#RPGADAY2020 11. Stack

#Stack

I like this one because it flows from the last entry, "want". 

When I design my campaigns and sessions, I stack the deck in my player's favor. My players are more likely to be wiped out by a bad die roll than any creation of mine. 

When planning, I use the rule of three to stack the deck in their favor. At the table, there are three ways to complete a task: Conflict, Parley, Escape. Usually, they end up being called: Combat, Talking and Flight. Under those three categories, I think of three ways to be victorious in a fight, three things the characters could say that would end the conflict and three ways to escape. 

Of course, my players are smart and they end up doing the exact same thing, with completely different answers and completely different outcomes. By working with the players ideas, the game flows naturally but no one can say where that flow will take us. 

Of late, I have been playing D&D with my family. A lot of one off modules, sessions and different rule sets. Last weekend, we tried playing Keep on the Borderlands with AD&D characters. It's a favorite of mine. 

This time, my kids found a game breaker in their first expedition to the caves. In all the times I've hosted or played "The Keep", this one possibility never occurred to me. And I look for game breakers. Mainly so I don't accidentally kill the party or allow the party to kill themselves. This solution to "Keep on the Borderlands" is pretty cool. I'll post about that separately, but the point is, by stacking all of the possibilities with the players capabilities in mind, you get an enjoyable game which does contain risk, but doesn't come off as "over-powering" or "loaded" against the people playing. 

#RPGADAY2020 10. Want

#Want

I want my players and I to have a good time. That's all. 

I could go into all of the other wants I have in life, but that would be a wordy list of things that would all point back to having a good time. 

"A good time" is a complex thing, at the table or in real life. It doesn't necessarily mean "you had a good time", it means quality.

A flat tire sucks. Having a flat time at exactly the moment you have a young driver in the car, who will need to know how to change a flat, is "a good time" because of the quality of the experience. Spending time with a child, teaching a skill, learning a skill are all quality events. 

That's all I want.  

#RPGADAY2020 9. Light

#Light

I could post about actual light, but I already did that last year under my series on 52 weeks of magic. 

No, I won't rehash that. Instead, I will post on making light. Of play, of games. 

Sometimes, a one-liner or good joke can make or break or possibly both a good session. One of my favorite gags came at the expense of my whole campaign. And I wouldn't change how things played out for the world. 

The PC's got clobbered by my antagonists. Most of them died thrice over. However, a cleric survived through all of the bloodshed. I didn't pick up on the fact that he was leveling like crazy. 

As the rest of the party rolled up new characters for the third time, he was collecting new spells. One of them was Quest. 

Since I didn't expect that the party would would get to 9th level against this particular antagonist, that character was not protected against a 5th level spell. And when the cleric unloaded on him, the effect was spectacular as it was effective. 

"I charge thee with a quest to bring me the most perfect grilled cheese sandwich."

I was really sick of that particular antagonist, so I didn't mind this outcome. But it turned in to brick joke. The guy ran off to find that grilled cheese sandwich which put me on the spot to come up with some other plot line. As this new plot line developed, the poor victim kept returning with grilled cheese sandwiches. 

"Master, here is the most perfect grilled cheese sandwich." 
"How do you know it's perfect?"
"Chomp... It's so good." 
"The perfect cheese sandwich has been defiled by your bite." 
"I know...  I know, but it was so good!" 

The table erupted in laughter each time we landed the joke. Eventually, I had to turn the DM reins over to someone else because the joke was killing my adventures. And that too was "so good". 

While this is a story of making too much light, everyone should try to bring some levity and light to the table. It is play, a game after all.  

#RPGADAY2020 8. Shade

#Shade

Shade is an interesting word. As a line artist and stippler, I generally don't get in to shading. But sometimes, it has a it's uses. When you try something new, it's a good idea to limit the scope of the whatever it is. 

This process is more natural to me than any type of shading.

But it's usage is limiting. Things become exciting with the use of color and shading. 

This is four shades of blue grey. It's still limited but more lively. 

This piece has 5 colors. What a difference one more shade makes. 

And this is my favorite. It has 5 colors, purple, green and blue, plus black and grey. Each color has only 2 shades. But those shades make it dramatic. 

Shade goes along ways towards coloring the world. When applied to characters in a game, shades of this or that make them come to life. Often, it doesn't take much to shift or shade a character from a paper cutout to something more lifelike. 

#RPGADAY2020 7. Couple

Day 7, Couple. 

Well, it's my wife's birthday, so I gonna go with that. 

She prefers games with solid rules, like Risk or Monopoly and with the option to flip a table. So, yeah, Risk or Monopoly. She doesn't like D&D or anything else with fluid rules. But she does love whimsy.

A few years back I forgot to order her a birthday cake. As I went out the door to get her a cake (really, any cake) she said, "I can't wait to see what you had them put on it." 

"Oh, sh---." I found a cake, but there was nothing on it. It was the plainest, white colored cake a cake could be. My kids insisted that we decorate it and shouted out all of these insane ideas that couldn't be done in a day, let along 15 minutes before a party.

I told them, "I got this." The clerk looked at me like I was insane. I asked if she could draw a line, starting and ending two black circles, the size of dimes. The clerk shrugged and drew what I asked for. She had no idea what it meant. 

The kids cheered. The clerk was startled. They told her it was the best cake, ever. She muttered, "Okay?" 

When my wife opened it, she shrieked, "BAYMAX CAKE!" right along with the kids. 

She loves structure, I love chaos. We're a good couple.