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Introductions

ExileInParadise

RPG Therapist
Staff member
Adamantium WoA
Wizard of Story
Good for john, which version of traveller he thinking of. I preferred classic with all the booklets, although t20 traveller looked intriguing

I steered him toward Mongoose Traveller v1 for the old-school CT feel, but with a lot more ATU opportunities because it also spun off Cepheus Engine which is in heavy active use/development. And... welcome! Another traveller of the Imperium is always a good sight... especially if they have a new job that needs doing and the shiny shiny coin to afford it ...
 

Outrider11us

New member
Forgot about the mongoose version, i did own it. Did my own sector, was influenced by Clarke and heinlein and later bablyon 5. I still tinker with it mostly as an exercise.
 

JohnnFour

Game Master
Staff member
Adamantium WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Gamer Lifestyle
Demonplague Author
Borderland Explorer
I'm looking at Cepheus. I have the big T5 book and that beckons me too!
 

JohnnFour

Game Master
Staff member
Adamantium WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Gamer Lifestyle
Demonplague Author
Borderland Explorer

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Admittedly I have a significant apprehension about writing a module solely because I'm intimidated by the prospect of it being incomplete or lacking. That aside, I've kept a volume of notes and considerations over the years I've GMed various RPGs. That being said, I'd love to participate in this kind of discussion.

Something I'd like to throw out there, if I'm interpreting your description of structural frames correctly, is how I approached one of my biggest tv-drama pet peeves into reliable session model. Look at any number of old school crime or mystery dramas and you'll see painfully recycled themes of Intro-hook-suspect/redherring/mcguffin-investigate-lynchpin/pivot-conclusion. From a writer's perspective, it's boring as sin once you've pinned down the cycle (it killed Castle for me after a while) but translating that to game/session design has been a huge boon for me.

Diatribe aside, the takeaway I thought was worth sharing is the habit I've gotten into of making sure the players have a meaningful reason to start rolling dice early in the session. It's one of my nonnegotiable planning points per session. Much like your previously mentioned Harlequin template of "action by page 10," I always plan to enter sessions and scenes with something tested or revealed on a non pass/fail basis. This could be an active group perception check (5e) to determine whether they get one or all of a prepared list of details in the room. Alternatively, it could be the inconvenience of running into a random town's guard that takes a sudden interest in what they're doing, and who probes them for details with suspicion or passing interest depending on the group roll. Much like early action in a book, I find that nothing grabs my players attention like making them roll dice, especially if the result remains meaningful if the result is low. It brings them into the scene and the players suddenly have a numerical grasp of the context of the situation.

For how reliable this has been in my table top games, I'd love to hear what similar nodes, templates, or framework you are looking to delve into or refine.

Happy Birthday, Dough! I hope you have a wonderful day. I loved your war stories and I just can't not copy again your suggestion of how to make sessions instantly interesting as above. After reading it again now, it still holds a great impact with me. Thank you!
 

FoxRouge

Member
Wizard of Story
Borderland Explorer
Hello, everybody!
My name is Claudia and I am JochenL's wife. I am 53 years old and I've been playing RPG since 1994. I started with the german DSA (Das Schwarze Auge) but fortunatly changed to GURPS soon. I tried several other systems over the years: DND, Rolemaster, Pathfinder but GURPS will stay my favorite system for ever!
I did both, character playing and GMing. In GMing my problem is to imagine an adventure from the beginning to the end. Mostly I have a beginning and an ending but lack of the middle part. So I GM rather occasionally.
During the last months I paused playing, because somehow I lost interest in RPG.
My interests in genre changed over the years; so I don't like the Fantasy Genre so much anymore and prefer some kind of SciFi and Monster Hunter. And I don't like dungeon crawling. Nevertheless I'm momentarily playing in a group for Dungeon Fantasy.

So keep crawling folks!

My favorite dice is the d6
 
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Outrider11us

New member
Greetings Claudia,

there are lots of genre options out there, gurps is pretty decent for handling them, i prefer savage worlds myself, for non fantasy stuff, Call of Cthulhu is my go to horror, the hero system was also very flexible as an option
 

ExileInParadise

RPG Therapist
Staff member
Adamantium WoA
Wizard of Story
I did both, character playing and GMing. In GMing my problem is to imagine an adventure from the beginning to the end. Mostly I have a beginning and an ending but lack of the middle part. So I GM rather occasionally.

Welcome Claudia!
Writers often run into the same stumbling block when plotting and writing stories.
So, here's two things that have helped me work around "but what happens in the middle?"

Write backwards - you know the bad guy's goal ... what must he do to get there?
Each of those steps is a place for the PCs to get a clue, or intervene.

Then, at each step - ask "but what could go wrong?"
For the bad guy ... and the PCs.

Now you have a menu of possible scenes / encounters to weave your "middle" of the story with.
 

Sean Patrick Fannon

Member
Gold WoA
Greetings, Fellow Travelers and Dreamers!

Though I am using my full, real name, many in the gaming world have come to know me as Big Irish. I've been in this world a pretty long while - it's generally believed I was the first Dungeon Master in Smyrna, GA (1976), and my professional career as a writer and designer spans back over 34 years.

If you are keen to know the full bio, some folks kindly put a Wikipedia page up for me, for which I remain intensely proud and humbled at the same time.

Currently, I am the Founder, President, and Chief Creative Officer of Evil Beagle Games; the Chair of Design Practice and Senior Fellow at Liminal Research & Education (LoRE), and Chief Game Master of PORTALIS.

It's in that latter role that I come by this community and the Campaign Logger tool, quite literally in the last 48 hours. As long as I've been at this, I really, truly wish to "up my game" as a GM, and I feel the way to do that is to become much better at tracking All the Things my players will come to expect and wish to interact with in a truly rich and fulfilling immersive experience.

The system that drives all of my efforts right now is Prowlers & Paragons Ultimate Edition - which, yes, I co-designed, and I consider it my best work to date*. Superhero games (and related experiences) tend to invite a great deal of "deep dives" into world lore, personal stories, and more, so I am really hoping I figure out how to use these tools to maximize my unique purposes. Any advice in that direction is welcome and appreciated.

(*) - The original creators of CHAMPIONS are huge supporters and speak very highly of it; Ray Greer went so far as to say much of what we did points the way towards what they might have done had they continued developing the system.

I look forward to being part of this community, and am grateful to Johnn and Johchen for what they have crafted here.

- SPF
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Welcome to our forum, @Sean Patrick Fannon. I'm happy we have attracted someone as experienced as yourself. Although I know none of those systems (not yet popular in Germany, I guess), I'm looking forward to your experienced comments on the many topics we are discussing here. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
And maybe, just if you like (!), some of us would be very happy to play in a one-shot of yours of Prowlers & Paragons Ultimate Edition. If you would show us this system that you consider your best work, please post here: Looking for Players & Games.
 

Sean Patrick Fannon

Member
Gold WoA
And maybe, just if you like (!), some of us would be very happy to play in a one-shot of yours of Prowlers & Paragons Ultimate Edition. If you would show us this system that you consider your best work, please post here: Looking for Players & Games.

Though I posted about running professionally elsewhere, I do believe setting up a demonstration game for this community would be a wonderful idea.

And thank you for the kind welcome.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Happy Birthday, @BenS !
Lass es dir gut gehen! Although I would really like to "hit you up for a beer tour in Munich" as you wrote in your description, this year will probably be not the best time for it. I just skipped through most of your posts and found them very intriguing. Thank you for being a part of our community. By the way, wouldn't you be interested to join our west marches Borderland campaign?
Have a nice day! (Although it is probably also raining in Munich, right?)
 

Maltranar

New member
Hello my name is Paul and I haven't GM'd in a long time though I am currently world building my own fantasy setting and want to get myself setup to reduce the administrative overhead of running a campaign.

Started actually playing with AD&D but migrated to MERP and finally to Rolemaster. Our group played regularly together throughout high school, college and our early careers. My favorite system for "stock" fantasy RPG is and will probably always be RMSS.

But as far as a targeted system, Ars Magica is hard to top.

My favorite die is the 2xd10 for d100. Specifically these speckled translucent white and gold pair that had a knack for rolling open ended whenever I *absolutely* needed them to.

Other RPG games I GMd were Star Wars (WEG, WEG 2ed, d20 and Saga)
 
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