Wednesday 31 December 2014

[GM Tools-RPG] NPC gestures/body language


Below is a link to a great document detailed potential different body language signals for various emotions, it was shared on the G+ Tabletop Roleplaying Community by Giuseppe Antonelli and should be of great use to anyone looking to get a bit more drama and emphasis into their NPCs.

(I also found out from Guiseppe's post that the Italian term for NPC is PNG, "Personaggio Non Giocante" which I didn't know before :) )


Many thanks for sharing these on G+ Guiseppe :)


Tuesday 30 December 2014

[Video-RPG] Dungeon World Finalé

A few thoughts about the upcoming finalé of my Dungeon World mini-campaign.


[Video-RPG] VR: What happened to all the vlogging?

Video response to Fauntrodden asking the question "What happened to all the vlogging?"

[GM tools-RPG] Edittable old newspaper template

This is a resource that TheRogueDM put me onto for use in my Jadepunk campaign, it's a Powerpoint presentation that allows you to create an antique style newspaper:



[GM Tools-RPG] Tabula Rasa Custom Item Cards website


The following website is an excellent resource for roleplaying games (particularly those of a fantasy genre), it allows you to create customisable item cards using an easy template system.






[RPG] Tip Tuesday #2 - Always carry a notepad

As a GM you'll often have ideas in the strangest of places, perhaps when you first wake up or just before you fall to sleep at night (or maybe in some even stranger places), it's very easy for these ideas to just get lost and never be recovered, get into the habit of carrying a small notepad around with you and some form of writing implement; any ideas that pop into your head, no matter how crazy, jot them down in your notepad so that you can look through it later for ideas. I normally have an A6 pad and a biro with me at most times and scribble random stuff down in them, whenever i'm stuck for ideas I have a flip through them to spur my imagination, some of my best ideas have come from taking a few half-formed thoughts and combining them.




[RPG] Jadepunk Character Sheets

Some small alterations have taken place on the characters getting them ready for the first session (I tend to allow players to make minor alterations to their character sheets up until the third session), below are the current backgrounds and character sheets that we have.


Ba Tu Satoru



The man who would be known as Ba Tu Satoru was the son of the sculptor Yutaka Kazami. When he was a small boy, he made a friend at school, whose father was Isaku Jirou. One day, the fathers collaborated in a contest run by one of the council of 9, the goal was to present to them the greatest clockwork sculpture (fame and fortune as the reward). Kazami, being a sculptor by trade, lacked skill at engineering and making clockwork, while Jirou was poor at aesthetics, but they worked together to cover each other's faults. Additionally, since his father's eyesight began to fail, Ba Tu would help Kazami by working on the finer details of the sculptures for him, though everyone else believed that he was just there to watch.

On the last day of the contest, Jirou betrayed Kazami. He made his own son stop Kazami's son from trying to help his father. Jirou's son, while crying and begging for forgiveness, bound his best friend's wrists and legs and went into Jirou 's hideout with him. Jirou locked him in, until he could come back .Meanwhile, Kazami killed Jirou in a rage and then fled the city, abandoning the search for his son. Since Jirou could not arrive back to release Ba Tu after the completion the boy began to starve in his prison.

Ba Tu would have eventually died, had it not been for the chance arrival of Dogen Hōinbō, a blind professional assassin who just happened to be passing by at the time with his dog Kuro, who noticed the pair. Hōinbō saved the boy and took him in. The trauma caused by his near-death experience left him unable to recall much from before his rescue.



Sora Yoshida

Born to a Naramel nomadic tribe called the Red Talons Sora Yoshida spent his child hood years hunting for red jade out in the desert wastes with his family. Educated by the elders of his tribe Sora, became accustomed to the traditions and beliefs of the old gods, the pursuit of virtue.

While navigating the dune sea Sora came across a long abandoned village, uncovered by the erratic winds that trap the unwary. Upon approach an airship crashed into the village with a thunderous roar, not unlike laughter to Sora’s ears. Racing to search for survivors, only one is found close to death and covered in strange, almost animated tattoos. 

Before Sora could react the man grabs him by both fore arms and whispers to him, “My time is at an end but yours is just beginning, you have been chosen for a great task, Sora and I am afraid a difficult burden”.

The deserts are no place for children, so unlike the other clans Naramel’s youngsters grow up fast, usually gaining a hard survivalists edge. Sora already had enough problems with the weird dreams and compulsions that seemed separate from his own. He had though the incident at the abandoned village was a nightmare he had dreamt up until the incident at grey tower trading post. He had been unpacking satchels of red jade to be bartered for provisions when he suddenly found himself involved in a dispute with a water merchant and the local militia. 

With a strength that seemed beyond him he threw the guards into the fortified town wall.

To prevent his execution for this folly his clan smuggled him out and sent him to a distant relative in Kausao city.  There he confided in what would become his mentor about what he had witnessed, He believed the solution was to honour the old gods through an ancient series of traditional dances. Secretly also a martial art Sora spent several years practicing and perfecting this tradition. That is until his mentor’s temple is shut down by corrupt law enforcement cracking down upon any form of martial arts.

This leads Sora to end up coming into contact with the City’s less savoury characters in order to survive.  

In return for a favour owed Sora was able to learn something of his “condition” from a contraband book. It tells various tales of the land, some familiar to him while others totally alien. The tale of the laughing emperor was particularly interesting. It spoke of a legend of a man who managed to imprison a powerful spirit referred to as a djinn whose magic came from magical ink that adorned its body. Forced to aid in the creation of an empire, when the mocking emperor made a grave error in insulting the creature wishing it could stop him if he could, knowing that spirit could no directly lay a hand upon his owner. The djinn in retribution sacrificed itself into a thousand shards reportedly imbuing individuals who come into contact with them with the power to fight tyranny. 

A small faded illustration of a man bearing remarkable tattoos not dissimilar to Sora’s own was also provided. Most interesting was the bracelet the sketched described as being the way in which this dangerous legacy can be used. 

To find this item if possible and learn to control his tattoos Sora decides the time has come to fight back.




Kaiyu Yuuto



Background TBC



Monday 29 December 2014

[Actual Play] Skyless City - Session 1


This is the first session of our new Jadepunk campaign, it finds our heroes aboard a sabotaged Aerum airship plummeting towards Kausao, perhaps our heroes weren't the only ones attempting to take advantage of the Governor's aerial tour of the city? But can they allow the massive collateral damage that the airship crash will cause?





Monday 22 December 2014

[RPG] Initial Jadepunk Characters

Thoroughly enjoyed our character generation recently for our forthcoming Jadepunk game, although they may still be subject to some tweaking and alteration, here is a look at the initial character designs.

Kaiyu Yuuto 

A young man raised into a life of priviliege who secretly became friends with a young girl from the poor district and, through her, was lead into helping the Jianghu fight against the oppresive regime of the 13th Governor.





Ba Tu Satoru

Born the son of a clockwork engineer, Ba Tu Satora was betrayed by a friend and left to die; his unlikely saviour came in the form of Dogen Hōinbō, a blind assassin who rescued the young boy and trained him in the ways of the silent killer.






The Tattooed Man (character name pending)

Inheriting strange black jade tattoos and a legacy of mysticism when he discovered a strange creature in a crashed airship, the tattooed man now uses his formidable powers to fight against the corrupt regime that holds Kausao in it's vice-like grip.

[RPG] Using Hive-cities in RPGs

Hive Cities in RPGs

In this blog entry I want to talk a little bit about a concept that I have used in numerous roleplaying games and that seems to be very popular with my players (it's going to be used in my forthcoming Jadepunk game 'The Skyless City' - you can see the video of our character and setting creation here), the concept of the hive city.

What do I mean by hive city?

A hive city is a city that is built upwards instead of outwards and in many different layers, different layers normally have different characters.

I think that I probably first came across the concept of a hive city in the Games Workshop skirmish wargame Necromunda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necromunda), in it gangs from various houses via for supremacy on a world that has been utterly polluted by industry; the hive citys or hives are huge man-made structures reminiscent of massive artificial termite mounds, each producing a stagger amount of manufactured goods and housing many millions of people. In general the uppermost spire of the hive world serves as the domains of the rich and privilieged, rising above the polluted atmosphere of the planet and touching the edge of space itself, the waste productions and pollution of the hives flow downwards forming a poisonous lake or sump at the very base of the hive; life on the lower levels become increasing unpleasant as the denizens are forced to drink water, eat food rations and even breathe air that has been recycled many times, the radioactive waste at the bottom of the hives also gives rise to horrendous mutants and monstrosities.

Here is a picture of a Necromunda style hive found on Yaktribe Gaming (http://gaming.yaktribe.org/community/threads/pictures-of-hive-cities-help-needed.2372/) posted by Malika.


Using this concept in RPGs

Although the concept (well at least my initial encounter with it) came from a dark, nihilistic science-fiction genre it can be used in almost any RPG, where the technology exists to create tall structures with multiple levels; for example Jadepunk is an amalgamation of steampunk ideas, wuxia and westerns, using enchanted jade in the place of more traditional steam based technology. Whilst designing our setting, one of the things that I was very keen to do (as I am in all of my games) is to get the players involved as much as possible in helping to design the setting where the game takes place; my general philosophy when using a published setting is that I start with the published material as a baseline, but that player and GM choices supersede anything written in the published setting. For example: In our Jadepunk game one of the players asked whether the game featured mythological creatures since he wanted to have a background that involved a Djinn-like creature, although the canon setting is largely focussed on humans, I see no reason why I would want to stifle a players creativity by refusing to incorporate something that could add a lot to the game and even take it in interesting new directions.

Why use a hive-city type structure in an RPG

One of the benefits of hive structure is that it enables you to present a (literally) multi-layered setting that illustrtates the contrasts and differences between the different layers without having to have a monumentally huge area. As you climb higher out of the pollution the people become more refined and the surroundings more opulent, whereas in the darker layers shut away from the sky and the clean air you have poisonous fogs, pollution where people live and die in abject poverty.

A hive-city is also a way of making class differences very obvious and present in a physical way, the rich and poor are not only divided by wealth and lifestyle but literally they exist on different levels of the game world; a poor person can only dream of climbing to the upper echelons and feeling the sun upon their face whereas the exceptionally wealthy live in luxury at the top of the hive or perhaps even floating above it (depending on the setting and technology available). Hive-cities also mark the PCs in your game as being something special, since they will be one of the few groups capable (or compelled to) move between the different levels whereas most of the poor will be forbidden from the upper levels and most high level dwellers would not sully themselves by descending into the depths.

In the modern world tall structures are quite prevalent and imply a certain level of civilisation, you only need to look at the modern high-rise skyscrapers of a city to see this, and this implied civilisation can give an interesting contrast in a game where you might otherwise not see it (such as a fantasy game for instance), especially when it is contrasted with some of the barbaric acts that often occur in many different RPGs; the veneer of civilisation can be quite thin and can hide a great deal of horror and darkness when it is peeled back, like a fine carpet covering a rotting and decaying floor.

Things to keep in mind when using a hive-city structure in your game

1. Decide roughly how large your hive is going to be: This doesn't have to be an exact measurement but you should know whether your city is going to touch the stars or whether it's just a few levels in height.

2. Decide on the character of the different levels: Each floor of your hive does not have to be different, you can group several of them together to create an area with a certain theme (a poor district or manufacturing levels for instance), but you should have a rough idea of the different levels that exist in your hive city.

3. Create some evocative details for the different levels: Once you've created the level grouping think about how they look or feel different from each other and the differences in the people that inhabit each level.

4. Consider how difficult it is to move between levels: A world with a lot of social mobility and movement between levels will feel very different to one where the boundary between rich and poor is guarded by troops wielding shotguns, also your PCs will inevitably want to move between levels at some point so give some thought to how this might be accomplished, whether there are any secret ways to do it and who else may move between the different levels.

5. Think about how the different levels affect and rely on each other: Different levels exist in a sort of eco-system where they affect each other and sometimes rely on each other, you don't have to detail out a full ecological model but it's definitely something worth thinking about before your game starts.

Getting the main aspects of your hive game down is far more important than having a perfectly detailed and rendering map of all the levels, i'd actually recommend against too much detailed mapping since it may not leave you much room for expansion and incorporation of later ideas.

A txt version of the rough concept for our Jadepunk hive city can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByVpAo4rxDGuWGU1Wjd0U0J3emc/view?usp=sharing

Next time you want to give your game a bit of a different flavour or you fancy highlighting societal levels and differences in a very physical and obvious way, give hive-cities a go they're great fun and can add a lot of depth to games.

Edit: My friend John Miles has just reminded me of another excellent fantasy version of a hive-city, the city of Sharn from the D&D Eberron setting, you can find more details about it here: http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Sharn

[Video-RPG] Jadepunk Setting & Character Creation

Myself and the three players for our forthcoming (and as yet untitled) Jadepunk game (Thashif, Jenny and Mathew) did a hangout last night where we did character creation and a bit of setting creation (hashing out the basic details of the characters home district within KauSao city). Very enjoyable (as always with this group), and we've got the first session scheduled for Sunday 28th, really looking forward to running it :)


Thursday 11 December 2014

[Video-RPG] Making Undead Monstrous

Video made in response to dmlord Spencer's request for advise on how to use my mythological monster design ideas with mindless horde creatures like undead.


[Art-RPG] Drawing a Cartoon Me

A short while ago someone commented on one of my videos (sorry I can't remember who, I have an abysmal memory for names) suggesting that perhaps I should focus more on the audio elements of my RPG reviews etc given the amount of referencing written notes that I do in my videos; thinking about this the person had a point, I do tend to write down fairly comprehensive notes and then reference them frequently during a video to make sure that I don't miss anything or leave anything out (all too easy to do with my lack of memory power). I considered moving across to an entirely audio format such as a podcast or something similar, it would be much easier for me to create and edit the files, not to mention taking far less time to upload than the normally lamentable times on Youtube; however, I don't want to abandon the visual element entirely since i've very much enjoyed making Youtube videos and hosting them, plus getting involved with the whole Youtube RPG Brigade.

I also considered just doing an audio feed and then adding a static image over the top, as i've done with some of my Sunday RP Rambles and the recent RPG interviews that I did at Dragonmeet 2014, but, although this works fine for interviews it's not particularly interesting to look at; one possible answer came when I was watching a Youtube video about conspiracy theories, effectively the creator of the video had made a slideshow of still images that were keyed to show up at certain points of the video. Having recently started experimenting with using the program Inkscape to create vector drawings (after it was recommended by Alex Gillot) I decided to have a go at creating a cartoon version of myself that could potentially be used to quickly create a series of images to go with the audio feed.

This is what I ended up with (not bad for a first attempt I don't think):


I'm thinking of making a sample video using the cartoon version of me in the near future to see what it looks like, i'm hoping this might be a chance to combine my love of making RPG videos with my recently re-discovered (and long dormant) enjoyment of drawing (plus giving me more practice at using Inkscape); would love to hear your opinions and thoughts, send them to reddicediaries@gmail.com :)

[RPG] Fleshing out Kalkedos the Swamp Troll

Okay, so in our previous post about designing mythologically inspired monsters we came up with the basics for a creature called Kalkedos, once a greedy man who was cursed by the god of merchants when he killed his neighbour (a loyal follower of the god) after the man rebuffed Kalkedos' intent to woo his daughter, drowning the man in the swamps near his home. As he died the merchant, a loyal follower of his god, cursed Kalkedos and the god of merchants answered, lending power to the curse. Kalkedos was transformed into a lumbering, clumsy creature with warty skin, green the colour of envy, his mind twisted he gathers the filth of the swamp to him as his 'riches' blind to the fact that it is refuse and lashing out at another who dares try to steal from his treasure.

Bound to the scene of his crime, Kalkedos is unable to leave the swamp unless he receives the forgiven of the merchant's daughter (who fled when her father died), should this happen and she be able ot convince him to leave the swamp then the curse would be lifted.

So what else do we have to do?

Strictly speaking nothing, we can pick some appropriate stats from a monster manual/bestiary (or create some) and run with the monster as it is, however, there are a few additional questions that we help us flesh out the monster a bit more.

What does the monster look like?
We've already described Kalkedos as being green of skin and ugly of aspect, however we can flesh this out a bit further, keeping in mind the reason for his curse; since he was a greedy, grasping man I envision him as having long arms and powerful muscled hands that can shoot out of the water, grabbing prey, throttling it and dragging it below the water. Kalkedos also has large reflective eyes used for scanning the swamp for treasure and any trespassers attempting to steal what is his.

What abilities does it have?
Physical power is Kalkedos' main ability, however the god who punished him did not want him to die in the swamp (since that would end his punishment) so Kalkedos regenerates all but the most vicious of injuries in time, however, no matter what he stuffs into his huge fanged maw the creature is always lean and permanently hungry, denied the ability to sate his urges and lusts.

What are it's weaknesses?
Since Kalkedos is always hungry he is easily lured with food, his greed also leads to him being attracted to shiny objects whether or not they have any actual worth; however he is unable to look upon the truly beautiful since it reminds him of what he lost, seeing people or objects of great beauty drives him into a rage and he will go to any lengths to smash the offending object/person.

Is there a way to break the curse?
Besides the god of merchants, the only way for the curse to be broken is if the dead merchant's daughter or a direct descendant of hers, forgives Kalkedos his crimes and can convince him to leave the swamp; if this happens then his warty troll skin will slough off and he will be restored.
  
If you've come up with any interesting creatures using our guides please drop me a line at reddicediaries@gmail.com, i'd love to hear about your creations.



[RPG] Monstrous Questionnaire

As a companion piece to my GM Tips - Making monsters monstrous video, please find below a quick checklist for creating monsters based on a mythological model, answering these questions will give a bit of extra background and interest to truly monstrous monsters.

Questionnaire

1. How was the monster created?
- A result of divine procreation with a mortal (answer question 2).
- As a result of a curse (answer question 2 & 3).
- Created by a great power for a specific purpose (answer question 2 & 4).
- Monster is actually a form of lesser divinity or similar power (answer question 6).

2. If a divinity or higher power was involved in the creation what was the nature of the power involved?
(these descriptions are based on the greek gods listed on http://www.rickriordan.com/my-books/percy-jackson/explore-mythology/greek-gods.aspx but you can substitute your own)

- Sky
- Home & family
- Sea
- Agriculture & farming
- War
- Wisdom
- Music, poetry & prophecy
- Moon & hunting
- Fire & the Forge
- Love & beauty
- Merchants, Trade & Thieves
- Wine & celebration
- Underworld & Death
- Sleep
- Victory
- Choices
- Revenge
- Messages & Communicaiton
- Magic & spirits
- Luck & Fortune

If the monster is the offspring of a god then it's powers will be related to their parent although they will normally be reflected on the physical appearance of the creature.

Example: The god of sky may sire a creature with huge wings or that is feathered like a bird.

Example: The god of sleep may give birth to a creature that only exists during the hour of dreams (night-time) or that can only be seen in the time just after waking when dreams are closest to the real world.

3. Why was the mortal cursed?
- Directly insulting the god.
- Taking actions that directly oppose the god.
- Wronging loyal servants of the god.
- Mis-using a talent/abilities granted by the god.

A mortal cursed by the god will tend to have powers and abilities that reflect those of the deity that cursed them, however they are often made twisted and grotesque.

Example: The god of sky may curse a person to become a monster harpy, a twisted bat-like creature with a barely human face.

Example: The god of sleep may trap a cursed person away from the waking world allowing them only to communicate in dreams, or perhaps they cause bad dreams and trouble sleep wherever they go (making people irritable and causing them to turn on the cursed individual).

4. What purpose was the monster created for?
- To punish those who oppose the gods.
- To guard something precious (also answer question 5).

Monsters created to punish someone are normally specifically tailored to deny those being punished some aspect of their life that they value or require, without simply killing them.

Creatures created to guard something precious are normally encountered only in the vicinity of the thing that they are guarding and have senses that cover the area, making it very difficult to sneak up and purloin their treasure. However, most such creatures have a method via which safe access to their charge can be obtained incase the gods should seek to send a favoured servant to acquire the item.

Example: The god of sky creates a giant eagle to guard one of his thunderbolts, the bolt lies in a huge nest constructed by the beast on an impossibly tall mountain.

Example: The god of sleep creates a monster to punish a debauched town of celebrants, the creature pursues them through dreams which begin pleasant and turn to nightmares, causing them to wake without the benefit of rest.

5. Where is the precious item located?
- In a faraway land.
- In a geographical inaccessible place (the bottom of an ocean, the top of a mountain).
- Protected in a hidden demi-plane accessible only via a portal or when specific conditions are met.
- The item is located inside or is part of the creature itself.

6. Which deity is the creature related to or affiliated with?
- Pick one of the deities from question 2 (or add your own).
- Then choose a more specialised/specific element that might fall under their portfolio (ie. clouds for sky, nightmares for sleep, vanity for beauty, etc).
- A lesser divinity will have powers and abilities related to it's specific portfolio, these will be reflected on it's physical form to a lesser degree.

Example: Related to the war god, a lesser-divinity of violence & fury may appear as a huge man with bulging muscles, glowing red eyes and a permanent expression of fury.

By making choices from this list and thinking about the various elements you should be able to create a monster in the style of the ancient greek/roman myths.


As an example: I'm going to create Kalkedos (the swamp troll from the video) by using the questionnaire.

Kalkedos the Swamp Troll

1. How was the monster created?
- As a result of a curse (answer question 2 & 3).
Kalkedos killed his neighbour when the man rebuffed Kalkedos' intent to woo his daughter, drowning the man in the swamps near his home.

2. If a divinity or higher power was involved in the creation what was the nature of the power involved?
- Merchants, Trade & Thieves
As he died the merchant, a loyal follower of his god, cursed Kalkedos and the god of merchants answered, lending power to the curse. Kalkedos was transformed into a lumbering, clumsy creature with warty skin, green the colour of envy, his mind twisted he gathers the filth of the swamp to him as his 'riches' blind to the fact that it is refuse and lashing out at another who dares try to steal from his treasure.

Bound to the scene of his crime, Kalkedos is unable to leave the swamp unless he receives the forgiven of the merchant's daughter (who fled when her father died), should this happen and she be able ot convince him to leave the swamp then the curse would be lifted.

3. Why was the mortal cursed?
- Wronging loyal servants of the god.
Killing the merchant.

If you produce any monsters using this system drop me a line about them either to reddicediaries@gmail.com, i'd love to see your creations.



Tuesday 9 December 2014

[Video-RPG] GM Tips: Making Monsters Monstrous

In this video I talk about ways to reclaim that feeling of monstrousness for the various vile and evil creatures that may lurk in forgotten corners of your campaign world.


[LARP] Redcap Poetry

For those who may not be aware, as well as tabletop roleplaying I also LARP in both the Lorien Trust and Outcast systems over here in the UK, crewing Outcast and playing (also dying frequently) in the LT; my current character is a redcap, a sort of murderous, bloodthirsty fey, however i'm trying to play the character as outwardly polite, more Hannibal Lecter than Jason.

For a bit of a chuckle recently I decide to try and write some poetry in the style of my character and below is what i came up with:



[RPG] Tip Tuesday #1 - Ask Questions of your players

A problem that GMs often seem to run into when creating games is that the expectations of the GM and the players differ; you might think that your players want a freewheeling game of swashbuckling adventure, when they were actually picturing a game of political intrigue with the lords of the seven islands each vying against each other. This is a problem with an easy solution, but non-the-less it one that is often overlooked (especially by younger/more inexperienced GMs), simply ask your players. If you ever have a doubt about whether something is working in your game, ask your players; this can also work within a game, if you ever feel yourself stuck for an idea or your not sure how to progress ask the players.

For example: Contrary to your expectations the players have decided to enter the city by incapacitating the gate guard and sneaking in, you've not decided how the city guard are organised, don't panic, turn to your players and say "Okay so you've done that, how do you think that the guards will respond?"

Whilst this might seem like a bit of a cheat, what it is actually doing is giving some narrative control to the players and allowing you to incorporate their ideas into the game, this helps your players feel more invested in your campaign.

[Video-RPG] Talking GM Workshops with Gary Harper from the RP Haven (Dragonmeet 2014)

Gary Harper of the RP Haven was also good enough to spare us some of his time to talk about the work that they have been doing with their GM workshops.



RP Haven website : Http://www.rphaven.co.uk

The MP3 of this interview can be downloaded here: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByVpAo4rxDGuSnJEeUR3QTUxLUU/view?usp=sharing

[Video-RPG] RPG Interview with Gary Harper from RP Haven (Dragonmeet 2014)

At Dragonmeet 2014 we also had the opportunity to talk to Gary Harper from RP Haven about the work they are doing within the community to promote roleplay.



RP Haven website: Http://www.rphaven.co.uk


The MP3 version of this interview can be downloaded here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByVpAo4rxDGuS3pmUi1qVm5UVjQ/view?usp=sharing

Monday 8 December 2014

[Video-RPG] RPG Interview with Leo Marshall from Indyhippo (Dragonmeet 2014)

An interview with Leo Marshall from Indyhippo at Dragonmeet 2014 where we talk about indy games, the future of story lead games and the UK RP Design Collective.


UK RP Design Collective website: Http://ukrpdc.wordpress.com/


MP3 version of this interview available here: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByVpAo4rxDGubExKN0FWMTlqUXM/view?usp=sharing

[Con-RPG] Dragonmeet 2014

On the 06/12/14 some friends and myself went to Dragonmeet 2014 held in the Ibis Hotel London, having only been to a single face-to-face convention beforehand (back in the dim and misty past when there was a Gen Con UK) I wasn't really sure what to expect and was a bit nervous if the truth be told, the decision to attend the convention had all been a bit last minute but I was hoping to attend some of the panels and maybe even interview some of the game designers (in addition to promoting the Red Dice Diaries of course).

I had a press pass for the event courtesy of friends from Dark Cleo Productions who myself and my wife would be accompanying down to the convention; it was only a one day affair and I thought that it would be a good introduction to conventions for when I plan to attend the larger UK Games Expo in 2015. It turns out my worries were pretty much unfounded, most people at the convention were very happy to chat about and demonstrate their products and I was able to secure audio interviews with a number of people (I only took a dictaphone to avoid having to carry heavy video recording equipment across London) only one of which unfortunately wasn't usable due to the background noise.

Highlights of the weekend for me include:

  • Talking to Graham Bottley from Arion Games.
  • Picking up a couple of indy games (Intrepid and Sci-Fi Beta Kappa) from the UK RP Design Collective and talking to Leo.
  • Having a couple of interesting chats with Gary Harper from RP Haven.
  • Getting to talk to some of the people from Modiphius and Pelgrane.
  • Playing a number of games include Stakbots, Sopio, Lords of War and a very entertaining little AFF scenario where the GM recognised me from TheRogueDM's Broken Jade campaign videos.


I'll put a few pictures from the weekend below:

All ready to head off to Dragonmeet 2014


Catching the London Underground



Never could resist the opportunity to take snaps of scenery


Just time for a spot of breakfast before hitting the Con


Just grabbing a drink of coffee before the event


Arriving at the venue


Our first seminar of the day - Pelgrane Press



Looking at the excellent new version of Campaign Cartographer, sadly the interview I recorded with the guy demonstrating it didn't come out.





My purchases from the weekend


Interviewing Graham Bottley from Arion Games


Playing a cool little AFF scenario ran by Stuart Lloyd







The strategic card/wargame 'Lords of War' celebrated it's second birthday and we were lucky enough to get shown how to play it by one of the co-creators







End of a great first day




Ready for the second day social at the Ibis


Playing Stakbots in the Ibis pub, great card game with loads of tactical thinking involved.




Heading back home



Just time for a game of Sopio on the train


We all had a great time at Dragonmeet, was great to meet and talk to so many people with such great enthusiasm for the hobby, we certainly hope to be attending next year's convention :)