recap: recession-proof gaming and useful tools

C’mon – you knew this would happen sometime… so just imagine Don La Fontaine doing this voiceover!
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First there was recession-proof gaming.  Then there was the sequel.  The field got opened up with no money, no time, no problem!  Then proof that the internet provides.  The search for stuff introduced pocketmods, graphic tools and yet more generators.  Then the discovery of undiscovered toys that could save you time.

Yet it’s not just about the financiapocalypse.  It’s also about making your life as games master easier – whether you have a game in sixty minutes, need some steampunk or use kanban to help you develop characters.  Add useful web 2.0 tools, browser tricks and TiddlyWiki, mindmapping and writing tools and you have an arsenal to draw on when creating a game. With resources like these, it’s getting easier to make the game you want to play.

recession-proof gaming IV: the internet provides

It’s been a while hasn’t it?  The web 2.0 market appears to be clustering around common services in a big way so finding new stuff has been fun.  Yet there’s tools and services which can provide useful for gamers so don’t despair even if we’re on the slow road to recovery.

Free systems – If you like mecha, take a look at Gunwave. Those of you who fancy Harry Potter (slashfic ahoy!) can consider Broomstix (a light RPG).  RPG Objects are offering the Two Worlds RPG for free.  If you prefer your action a bit more Hong Kong/Korean-style give Wushu a shot..  Those of you fancying a bit more collaborative-paced story may want to try Archipelago II.

Organisation – Shout’em is a service that lets you make your own microblogging social network similar to Twitter.  It’s also mobile compatible for those who can’t stay in front of a computer that long.  Some elegant privacy and integration options as well.  Use this to organise gaming groups or fan clubs. 

Printables – Printable Paper offers you multiple styles of paper including storyboards and perspective grids as well as the more typical hex and square grids.  Love for calligraphy, musical notation and printable games makes this even more impressive.

Talking – If you’re looking for a (currently free) voice-chat client, try Voxli.  It handles up to 200 folks at once (which deals nicely with online flash mob style gaming and interview chats) and has no limit on the number of rooms.  It also stays within the browser.  Enough for anyone, surely?

Woolgathering – Want to throw some ideas at a wall?  Asking for feedback?  Give Wallwisher a try as this virtual wall lets people put virtual notes on with a 160 character limit on. Being able to embed images, links and videos are options as is setting up a private wall or two.  And it integrates with your Google login.

questing kanban and character development

Blame Justin Achilli and Capuchin Captions at Dice Monkey for linking in my mind kanban and player handout cards. Everyone does quests to achieve items or benefits. Unless the DM has told you exactly what you need, you may not get where you need to go. And how do players learn of prestige/paragon classes/paths/epic destinies or that specific feats or rituals exist?

Unless a DM is kind and prepared enough to give NPCs with relevant abilities and opportunities to meet/share their knowledge, your character has a hard time knowing of such things. Doing so adds to prep time and may lead to conflicting agendas between players. Unless you’re willing to collude with players, it’s inevitable somebody will lose out.

Some games may not need (or want) that focus/preparation so it’s handwaved you learn about such things in downtime or by dice rolls. Nice if you know the books (prestige classes in 3.xE are found in the DMG or other sourcebooks) but some players don’t have/want to read them. There may also be a matter of timing – the campaign may have secrets dependent on those classes.

Kanban is a Japanese method of boosting efficiency. You say what you need and it’s supplied – the default method uses signs or cards (kanban) that convey what’s needed often using graphical notation for example 4E power icons or a picture representing a particular attribute. Even if you don’t have killer artwork or a perfect representation, you can just use words.

Godeckyourself earns its recession-proof gaming tag. I’ve mentioned other card creators – this one doesn’t require you to download software and provides ready-made PDFs of your deck and shares others people have made. There are even ready-made quest cards you can adapt for your own game. A tangible reminder can keep your players focussed.

Put them together and you get cards to convey what’s needed and how you might get it. The DM controls what cards are handed out and players can choose from those options what’s available. Smart players may see routes to their objectives that can spark off adventures and the element of choice is still preserved. And you get to re-use the cards for future games.

three things: random inspirations

Block, burnout, call it what you will, there’s a time when expression just doesn’t quite cut it, the imperfect beast isn’t running. You’re stuck. Here’s three tools to get you unstuck.

Oblique Strategies – From the mind of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt comes a number of random inspirations that he’s used while composing and producing. If it’s good enough for REM, it’s good enough for you. A shiny web-based version can be found at joshharrison.net as well.

Abulafia Oracles – The game In A Wicked Age uses a pack of cards and a series of tables as an oracle to suggest plot arcs. Abulafia, home to many random generators has compiled a very useful set of genre-specific oracles to work with. You can also use the original four oracles here.

Rory’s Story Cubes – Yes I know this isn’t recession-proofed but these are pure. improvisational. dynamite. If you can’t link even two of these, then take a shower or a walk somewhere colourful. Props to Greywulf for spotting these and to Vulcan Stev for mind-melding the blog post series out my head. Damn due diligence!

even more gaming tools

Inkwell Ideas has some wonderful tools; while some people have pointed at the magnificent Hexographer, the Coat of Arms Visual Designer deserves it’s own mention for those of you who need a heraldic coat-of-arms stat. And if you’re a GIMP mapper, you’ll love these brushes that draw on the icons from D&D’s classic Mystara setting.

Dungeon Mastering have created a 4E monster database. This provides ready-made cards for your monsters and importable code into Obsidian Portal and HTML (for Epic Words, blogs and other wikis). There is also a database of shared monsters that will certainly grow over time with contributions. Potluck can be fun.

You may also find the Magic Set Editor (lets you make your own trading cards) of particular interest (and it’s open source too) – this is just dandy if you have a card system for contacts/ stuff you can pass to players. Speaking of 4E, an epic labour of love can be found in the Universal Card Set that could be used with the above.

it’s nice when people listen…

Wizards have put a quick-start set, Keep on the Shadowfell and the first three levels of Character Builder up for free online. I can’t help but get the feeling the blogosphere contributed in it’s own way to this sudden shift in WotC policy. Before you all get too excited, it looks like the current policy on PDF publishing won’t reverse any time soon. Props to Points of Light for this.

The rest of this post is inspired by a post on Robertson Games about the radio theatre style entertainment that tabletop RPGs can provide. Talk about a bolt from the blue! As I’m late to the party, it would suddenly explain why those podcasts of gaming sessions are popular among some of us – they’re tapping into about *cough* sixty to eighty years of oral tradition!

Sound effects can add considerably to atmosphere – for free sound effects, take a look at The Freesound Project, University of Texas Electronic Music Studio, PacDV, Stonewashed and Ljudo. Some of these have Creative Commons tags so use accordingly. There are some very useful downloads to be found at my.voiceacting.co.uk including this.

Finally, courtesy of HeroPress – notification of a fantasy radio drama on BBC Radio 4 called ElvenQuest starring assorted comedy performers (Alastair McGowan, Stephen Mangan) about a novelist and his dog who is drawn into a world with elves, dwarves and monsters to fight Lord Darkness. The dog of course is the prophesied hero. Starts tonight! Will be iPlayered.

synergistic storytelling and random encounters

The concept of using more than one kind of media to tell a story (cross-media or transmedia) stories has blossomed. An icon of modern synergistic storytelling was The Matrix/Animatrix/Matrix Reloaded where a narrative arc was split between three movies and characters appear in the movie narrative as a result of the plot of the Enter the Matrix computer game.

Unless you were a complete Matrix-head, you may not have realised and have even thought that Niobe’s sudden appearance in Matrix Reloaded was a deus ex machina rather than a bold experiment in synergistic storytelling.

The what, where, how, why and when has been summarised nicely by Christy Dena.

The Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of Cross-Media

View more presentations from Christy Dena.

Yet there’s the idea that events or decisions taken at the beginning of the story have an impact on the story or the information provided. Like the Fighting Fantasy books where choices made early in the narrative provide options (or equally deny them) later on. A variation on this was trialled by IBM researchers in research on interactive cinema how actions early on in the story cause impacts later on in the story environment and has repercussions for Internet browsing.

So can such deep wisdom be applied to tabletop gaming? Of course it can.

The diagram opposite posits an interesting viewpoint, that story authoring systems can increase interaction in an environment with time-bound story events. By story authoring systems we mean players, games masters/referees and in some cases even AI systems dealing with characters or environment. Which brings me onto random tables – used by all of them. Some of the finer points of these are explored by lumpley games’ In A Wicked Age and the resulting Abulafia oracles as well as cards in Ravenloft to provide situational modifiers.

It was observed that the use of random encounters is something peculiar (though not unique) to D&D in it’s various incarnations. As prototypical story authoring systems, these tables have led to significant impacts on games – not always to the positive. An anecdotal tale (which I recall being from Michael Stackpole) about how a sci-fi RPG game died in the first 10 minutes when the DM rolled an asteroid collision despite a pilot’s awesome ‘avoiding asteroid’ roll and all the players bar one just nodded their acceptance and then put the game away for the evening.

The anecdote illustrates these systems are best applied judiciously.

Some older grognards may claim this is unfair to the ‘roll it and see’ playstyle. I personally think that if you are going to create a space opera, you don’t finish 10 minutes after the start because the director thought it’d be gritty to have a big rock kill you all. Personally, it’s a bit unsatisfying and it closes the story too early. In this instance, I follow the Rule of Cool over the Rule of C4 and yes, this is really a cosmic case of “Rock Falls, Everyone Dies” rather than a strict use of the Rule of C4.

Going back to cross-media, how would you feel about games that marketed itself by different media – not in a D&D Insider or Dungeon-A-Day manner (which provides content as the be-all and end-all) but to provide clues to a setting or story arcs or snackies for DMs?

browser tricks, tiddlywiki things and writemonkey

Not-so-stupid browser tricks

Aviary is a graphics creation & manipulation website you may want to consider if you’ve forgotten your USB stick with Inkscape and GIMP. Developed by Adobe, it offers Web 2.0 versions of graphics manipulation, vector editing, effects and colour swatch creation.

Bookmarklets are a cross-browser friendly version of add-ons. A number of them have some immediate use for gamers but they also have the advantage of being cross-browser supported. If you use a bookmark synchroniser like Foxmarks, these come with you as well. Useful if you’re on the move and you need the functionality.

Also, TiddlySnip is a Firefox extension that cuts & pastes into a TiddlyWiki. Speaking of…

TiddlyWiki Things
Some time ago I extolled the virtues of TiddlyWiki. If you’re new to TW, then take a look at TiddlyWiki for the rest of us; a brilliant introduction to TW written in plain and downloadable for future reference.

Here’s six add-ins you may find useful but be warned, the more plugins you pile on, the slower it takes for your TiddlyWiki to get started so only load up on what you really need. If you want to know how to install plug-ins and macros then check out Mnteractive or WikiHow for guides.

twab – A contact list which can import or export various formats.
QuoteOfTheDay - Picks a quote from a list defined in a separate tiddler – a daily dose of random.
ReminderMacros – This gives you a calendar and things to do on your TW.
Rollon – A randomiser that can roll on lists within lists. Courtesy of Joshua@Tales of The Rambling Bumblers.
RSSReader – Good if you want to test a feed or two.
TagsTree – Creates a hierarchy for your tags which helps organise your TW.

Finally a review of Writemonkey by Pomerancha Software. This was suggested to me as an alternative to Q10 which is my usual Windows full-screen writing tool. So far it’s performing admirably in keeping me on-focus even if I do want to hit F1 to get the most out of it. That will fade in time – this always happens to me when using a full-screen processor.

The startup offers a moment of Zen which is transitory as soon as you click the Exit button.

Writemonkey has an extensive feature set including the ability to momentarily switch between windows. It is suited to portable use and can sit on a USB key with impunity. You can amend font, colour and other features in the Preferences settings (F10) and even preset preferred colour combinations (the default is neon green Courier on black paper) which is soothing on the eyes. Writemonkey has a good set of accessibility features which allow a user to adjust text width and size using a scroll mouse wheel or keystroke combination.

Files can be saved in various locations specified by the program and the repository. Navigation within the file can be done by using assigned bookmarks within a document (so you can move from header to header) or by jumping between assigned search strings (like the Find facility in a word processor). Editing text requires the keyboard, the program does not support drag-and-drop editing by mouse. Click at the start of a line and the program selects the whole line – a nice, intuitive touch.

It also offers a progress bar and timer for sprint writing. Those of you who partake in NaNoWriMo or similar events may find either of these useful. Overall, I’d rate this highly in terms of fast install, high stability and good feature set. I’d commend Writemonkey to anyone who needs a text-based full-screen processor for their Windows system.

Any more stuff you know about that I need to see? Leave a comment!

railroads and museums

A little musing on plot types. If you’re working out an interactive plot (say in an alternate reality or role-playing game) you have two clear options.

1. A linear plot with individual stations where protagonists can do things. The plot can continue when the protagonists decide to get back on the train and travel to the next station. Events at each station provide incentives to continue the journey from beginning to end. Let’s call this plot structure a railroad. ARG authors may see stations as breadcrumbs but the principle is the same. Just don’t invite Pac-Man.

   Railroads are great because you get from point A to point B to point C in a linear framework. Sometimes, the journey is a rollercoaster ride, other times it’s a sedate journey where you get to take in the scenery along the way. Everyone is on the journey and you travel in the same direction (possibly at different speeds and different classes of carriage) aimed for the same ultimate destination.

   Railroads may challenge participants since they are clearly on a journey and the structure is mostly linear. What happens between the stops may not be quite as thrilling as what happens when you get to a station and you may have to insert a random element to maintain excitement or a scripted element to induce momentum. Writers do this all the time and people don’t get indignant unless it’s an interactive plot.

2. An open structure with showcased areas of interest which can attract the attention of protagonists. There may be guides to steer people into following particular tours or to direct focus away from storage rooms or backstage spaces (dusty places with stuff that may interest or broken pottery). Let’s call this plot structure a museum; some may see a matrix or bead collection in parataxis. Just don’t invite Adam Sandler over for the night.

   Museums are great because you get to wander around, taking in things that interest you. Some exhibits may be interesting to a number of protagonists, others to a select few. The option to be guided along particular directions is available as is the option to split up and wander off and pursue what interests you. This latter seems to draw people to it like moths to a flyzapper.

   Museums may challenge participants since not everyone is interested in the same thing. Social cohesion of a group can be eroded by individual agendas and break the shared space that participants inhabit. If people have to wait their turn then the pacing needs to be really good or items of interest need to link into an overall framework (Time to break out the cable ties again!) to retain their interest.

Some prefer to compromise, to create a museum with a mesh of railroads with museums at key points in the mesh to ensure plot arcs aren’t derailed. Of course this last option means a lot of work for the organiser/writer/game master and it helps to have a clear road map of what is wanted and where the protagonists need to be to connect the disparate plot elements.

Let me know if you prefer railroads, museums or the compromise. Also, how easy or hard do you find it to use these?

more web tools for groups and writing

A few more web-based tools for your delectation.

Adobe Buzzword – I’m currently working on a series of LARP scenarios with this at the moment; it’s very pretty and offers the usual document editing and support. My only caveats are you are tied to the interface and it’s also not the fastest system to upload shared files. Once you get the file up though, it’s a very intuitive package.

BambooSpace – Creating a wall of stuff has never been easier. Ready made game master screen? You can make one right here and set it up for the game. You might even want to share it with the other game masters in your network. Or you could set up something else like a working desk with inspirational stuff.

Exploratree – A Flash-based site which gives a number of templates for thinking about ideas. Wonderful not least for it’s online selection of thinking guides but also the templates as well as well as being able to share all of the above or print it out up to A0 size (this should meet most requirements!) . Has it’s own section for the Welsh as well.

Lefora – Easy to set up (easier than you’d think) online forum. Laden with features and can draw on existing content from YouTube, Flickr and Photobucket. There are polls, spam filters and facilities to port your forum posts out to other sites as well. It’s reasonably priced (free) and there’s no hosting hassle either.

MorphThing – Pictures of characters. No really, you can lose a whole day doing this though if you’ve chosen someone with facial hair and someone without, it can get a bit jarring seeing five-o-clock shadow on a woman’s face. Plays best with faces facing the same way – eminently exportable to graphic applications, the picture opposite is Cameron Diaz and Carla Gugino.

PDFEscape – Online PDF reader/writer/form designer. You can save online forms to printable PDF forms; there is a 30 day lifecycle on forms left on the PDFEscape server but you can upload your own versions onto other sites like this example – a version of the character worksheet from the emotional easter eggs post.

Planypus – Organise meetups, events using a wiki tailored to your requirements; lets you set up events, discuss and vote on them before setting things up. This approach allows you to set up a regular long-term event and would work well in conjunction with services like Obsidian Portal or one of the previously mentioned online wikis.