Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
A Bone From The Pile
A quick intro, I'm Kincaide, (name changed to protect the guilty:) a veteran player of many campaigns including the one Gnome mentioned in his last post. (It flopped, and the DM was NOT the issue) I have also DMed a great many campaigns (DnD 1st-3.5ed, d20 modern, Vampire, Hackmaster, Shadowrun 3-4, and Alternity) online and in real life, and one thing I can't help but notice, being the Greybeard that I am, is this:
People nowadays can't seem to commit to ANYTHING.
The following is a rant comprised of observations of gaming culture that will probably cause the people I have played with lately to hate me, but does Kincaide CARE? Nope!
Gone are the days of setting a time (and place if in real-life) a day of the week, and sticking with it, regardless of what comes up. "I have a prior commitment" is a perfectly acceptable response to "Hey, come do THIS [insert gaming time/day here]!" Instead, I find my gaming tables sparsely populated by the one or two diehards like myself.
Am I saying a man should ignore his family member's birthday, or his own Wedding?(Contrary to the sad popular belief that gamers don't have social lives, there ARE married gamers out there, I promise, I AM one.) No! Gaming is not LIFE! (though for some of us it IS a major part of it) That being said, not showing up, particularly without prior notice just causes a group to fall apart... No one likes to come to game and find they were the only one who cared enough to show. It is awful when they realize that THEY turned down something to be there for the other members of the group- the same group of people who didn't have the common courtesy to return the favor.
I can't help but notice this is even more prevalent in online play, when the players have the benefit of a certain amount of anonymity and protection granted by not having to face those they have wronged.
"Those they have wronged..." that seems a very harsh wording, but when you really think about it, that is what it is... not caring enough for your fellow human beings to return the common courtesy that they give to you.
Online, I am forever encountering people who swear they can't find people to DM for them, and considering the discouraging results I have had with attendance, I can't blame those who hesitate to do so. Who wants to waste all their time preparing for a campaign when some "players" are unwilling to even give up enough of their time to show up to play.
I am aware that some of you out there are YOUNG gamers (like 12-17), and that parents can be a pain in the behind when it comes to YOUR schedule vs theirs... for you, all I can say is don't give your parents lip, it'll only result in you being kept from gaming longer (I'd know), make sure your party members know that your parents are the issue, and have a contingency plan (such as someone to play for you when you are gone).
I'll get off my soapbox now, for my anger has been given voice, but check in another day, this is just the FIRST bone I reached for in the pile, this dragon has many more bones I have yet to pick.
----DM_Kincaide
Game Over (basically)
So my last campaign is basically dead, we haven't played in like 6 weeks ago and not since. I was running an evil campaign in a homebrew knock-off of Waterdeep, I think I might just drop the city into the sea. It's a nice deus ex machina to wipe out a party and a disaster of a campaign from the memory of my campaign world.
Speaking of campaign worlds, I have about 3 of them, and I'm of the belief that they're all pretty good. I'll synopsize one of them for you now:
- Atriosfa -
Atriosfa is a dyson-spherical world, which, for those who aren't into theoretical astrophysics, means that it is a sphere approximately the radius of the distance from the Sun to Mars. It's really fucking big. The world is basically like a shell with a star contained inside, it's an impossible structure in the real world, using physics you'd assume a completely closed dyson sphere would get blow apart, but that's where the conveniently placed divine artifacts deep inside the rocky shell come into play. They hold the entire world together.
The shell itself is about 5 to 10 thousand miles thick, and the 'habitable world' is on the inside of the the shell. This world is huge, a world of extreme, with something (I forget the exact math) like 4 1/2 quadrillion square miles of surface. About 65% of it is covered in water, which can't easily escape the system since it's so enclosed. Since the sun is always shining, most plants grow huge, and the land is sharply divided between bleak desert, towering forests, vast tropical seas, huge plains, and marshes. Mountains and mountain chains are relatively rare, but they can grow huge. The atmosphere is thick, and most beings subsist on little sleep; 4-5 hours a day. (Elves meditate for 2-3 hours.) There are several moons and planetoids flying around the inside of the vacuous space inside the shell. The atmosphere only extends a half dozen miles, and so space-like conditions are prevalent in many places, although some moons are habitable.
Outside the shell is less so, it's a bleak, near-zero, near-vacuum occupied by giant space worms and other hostile lifeforms. All the best parts of sci-fi exist in the crazy areas, and all the best parts of D&D thrive in the more 'normal' regions inside the shell, although there is still plenty of craziness to be had. Anyone interested in playing comment, please.
Speaking of campaign worlds, I have about 3 of them, and I'm of the belief that they're all pretty good. I'll synopsize one of them for you now:
- Atriosfa -
Atriosfa is a dyson-spherical world, which, for those who aren't into theoretical astrophysics, means that it is a sphere approximately the radius of the distance from the Sun to Mars. It's really fucking big. The world is basically like a shell with a star contained inside, it's an impossible structure in the real world, using physics you'd assume a completely closed dyson sphere would get blow apart, but that's where the conveniently placed divine artifacts deep inside the rocky shell come into play. They hold the entire world together.
The shell itself is about 5 to 10 thousand miles thick, and the 'habitable world' is on the inside of the the shell. This world is huge, a world of extreme, with something (I forget the exact math) like 4 1/2 quadrillion square miles of surface. About 65% of it is covered in water, which can't easily escape the system since it's so enclosed. Since the sun is always shining, most plants grow huge, and the land is sharply divided between bleak desert, towering forests, vast tropical seas, huge plains, and marshes. Mountains and mountain chains are relatively rare, but they can grow huge. The atmosphere is thick, and most beings subsist on little sleep; 4-5 hours a day. (Elves meditate for 2-3 hours.) There are several moons and planetoids flying around the inside of the vacuous space inside the shell. The atmosphere only extends a half dozen miles, and so space-like conditions are prevalent in many places, although some moons are habitable.
Outside the shell is less so, it's a bleak, near-zero, near-vacuum occupied by giant space worms and other hostile lifeforms. All the best parts of sci-fi exist in the crazy areas, and all the best parts of D&D thrive in the more 'normal' regions inside the shell, although there is still plenty of craziness to be had. Anyone interested in playing comment, please.
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