Stephan Hornick
Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Happy Birthday, @KindredWolf !
Happy Birthday, @BoramereWrath !Ok. You're just going to have to believe me on this. I'm not paid for this opinion, and I don't get any reward or anything....I'm just going to say it because it's true for me.
"My adventures have always lacked flair and creativity and am hoping to change that."
I really do like being on the email list over at https://www.roleplayingtips.com and look forward to the weekly emails. They are interesting, just the right size to consume easily enough, and if nothing else gets those creative juices flowing. They have several "free" tools that are good for any game, so pick them up as well. I also like system-neutral and OSR things being put out by Creighton Broadhurst over at https://www.ragingswanpress.com there are a lot of free things to sample over there as well which helps with descriptive and interesting things to build imaginative encounters with.
"My other games all fizzled early and I tend to bite off more than I can chew in picking epic-length adventure cycles."
Many of us GM's have been there and done that. We learn to take smaller bites. We learn to let the players often end on a "win" or "high note" many times so that they enjoy the game and can handle the losses and downturns when they come. Sometimes we can string some smaller encounters together rather than launching an epic-length adventure until the players have found a comfortable stride with their characters which makes them happy. Keep enjoying the shared story with your players and friends. Enjoy!!
Do you think the octagon, hexagon and triangle stand for the hp dice of the classes of those PCs?
Hi Stephan, thank you for your wishes.Happy Birthday, @pbianchi! Have a nice day!
By the way, how do you celebrate Christmas in Belgium? Do the kids open their presents in the evening of the 24th or on the next morning? Are there some typical Belgium traditions?
Further, I see you are well invested in CL for the last months.
Is there anything that you miss and that would be great for us to implement?
Happy Birthday, Sean!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
Could you post a quick link? I'm not sure I know what to search for. My exposure to our hobby was surely different (being a German and all), although I seem to remember (oh, my memory is so bad!) that I played "something" in "a" box that was D&D first edition as my first TTRPG... just reading through the book I found on a flea market, and imagining what it would be like to play it with others, while my parents moved us to the big city and I was angry with them, because I had just lost all my friends...It might seem limited now but it was a lot of fun back in the day. I was up all that night trying to get through. You learned the value of good mapping.
There was only a couple of the Jackson books but I got the feel of how to run a game from them. They can be found as a pdf on the net if any one else would like a blast from the past.