Prep is a Four Letter Word: Intro (Almost a Four Letter Word)

If anyone finds this picture in error you've clearly never GMed for 3.5 DnD

Prep can be a task I truly dread. It's like doing my taxes; I have to do it on time or else. But fortunately that's not really what prepping is. Prep is setting basic things up so that way you can adapt more easily to the players. You're not doing prep to control what happens in the session but to make sure that you can improv more easily, which helps you have more fun.

First, ask what needs to be prepped in your game. Most games are good at telling you what must be prepped for each session, but at a bare minimum you must prepare your setting (even if you bought one), your overarching theme (which is based upon your setting), and the major NPCs of your game (who get their goals from deficiencies in your setting). And that's before you even start prepping your sessions!

Actual session prep can vary widely from game to game. You  might have to do anything from prepping set pieces and monsters, compiling a list of things to challenge the players, compiling charts, to nothing at all (that's rare).

But the real question is why prep at all? If you're good at improvising you may find yourself asking why in the world you'd waste your time with such things. It's possible to make all this stuff up on the fly, so why bother? The answer isn't that you should be making up what's going to happen in the session, that's the job of you and the players to figure out as play progresses.

Think of it as making a meal. Take spaghetti, for instance. It's relatively easy to make, even for cooking illiterate. The ingredients are easy to prep and put together. But y'know what's gonna make it hard to put this meal together? If you had to go to the store every time you needed an ingredient instead of just spending the time to get everything at once. Yes, you could do this, particularly if you're rich, fit, or crazy, but how many people would prefer to get their trips to the store down into as few as possible? That's prep: you're getting everything together so you don't have to constantly come up with new stuff on the fly. No, you're not going to see every contingency; somehow the players will find a way to surprise you, just like sometimes you find that you're all out of Italian seasoning for that spaghetti. But you can have a good amount of the environment, NPCS, and the general area done so that way you can be prepared. That way you can go with whatever the players come up with only using a minimal amount of effort.

Prep isn't about making everything up before hand to throw at your players, it's about making sure that enough of your general bases are covered so that way you can adapt to the majority of player craziness. Rather than having to make up stuff on the fly, it's much better to come to the session with a few things to fall back on, that way you can focus on what's most important: having fun

Stay tuned for next week as we talk about your setting, the container that holds it all!

Supplements

If you're around RPGs for any suitable amount of time you'll run into game supplements. They're expansions of the main game, add-ons that the writers of the game thought would be possibly good for your game and hopefully good for their wallet. As a beginning GM it can be really easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff out there! Take a look at any gamestore with 4th edition DnD or Pathfinder and you'll find dozens of supplements with a variety of subjects, from making your fighters more interesting to adding in entirely new aspects of the game. But before we get started, I have to define my terms. There are two different types of supplements available:

1. Add-Ons: Add-ons are essentially taking an incomplete system and filling in the gaps a little bit more; you get more options to tinker with. Most popular RPGs over the last...however long... have taken this route. They give you a few options in the core game and then keep trucking out more and more extra stuff that they've playtested. These supplements vary in length, price, and quality. Read reviews heavily before purchasing. Adventures also fall into this category: you don't truly need them, but they certainly add to the game. While they're tempting it's really not a good idea to purchase these unless they truly do something for the people at your table and yourself.

2. Game-Changers: It's exactly as it sounds: these change your game in significant ways. Campaign settings and add-ons are the usual fare, but you could make a case that the World of Darkness game line has a central core with each "monster type" being a game-changing supplement. While add-ons can be dropped in and taken out almost at-will, game-changers must be looked at carefully if they're to be included. Running straight 4th edition DnD is one thing, but if you decide to run the Dark Sun Campaign Setting you'll find that entire swaths of rules have been altered or dropped. That and the cannibal halflings might ruin your players' day. Generally game-changers aren't mixed, but there's nothing stopping it besides your own imagination.

What's my basic philosophy on supplements? Approach with caution. Add-ons at their best introduce new ideas about the game that can be a lot of fun to try without changing the core rules all that much, but that's only at their best. At their worst add-ons can bog a game down with unnecessary cruft and even produce combinations that hurt your ability to prep well for your players! Game-changers are interesting, but you'll find that you need them less than you'd think. In the four years I ran 4th edition DnD I only used my setting supplements once, and didn't touch the other two entire worlds I'd bought. It wasn't that I wasn't interested in doing so, I just ran out of time and could only execute so many ideas. You can only get so much.

But, of course, that assumes that the game you're playing has supplements at all! Many indie RPGs are one-and-dones, complete after one entry. Games,like Misspent Youth, Lacuna Part One Second Attempt, and Dogs in the Vineyard are kitchen sinks, where you are given the tools to construct your experience rather than having pre-fabbed tools. If you're going for a game that gives you pre-fab that's fine. I've got a very impressive set of 4th edition books sitting on an entire shelf in my parents' home and I really don't regret sinking all that cash into them. Just realize that what you don't sink into on the time-end of things could hit your wallet.

Tilts (Or the Dangers of Sitting in an Armchair)

Tilts are one of the most essential parts of gaming, period. Every sports game I can think of has one in some way, shape, or form, and almost all indie RPGs do as well. So what's a tilt? Well, to be honest, it's a rule that allows for human interference. It's like "tilting" the foosball table when the ball gets stuck (or in general, if you're being aggressive), giving someone a penalty shot for being injured due to someone else's action, or giving a punt as a last ditch effort to delay the inevitable. It breaks into the "normal" rules of the game and allows for exceptions and outright defiance of fate. It's the human element that we all need and crave when we enter a game. We have to know that, should fate screw us over, we have recourse to what we all think of as "fair".

RPGs are a special type of game: they're entirely relational. Most aren't a competition, and even the ones that are are still much more relational than other types of games and require a degree of cooperation and camaraderie that's unique. In fact, if you asked me what I thought the point and purpose of an RPG was, I'd tell you that it was to have fun creating a good story. Since it's an intensely relational activity, it follows that the tilt of an RPG needs to be more relational, more human, and much more frequently invoked than in a sports game.

I'm going to give some examples of tilts from RPGs: The Burning Wheel Family, Misspent Youth, and Dungeon World.

The Burning Wheel family is filled with three types of tilts: fate, persona, and deeds points, all of which allow for the player to muck with the dice to a varying degree so the dice pool doesn't feel unfair. The BWFGs link getting these points to role-playing and driving the story, so your ability to tell the dice to screw off is directly related to your ability to play the game. It's an awesome cycle that will always be very near and dear to my cold, black, hate-filled GM heart.

Misspent Youth's tilts are the character traits themselves: if you're going to lose a conflict you can sell out a youthful trait and make it darker and worse so you can win. This completely shakes the game up and allows the story to go in a different direction. By fighting fate you make yourself just a little bit more like the darkness that you're fighting, which is incredibly appropriate to the game.

Dungeon World (and the rest of the World games) are a bit of a trick question. No, there is no real tilt like how there is in the first two games...wait... no... there is no tilt. At all. There is no fate defying stuff in Dungeon World (or the other games, if I understand correctly), and that game is incredibly fun, so much so that, whenever I get to reviewing it, it'll get a full recommendation from me! Wait, but I said... crap.

So what do I do? Dungeon World falls outside my model, doesn't it? It doesn't have a tilt and is fun. How the heck does that work? I guess I've got a few options. I could try and make Dungeon World fit my little philosophical system, start hating on Dungeon World, ignore it, throw out the system I've devised for y'all to read, or just admit that nothing's perfect. That maybe it doesn't really matter, long as you have fun with the product.

And ultimately that's what I guess I should take away from writing this little article: no system of thought about RPGs, religion, life, or anything's fool-proof, so you just gotta admit that you can't see the whole thing and move on. Tilts are part of RPGs, to be sure, and some of my favorite games have them. And some of my least favorite games do not. That doesn't mean that only good RPGs have tilts. Again, see the World games. So go out there, find a game you like, and have fun with it! You hopefully learned something from my aggressive rambling and it'll help you find a game that you like. Find it and have fun.

...but that doesn't mean I won't judge you if you like F.A.T.A.L. A lot. Like, really a lot. Seriously, if you like F.A.T.A.L. there's something wrong with you.

Another potshot at my own article: tilts are not ubiquitous amongst indie games. They happen more often than in mainstream games, yes, but they're hardly at saturation level. 

Journaling

Journaling isn't just something that you do in your little unicorn book to confide all your hopes and dreams. Oh no, not in the GMing hobby, no sir! Journaling is possibly one of the most useful things I've picked up in the last few years of gaming. It's a bit of work, but it's well worth your time. There's a few benefits to it: it gets the memories out of your head and makes them more objective, it helps focus the game, and it helps pull the group together.

The first benefit's pretty obvious: memory's a shaky thing at it's best. Any actual study into the nature of memory reveals just how quickly details shift around and get lost. Writing it down allows for you to not have to focus on remembering how things went all the time and frees you up for other things, like actually running your game! All your brain power can now be focused on making your players' lives hell just a little bit more... especially if you can get your players to help you journal on their downtime in-session.

Second, since you have it all written down, you can go and reread the whole thing, which has saved me from making making many a bad decision in the story department. All groups develop an overarching narrative and it can be kinda hard to see without being able to take a step back and read the whole thing, beginning to end. It helps the GM to realize what his campaign has actually been about the whole time, pulling him out of whatever fantasy world he's living in back to the reality of the situation he and the group have made.

Journalling helps pull your group together. It helps remind the group of where they've been and gives them a sense of scope of their own campaign. Too often campaigns become the source of people just letting off steam and they forget that they're actually making a story and that their actions have consequences in-story. I've watched as players' eyes go wide with comprehension at what they themselves did, only to go and do some incredible things in response to the recount of their own actions.

There's a lot more to it than that, but those are the basics coming from someone who's only just starting to get why journalling is such a good idea. If someone's got more experience on the subject and wishes to share, please comment below!

I'M BACK!!!

After a stupidly long hiatus due to bootcamp and then not having a computer that worked, I'm back! For all three of you who are reading, I shall return to my regular schedule of advice, tips, and play reports for all you beginning GMs.

ONWARD!

Off to Bootcamp...

I will be at bootcamp until early May, so this blog will be on break until then. Sorry about the suddenness of it all, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I'll see you guys later, keep gaming!

Path: Chapter Six

So this is it, the final session! Bootcamp cut things short.

GM's Goals
-Defeat Golau
-Rescue the town of Aelia

Eva's Beliefs (I'm only writing in the changed ones)
2. My father and Golau's schemes are the only things keeping me here. Let's end this.

Augustes's Beliefs (again, only the changed ones)
1. I just want this to end. I wanna go home and get some sleep.

- As Kincaid, Eva, and Augustes go down the tunnels they hear a rumble behind them. The spiders are not pleased, and they're coming up in force..

-Kincaid gives Eva an empty glass vial, telling her to not drop it at all costs. Kenodoxius, also known as The One in the Deep, is coming for them. Kincaid will hold off the spiders while they run.

-And so they do. But a cloud of black smoke catches up with them and surrounds them, screaming loudly in their minds. Both players barely manage to pass their Steel tests, and Eva not only doesn't drop the vial but Augustes doesn't run away screeching in fright (all three Persona burnt on that one!)

-The One in the Deep demands that the vial be dropped. Augustes, who was leaning on Eva due to his wounds, raises himself up and tells Kenodoxius tha tthey'll do no such thing. Kenodoxius begins to destroy the tunnel...

-...and time freezes.A being, who is surrounded by a soft blue glow, walks up behind them. Each step he changes another race- spider, troll, orc, roden, elf, dwarf, wolf, and human. He introduces Himself as Avgud, and that He's proud  of them both. He explains that The One in the Deep is on his way to kill Golau, since Inimicai are cursed to hate each other so that way they don't band together to rule the world, but that he needs a body to do it. Considering that Kincaid is a Siunattu Soturi, a Blessed Warrior long dead, the only body he can possess is Eva's, since Kenodoxius was an elf himself... once.  Eva always has the option of letting Kenodoxius possess her if she wishes, but Avgud promises victory if only Eva and Augustes obey Him. No strings attached beyond that.

- Eva and Augustes say that what they've been doing hasn't worked out, and considering that all that Avgud asks for is obedience they agree to it. Avgud tells them that they'll be put to the and, once they succeed, He'll tell them what to do next. Off they go!

- Time resumes, and Eva holds up the vial, which is now brightly shining.  They walk through Kenodoxius, who's been thrown back by the vial. They round the corner and Golau with Kai, Eva's father, and Austin, Augustes's brother! They both look a bit wobbly (and are, they're enchanted!); Golau commands them to kil their kin.

- Kai spits out vile hatred for Eva that she's never heard  before. Apparently Eva's mother died giving birth to her, and Kai's always held it against her. Austin also swears vengeance on Augustes for thinking that he's really better than everyone back in Golau.  A Fight! is begun. Kai and Austin have a +2 Ob for being imperfectly mind-controlled, since Golau's attention is focused on holding back Kenodoxius)

Fight!
- Positioning is rolled between Augustes and Austin (hands vs. sword) and Augustes wins. No positioning roll necessary for the elves, since they're both wielding swords.
-Austin charges Austin, ducking under his strike and staggering him back.
-Kai winds up for a Great Strike and Eva flinches (Block)
-Kai moves in for the kill, but trips (Ob 3's hard to crack when your dice hate you!) and Eva slashes into the offending leg, causing him to stumble (+3 Ob from here on out!)
- Crying out in pain, Kai swings a hasty strike (and I roll CRAP yet again!) but Eva blocks so ferociously that Kai stumbles back, guard open.

-After briefly falling back and trying to gain advantage over each other

-This time Augustes actually knocks Austin over even as Austin tries to jump clear. They're on the ground now.
-Kai still hasn't gotten his bearings (Eva hasn't let up), and so Eva cuts his leg tendon, causing him to fall over
Fight over

-As Eva and Augustes stand over their kin, Golau commands them to kill their kin. Eva and Augustes look up and ask why they'd do such a thing. Golau, distracted by Kenodoxius, spits back that they're family, that's why! Eva strides toward Golau, and begins telling her off epically, ending with "...even though we're both not normal, we're not sick in the head like you!"

-With that Eva hears in her mind Avgud telling her to throw the vial at Golau. She does so and everything goes white. They're back in Aelia, the town that was being attacked by trolls, Augustes is healed and holding The Wheel of Fire!

- Obviously, the trolls are taken care of. A Wheel of Fire wielding Augustes, a restored Kai and what's left of Aelia's townsfolk take care of that.

-As Augustes finishes using The Wheel, he looks down at his bare chest (from his piece of chest armor being burned up and thus discarded earlier) and realizes that he's covered in flame tattoos. The Wheel's now gone. The town is saved .

Epilogue: both Eva and Augustes traveled together until Augustes was forced to retire due to age. He settled down in Ortes, a kingdom in The Dragontooth Isles far to the west, happy and content. Eva's Grief (which was a B6 at the beginning of this whole thing was the focus of one of her Beliefs) was reduced to B0 for using the vial. She went on to travel the world in a flying ship named Painoton ("Weightless in Elvish). Their actions pushed back the Goleuni, and Golau didn't reappear immediately after these events, the entire continent nation of Golau began to collapse...