Roleplaying Character Journals
By Ravenhawk | March 9, 2008
One of the tabletop games I’m currently involved in is an air pirate campaign that has us sailing about, pillaging what we like, and generally being good little privateers. The GM knows a good bit about actual pirate history, so he likes to keep us acting a (relatively) realistic fashion. As such, being captain, I keep a log book in which I keep track of our food stock and other supplies as well as what we take from our various plunders.
Awhile after each session the GM posts a session review on the google group which he made for the group. He asked that the captain and one other person post character journals of what went down. While they are occassionally a bit of a hassle since I’m not always in the writing mood, I do think that, as a whole, the character journals are a good thing.
Not only do they serve as a useful reminder for what has happened in the past, but they help players to get to know their characters. They also serve as a good place for between play character development. Having your character reflect on the exploits that they have so far endured is a good way to figure out exact how your character thinks or to alter that thinking. Especially when you have longer term character development plans for a character that would take them a good way from their starting mental state.
As a whole, I thought that the character journals were a good idea. Even though I was the only one who didn’t have them as “optional” I’ve still enjoyed writing them. I’d be somewhat curious to find out if other people have used similar tools for development of their characters. So, drop a comment or email if you feel like telling a story.
Tags: Tabletop Games, Games, Character Development, Rixses, Role Playing Games, RPG
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The Answer to Life, The Universe, and Tabletop Dice Luck
By Ravenhawk | October 3, 2007
I was doing the ol’ “Read random old blog posts in cool sounding blogs” thing today and came upon this post titled, Blessing of the Dice Gods. In it, the author notes the effects upon players when cool dice rolls happen at cool times.
In the tabletop game I’m currently involved in, the GM made an interesting house rule. I’d thought it was a normal house rule for him, but apparrently he just made it up for our campaign. His system is a D100 based system. Obviously, therefore extreme action comes down upon a roll of 1 or 100.
Added to this is the random factor of the 42 roll. When one rolls a 42, crazy stuff happens. What exactly the 42 means can vary greatly. A minor roll ending in a 42 could make the players run across a random villager, running as though for his life, screaming, who suddenly stops and calmly walks away, ignoring the existance of the party.
A dodge roll on the 42 can make you get hit in a dramatic, hardcore fashion, or perhaps the arrow flying at you suddenly turns into a bowl of petunias. (That one actually happened.)
The edition of the random 42 has added a good emotion wrench to our tabletop games. When someone rolls a 42, generally there are groans all around the table, looks of horror on the faces of the players and a grin of sadistic glee spreading across the face of our game master. 42’s aren’t always bad, but they’re not always good either, sometimes they can spell player death or a random large baddie encounter.
When the dice luck happens at good times, it can really bring good emotional effects to your players. By having another number which entails extremes of dice luck, you add one more point which can bring that rush of exhillaration/horror to the group.
If you’re not a Douglas Adams fan, you could substitute 42 for another number. Having it be somewhere in the middle is probably best as it creates a polarized effect for the dice luck. If you like having random effects in your system, it’s a fun rule to add.
Tags: Tabletop Games, Game Design, 42, D038D, D100, Dice Luck, Dungeons and Dragons, Games, House Rules, Role Playing Games, RPG
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Player vs Player Conflict in Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games
By Ravenhawk | July 8, 2007
Normally in Roleplaying games, you see parties come together that include such things as: A paladin, a necromancer, a rouge, a priest; All on the same quest with completely different alignments and personalities, many conflicting. But does this ever cause a problem? Not really. For the sake of their quest and party unity, the fact that these people should be at eachother’s throats never really comes into play.
In the campaign that I’m currently playing my necromancer (Who, like all good necromancers, is very deranged and evil) was partying with a bard and a monk. The monk objected to killing anything, ever and had a very short temper. Because of this, she was constantly at odds with my character who she found creepy. Eventually, this came down to outright attacking him, right when we were in the middle of combat against some highwaymen. She was slaughtered, and the bard, seeing the party member he actually got along with slaughtered, ran away. Our next session was spent rolling new characters for the other two players.
While making new characters is a pain, the conflicts between characters, I think, makes the game a lot more interesting. And the characters (those who live) become a lot more involved and developed if you actually take the effort to play them according to their personalities.
However, does this mean you should go around all the time in parties that will just be killing eachother? Well, if your group likes rolling characters, sure. I’m hoping this next group of characters will get a long a little better with my character, as, while I am amused with the notch I added to the top of my character sheet, I wouldn’t really want it to get a lot of friends.
Tags: Tabletop Games, Character Development, PVP, Role Playing Games, RPG
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Review - Tales of Symphonia
By Ravenhawk | January 25, 2007
Ahh, Tales of Sypmhonia. Ever tasted perfection? ToS is a mainly single player RPG made by Namco and licensed to Nintendo. It can be multiplayer, but I have not gone in depth in multiplayer modes. As far as I know, its on the Gamecube, which is what I have it on. In this miracle of a game, you go through adventures as the main character, Lloyd Irving, a boy outlawed by his village for breaking a non agression pact with the Desians, the bad guys here. But are we here to summarize, or review? This is almost like FF with the same battle system, except you dont take turns, its all at once. And you dont take 10 minutes choosing the move you want to use. The game is more complicated, with two types of players. T and S. You can control what Lloyd and the other party members turn to, but T moves are different from S moves. The game gives you much freedom.
Grinding/Leveling: 8 Grinding isnt as important in this game, you do level though, but there are no Skill points to set to improve your attributes or anything. You basiclly just gain a little strength, agility, defense, hit points, ect.
Graphics: 9 Its hard not to fall in love with the graphics in this game. I mean, the monsters, people, everything is just shown so clearly. Of course, they arent the BEST, but come on. Cut the game some slack, ehh?
Sound: 7 The battle music on this game is like a Japaneseish twist thingy. It’s pretty catchy, you might find youself humming it after hearing it. All towns have a different tune, but it’s mainly almost like elevator music, a little more exciting though.
Features: 10 There is a cooking feature on this game, which I think is pretty cool. Also, there are little skits once in a while. Depending on what you do, it might trigger a skit. A skit is a bunch of words exchanged between the characters, like a cut scene.
Fun: 10 This game is beyond fun with 80+ hours of gameplay. I can play for hours straight and not notice. It’s very addicting.
Overall: 9 Although this game is overshadowed by FF, it is by FAR the best RPG on my list. Try it out, you’ll be playing day and night.
Tags: Uncategorized, RPG
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