Issue #14 was the extra-big Gen Con issue, and in its pages you’ll find:

• Exclusive Pathfinder content, including two articles by Paizo staff
• The Ecology of the Tengu—in Golarion and in Zobeck
• An interview with 4th Edition D&D lead designer Rob Heinsoo
• Treasure Trove articles with phat loots to improve your game and bring smiles to players
• Paladins, secret languages, and aasimar PCs
• Secrets of Game Design by Monte Cook
• So much more that it makes us dizzy to even think about it!

All you need to do to get your PDF copy is go to the KQ Store, add issue #14 to your cart, and enter the coupon code KoboldWelcome at checkout. Enjoy!

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #31: How would your life be different if you’d never gotten into gaming?

I might have tried to get into video game design. I would have not made some of the friends I have made. I would have met my wife still, but things would’ve been pretty different – we play roleplaying games a lot! I would not have come up with the awesome worlds and ideas that form parts of my worldbuilding and games. I would have missed out on lots of good times with friends, but maybe had different good times instead.

I can’t think of any major life choices that would have been that different. I think I’d still be where I am but who knows? I’m happy that I got into gaming. It’s a huge part of my life, my relationship with my wife, and with my close friends. It lets me be creative, it lets me share stories with others, it lets me explore the worlds that other people make for me.

All I know for sure, is that if I hadn’t gotten into gaming, I wouldn’t be writing this post

Well, that’s the end of the Reverb Gamers list of questions. I don’t know if there’s going to be one for February, but it’s been great having the prompts this month. It’s got me thinking more about my hobby. I hope it’s been interesting. Thanks, Atlas Games!

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #30: What lessons have you taken from gaming that you can apply to your real life?

Plenty of things. Too many to list. I knew most of it already, but roleplaying has enforced those lessons and enhanced my understanding. Some of these things are skills like organising a group, collaborating, time management, catering communication to individual needs, improvisational skills, how to channel my creativity, and so on. 

Others are parable-like lessons. Doing the best you can is all you can do. Sometimes you’ll fail, but it’s usually not the end of the world (usually). You can find and make friends in the strangest places. Friends are important and we’re stronger together. Some people are awesome at things I’m not. Let them help, and help them where my skillset prevails. Cities are amazing places to explore. Reality is often stranger than fiction. Life is what you make of it for yourself. Money and gear aren’t everything. Helping others can be it’s own reward. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Going outside your comfort zone once in a while can be a good thing. Experiment in safe, well ventilated places with someone you trust. Scary things are sometimes only scary because you believe they are. The world is full of adventure, wonder and magic; you just have to look for it. Mirrors are always trouble.

Most of all: play well with others, don’t take yourself to seriously, and have fun!

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #29: What does the word “gamer” mean to you? Is that different than what other people seem to think it means?

For me, ‘gamer’ means someone who loves to game. They don’t have to do it often, but if they identify as someone who likes games – be they roleplaying, video, computer, board, card or other – then they can call themselves a gamer. I think a lot of people see it as referring to video game players. And people who play a lot.

Lots of CRPGs are based on D&D mechanics, and tabletop roleplaying helped spawn computer games as a whole. If you like Skyrim, chances are you’ll like D&D – or something similar – even if you’ve never tried it or heard of it before.

I think if you’re a roleplayer and someone else calls themselves a gamer you probably have some common ground, even if you don’t play or like the same games, or if they’ve never experienced tabletop gaming.

Finding out if someone’s a gamer is a good place to start a conversation.

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #28: Do you have any house rules when you game? What are they, and why do you use them? If not, why not?

Often, but not always. I tweak rules as I feel is necessary for our fun or compatibility with the way we like to play. I usually have the same group, too, so I don’t need to worry about explaining house rules to new people, or making them for suitable for many groups. It can also be fun, sometimes, just to mess around with rules and see what the changes will do. Easier than making a whole system yourself, but can changes things significantly.

I changed a rule set a little, at first, then more and more until it became clearly inspired by the rule set but functioned differently enough it was a hack, not just house rules. This was for my hardcore sci-fi Wizard of Oz hack of Lady Blackbird. I made the whole system, setting, situation in four hours over two days; I had the idea and wanted to run it for our approaching game session. The initial houseruling was to match the theme of the game. So, the ways keys and secrets interacted changed. We added more tweaks during the game and by the end it was a separate hack. I’ll work on writing it up and posting it sometime. I’m trying to divorce the rules from the setting first, but we’ll see. Anyway, I’ll let you know.

Another example of house rules: I’ve added aspects to Savage Worlds. We like Savage Worlds, but we also like aspects. So, there you are. In D&D 3.5 I house ruled a lot too. I tried to get more versatility out of the classes, or bend them into my world a little more. I like fantasy worlds with only humans, too, so I often house rule other races away. In indie or short games like Lady Blackbird or Fiasco there’s little need for house rules, or they organically pop up during play. This happened in Prime Time Adventures, where we decided after a few sessions to go for a three-act structure, ending earlier than that if we could get things resolved by then; that is, not forcing more scenes if we felt we were done.

So, that’s it. I houserule and sometimes hack. I do this to suit our play style or vision for the game we want. This sometimes is purely about setting, rather than the mechanics. I sometimes just do it for fun. Houserules are one of the things I love about roleplaying games. Not everyone can mod a computer game, but anyone can make house rules.

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #27: If you were an Ent, what kind of Ent would you be? Or, what other NPC creature would you be? Why?

I thought at first this question was bizarre and very out of place with the other questions. Then my wife informed me it was a funny play on that common question of ‘if you were a tree, what type of tree would you be?’. Makes much more sense now. Thanks wife!

Anyway, I don’t know a lot about ents. I guess I would like to be an unusual one. Petrified ent or cactus ent or venus fly ent. Perhaps coral ent if that’s allowed. Also, like an ent that got wood chipped and is now a swarm of chips. It has splinter attack.

What other monsters? My wife played as a gargoyle once. Faulker was awesome. Oh, she also played as a dragon transmuted into a human. He was… angry.

I would like to play as a lich, or some other undying immortal. It’d be cool to watch civilisations rise and fall and be all jaded to everyday happenings. It’d be an interesting change of pace. I’d like to see what sort of challenges and foes I would face.

Also, gelatinous cube monk. For obvious awesome reasons.

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #26: Who or what was the most memorable NPC you’ve ever encountered? Why?

I feel like this was pretty well covered in talking about the most memorable foe I’ve run and the list of weird NPCs I wrote about. So, what about the most memorable NPC encountered who was not a foe or weird? 

Well, this one from our Demonsea campaign did make their weird list, but he was actually more human than most. He was a shadow demon who was a bit of an outcast amongst demons. He wasn’t good, but he wasn’t really evil either. He fed on secrets. He inhabited her and eavesdropped on all she heard, saw, sensed. He needed secrets like people need food. He could get them through his senses, or he could gain every secret of an individual by killing and draining them. The demon could go for a while without secrets, but each time he used his shadow powers he weakened and eventually he would get ravenous.

It only happened once, but when it did he used a magical device to implode an entire college of Inquisitors (plus six rival demons within) plus much of the town around them. He didn’t kill them all by hand, but he did kill some people the PC knew (though not close friends) and drained enough to right himself and force himself to stop.

One of the six demons he killed was a sun demon he sort of loved, but could never touch or else he would die. He didn’t love her, so much, as he loved the sun itself. He had experienced thousands of years of people’s lives, vicariously. But he had never felt the touch of sun on his own skin. The sole secret he could never learn was how to free himself from a host.

The finale was in an ancient temple where demons could walk (and in fact were torn out of any host they possessed). They fought the rage demon that previously possessed the PC as it tried to steal her demon-touched baby as it was born on the demonic altar. The shadow demon tore itself from the PC’s body and sacrificed itself to save them all. It died in a blinding shaft of light, happy.

It was a simple idea: a demon who longs to be free, to be more like humans. But he really felt like a non-human, an alien trying to understand, and the relationship that built up was filled with emotion, followed by that bittersweet the finale. I think my wife, who played the demon’s host, would agree this was one of the most memorable. 

I’m hosting a party today, so I don’t have anything new for you, but here are some Australia-related RPG posts from years past.

Link Hoard: Australia Day 2010

Australiana Apocalyptica

Enjoy. I’m off to have a barbecue, some drinks and listen to the Triple J Hottest 100.

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #25: If you game enough, you’re bound to run into someone being an ass. What’s the most asinine thing someone’s done in a game with you? How did you react? Did that experience change the way you game?

I’ve had a pretty good run with gaming. Players have been great. It was a GM who has been the worst; usually he was great, but this one particular moment got to me and stuck with me.

I was a druid (I used to play them a lot!) and we were ambushed or attacked so I turned into a bird and flew up into the sky. I got shot with an arrow and good chunk of damage, but was still well above 0HP. I asked the GM “Am I still flying?”. He wasn’t listening to me properly, was talking over me to someone else. So I asked again, “Am I still airborne?”. He say, “Yeah”.

It came around to my turn and  he described how my druid-bird was spiralling in a nose-dive toward the ground, unable to fly. I was shocked and angered. “You said I was still flying!” I told him. “No, I said you were still airborne”. I fumed at that. I had asked him the correctly worded question, but he wasn’t listening. So then I asked again but he took my wording and gave me a useless answer; worse, an intentionally misleading one, ‘punishing’ me for asking the ‘wrong’ question.

Obviously, my character would know if they were flying or falling. In this particular instance, the GM did a terrible and unfaithful job of representing the world experienced through my character’s senses. I took much away from this experience. As a GM, you are the players’ and characters’ window onto the world. They can only know what you tell them. Don’t blind them then knock them down. Give them full reign and then give them real challenges.

Play honestly, describe things as the players sense them; don’t punish players for not knowing the ‘right’ questions to ask, or for wording them differently to how you would word them. In many cases the players shouldn’t even have to ask. You should let them know what their characters would know. If they ask you a question, give them as much detail as you can.

Vincent Baker says it best in the MC’s section of Apocalypse World:

Always be scrupulous, even generous, with the truth. Thee players depend on you to give them real information they can really use, about their characters’ surroundings, about what’s happening when and where. Same with the game’s rules: play with integrity and an open hand. The players are entitled to the full benefits of their moves, their rolls, their characters’ strengths and resources. Don’t chisel them, don’t weasel, don’t play gotcha. 

If you’re playing the game as the players’ adversary, your decision-making responsibilities and your rules-oversight constitute a conflict of interests. Play the game with the players, not against them.

I agree 100% with this. GMs: be honest with your players. Describe the world their characters live in. Let the fun and challenge come not from them trying to decipher your vagueness or lies, but from the story, the combat, the rules; the interacting and roleplaying together.