Showing posts with label Fun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fun. Show all posts

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Saturday Night thoughts on the sparsely populated dungeon

It's Saturday night, and I feel a Saturday Night Special feeling coming over me.

Some of you might have read my last post on dense Gygaxian dungeons. Given it is Saturday I got to thinking about those places that make the subterranean underworld its flair, and those moments of "sensawunda". Let me quote you from the 5th ed. Tunnels & Trolls rule book.

"Let your imagination go wild - you can do anything you want because this is your creation. Put in a lot of stuff - nobody likes a dull dungeon. "
So, populating your dungeon. I know some people likes the idea of a big underground labyrinth where there are one third empty rooms or something like that. Each to his own. I don't say I don't like to play that way. But, I've come to realize that I'm no longer fond of creating dungeons like that.

I love to invent those crystal waterfalls, devious traps, combat encounters with multiple co-operating foes or locales of majestic proportions and awe inspiring weirdness. Putting down corridors of nothing on graph paper is no longer fun.

Sure, I could use a computer to generating it for me, but I would not find it fun to run either. What I would like to have is a way to make those slow moving bits be outsourced to  a second GM and then I could step in a run the Saturday Night Specials. Maybe. Is there a way to get it all?

I'm beginning to feel I understand what Ken St. Andre wrote above and how well it applies to me. I don't like a "dull" dungeon. It would be cool, though, if you could just rattle off some twists, turns and empty rooms without bother to have the first part make sense or be ever repeatable (like for backtracking out of the dungeon or repeat visits), and then dive into it. Too bad I like the idea of repeat visits to the dungeon. I would never be able to improvise the same map twice.

If that could be done, I'd be very happy.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

When not playing, listen!

I have not posted much lately, but it comes down to me not being able to involve myself much in gaming. Long hours at work and I still haven't been able to get a regular game going since before Christmas! From a gaming point of view, holidays suck!

What I have done while not playing anything is listening to other people playing. A while ago I bought a fine copy of Chaosium's marvellous campaign Horror on the Orient Express (HotOE). I wanted to play it, and almost got the chance last year before that attempt to find a new group fizzled. So, I decided to buy it, and to listen to the Bradford Players playing it.

Listening to other people play sounds strange, but it can actually be quite fun. It can also teach you a thing or two about table manners, how to handle troublesome players or just neat GM tricks.

HotOE is, since it's for CoC, a horror adventure. So, how would you expect it to play then? Grim and dark? Well, I have listened to a few different people running Call of Cthulhu, and I can say that American gun nuts are the most boring ones to listen to. Sound tactics and "effective" play. They might have fun, but it sure isn't fun to listen to. The thing is, the game must be engaging in some way, and one of the best way to make that happen is for it to be fun!

I'd really recommend anyone to listen to the recorded sessions of HotOE by the Bradford gang. Some of these sessions I laughed so hard it hurt when listening! The contrast between the grisly and quite horrific event the characters suffer and the jolly interaction between the players are excellent for contrast and effect. Also, listen to Paul when running the game. He is a Keeper (GM in CoC speak) of some skill indeed.

A friend of mine in the local game club ran his AD&D campaign a few days back, and summarized the event as "the players did what they should, entertained their DM". It made me think of Paul and his friends in Bradford. We do this for fun, right?

Monday, August 9, 2010

I write like...

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