Here is a snap shot of my Warlord poster. This was done for me by Mike Grell at a small comic convention in Billings Montana around 1989. The convention had a charity auction, at the end I asked him if I made a donation, if he would do a short for me, he said $25 and I wrote the check. To my surprise, instead of grabbing his sketch pad, he grabs a magic marker and does it on a large presentation pad. When he finished and I started towards the door, some guy offered me $50 for it.
How many players can a good GM be expected to handle and still run a good game ? The traditional number of course is four players, but I think 3-5 is fairly common. I have played in groups of just 1 or 2 players and while workable, is just not as enjoyable as larger groups. RPG’s are social games and with just 1 or 2 players you might as well play Magic: The Gathering or something. With larger groups, 6 probably is the outer ring of players a good GM can be expected to handle. A bad GM can of course handle any number of players badly.
I would in fact argue that a group of 7 or more players is probably going to be effectively two groups anyway. In a social context, my observations have shown a party of 7+ players will divide into two cliques and keeping the party going in the same direction becomes a challenge. In game context, everything slows down in the 7+ player game, combat becomes long, drawn out and tedious, discussions about actions become geometrically longer and can be made worse by competing alpha personalities.The best thing to do if your game expands to 7+ players, my advise is to break the group into separate games. If you can run two games a week, then great, it will probably be an easy split, if not, then you will have talk one of the other players into running the new game.
Mike Grell is hands down, the greatest comic artist and writer of all time. Do not bother arguing with me, you will get no where. He has done all the books I have loved the most, the Warlord, Legion of Superheroes, Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Jon Sable, just to name a few. I have a huge picture of the Warlord he drew for me at a small comic book convention in Billings Montana in the mid 80′s, it is pretty close to my most prized possession, it is right there along side my Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook autographed by Gary Gygax at GenCon 88. I was excited about going to Comic Con Austin before, now, nothing could keep me away.
These two videos should be required watching for all dice chuckers everywhere. You do not necessarily have to take everything he says at face value and I am not implying that ONLY Gamescience dice are fit for play. However this is an interesting piece because it explains in a very eye opening way, how dice are made and tells us where the mythical “Lucky Dice” and “Cursed Dice” come from. I personally swear by Gamescience dice and would never use anything else at the table. Case in point, at GeekFest when I played the PathFinder game, the GM supplied Chessex dice to those who did not have dice, I of course brought my own, but one of the other players was on a bad rolling streak until I lent him one of my Gamescience dice and his rolls improved immediately.
Part One
Part Two
I spent all afternoon Saturday at GeekFest playing in a PathFinder RPG demo game. I was not going to do the demo, I was going to attend the Elizabeth Moon writers seminar with PezWitch, but I occasionally get the urge to go to a game convention and play the game with different people and here was an opportunity staring me in the face, so decided to play PathFinder instead.
I am glad I did, the GM, Gavin Smith (on the far left), ran a fun light hearted game, he obviously loves the RPG’s and enjoys GMing, this really came through in his style. The other players were good natured and tolerated my natural bossiness, everyone was engaged, open to new ideas and contributed to the fun. I can tell you, having played more than a few convention games, you do not often get a quality experience like this. With that I would like to thank Gavin and my fellow players, this was the highlight of GeekFest for me. I am in for next year.
Edit: Here is a picture of the whole group, I am partially hidden by the father of the girl sitting next to me. He was not playing, but he was helping his daughter learn the game.
Edit 2: Another picture of the game, from Facebook this time, again I am only partially visible, seems there is a pattern developing.
This is my dice collection as it stands today. I Think I posted this on Facebook before I blew everything away. Practically everyone who has ever gamed with me probably recognizes the red container in the center, which was a sewing box I swiped from my mother.
I am going to go out on a limb here, although, I don’t think I will be going far, and say HackMaster 4 (HM4) started the current Old School Renaissance and without her there would probably be no Castles & Crusades, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy RPG, Swords & Wizardry or LotFP Weird Fantasy Role-Playing. Lets also not forget the resurrection of previously dead systems like Traveller, RuneQuest, Tunnels & Trolls and Paranoia, none of which would have been published if HM4 had not been a successful line. HM4 proved there was still money to be made in old school gaming and a lot of people, whether they want to admit it or not, owe their business to Dave Kenzer and Jolly Blackburn taking a risk and publishing HM4.
The Nobilis RPG is one of those games everyone talks about but few actually play. I have seen endless threads on RPGnet about games people are thinking about running, but no threads talking about games that have actually been played, that lasted beyond the first session. Apparently, there is going to be a 3rd edition and I have to ask myself why. I suppose it could be because it makes money, but I doubt it, because it has been through three publishers already. No I think it keeps getting extra lives, not because it is a good game with a rabid following, but rather because having a copy on your game shelf is a bit like having a copy of the Complete Shakespeare sitting on your bookshelf or a coffee table book of Ansel Adam’s work.
The basic premise of the game is the characters are beings of godlike power who represent concepts, who move through history delicately manipulating the universe to suit their needs. Since these beings are so powerful to begin with they never directly oppose each other and open warfare would destroy solar systems. Essentially, everyone has the power to snuff the sun, but no one uses the power. Okay, it is a high minded game that rises above the “Kill monsters and take their stuff” paradigm, I can accept this, and I suppose it was a good try.
The problem is, court intrigue games are nice once or twice a year, but every single game ? I think not. I think this would be way too slow and think the reason we don’t see threads on RPG forums discussing long term campaign is because there are none. I am serious go to RPGNet or ENWorld and search the threads for long term Nobilis games, you won’t find any posts saying things like “My Nobilis campaign has lasted two years”. My guess is most groups play 1 session and then go back to playing Dungeons and Dragons or Exalted. So here is the dirty little secret, Nobilis is bloody fucking boring.
Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
Dungeon Master Gurls
The author of LotFP Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, James Raggi, commented on my review of his product. His comments can be found here;
Lamentations of the Flame Princess
I am actually surprised he found this web site. Carnifex.org is not what anyone would call a high traffic or high profile blog and it is primarily read by friends and family. Anyway, I am an attention whore, so I will take any link back I can get.
Running
Playing
