited some ol' friends and myself over for a sort of 'Retread Thanksgiving' that also involved my running a game. I can't really put into words how cool this was. It was good food (Selina, my ex-wife, is a great cook and makes a kick ass cheese cake. My friend Luke's Turkey is pretty damn good too), good people and I got to run a one-shot of my D&D-But-Not game at it's full potential.
What do I mean by its 'full potential'? Well, Selina is one of the greatest players I have ever met and she knows and gets my style. I don't have to pull punches. I can make complex plots that intertwine politics, culture, folklore and mystery and have her not only understand what's happening but extrapolate into directions I totally didn't expect. I lay out Legos on the table and she builds a vehicle that drives across the floor when I don't remember including movable wheels.
Not sure that analogy made perfect sense but yeah...she is awesome at adding to and guiding the story as a player as much as the GM does.
Luke is a role player with a good sense of humor and a knack for creating odd roles. He was in top form yesterday as an atypical typical Scottish sounding Dwarf who was part drunkard, part berserker and secretly pretty swift on the uptake. Throughout the session he accidentally succeeded at what he was doing again and again.
Lily is the new comer, less experienced as a table top gamer than the rest but she enjoys herself and loves the story and listening to the other two. She is often surprising effective when the fighting starts.
In the end, I feel very lucky. I got to have two Thanksgivings and for each I am thankful, if for slightly different reasons.
I hope this holiday has been good to all of you and even if it hasn't, look at it closely and try to find something positive in it that you can take with you into December.
All the best,
AD
Barking Alien
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.
Usually my favorite of all holidays, this year I am acknowleding that it is here and we'll leave it at that.
I am thankful for my family, my friends, my dog, my health, my jobs...etc.
I hope all of you out there in blogland have a safe, happy and tasty Thanksgiving.
See you back here soon,
AD
Barking Alien
Saturday was a dud.
The regular game was cancelled and an attempt at an impromptu get together at my FLGS amounted to a big ol' pile of nothing. Bleh. Spent the day doing chores, running errands and food shopping.
Sunday was nice if a little hectic.
Things for the early class I teach needed adjusting since the 3rd grade and 4th grade students really need different assignments. While there has been a good deal of crossover, the 4th grade work is now clearly ahead of the 3rd grade work.
The Storytelling/Writing/Game class has expanded to 16 kids. Holy Cats! That would be a lot of players in a game even if they weren't in elementary school. The whole thing went over surprisingly well however and it was a pretty smooth transition adding in the two new students. Plus, I've managed to sneak in some geography lessons since the current story is quite globetrotting.
Had dinner with my the rest of the staff (that is, my ex-wife and a friend of ours) and we went over some general business, what everyone's plans are for the holidays, etc. I was invited to run a game for them and a third friend in Jersey this coming weekend. That put a much needed smile on my face to be sure.
Well, off to work with the doggies. I'll keep you all posted.
Laters,
AD
Barking Alien
Although the blog itself has been quiet the last day or so, I have not been.
That is to say, I have been working on a number of things, personal and professional and somewhere in between, which have occupied my time offline. Fear not gentle reader, for I have returned and new ideas are a-brewin'.
***
I have the opportunity to run a one-shot this weekend, a break from our regularly scheduled Ars Magica campaign, and I am trying to narrow down the possibilities.
I am pretty sure I want to do something Science Fiction-y. I am still a bit Superhero-ed out from our Champions game, and I am running Ars Magica with my group regularly and a kind of modern day mythical game with the kids at the learning center on Sunday (sort of Percy Jackson meets Al Shard) so I think my Fantasy quota is more than filled (once again, for a guy who doesn't care much for Fantasy I seem to run it alot).
What Sci-Fi to run? Well that's the hard part...
My players are very particular. I wonder, aren't most players? I mean, my old NJ group was not so particular in the way my new NY group is. I suppose as members of a fandom, any fandom, we all have our specific likes and dislikes and we can abhor one with all the passion with which we love another.
That said, I am not, generally speaking at least, so all or nothing with my likes and dislikes as I find some people to be. For example, I love Star Trek but I don't hate Star Wars. I like Star Wars. I like it a lot actually. I just like Star Trek a lot more. I am a huge fan of classic Silver Age DC Comics but I don't hate modern Marvel Comics. I do vehemently dislike DC's New 52 however. More on this in a few paragraphs.
What I get from many of my players nowadays (except Dave, he's pretty flexible)* is how few things they seem to like. Ray likes Anime and Manga, well mostly Manga, but he likes One Piece and Hunter X Hunter. None of my other guys like One Piece. Ray's not into Mecha/Giant Robots at all (which I personally think qualifies him to be designated mentally insane but he's my friend so I'll just have to deal with it). Lee didn't really see the big deal about Mecha either (the madness may be spreading). Ray also doesn't like Star Wars. I've never met anyone before who actually didn't like Star Wars. Ray has issues (ahhh, teasing. I love'ya man!)
Marcus, well, it's just hard getting Marcus interested in something new. He's a very Green Eggs and Ham type of a fellow. He'll say he doesn't like something he often hasn't really checked out and than when he checks it out, he likes it. He says he's not into Star Trek but I know for a fact he's never tried it in RPG form. He doesn't want to though because, circular logic, he doesn't like Star Trek.
This dynamic is really frustrating to me as a GM who likes to try new things. It's also frustrating because if it were me in their shoes (and it has been as noted below) I would say, "Your last three games were awesome. You want to try Pin The Tail On The Donkey The RPG? I am so there!"
Case in point; I am not a fan of My Little Pony, old or new. When Erin Palette created her game Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome, I wanted to play. Why? Because I trusted Erin as a GM, a fan passionate about the show and a friend.
A few years back a friend wanted me in on his homebrew D&D 3.x game which featured a number of rules changes and additions (with some Pathfinder elements thrown in) as well as his own world. I said yes. Why? Because even though I've played in dozens of D&D campaigns by dozens of Gamemasters and only about 5% were any good (I am being generous), that doesn't mean the next one won't rock. I trusted the GM.
Going some years back (a little more than some at this point), my good friend Keith, who had moved to California, came back to NY after a while. An incredible player, it turned out he now GMed. My group at the time said that whatever Keith wanted to run would be cool with us. He said Deadlands. We all said. "AWESOME!". Then my friend Jason pulled me to the side.
Jason said:
"Why did you agree to Deadlands? It's a Western with Horror elements. You don't like Westerns and you really don't like Horror. How are you excited to play this?"
I replied:
"'Cause it's Keith and whatever Keith is going to run is going to be fantastic."
Keith has never GMed for me before. Keith was simply put, a good friend, a creative fellow and this is what he wanted to run so it was (in my mind) a guarantee it was going to be great.
Sometimes I am right. Alas, not always.** But I'll be damned if I won't give it a shot.
That's what disappoints my the most with my group. It's like pulling teeth sometimes to get them to give something a shot. They all have their particular things they like and don't and they're both kind of narrow and kind of finicky about what they will try outside of their established likes.
Come on gang. Try a game, any game.
No guarantee it won't be lame but surely they're not all the same.
You do not like them but you won't play.
Try them. Try one. Try to play.
You might like one. Try one and you may I say.
AD
Barking Alien
*Dave definitely has his particulars as well but I gotta give it up for the man. He is a lot more willing to try than most of the New York crew.
**Deadlands turned out to be awesome. Keith was a great GM and he altered the setting a bit making it much creepier and more ghost story-ish.
The D&D game I mentioned...well...it just wasn't for me.
Unknown Ponies was interesting. While I was completely lost with the story of the adventure and how to approach it and the rule mechanic made for a frustrating time, I saw the potential in it. I thought it really could be a cool game onced worked on a bit more.
There has been some talk on various blogs lately about the 'Endgame' in Role Playing Games. Generally speaking, by 'RPGs', what they are primarily referring to is Dungeons & Dragons or one of its brethern. As such, it should come to no one's surprise that I don't share quite the same view point as others do.
Go figure.
I've been playing table top RPGs since the Summer of 77' and the first time I ever heard the term 'Endgame' was very likely the Fall of 2004. This was when I tried my first Massive Multiplayer Online RPG (which was City of Heroes by the way).
See, I was always under the impression, naive as it may seem today, that there was no 'Endgame' for table top, pencil-paper-dice RPGs. That was partly the point of them actually. Sure, some games have and even need an 'Endgame', like Chess or World of Warcraft, where you have essentially won or achieved sufficient success to the point where there is nothing else to do. How could that possibly happen in an true RPG?
Additionally, even MMORPGs have Endgame Content. That is, once you reach the maximum level achievable in a game, there is still stuff to occupy your time without making up a new character. We don't have that automatically in traditional RPGs by their very nature? Isn't there still stuff for a high level PC to do in your campaigns?
First, let's truly define 'Endgame' shall we?
According to Wikipedia:
End game is the ending scenario of a particular game; when and how it will end, most prominently used in chess. Derived from that Endgame, Endgames, or End Game may refer to:
- The final stage of an extended process or course of events.
- (chess) The part of a chess game in which there are few pieces left.
OK, so now that we know what an Endgame is, do traditional RPGs have them?
While it is true that Class and Level based games often define a top or maximum level, many also have an experience point system pattern that is easily extrapolated to raise PC levels 'beyond the maximum'.
Putting levels aside, assuming you are playing a game with a maximum listed level of 11 (original edition of Advanced D&D) or 20 (D&D 3.0) and you and your fellow players have all reached that level with your PCs, does that mean you're done. Is there no 'Endgame Content'?
Check this out from the World of Warcraft Wiki regarding Endgame Content:
In most MMORPGs, this occurs when the players hit the maximum level or skill and look for new ways to keep themselves busy now that they're off the levelling treadmill.
In EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot for instance, the part of the end-game consists of hours of raiding extremely challenging locations in an attempt to earn prestige, alternate advancement points, and "phat lewt". Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, and World of Warcraft all attempt to provide an end-game consisting of PvP activities: you have nothing to lose, no real risk, and can gain prestige by killing other challenging players.
Historically, a game company without a solid plan for an end-game risks alienating its player base. The end-game should grow and change over time, to keep things interesting for the players who still enjoy participating after "winning the game."
The term "End-game" is not entirely accurate considering that World of Warcraft is a multiplayer world and does not "end" in the same sense as a traditional video game. It merely refers to the most challenging content.
Endgame Content has been notably expanded with the release of the latest expansion as of this writing, The Mists of Pandaria.
Now then, what I am really getting at is this...
At one point in D&D's history it was not uncommon for a high level PC to set up a castle, attract followers and before long he or she would be ruler of their own little domain. Two questions pop into my mind. The first is, "What happened to that?", which I'm sure has been answered at some point by James Mal at GROGNARDIA or Jeff Rients. The second and more important question to me is, "And then what happened?".
A story can certainly end (and many of the best ones do) but there is no reason a game should ever have to end. Post castle and land development your D&D campaign isn't over but rather just beginning in a different format. It is now a political and economic game with resource management and military strategy elements. Sadly, I don't think the makers of D&D ever really developed that game but should have as a continuation of the game they had.
While I intend to go into this in further detail next month (Barking Alien is turning traitor in December and focusing on his D&D campaign universe for the entire month!), I will say that this not only happened in one of my D&D-But-Not campaigns, it has happened repeatedly.
Also, numerous players have retired PCs in order to play their offspring, proteges or simply heroes in their employ. Many times players will switch between playing their original PC, now a high level, powerful and prestigous patron and their much less experienced character, newly employed by the aforementioned mover and shaker.
In this way, characters played as far back as 30 years ago are still active in some fashion. They're not gone, their story isn't over. They command armies, lead nations and assemble new adventurers for various quests. My world of Aerth has continued with roughly the same continuity (though we do sometimes jump around the timeline a bit) since 1983. If my ex-wife or any of my old friends showed up at my game table this Saturday that could play their old characters, their characters' kids or any number of other characters in an ever continuing saga of this world and it's people.
To me, there simply is no end game.
AD
Barking Alien
