Two weeks ago I got suckered into buying Dungeon Delve, because it looked fantastic.  Due to work scheduling and an ever-increasing list of books to read (I'm on Burning Wheel right now), I haven't gotten to look too closely at it.  But that's not what I'm writing about.  At the same time, my completionist compulsion led me to also purchase the Dungeon Tiles set, Caverns of Carnage.

I run 2 games.  One is with my kids, the other is with a group of friends I know from or through church.  I figured at the time that I bought this that I may have very little use for it in the future.

Two weeks later (this morning) on a whim, I cracked it open to take a look (see above for why I didn't before).

This set is great.  I don't know why they chose "Caverns of Carnage" for this set.  Sure, the biggest tile has dead bodies on it, and that's the tile showing, but there are only 5 tiles with bodies on them.  The rest are AWESOMELY USEFUL tiles like underground river segments, waterfalls, rickety bridges (a la Temple of Doom climax scene).  There's a tile of a raft on the stone floor.  Turn it over, there's a raft on water.  Cool.

They even included transition tiles from caverns to dungeons and caverns to outdoors.

I don't know what they should have called this set, but I firmly believe that "Caverns of Carnage" does not present the best value here.  If you find these kinds of tiles useful in your games, I recommend this set.

After my last gaming session (yes, in spite of all the nasty crunch time culminating in this, I make time to game) I had a long conversation with one of my players about how I intended to cater to the varying play styles in my group.  As I am wont to do, I made some of it up right there on the spot, because it sounded like a good idea.  Upon further reflection, I decided that I am really rather better at this than I though (then comes the fall, but hey) and I figured I would share my ideas before they became completely forgotten.

Oh, and we're playing D&D 4e, though that really doesn't affect my decisions or what you should be able to get out of this.

( Read more... )

The Internet is a wonderful thing, and provides a lot of opportunities we otherwise would not have had.  Gaming is certainly a part of this, particularly for the time-sensitive.

Two main kinds of activities come to mind for me when I think of online RPGs.  The first is MMORPGs, like the insanely popular World of Warcraft, or the up-and-coming Warhammer Online.  The other is using the Internet as a medium for actual pen-and-paper RPGs.  I'll touch briefly on these, but then I want to talk about some other online activities that can fill the hole in your heart now that you don't have as much time for gaming as you would have liked.

Massively multiplayer online games (MMO's) are hugely popular and come in all shapes and sizes.  They cover a number of game genres from shooters to strategy to action and adventure.  Many even use the term role-playing game to describe themselves.  In my opinion, this is a misnomer.  So far, I haven't found any games that provide the same kind of structure for roleplaying that pen-and-paper games have.  This does not mean, however, that they are not fun, nor that they do not allow for role playing.  All I am saying is that the game does not support it well.  And it can't.  Computer software cannot perform the same function as a living, breathing game master in deciding the outcome of an arbitrary decision.  But they are very popular, so this is obviously not stopping many people from having fun.

Playing pen-and-paper RPGs over the Internet is also very popular.  Play by email, play by forum and virtual gametable options abound.  This includes anything from a simple exchange of actions and reactions, to virtual minatures and animated battles narrated over a VoIP conference call.  These options are basically the same as playing the game face-to-face, though they are obviously not actually face-to-face and much of the social interaction can be stifled by the medium.  I am participating in two forum based games, and I find that the experience, while slower-moving than an in-person game, provides a lot of opportunities to do some fun, descriptive flavor text.  I also will communicate with the GM or other players in-between posts to work out special actions or joint narration.

To this topic I would also like to briefly mention TwittRPG, the Twitter based RPG method.  Based on the ideas and suggestions of other people, ChattyDM pioneered this new method of running an RPG using Twitter posts.  I read through his description and a few rounds of posts, and I think that this is a great way to play for busy people.  Twitter includes a self-limiting factor, which means that the time you spend actually interacting with the game is naturally limited.  Check it out.

These are certainly not the only ways to use the Internet for a gaming fix.  I mentioned Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures on Facebook in my last post, though this is certainly light.  If you like killing things for loot (what electronic adventure games are really good at), you may also want to try the browser games by Gameforge.  They have a gladiator game, a knight game, vampires vs. werewolves, and space pirates.

There are also lots of non-game venues for getting that gaming fix.  You're browsing one of them right now.  There are a lot of forums where games of all kinds are discussed, and many of them also have forums set aside for ad-hoc roleplaying.  Don't forget the website for your favorite RPG.  There are people posting system-specific stuff there, too.  New content, adventure ideas, character ideas, etc.  Wizards of the Coast is doing a great job of this with D&D Insider, though it will be free for only a short time yet (though they've already convinced me that Dragon and Dungeon magazines are still worth paying for).

Finally, there are a number of tools out there that allow you to spend time doing RPG-like activities on your own.  Character creators, monster creators, etc. abound.  I love Google Docs, which allow me to keep notes on anything and access them from anywhere (I can even read them on my phone).  And I really wish someone would resurrect Kayuda Maps.  That was going to be cool.

Well, I've rambled on quite a bit here, and it was mostly throwing out facts.  I hope I didn't bore anyone too much.  Hopefully there were a few ideas in here that busy folk can use to get their gaming fix in short, digital bursts.

It's been depressingly more than a year since I posted anything here. And I still don't have anything on my mind. So while I fish for blog ideas, I'll repost something I put on RPGLife a while back. I've got a few of these, so I'm good for a while now...

Finding Time to Game

A lot of us are busy. I am very busy. And if the title of this post sparked a rare feeling of hope in you, then you're busy too. The sad, immutable fact is that there are 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and there is nothing any of us can do about that.

The trick to having time to game is having gaming be a priority to you. You may be telling me (via your screen) that it is a priority to you, that's why you're here on this site. Great. Now you need to write down everything you are currently doing with your time and decide what can be replaced (or combined, see below) with gaming.

Here are some tactics:

• Don't try anything drastic up front. I started with one session each month. I was able to move that game up to every three weeks once my wife saw how much fun I was having. I can't make that one more often, because I'm starting a second group.
• See what can be combined: I need to spend time with my kids. So I game with my kids. The youngest rolls a d20 every now and then and cheers when I tell him he hits, and I'm working on ways to inspire the oldest to do more role playing.
• Remember that you don't need a lot of time. There are other busy people who can probably squeeze in a monthly game with you. Once a month is better than never.
• Creative scheduling: If everyone involved is willing to support you in sleeping in Saturday mornings, consider 9pm to 2am Friday night as an option.
• Cooperative scheduling: If your significant other/household is jealous of time spent together, use the time when they are busy. My wife is part of a book club once a month. That's a very convenient time for me to do whatever.
• Keep hope alive: If nothing works now, keep gaming in mind as a future priority. When your oldest kid gets to babysitting age, you may have new options. That's why book club nights work for me now.

Everyone's situation is different, so you'll need to brainstorm your own ideas, too. Just keep to the priority list. If gaming isn't high enough on that list, then it will never work for you. And there's nothing wrong with that, though it may be regretable from time to time.

This post may sound harsh, and it will be by far the harshest thing I write here, but that is the harsh reality. If you don't have time, you don't have time. But if you want to find time, make time. If your schedule is full, something has to go to make room.

But that's entirely up to you.

Yeah, I want this one:

Your home is a Magic Gamer's Castle Your kitchen is stocked with chips, dips, and assorted caffeinated beverages. There's a pantry with emergency backup caffeinated beverages. You also have some breakfast cereals in there, but you haven't had breakfast since last Spring. Your master bedroom has blankets printed with images of Mario and Link. Your study includes unread copies of various gamer magazines, each purchased for the free demo CDs. One of your garages contains a life-sized X-Wing fighter, and KITT. (KITT was a gift from a well-meaning uncle.) Your home also includes a roost for griffons. You've never actually seen a griffon, but you keep the roost ready anyway. Your guests enjoy your collection of every console and associated game ever made. Except the Intellivision -- those controllers drive them NUTS. Outside is the moat that protects your home from goblin invaders and extended family. Below is a snippet of the blueprints:

Find YOUR Dream Home!

In my last, big catch-up post, I failed to mention one item. No sooner had I returned to my real job at Airtight than I was given the position of Multiplayer Lead. This is a pseudo-promotion for me. Promotion in that I now have more leadership and critical decision-making responsibilities, pseudo in that it doesn't include a pay raise or bigger office. (The word "yet" was inferred by me, but I don't want to get my hopes up just yet, though that only applies to the raise. I'm fine with my office, though, so that's good too.)

For the "present" part of the post, I am dressed in my default medieval/renaissance outfit for lack of planning ahead for this particular halloween. I do have a new, wide-brimmed hat to go with it, though. My wife is very talented.

And for the future, tomorrow begins National Novel Writing Month. I tried this last year and stuck to it for about five days. We have an important milestone due on December 1, so I don't expect to have the time to actually meet the 50,000 word goal, but if I do better than last year, I'll consider it a moral victory. I'm using the same story I had last year, but it's evolved in my head enough that I don't think it disqualifies itself anymore.

It's been a pretty hectic couple of months, but things are starting to calm down a bit, so I figured I would try to catch up here.

Perhaps the biggest news is that my mother's mother, Norma Laws Whitehead, passed away on September 11, 2006. She died of old age with her family at her bedside.

We spent several days with family in St. George, UT for the funeral. It was very nice to see everyone again. Since my grandfather had passed away four years earlier, there was some concern about losing touch with the cousins. The result was a web site set up by one of my cousins where we can all participate in forum discussions and post breaking news about the family. Now we're staying in closer touch than we did before.

Because of being away at the funeral, I totally missed International Talk Like a Pirate Day, which I was very much looking forward to. But there's always next year.

The game with the kids is continuing well. When they hit 2nd level, I redid their characters to match them more personally. I also picked up some of the Game Mastery Item Cards from Paizo Publishing. These cards represent magic items in the game. There's room for notes on the back and a DM's code so I can keep secrets organized about these items. The kids love them.

They now have folders with printed character sheets (stored online at Myth Weavers, where I am also playing in a play-by-post (PbP) game) in sheet protectors, their item cards in card sheets, extra sheet protectors for handouts, and paper for notes. They loved them.

I'm currently working on my Game Master's notebook and actually trying some adventure preparation in advance. I think at the next session they will get their first puzzle to solve. It'll be simple, since they're young and still new at this, and I don't have any good ideas yet, but I've still got a bit of time.

Work has been great, but demanding. I'm back at Airtight Games after a 3-month contract at Sony Online Entertainment. Sony was an interesting learning experience, but I'm very happy to be back at my "real" job. We have a milestone due for our new publisher this Friday, hence the demanding part. I'll be doing long hours this week except today (Family Home Evening) and tomorrow (Cub Scouts), just like I did last week.

Those are the highlights of the past few months. Let's see if I can keep ahead of things for a while.

My Daughter: "I just want to change from an elf to a half-orc really quick. And maybe from a sorcerer to a rogue."

Me: "Okay. You can do that. Or we can play the game."

We played. I had nothing prepared, but I had large sheets of paper and some Mega Bloks minifigures. So I just came up with an idea for the start of an adventure, and went from there. My kids are 9 and 6, so we're still at the hack & slash stage where I'm fudging dice rolls in their favor and reminding them of various rules and good ideas. And I don't trap many of the doors and chests.

They loved it, and so did I. It was frustrating, because every time a monster showed up, they would have to pick up their little figure to switch to the appropriate weapon, pose it and make various sound effects, but they were enjoying it.

It was an interesting exercise for me. It's taken me so long to do this with them because I never could come up with a good adventure idea or the time to plan it out. But then it occurred to me that these are young children and won't even notice that I'm making it all up as I go along. And the most creative influence I have found in creating adventures is actually running the adventure. Now they've been through half of a basic adventure, I already know (for the most part) what the rest of it will be like, and have a few ideas for hooks to lead from here to the next adventure, and possibly tie future adventures back to this one.

So the kids had fun bashing kobolds, and I had fun on a much higher level. Everyone's happy. Can't wait for the next session.

Saturday we went to the Puget Sound Pirate Festival, hosted by the Seattle Swashbucklers, part of the Seattle Knights. The kids had a lot of fun. It was basically a street fair with activities for children. Each child got a treasure map and would collect clues by playing the games. Once you collected the right clues, you traded in the solution for treasure (read: cheap plastic toys, every child's favorite).

Personally, I was hoping for more for adults to do. They did have a tent where people were playing pirate-themed games, such as Pirates of the Spanish Main by Wiz Kids Games, and I could have spent hours there, but I had kids with me and they were the ultimate focus of the activity anyway.

Hopefully Crystal and I can get to the big renaissance fair this weekend, without the kids.

Recently, I've been watching a bunch of science fiction: the various Star Treks, Battlestar Galactica (old and new), etc. I've been enjoying it very much, but a number of aspects jump out at me as inconsistent with the level of immersion these shows attempt to create.

Item 1: Homogenous societies.
It stands to reason that in the future, cultures will become more "standard", but to assume that each planet will have only one government and one culture is a bit much. This is compounded by the irony that each planet seems to have a different culture. The only time there seem to be exceptions to this is when it plays into the plot. This is particularly evident when religion is involved. The Minbari (Babylon 5), for example, all have the same religion, without exception, despite the degree to which they individually believe in it.

Item 2: Microcosmic societies.
Everytime anyone visits a planet, the area they visit seems about the size of a large house and be the only point of interest on the entire planet. This is obviously a budget issue, but still...

Item 3: Time travel.
Something needs investigating, resulting in traveling back in time where it turns out the cause of the original circumstance is that we went back in time, so we fix it and now we don't need to go back in time anymore. Seriously, if the only possible way for something to happen is if it has already happened, then it's not going to happen.

This isn't all, but these are the really big ones. And none of these really prevent me from enjoying my sci-fi. And they're getting better (except for the time travel one, which is hopeless).

Summer is the time of many and varied activities. Particularly in an area like the Puget Sound. There's always lots going on. We've had to miss several parades simply because we haven't had the time to see them all. There are two medieval/renaissance faires going on over the next several weekends, plus the Pacific Science Center is hosting an exhibit about video games that I would be interested in criticizing. Then we have ward activities and other fun stuff going on locally.

And then there's the home improvement. I don't think I'm going to get to do many of these wonderful and fun activities this summer because I have fence to pull, trellises to build and general maintenance to perform.

This weekend I started the fence by placing two wooden fence posts in very rocky ground. My hands and shoulders hurt very much because of that. Next, I get to actually attach the fencing to the thirty-odd metal posts I pounded in a few months ago but never got to.

I guess I'd better get busy.

It is quite ironic that in yesterday's post I complained about not having anything noteworthy to report here. That post was written shortly after I had been to the dentist to receive 3 fillings. I don't like dentists. After writing that post, it occurred to me that I could have written about the dentist visit, but in retrospect it is probably best that I waited.

At that time, half of my face was drooping in a manner to inspire random shouts of "Adrian!" and memories of head-rattling drilling were still very sharp. I think a post at that time would have come off as quite whiny.

As it stands, I still can't report the visit with anything like enthusiasm, especially since I have to go back for one more filling in two weeks.

They also want to take impressions for a custom-made mouthguard to prevent me from damaging my teeth during the night. Apparently I grind. The best thing about this is that they're only going to charge me $225. I'm going to the sporting goods store this afternoon to get a mouthguard there. I have two weeks to decide if that will do or if I should spend an insane amount of money on a piece of rubber.

Did I mention I don't like dentists? And I can't complain, because the cavities are my own fault.

One whole week without a single post. I'm doing great at this. Nearly every day I opened this update page and sat here wondering what to say. One day I even started typing something, but decided not to post it.

It seems that one of the hurdles I need to overcome in this new habit is the idea that everything I post must be profound and significant. It really doesn't. This is my personal journal and is meant to be a record of my day-to-day happenings. More often than not, it's going to be completely mundane.

I don't know how Crystal comes up with things to write every single day.

So last week I failed, but this week I shall improve!

I saw Superman Returns on Saturday. It was enjoyable, but less than I was hoping for. The action was great, and there wasn't too much to ruin the story. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough story to make the movie great. The father-son parrallelism was nifty, though I don't like that they gave Superman a son. I'll buy it, and I'll watch it again, but probably not in the middle of a Saturday when there are other things I would rather be doing.

My daughter has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. At least, that is what we have been told. Yesterday, she had a routine appointment with the rheumatology clinic at the children's hospital in Seattle. She saw a new doctor this time, with whom Crystal was quite impressed. She (the doctor) said that perhaps this is not arthritis, and a new treatment could have her up to a normal level of physical activity. I assume she'll let us know when she's re-examined the blood work.

Each of my three children seems to have some chronic-yet-non-life-threatening medical condition. Some people may look on that as a burden, but when I go with my children to the doctors and hospitals, I am grateful for their general health. Arthritis can be treated, migraines can be reduced, and the seizures haven't happened since we were told that could be what they are. And all of them can be grown out of. Not so for leukemia or many other afflictions.

There was a time when I wondered why all this was happening to me. I have long since considered all that I have to be wonderful blessings in light of the alternatives. It's all just a matter of perspective. Just like diagnosing arthritis.

I was forced to declare my Xbox completely hosed as of Monday evening, July 10, 2006. This is truly a tragic day for the Taggart family. Well, for me anyway.

That Xbox has been with me since early November, 2001, when the Xbox platform originally launched. It is a Special Launch Edition Xbox with a transparent green case, and the signature of Bill Gates on the top. My first hope is to replace the hard drive (my diagnosed cause of death) myself. If that doesn't work, I'll purchase a new Xbox, and put it in the Special Edition case (thereby voiding the warranty, but I can live with that).

Monday evening was not all bad though.

Airtight games, my employer, is currently seeking a new publisher for our game, after our old publisher cancelled our contract. However, we were just at the best point for something like that to happen (if there is such a thing as a "best point"). Over the subsequent weeks, we pulled together a stunning demo game and the big guys at Airtight have been pitching it to other publishers.

Response has been better than we hoped for, and Monday, we received an offer from a publisher. I'm not going to post the details here, but it is certainly great news. For the past couple of weeks, and for several more to come, I am "on loan" as a contractor to another game studio in the Puget Sound area. It's fine here, and I'm enjoying the work, but I really miss Airtight. This means my return is now in the forseeable future.

It has become increasingly clear to me that I need to keep better records. It seems strange that it is so easy to convince myself that detailed records are unnecessary, yet detailed records can do nothing but good.

The most recent priesthood lesson was on journal writing, an obvious topic from the life and teachings of Wilford Woodruff. That is one of those guilt-ridden lessons for me. My beautiful wife, Crystal, has kept a journal every day since she was eight years old. I feel bad that she didn't miss a day until we were married, but at the same time, I justify my lack of journal writing with her wonderful habit. I've decided to not let myself use that as an excuse any longer.

That is the reason for this journal. I hope to keep writing as much as I can, in order to create the habit.

But journal writing is not the only point of record-keeping that I need to improve on. We are currently not living within our financial means. And this is despite a detailed budget that puts us quite a long ways into the black. Somehow the money keeps getting spent every month. I need to keep better track of the money we spend, so that a) it will remind me that I'm spending actual money, and keep the budget in the front of my mind and b) I can track our spending habits to determine where we need to improve.

So this entry is primarily an introduction and a declaration of my commitment to improve on my personal record-keeping. I am determined to do better at this than I have in the past, so I am likely to talk quite a bit about these efforts here, at least until I have formed the good patterns and habits to support them.