Woke up to a strange column by Mearls this morning.
He is talking about hit points and healing. Actually I take that back, he isn't talking about hit points but rather curing magic and the desire to move away from reliance on a cleric (which by default will make the cleric obsolete).
I have never met Mearls, but boy he has strange ideas about D&D and the need to overcomplicate the basic tenets of the game.
He is suggesting using a character's hit dice as mundane healing dice. Basically a healing surge by another name. Which also has a byproduct of killing a bunch of interesting role-play opportunities, as we'll see.
The need for this is.......? I dunno, to placate 4e people?
Here are some friendly suggestions that accomplish the same thing without relying on gamey surges.
I'll start this list off and you can add to it in the comments.
The Barrowmaze Brigands - consisting of Lothar of the Hill People (Fighter), Galaxina the Magic-User, and Gutboy Barrelhouse the Dwarven Fighter - set off to make a quick gold piece in the crypts. WHAT A CALAMITY, they don't have a cleric.
Instead they decide to address their shortcomings within the game-world by:
1) Going to the Temple of Zuul and hiring the newly-minted Acolyte Vinz Clortho.
2) Visiting the gnarly local village crone to see if she has any healing salves or bandages.
3) Proceeding into Barrowmaze without a cleric but deciding on a course of action that is extremely cautious.
4) Hiring an elite cadre *snicker* of men-at-arms to walk point.
Ok. Now it's your turn. I like humour but let's take a moment to be constructive :) What else could the Barrowmaze Brigands do instead of relying on cheap/easy/dirty HD as healing surges?
Monday, May 21, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Gencon Event Registration
I managed to get signed up today for the events I wanted at Gencon. I only signed-up for two: the 5e playtest and a DCCRPG adventure.
When I first attended Gencon in 2008, I didn't sign-up for any events. I just took myself on an extended tour of the whole thing and observed.
The next time I went in 2010, I went with a good friend and our wives. We gamed during the day and then met up with them at night. It was good put we played too many games. I also DMed a game (TPK lol).
So this time round I'm going to play in two, run a session of Barrowmaze, and tool around the dealer hall. Initially I was going to stay for the whole thing, but with the wife going I think it makes more sense to leave on the Saturday morning and have a more leisurely drive home. It takes about 9 1/2 hours from Southern Ontario. I will also be at OSRcon the weekend before and will likely be out of steam by Saturday anyway.
When I first attended Gencon in 2008, I didn't sign-up for any events. I just took myself on an extended tour of the whole thing and observed.
The next time I went in 2010, I went with a good friend and our wives. We gamed during the day and then met up with them at night. It was good put we played too many games. I also DMed a game (TPK lol).
So this time round I'm going to play in two, run a session of Barrowmaze, and tool around the dealer hall. Initially I was going to stay for the whole thing, but with the wife going I think it makes more sense to leave on the Saturday morning and have a more leisurely drive home. It takes about 9 1/2 hours from Southern Ontario. I will also be at OSRcon the weekend before and will likely be out of steam by Saturday anyway.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Thoughts on the Craft of Writing
I've been reading a few OSR blogs and their discussions of writing. All of these are helpful in one way or another but the advice should be considered just that - advice. The same goes with my thoughts below. Take it all with a grain of salt. This isn't a manifesto, rather it is just a personal reflection with the intent of helping people who are interested. Active voice/passive voice is my bag - so I'll spend most of my time focusing on that subject.
I've taught first year students at university for 10 years now. Teaching undergrads means teaching them to write from the ground up. You have to get them to look in the mirror and acknowledge their bad habits. Of course, nobody likes to look in the mirror but that's part of the process of learning the craft. At one point in time, all good writers were taken aside (and repeatedly taken to task) for their writing - it's just how good writers are made. I also believe that writing is a life-long learning skill and best taught in a mentorship-style. Reading "how to write" from a book is only valuable to a point. Also, good writers possess range - they understand writing conventions across fields and can thus tweak their language and structure to suit the needs of the medium. My learners get these messages in regular doses.
In my classes, I focus on formal structured writing - so formal argumentative essays are the order of the day. This means I need to teach the concept of authorial voice. Formal writing, in my view, requires an active voice sentence structure. What is active voice? We use active voice to sound more authoritative and confident by ensuring each sentence has a subject at the beginning, an action word or verb, and a thing (or object acted upon). This style is also referred to as SVO (or subject, verb, object) and is the basic sentence structure of the English language.
This style stands in contrast to passive voice which normally positions the subject at the end of the sentence.
Active Voice: The troll built the bridge.
Passive Voice: The bridge was built by the troll (or sometimes) The bridge was built.
The above are basic examples that serve to illustrate the point. The active voice sentence contains only five words and reads in a more authoritative fashion because we located the subject at the beginning. The passive voice sentence contains seven words and is less authoritate because the reader doesn't learn about the subject until the end of the sentence. Even worse, the third example has no subject at all.
Let me guess - some of you just said "Big-friken deal. You cut two words!"
My response: You cut two words from that sentence, made it more concise, and made it more authoritative. Now extrapolate that example over an eight sentence paragraph. How many words did you just cut and say exactly the same thing? Now extrapolate that paragraph over one page, two pages, five pages, and then over an entire manuscript. How many needless words did you cut from your writing? Exactly. In this new, strong, active form your writing will leap off the page, rather than sitting as dead letter.
So now that we understand the purpose of active voice we need a toolset to find passive voice in your writing. This is the simple part. Passive voice results from the overuse of the most overused verb in the English language - the verb "to be". So we need to conjugate the verb. When we do that - in various tenses - we get the following words "was, am, be, is, were, are, been, being".
So go examine a piece of your writing for these words. Use of these results in a passive voice construction. Experience has taught me that you have either left out the subject, or you have the subject at the end of your sentence. There are other possible reasons, but those, in my experience, are the two most common errors.
In a game-publishing context writing in active voice isn't critical. Would I recommend it? Sure. It is helpful, but the medium doesn't really require a formal voice. In contrast, my academic book "Hunting for Empire" required it - you would be lucky to find 5 passive voice constructions in over 60,000 words.
If I were to offer constructive help, I'd suggest the following: avoid double-negatives that give people ice-cream headaches, avoid starting sentences with conjunctions, avoid using "it" instead of a proper noun, avoid contractions, and avoid run-on sentences (one thought = one sentence).
Everybody you ask will have a slightly different opinion - and that's ok. If you are writing for fun, you need to decide what works for you. For my part, writing is an art not a science. There are habits that result in good writing and habits that are less good - but no objective measure exists. It takes practice and, in my opinion, a good mentor (Thank you, Nancy B).
Let me know if this post was valuable or not in the comments or if you have any questions.
I've taught first year students at university for 10 years now. Teaching undergrads means teaching them to write from the ground up. You have to get them to look in the mirror and acknowledge their bad habits. Of course, nobody likes to look in the mirror but that's part of the process of learning the craft. At one point in time, all good writers were taken aside (and repeatedly taken to task) for their writing - it's just how good writers are made. I also believe that writing is a life-long learning skill and best taught in a mentorship-style. Reading "how to write" from a book is only valuable to a point. Also, good writers possess range - they understand writing conventions across fields and can thus tweak their language and structure to suit the needs of the medium. My learners get these messages in regular doses.
In my classes, I focus on formal structured writing - so formal argumentative essays are the order of the day. This means I need to teach the concept of authorial voice. Formal writing, in my view, requires an active voice sentence structure. What is active voice? We use active voice to sound more authoritative and confident by ensuring each sentence has a subject at the beginning, an action word or verb, and a thing (or object acted upon). This style is also referred to as SVO (or subject, verb, object) and is the basic sentence structure of the English language.
This style stands in contrast to passive voice which normally positions the subject at the end of the sentence.
Active Voice: The troll built the bridge.
Passive Voice: The bridge was built by the troll (or sometimes) The bridge was built.
The above are basic examples that serve to illustrate the point. The active voice sentence contains only five words and reads in a more authoritative fashion because we located the subject at the beginning. The passive voice sentence contains seven words and is less authoritate because the reader doesn't learn about the subject until the end of the sentence. Even worse, the third example has no subject at all.
Let me guess - some of you just said "Big-friken deal. You cut two words!"
My response: You cut two words from that sentence, made it more concise, and made it more authoritative. Now extrapolate that example over an eight sentence paragraph. How many words did you just cut and say exactly the same thing? Now extrapolate that paragraph over one page, two pages, five pages, and then over an entire manuscript. How many needless words did you cut from your writing? Exactly. In this new, strong, active form your writing will leap off the page, rather than sitting as dead letter.
So now that we understand the purpose of active voice we need a toolset to find passive voice in your writing. This is the simple part. Passive voice results from the overuse of the most overused verb in the English language - the verb "to be". So we need to conjugate the verb. When we do that - in various tenses - we get the following words "was, am, be, is, were, are, been, being".
So go examine a piece of your writing for these words. Use of these results in a passive voice construction. Experience has taught me that you have either left out the subject, or you have the subject at the end of your sentence. There are other possible reasons, but those, in my experience, are the two most common errors.
In a game-publishing context writing in active voice isn't critical. Would I recommend it? Sure. It is helpful, but the medium doesn't really require a formal voice. In contrast, my academic book "Hunting for Empire" required it - you would be lucky to find 5 passive voice constructions in over 60,000 words.
If I were to offer constructive help, I'd suggest the following: avoid double-negatives that give people ice-cream headaches, avoid starting sentences with conjunctions, avoid using "it" instead of a proper noun, avoid contractions, and avoid run-on sentences (one thought = one sentence).
Everybody you ask will have a slightly different opinion - and that's ok. If you are writing for fun, you need to decide what works for you. For my part, writing is an art not a science. There are habits that result in good writing and habits that are less good - but no objective measure exists. It takes practice and, in my opinion, a good mentor (Thank you, Nancy B).
Let me know if this post was valuable or not in the comments or if you have any questions.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
D&D Five Chat Transcript
Have any of you read the chat transcript from today? If WotC was ever interested in reclaiming gamers of previous editions, it sure doesn't sound like it now.
Anyway, our group plans on kicking the tires on the playtest regardless. The primary upside? I won't have to DM! WooHoo!
Indiegogo: Barrowmaze II Hits 5k!
A quick update to say that the Barrowmaze II Campaign on Indiegogo just hit 5k! As a stretch goal to 6,000 I'll add a new field of Barrow Mounds and a deluxe Random Barrow Mound Crypt Generator that will have application to BMII and beyond. Be sure to come chek out the campaign for further details!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Game of Thrones (Spoiler Free)
Is it just me or have you found that this season's Game of Thrones seems to jump around too much?
By the end of the episode you don't really feel like any single plot line has moved forward, rather it just has a plodding pace with excruciatingly brief moments of excitement.
Thoughts?
By the end of the episode you don't really feel like any single plot line has moved forward, rather it just has a plodding pace with excruciatingly brief moments of excitement.
Thoughts?
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Barrowmaze II Indiegogo Update
The Indiegogo campaign for BMII is moving along well. We are just shy of 5k with that goal adding a new "level" of crypts. The most recent excitement was James M. Selecting a perk that includes the creation of a new custom monster! That will be super fun and I look forward to working with him. I've got another goal for 6k too.
If you haven't pledged yet please come and take a look.
BTW I hope to have some of Jim Holloway's art rolling in shortly. So stay tuned!
Ps. It's Mother's Day so make sure you are covered :)
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Barrowmaze at Gencon
Looks like my Barrowmaze game at gencon is all set for the Friday 1pm slot.
It will be a 3 hour game using pregenerated characters.
If you'd like to play be sure to signup.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Our Podcast is Up (sorta)
I've done my best with my less-than-stellar tech skills to embed last night's podcast on the blog.
It works in safari but explorer doesn't seem to like it.
Let me know if it's working for you in the comments.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Barrowmaze II on Indiegogo Hits 4k!
Just a quick note to say that the campaign for Barrowmaze II on Indiegogo has hit the 4k mark! It's very exciting and I'm really pleased at how well things are going.
If you haven't pledged please consider joining the camapign. I will be posting an update about some goodies in the next 24 hours.
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