What do you mean, "How did my character get here??"
When fleshing out ideas for the GodzWar campaign, many thoughts ran through my head as to how exactly I could make the experience more than just a Hack-N-Slash meat grinder adventure. After all, it was a challenge. These days, a gamer's options are wide open. It's not like it was in the 80s, when video games were little more than blots on a 16-color screen and adventures were limited to less than one Megabyte of storage. These days, video game graphics are unreal. The scenery in World Of Warcraft (of which I'm a player) is fantastic. The sound is phenomenal, with a soundtrack that rivals many movie soundtracks. Players of today's video games worry little about having their imagination take over. It's all right there, even in 3-D if you wish. How could an old school game like Original Rules AD&D think to compete? And then I had it: Make the story as vivid and full of depth as any novel. You want to hack-n-slash? Go play WoW or LoL. You want to have to think things through and be challenged every step of the way with not only physical challenges, but mental ones as well? Come into my parlor....
The first trick in handling this was to encourage, nay, demand, that all the players give some real thought into their character. Their physical appearance didn't matter too much... no, I meant for them to create a backstory that would be both intriguing and exciting. Each character has their own quirks, their own way of thinking and doing things. Most players try to do this in some way, shape or form, but do they ever really understand WHY their character is behaving in some way? The 7, as they are starting to become known, certainly understand why they do what they do.
Some would argue that this is part of the DM's job, and that I'm just passing off some work to others to make it easier for myself. On the contrary! Having the characters think of their characters to this depth makes my job more challenging. Each one has a tale, and I have endeavored to use that tale to wave a grander story line based upon each history I have received. The effect is dramatic. Each player feels more involved and in tune with their character. The story makes sense to them, because they see things that they've made up showing up in the story. As the characters (and the players) become more comfortable with each other, there is a lot of curiosity about other characters. All this boils down to one thing, and it is the one thing I have been aiming for: Emotional involvement and commitment to the characters.
There is a downside, however. Since the story revolves around the characters and they have become an intricate part of the story line, it can prove difficult when a character actually faces death. This isn't to say I'm reticent to kill a character off -- indeed, given the right circumstance it can help the story immensely... even still, when tales are told, one wants the tale to be of the original, not of the character that came afterwards. I'm really hoping the characters don't die, but if they do, my job as DM is to make the story continue -- and provide therapy and possible suicide watch over the player.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The GodzWar Campaign - An Epic Tale is Unfolding
It All Started So Innocently...
Having become one of the newest members of an outstanding Research & Development group at PaperWise, I found myself surrounded by incredibly talented, intelligent 20-somethings who shared my passion for software development, Star Wars, Nerf Guns... and D&D.
The leader of this team shared similar interests, adding to the list an affinity towards the old-school rules. We're talking about the original AD&D ruleset -- Version 1.0. With he and I sharing similar age brackets, we could both brag about how we vanquished 12 Ogres with bad teeth and temperaments to match. In one particular conversation we had early one particular day, I mentioned a campaign world that I had created during my DMing days, and how we should get together a group to run through this dungeon. "I could DM it, and we could use the old ruleset and show the youngsters a thing or two!" I said, laughing.
Little did I know.
The look of immediate interest on everyone's faces gave me pause. And the next thing I knew, I was delving through my stack of old notes, musings, plans and archives in an attempt to breathe life back into an old world. The leader, whom I will reference using his character's name Mattias, mentioned that he still had a complete collection of the old school books. As impressive as that was, impressed even more was I at how quickly the items were loaned to me so that I may get the grand adventure started.
What started as a bi-weekly foray into fantasy land has turned into a story that could be a tale of epic proportions. While I won't go into a terrible amount of detail here (the players are still in the dark about most of it, and chances are they may read this before I'm ready to reveal what I have planned for them!), I can say that the intrepid heroes will indeed find themselves challenged beyond what a typical D&D session might entail. There are myriad twists and turns in the adventure. Some things they may expect; others may totally blindside them in a night of sudden revelation. There will be horror and triumph, betrayal and sacrifice. It is fast coming to a point where I sit as DM, giddy and excited as I watch the story unfold. The amazing thing for me is that, although I am the creator of the story (with some fantastic help from my friend and colleague, Jason Lowenthal), I also am a an avid watcher of this bi-weekly saga. There have only been a few sessions thus far, but already I have had to improvise the story (making sure to keep the main plot line intact), adapt and overcome. Some things worked well, such as a wagon of brigands turning into a side quest that is still talked about to this day), some... well, some didn't work out well at all (A baby Purple Worm? Really? What was I thinking??). Ah well, no matter. The night was fun and all survived.
All That Being Said...
... This blog will be about GodzWar. As interesting conundrums arise, I will give as much information as possible within this space, being careful not to give away too much lest this be read by prying ears. My hope is that this, along with a wiki that has been started, will be used to create a book or three based upon the adventures of the 7. Time will be spent describing the characters as they are, giving general background information but not detailing anything that shouldn't be known. As well, I'll be giving more information about the world itself. There's a lot going on, much of which isn't known by the players although their characters show know it already. I'm excited already. Let's get started!
Having become one of the newest members of an outstanding Research & Development group at PaperWise, I found myself surrounded by incredibly talented, intelligent 20-somethings who shared my passion for software development, Star Wars, Nerf Guns... and D&D.
The leader of this team shared similar interests, adding to the list an affinity towards the old-school rules. We're talking about the original AD&D ruleset -- Version 1.0. With he and I sharing similar age brackets, we could both brag about how we vanquished 12 Ogres with bad teeth and temperaments to match. In one particular conversation we had early one particular day, I mentioned a campaign world that I had created during my DMing days, and how we should get together a group to run through this dungeon. "I could DM it, and we could use the old ruleset and show the youngsters a thing or two!" I said, laughing.
Little did I know.
The look of immediate interest on everyone's faces gave me pause. And the next thing I knew, I was delving through my stack of old notes, musings, plans and archives in an attempt to breathe life back into an old world. The leader, whom I will reference using his character's name Mattias, mentioned that he still had a complete collection of the old school books. As impressive as that was, impressed even more was I at how quickly the items were loaned to me so that I may get the grand adventure started.
What started as a bi-weekly foray into fantasy land has turned into a story that could be a tale of epic proportions. While I won't go into a terrible amount of detail here (the players are still in the dark about most of it, and chances are they may read this before I'm ready to reveal what I have planned for them!), I can say that the intrepid heroes will indeed find themselves challenged beyond what a typical D&D session might entail. There are myriad twists and turns in the adventure. Some things they may expect; others may totally blindside them in a night of sudden revelation. There will be horror and triumph, betrayal and sacrifice. It is fast coming to a point where I sit as DM, giddy and excited as I watch the story unfold. The amazing thing for me is that, although I am the creator of the story (with some fantastic help from my friend and colleague, Jason Lowenthal), I also am a an avid watcher of this bi-weekly saga. There have only been a few sessions thus far, but already I have had to improvise the story (making sure to keep the main plot line intact), adapt and overcome. Some things worked well, such as a wagon of brigands turning into a side quest that is still talked about to this day), some... well, some didn't work out well at all (A baby Purple Worm? Really? What was I thinking??). Ah well, no matter. The night was fun and all survived.
All That Being Said...
... This blog will be about GodzWar. As interesting conundrums arise, I will give as much information as possible within this space, being careful not to give away too much lest this be read by prying ears. My hope is that this, along with a wiki that has been started, will be used to create a book or three based upon the adventures of the 7. Time will be spent describing the characters as they are, giving general background information but not detailing anything that shouldn't be known. As well, I'll be giving more information about the world itself. There's a lot going on, much of which isn't known by the players although their characters show know it already. I'm excited already. Let's get started!
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