Repost and answer. Or, if you don't have a blog, answer in the comments. Or be a big rebel and do neither.
2. When was the last time you GMed?
3. When was the last time you played?
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
10. What do you do with goblins?
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
92 comments:
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
That would be when I ad-libbed an entire session when in high school. At the time, following one's notes or a pre-published module was the gospel.
2. When was the last time you GMed?
June 2011.
3. When was the last time you played?
Two weeks ago.
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
You're cornered and there's no way out except through the ghost town
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Fix myself a tea/coffee.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Fruit or weird Chinese snacks.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
Yes.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Crashing through a well-defended fortress through the front gate on a berserk elephant./
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
I've had this kind of issues running CoC, I guess because the players know they're supposed to be serious and so they're not. This is why I don't run CoC any longer. What I do is I run weird fantasy. The players aren't expecting mind boggling monsters so when there's one they're all panicky.
10. What do you do with goblins?
Er, no goblins in my games.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
A photograph of an incredible vertical shaft in China.
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
Back in university-- I was running a Star Wars game and the players were about to shoot down an Imperial ship. One of the players shouted 'You're crazy... There could be gold on it!'
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
LotFP Tutorial book. Playing the solo adventure.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Dario Corallo.
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
See No.9.
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
Honestly I think I've always enjoyed my adventures more than pre-written ones.
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
A castle.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
T&T and LotFP?
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
Hongkong action movies and Central/Eastern European mythology.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Players looking for role-playing and immersion.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
Exploring a cave complex in Southern France.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
Yeah, there was... so I wrote it!
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk abotu RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
I had a colleague who played boardgames but not role-playing games. He just kept saying 'yeah, I'll have to try but never did.
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
I'm rather a fan of my Evil Encyclopedia of Evil. It makes for a useful recurring macguffin.
My massive Excel spreadsheet of maps and dynamic random encounter tables and other information is also pretty great, though nobody ever sees it but me.
2. When was the last time you GMed?
Months ago. Early October, maybe.
3. When was the last time you played?
Sometime during the summer, probably.
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
I usually revise and review my notes.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Pizza.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
Yes. Probably why I haven't done it in awhile.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
I'm terrible at maintaining consistent tone. My setting alternates between serious and unserious, so naturally my players never know which to be.
10. What do you do with goblins?
They're extinct in my game-world. Their niche (and most other niches, really, including the one usually filled by humans) are filled by mongrelfolk.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
I came up with an anti-deist blasphemy spell for Blasphemy Rights Day.
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
Possibly the one time the party was trying to fight a she-wolf, but it turned out the she-wolf was in heat and the party ranger's pet wolf had other ideas.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Probably the PHB, probably for the purpose of a D&D-related joke.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Phil Foglio, of all people. His work for the Exile/Avernum series was hilarious.
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
Not really. Emotion isn't something I'm particularly good at inducing.
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
Something like this tabletop map projector would be just about perfect for my purposes; I already keep all my maps on the computer anyway, and drawing on the dry-erase battlemap is one of the worst sources of slowdown in my games.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
The combat-oriented Dungeons and Dragons Type III (Type IV is even more combat-oriented, but I wouldn't say I really like it) and roleplaying/collaborative-storyelling-oriented mostly-freeform forum/chatroom-based internet RPGs.
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
My two biggest influences in all my fiction and roleplaying are probably a.) A Song Of Ice And Fire and b.) the science and analytical philosophy that I study by day.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
The kind who's more focused on his character than on his character's stats, who meshes really well with the other players, and who can always provide witty banter.
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk abotu RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
I used to be that guy myself, once upon a time, and might be relapsing into being that guy again what with not playing much recently. You can get most of the tropes and language down with just Order Of The Stick and Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes.
Done.
Posted on my blog
http://nwaepa.blogspot.com/
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
A gigantic train crossing postapocaliptic Asia, a wandering free city with whole cultures on it.
2. When was the last time you GMed?
Last summer.
3. When was the last time you played?
Years ago.
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
You are trapped in Constantinople, besieged by the Ottoman army.
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
I draw crazy things.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Usually nothing, but I drink tons of coke.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
Fuck yeah.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Kissing the nazi dominatrix he was fighting in an airship's deck.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
All the fucking time (the "make it unserious" thing).
10. What do you do with goblins?
Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" goblins, without David Bowie.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqi5F5MqqTQ
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
A player giving candies to one of the zombies in ToEE... and losing two fingers.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
"Constantinople by Night" from WW. I'm looking for inspiration for an historical campaign (see answer 4).
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Keith Thompson: fantasy, science-fiction, steampunk, horror... name it.
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
I fear not.
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
There were some brilliant moments while running "Dragonlance Classics", back in times.
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
A gentlemen club. With waitresses for serving the drinks.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
The "World of Greyhawk Folio" and Ron Edwards' "Sorcerer".
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
H.P. Lovecraft and Verhoeven's "Steel and Blood".
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Long time friends.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
A car crash.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
The late medieval equivalent of Kenzer's "Aces & Eights".
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
All that girls asking you about "that funny roleplaying thing". I try to explain it and I throw out the window all my chances of sleep with them.
My answers:
http://worldofortix.blogspot.com/2012/01/gm-survey.html
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
My entomologist mage's custom spells
2. When was the last time you GMed?
Middle of December in my monthly PnP game
3. When was the last time you played?
Last monday in my weekly game
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
The action opens in a middle of a battle, the PCs bloodied and surrounded by bodies, with the BBEG casting a fireball to finish them off - or so he thinks... Ghostwalk game
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Eat. And plan ahead
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Hummous, Tarka Daal, homemade meat and fruit pies, sausage rolls, crisps
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
No, more mentally, but I do notice i feel a bit drained when i stand up at the end to wave people off
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
One of the PCs taking a kobold as a personal slave rather than kill it - and using it as a (increasingly reliable) guide to the rest of the dungeon
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
Sometimes. They don't always buy into the setting as much as I'd like.
10. What do you do with goblins?
Only goblin to come up in the campaign so far has been recurring cross campaign NPC Skakan, a grubby merchant who PCs took a shine to
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
Too many, hard to pin down. Most likely comic or film inspired
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
Last session, The players finding a harp that played an 'Elven lullaby' on its own - then one player pointing out that elves do not sleep - so instead it became 'Elven Trance Music' - which took on a whole different meaning...
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Poor Wizards Almanac to get some Mystara setting inspiration for the ongoing campaign.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Might ruffle some feathers, but Wayne Reynolds
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
No, although the players have been taking pains to avoid every undead encounter since a run-in at first level. But no reall horror/dread - too cynical/light-hearted most of the time
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
Best? Probably a one session Cthulhu one off 'I Want You to Kill the Ice-cream Man' - everythign happened to come together timing-wise, and atmosphere-wise without much conscious effort or direction from me. Ended with the PCs maimed/deranged as the Ice-cream man sped away in his van - and everyone happy.
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
Would love to hire an old castle venue - but yeah, something with easy access to mapping and space to get all players equally involved
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
Advanced Fighting Fantasy and Iron Heroes
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
Bioware and the DM in a 10+ year campaign I stil play in
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Someone engaged - ready to buy into whats offered and contribute to the experience - and if they arent getting what they want, ready to contribute to make sure they do
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
Can't think of any specifics, but probably experience of visiting castles/landscapes in real life for dungeons/wilderness adventures in game. El Djem (colliseum in Tunisia) was great for this
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
5e/D&D:Next as I hope it will be, and as some of Google+ crowd have been suggesting. Oh, and my Cthulhu/P-Funk crossover idea
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
Several that I talk to about roleplaying who only have experience from a computer RPG side of things - but other than that only person with no RPG exposure would be my wife. Conversations enlightening in how certain premises get questions based on assumptions gamers made a long time ago. One off I ran for my wife to show her what we did in games - and the first thing she did when given a quest was to find someone else to do it for her - why would she want to take that risk?
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
Well... I think, I need more time thinking about it.
2. When was the last time you GMed?
5 or 6 month ago.
3. When was the last time you played?
2 weeks ago.
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
A dirty-crusty sci-fi/apocalypse-sandbox like the Heavy Metal Taarna episode.
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Watching TV, surfing on the internet or sleeping.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Mostly Sweets or potato chips. Sometimes chinese or italian food, cheeseburgers or currysausages with fries.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
Not physically, more psychically. Because I improve the most time, so after a session I be mentally total exhausted.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Searching for a heartsize ruby in the chest of an undead wizard, who's haunting in his abandon crypt.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
In bigger groups mostly. :( So I prefer playing in smaller groups.
10. What do you do with goblins?
I have no goblins in my settings. Only mad dwarves or undead pygmies.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
Asian, arabian and aztec architecture.
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
When the ex-girlfriend of my buddy played a male half-vampire bard and he had problems with her sexchange. So he want permanently fuck "him". That was great.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Geoffrey McGinneys Carcosa. Because it come via mail yesterday. So I had to look in it.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
A mixture of Erol Otus, Frank Frazetta, Earl Norem, Joe Jusko, John Buscema, Boris Vallejo, Luis Royo, Simon Bisley, Zak Sabbath, Klaus Scherwinski, Marko Djurdjevic, Chris Walton, Eva Widermann, Ugurcan Yüce and so on...
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
Yeah! Sometimes in a CoC session or in a KULT game. Mostly with private psychoterror or the death of an beloved NSC.
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
CoC's "The Asylum".
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
An abandoned asylum, an old industrial manufacture, a Giger Bar or an oriental harem. It depends to the setting.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
StarTrek and KULT.
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
The Cthulhu Mythos and Star Wars.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Players with the same interest (Sword & Sorcery, Weird Fantasy, Steam/Diesel/Sci-Fantasy, etc.) like me and hot females.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
I don't want to talk about it. It's to private and depressive.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
A "Do-what-ever-you-want"-Game like the Inquisitor-TTG/RPG from Games Workshop with more simple rules.
A "Silent Hill"-RPG
A "Final Fantasy"-RPG
A "Battle Chasers"-RPG
A "Weird World War"-RPG
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
I try to discripe it, but the most people thinking I'm mad. That's so fucking depressing.
Answers here.
1 A demented bard who thought he was the lost king of Wallachia. The Dm went with it.
2 Two years ago, CoC. I’ve started grad school since then…
3 A month ago, in an Asian-themed Pathfinder game.
4 A Stormbringer 1E game where a Cityship of a planes-hopping people bent on helping others and another one of their evil archenemies crashland in the YK and PCs must ally with one side. I don’t really care which…
5 I listen carefully to what they say, and steal anything good.
6 Senbei (rice crackers). I live in Kyoto…
7 No. Mentally tiring, rather.
8 Lighting fire to a subterranean library while other PCs where still searching it.
9 Settings are made to be broken and reforged, and good players do that. Players who don’t aren’t engaged enough, I find.
10 Have them kidnap children (as a GM). Smash em (as a PC).
11 A Wizard of Oz figurine made into a mage PC. Not much of a stretch, I know.
12
13 A printed copy of Where No Man Has Gone Before, cause I want to one-shot it at a con in March.
14 I’d LOVE to see P Craig Russel do some stuff for Stormbringer. Sigh. Never happen.
15 Had a player have his PC commit suicide rather then talk to a vampire when warped to Ravenloft. Afraid of level drain, I guess.
16 Ran a Paranoia adventure and they never got out of the barracks. Kept ratting each other out and shooting each other up. What a blast…
17 A bar that was cool. Couches, coffee tables, niches, and chicks bringing beer and grub.
18 Cthulhu (simple, unchanging) and 4E (PAGES of sheet, about to morph again)
19 Studying Old English for years and training in karate in Japan. Gives you two different but adventurous mindsets.
20 Erudite, entertaining, and engaged.
21 Blackbelt in karate, speaking three languages, and being part Inuit.
22 Kentaro Miura’s ‘Berserk: The RPG’
23 Two. I’m trying to get a game started with people I know and like instead of just people who want to play who I don’t necessarily know or like. One is no longer close, the other has expressed interest.
My humble answers are here;
http://weburndowntheinn.blogspot.com/
posted: http://dadsrpg.blogspot.com/2012/01/1.html
Done!
http://rjbs.manxome.org/rubric/entry/1935
When do we get to see your answers Zak?
Here you go: https://plus.google.com/106446204805865353812/posts/R46QHd3htw1
I think I would have to write a book to do these questions justice.
I even replied in an imaginary dialect of Frenglish:
http://anniceris.blogspot.com/2012/01/re-gm-questionnaire.html
I posted my answers here:
http://dnduniversity.blogspot.com/2012/01/answers-for-zak.html
Here's mine:
https://plus.google.com/102740707487799922315/posts/16HfWXywrQ9
Mine are here.
"As serious as your life and just as ridiculous"
Mine:
http://www.elfshotthefood.com/?p=512
Mine:
http://kootenaygamer.blogspot.com/
I think my answer to #4 is the dullest one so far. But in my head, the adventure's pretty awesome.
http://unclemattsplace.blogspot.com/2012/01/zak-asks-we-answer.html
I tried to answer on my czech blog.
http://quentinovo.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/zaks-gm-questionnaire/
1. The way the magic-user class works in my current campaign obviates the need for separate cleric and druid classes while making magic more flavorful and allowing greater customizability for players. It's still very simple and doesn't feel at-odds with anything else in AD&D.
2. Three days ago. Unless you count Play-By-Post, then yesterday.
3. 2+ months ago?
4. A giant human corpse smashes into the earth north of town, leaking bizarre fluids into the soil. People who approach it get crushed by an invisible force. Investigate. (Warhammer/Lotfp)
5. Sit quietly and think about my next move.
6. I don't have a "go-to" snack, but I like pretzels since they aren't greasy.
7. A bit. I mostly find it mentally tiring in a very pleasing, stimulating way.
8. A character of mine once reforged a magic sword in a nuclear reactor-thing in a kobold fortress. That was pretty sweet.
9. I try to curtail this by picking players carefully and helping them make their PCs with random charts and suggestions, but I've been very guilty of it in other campaigns.
10. Goblins aren't a race with homelands or a culture or anything. If a wizard hatches a nefarious plot, like stealing babies and turning them into emeralds or something, 2d8 goblins show up at his door, ready to work.
11. Ken Russel's The Devils (1971), particularly Oliver Reed's portrayal of Urban Grandier, made me really want to make the Protestant Reformation a major conflict in my campaign setting.
12. One of my PCs was playing a 10-year old magic-using girl named Beatrix Potter. She tricked an evil faun into thinking she was a goddess and saved her friends. You kind of had to be there.
13. Bizarrely enough, the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. I'm making a big Carcosa dungeon and wanted ideas for rock formations & other cave features.
14. Ian Miller all the way.
15. I doubt it.
16. Either Death Frost Doom or Tower of the Stargazer, but I seldom run modules.
17. Hexagonal wooden table in a room with a hardwood floor and exposed rafters. Sunlight. Beer, but not too much. No more than three players. I'd GM with a screen and notebooks, and there would be no cell phones or laptops out at all.
18. My tastes have gotten more homogenous over time, but eh, maybe Carcosa and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Obviously, I reject the idea that WHFRP is any way like Call of Cthulhu.
19. Pulp Fantasy/Real World History/General UK Fantasy Vibe vs. the undeniable influence of JRPG video games, notably Final Fantasy and Ogre Battle.
20. Creative, engaged, and tasteful.
21. Nothing comes to mind.
22. I'd love it if Square-Enix made a book about Ivalice in all of its incarnations, but that material is readily available in other formats.
23. My girlfriend asked me about my last game session earlier today, so I explained it a bit. She seemed to find it interesting.
Here:-
http://dramadiceanddamsons.blogspot.com/2012/01/23-answers-for-zak.html
Crud. Won't do direct link. Ah, well.
Enjoy my no frills reply filled with excitement.
http://dungeonsdonuts.blogspot.com/2012/01/gm-questionnaire.html
1. A minor hack to the Stun/Shock rules in Cyberpunk 2020. Not the flashiest thing, but the one that had the best long term effects!
2. At a table: A year ago. Over a chat programme: a couple of weeks ago.
3. About three years ago.
4. Eberron: Sharn meets Weimar Berlin revolutionary noir!
5. Usually take the opportunity to check my own notes.
6. I mainline diet coke.
7. No. Weirdly, I feel.
8. Breaking out of a high school.
9. I always have a pretty serious, detailed setting played in a pretty unserious way - that's partly the players and partly me. I love the "unserious" side of games but I don't like to try to force it on people by encoding it into the setting or anything like that and I just like detailed, serious settings.
Besides, the world we live in is a ludicrously, horribly serious setting and I find awesome stuff to laugh about all the time...
10. Small and malevolent creatures living in the cracks of civilisation or the deep woods. Usually depicted in a very Warhammer-esque way. They always end up a bit more funny and a lot less malevolent than i'd like, but i'm hoping that when I do finally get around to making them actually scary that'll mean it has more impact.
11. Oh, everything. A history of New Mexico looted for setting ideas, Japanese Ikko-Ikki monks as inspiration for Paladin redesign, a few other things this week (I should think about other things beyond history and gaming).
12. The party wizard falling into a pit with the zombified corpse of his dead uncle and immediately attempting negotiation.
13. Kromosome - this old and perfect TSR cyberpunk game. Just looking for something entertaining to read in a spare 10 minutes waiting for other people to get ready.
14. If Mike Mignola or James Stokoe could be tricked into RPG illustration, that would be perfect.
15. In a "ah! Ambush!" way rather than a "gothic horror" way. But occasionally, yeah.
16. Never tried it. I did have a lot of fun taking an idea I found mentioned in a one paragraph review of a WFRP supplement and running with it...
17. Comfy chairs and a low table.
18. I love the huge, complex GURPS Biotech hard science fiction inspiration stuff and and I like rules-lite indie stuff like Diaspora.
19. Using your DC vs Marvel analogy, i'm moving from a teenage "Marvel" PC character arc focused GM/Player to one very much in the "DC" camp. That said, I like the pulp fantasy ideas from the OSR, weird 4e encounter theory and I seem to drift into "epic" plots far more than i'd like to in theory. I don't know. It all feels fairly coherent, if only to me.
20. Someone open-minded, comfortable in their surroundings, and engaged with what's going on as it happens. Pretty much all I want.
21. A happy day walking on frozen canals in Bruges when I was about 5 got translated into a weird and terrifying dungeon crawl...
22. Not really. A cyberpunk or Traveller version of Vornheim, probably. To be fair, I might try something along those lines myself next time I find myself running an SF campaign.
23. Not regularly but when I do actually bring it up people are usually a lot more interested than I imagine them to be.
1. Actually getting my players unnerved with a horror monster: the monstruous children of the void that ultimately will be the campaing-ending challenge, the Zonei, who beyond the sea and dispose everything of destiny and meaning. Lovecraftian monsters played straight.
2. Last sunday.
3. About a year ago.
4. The party must recover an ancient high-tech device to travel the sea beyond time and recover the mystery of colors (think on actually discovering spells such as prismatic sphere), battling the weird shapes of thing that will never be.
5. I think on more trouble to throw at them.
6. Philadelphia Cheese with soy sauce and toasted sesame with crackers and lemon-flavored beer. My friends are lightweighted drinkers.
7. Not physically, but mentally draining.
8. That time when my cleric (a zealous knight templar) was binded by the same chains that caught the monstruous wolf Fenrir. After several days, he actually managed to break them (the dice gods were on my side that day). My character got the blessing of the Aesir, even though it was in an illusionary plane of existence.
9. My players take my games seriously. We're all about the drama.
10. I haven't seen a single goblin in my whole roleplaying experience.
11. I took a Rubrik cube, made it a sphere, added mystical symbols and, lo, the Enigmateria were born.
12. In a MtAscension game I'm running, I got a player so paranoid about the Powers That Be, that when a NPC told him that he got mail, he started gesticulating in a very expresive "DEAR GOD DO NOT WANT" kind of way. It was regular mail.
13. ebook: Neoclassical Geek Renaissance. The pie pieces system sounds really reasonable.
Deadtree version: Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa. I got it yesterday and its awesome!
14. The art in LOTFP, specifically the kind where the Flame Princess is represented, its quite ideal. If we can see some trippy art on that fashion, I would be very, very happy.
15. See No.1 and 12. I creep them out (in a good way) from time to time.
16. I don't get modules. They don't really relate to the characters my players make.
17. A quiet place in the countryside with comfty sofas, a large table, a light breeze. Nearby rivers / lakes / sea / birds are optional.
18. Nobilis 3e and LOTFP.
19. Harry Potter and Hellraiser. I like my magical colleges mixed with elder abominations.
20. Creative gamers that enjoy getting in their characters' motivations and sorrows. Tactical thought can be learnt through experience.
21. I've read my share of occult texts and know a little bit of Ancient Greek and Latin, it helps adding certain verosimilitude to
wizardry.
22. A FATE implementation that meshes well with AD&D.
23. My parents find it interesting, my dad wants to give it a try (I think that he wants a fantasy-Vietnam, gritty as hell game). A couple of friends are also interested in giving it a go; they like the idea of having full interaction with their environment.
Here you are.
Over on my blog.
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
My most recent chart that determines situations randomly based on an over-arching plot.
2. When was the last time you GMed?
Tuesday
3. When was the last time you played?
Six months ago
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
Come morning, vikings attack...
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Usually answer questions.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Standard chips and cookies.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
The physically is throwing me off. I find it mentally exhausting... in a good way.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Meeting a celtic king over dinner in his hall.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
We discuss setting and tone first. We're usually on the same page.
10. What do you do with goblins?
Make them evil and dangerous.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
Scandinavian folk music
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
Cocaine filled dildoes. "But really... it's not mine!" The game was Fiasco.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Carcosa. Do you really need to ask? The book is a pleasure to hold, behold, and read.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Perfect? I can tell you who I like. Carcosa is my current gaming-girlfriend, so Rich Longmore. I like Les Evans for the brutality of it, and without meaning to be kiss-ass, I enjoy your art.
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
I doubt it, although it is frequently disturbing.
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
Large space with a refrigerator close by and soft chairs.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
LotFP and Fiasco
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
OD&D and Sorcerer
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
The one who takes the adventure by the balls.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
The time I summoned Beelzebub in my basement listening to Slayer and old Black Sabbath.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
Up until a few months ago, The One Ring.
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
My girlfriend humors me when I can't share my ideas to my players.
Thanks. That was a nice palate cleanser from all this SOPA crap...
http://www.rolang.com/?p=373
Mine's here . . .
http://tinyurl.com/8xd8uoy
The take-away so far from these is people like Death Frost Doom
Thanks Zak. Great to be a bit introspective for a bit.
Not going to attempt to answer all of this, but some:
2 - I forget, actually, but the blog has me wanting to.
3 - Same.
4 - Chthulhu-inspired murder mystery, taking place in a snow globe.
7 - No
8 - Playing a berserker dwarf, running through a blade barrier and feeding the priest to it. I think I died.
10 - as a GM I have them holed up and building traps, mostly.
11 - Cars & SUVs: I was using them as models for my Space Marines army. Livery, you know.
13 - Would've been some Warpstone mags. I wrote for them, miss them now. Great background. I look at more wargames stuff now, esp. ECW
20 - Players that decide on a long term personal goal to follow [get a kingdom, forge an artifact, etc] at first level, then set about it little by little until they do.
I replied over on my blog.
Otherversegames.blogspot.com
CHRIS
@Logan.
In regards to 22. Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader no good? What about looking into Necromunda? Its old but i'm sure you can find the rules somehwere...
Here's mine.
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be? Dungeon filled with the hair of a sorcerer who had been asleep for 2000 years
2. When was the last time you GMed? Around Sept 2010
3. When was the last time you played? Same as above
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to. On the Island Redoubt of the Poisoners, you must eat their food to resist the overpowering toxins in the air, but if you eat too much you'll never be able to leave
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things? Make up stats for things I should have already made up stats for
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play? Whatever's around
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting? Sometimes
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing? Took over a caravanserai that was supposed to be a throwaway set for a fight
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither? Don't currently have players, but when I have they've usually wanted the setting to be a little serious
10. What do you do with goblins? http://i541.photobucket.com/albums/gg386/grifonetto/goblin.jpg
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)? Mid-C14th Rome
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now? Can't remember anything specific
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it? Basic D&D, to kill time
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator? John Blanche, specifically with respect to his Sorcery! illustrations
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid? The hair sorcerer dungeon seemed to freak them out, but I'm not sure if that was fear, exactly
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever) Probably the Paranoia adventure where you have to babysit a gigantic death machine
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in? The Palace of Versailles
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be? Sorcerer and the original Dungeon Master's Guide
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be? Don't really know what to say to this one
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table? Not too dumb, not too obsessed with their character as a personal opus
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms? College
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't? A version of Traveller inspired by the space adventure stories in Year's Best Science Fiction from around 2005 to 2009, after everyone got bored with the internet
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go? Not really
Posted here
Yeah, John Blanche... good pick! I generally prefer B&W art, but he does does color right. Definitely a case of less is more with him.
1. Proudest? Well, obviously, the Expanded Wandering Harlot Table.
2. Last GMming? Maybe a month ago. Next Saturday will be next.
3. Last playing? Last Saturday.
4. Want to run but haven't? Travelleresque/Fireflyesque galaxy-spanning political intrigue, from the perspective of a small-scale independent trader, using Stars Without Number.
5. When players aren't doing anything? Drink whiskey and stare at them.
6. Eat? Whatever there is. M&Ms are good. So are a lot of things.
7. GMming Exhausting? Often.
8. Most recent interesting character moment? Cut off the fingers of a captured dueregar, one by one, while he stubbornly refused to give up information.
9. Do players unserious settings? Fuck yes. I've given up on serious settings.
10. Goblins? Turn them into a Late Georgian society substantially more advanced than the Medieval/Early Renaissance human society in the gameworld.
11. Last repurposed non-game thing? Luigi Serafini's _Codex Seriphinanus_.
12. Funniest table moment? Early on in 3E days, when my players went through _Thieves In The Forest_ the wrong way round and met the wererat before they found the silver dagger. And then one of my players said, "I grab a handful of those silver coins, and I fist the wererat." And then she rolled a 20.
13. Last non-reference game book read? GURPS Goblins, to get some ideas for social networks/plot structures for the game I'm going to run Saturday.
14. RPG Artist? Trampier.
15. Scary? Yeah, I've run some genuinely spooky Cthulhu games, and one genuinely spooky D&D game.
16. Best other-person's adventure? One of the times I've done Tomb Of Horrors, probably. If everyone is in the mood for a dungeon crawl it's a lot of fun.
17. Ideal gaming space? Well-lit, nice-smelling, biiiig table, nearby brewery.
18. Disparate enjoyable gaming products? Spirit of the Century and Arduin.
19. Diversest gaming influences? Gygax and Pynchon? Catholicism and Erol Otus' take on Melnibone? Borges and William Shatner? Aristotle and Nabokov?
20. Player I want? Someone who's there to play, not necessarily to win.
21. Real life->gaming? Lost in the Istanbul Covered Market.
22. RPG product I want? Barsoom RPG.
23. Non-RPGer conversationalist? Nope.
Filled out, posted on my blog, Starting over with the OSR.
http://startingoverwosr.blogspot.com/2012/01/gm-questionnaire.html
Wow, I wish I knew how to use TinyURl or link stuff in a reply.
I too posted on my blog:
http://noschoololdschoolgames.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-answers-to-porn-lords-questions.html
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
For the sheer joy of the player who got to use them; I had magical sling bullets that transformed into goblin warriors on impact and continued fighting for 1d4+1 rounds.
2. When was the last time you GMed?
A week ago
3. When was the last time you played?
Couple of months ago
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
While fleeing your homeland ahead of the advancing goblin armada, your ship sinks and you wash ashore a tropical island chain as 0-level commoners, surrounded by a paranoid culture controlled by the snake priests of Set.
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Alter the game on the fly to accommodate the player’s plans and take advantage of opportunities to make the story better.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Anything from Chinese delivery to home-made chili
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
No, it just takes a lot of prep-work on occasion.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Engaging in a fireball-duel with another adventuring group’s mage. We both died, but it was awesome.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
I never try to keep the tone so serious that the humor is stifled, but they can make it a tad bit silly.
10. What do you do with goblins?
They are the assassins, scouts and rangers of the goblin horse sweeping across the world.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
Pictures of random people that I used for npc cards in a zombie survival D20 modern game.
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
While gaming, a player had to take an emergency call from work regarding some engineering issue, and his out of context quotes had us rolling for almost 20 minutes.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Frostburn by WoTC, for ideas on arctic weather rules.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
I loved how Brom’s art shaped the Darksun World in 2e
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
Once, with the help of a player who loved to really get into the role, I had the whole group panicking over a well-planned werewolf attack
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
I’ve only run my own adventures in the last 15 years, but I loved fumbling through those old modules as we learned the game.
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
A room with a table big enough for all my players (we used to have one made out of 2 closet doors and sawhorses), a stereo system and computer monitor for my laptop to connect to.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
Rifts and Basic D&D.
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
Old comic from the 80’s and historical documentaries.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Someone who is invested in the game; pays attention to the story and who gets along with our goofy humor.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
I once used all the kids I worked with at a program as npc’s in a modern horror game.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
Not really. I can make whatever I need.
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
My wife, though she does play RPG video games, so she gets it.
Yeah, I have Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Necromunda, but the rules are to much restricted. I like the Idea of creating a character like I want - without any restictions or XP levels or something else.
The rulecore of Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Death Watch is ok, but I think, they could be a little bit more easier and flexible. And Necromunda is good, but it is a mostly a TTG, not a RPG. Inquisitor has a good mixture of both, but the rules are to detailed. As we tested Inquisitor, we spent more time in searching and reading rules than for gaming. That was terrible and boring.
On my blog too
http://lonelygm.blogspot.com/2012/01/answering-zaks-questionnaire.html
Here you go!
thrown it up on mine
http://locaimaginaria.blogspot.com
1. Lance charging rules. My players never use them, but I always charge them with NPCs who can knock them down if they fail a Fortitude/Paralysis check.
2. Tuesday, D&D.
3. November, Call of Cthulu.
4. As the heartland nations go to war, the king calls upon you to lead a band of mercenaries against his enemies and turn the tide.
5. Drink beer, recap the description of the surroundings/what just happened and ask impatiently, "So what do y'all decide to do?"
6. I used to just eat beer and whiskey, but then my players started making barbecue and these awesome chorizo nachos.
7. Not DMing itself, once it gets rolling I'm energized. But the act of sitting every down and getting the game started is both exhausting and exhausting to think about in the moments before I have to do it.
8. I suck at playing Call of Cthulu - I made a good anthropology roll??
9. They take my serious setting and make it slightly less serious. Mostly they just make it more violent and rape-y.
10. Goblins are just organized fey-types (replace orcs) who use alot of poison, giant beasts (pigs, whatever).
11. Dark Ages Frankish and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the 800s. I have rules for races, languages, wizardry... and I will probably never use them.
12. The wizard refused to give his black grimoire to a clerical prelate who was going to heal the party. The party decided to kill everyone, including some low level priestesses they saw. Made hijinks and a rescue mission for the barbarian who was about to be hanged ensued. The description may not sound hilarious, but its funny as shit to us.
13. Runequest Vikings and the Dragon Age RPG. Vikings was for ideas/material to steal for any campaign. Dragon Age was to steal rules ideas.
14. Albrecht Duerer's the shit. He's what I think about when I think medieval illos. I've seen his illustrations (Der Ritter, Tiefel und Tod or something) in RPG books so I think he could count. I really like Brom, for living artists. I also like the artist who did birthright, Tony Szczudlo, and Tony DiTerlizzi. Elmore's chicks are hot.
15. Nope, I'm never really going for fear though.
16. I ran the Haunted/Abandoned Abbey from Fight On #1 and part of LL's Village of Larm. They were satisfactory. Most adventures suck, and I bet Against the Giants or something would be good, but I don't own a copy.
17. A quiet corner of an English pub. I don't go to such places now because I'd feel embarrassed to game openly around the norms (and I think we'd be interrupted to explain all the time).
18. Not that disparate maybe, but I really like the Deathwatch/Dark Heresy stuff, and I like Pendragon (and D&D). I've never run the Fantasy Flight games, but I have run Pendragon. We decided it wasn't fun to play, and I love the books but agree.
19. Egyptian mythology and Tudor history.
20. Gonzo players who don't get butthurt if they're character dies. I want them to kick down the door as default, but be smart about when kicking down the door will get them killed. My players come close, but they're alittle too attached to their PCs and their PCs' limbs.
21. Camping, wearing modern armor, and ruck marching I've all translated when dealing with PC encumbrance and so on.Basically, I just explain this stuff.
22. Yes. Two: First, an instant/usable at the table complete dungeon/ruin creator. I can pick a theme, say dwarf fortress, and roll on appropriate tables for treasure, appropriate monsters, traps, etc. Second, an instant interrelated plot creator tied to a wilderness area creator. So basically, you roll for interesting random encounters and random features (say menhirs, a fey grove, an ancient rusted automaton), and there're corresponding tables with plot hooks, weird rewards etc. I'd like this to be thematic as well (viking area, arab area, etc.).
23. In short, no.
Norm's Answers
Hi Zak, here are my answers (late), but here: http://reverend-dak.blogspot.com/2012/01/gm-questionaire.html
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
I don't know if it's invention so much as just unorthodox roleplay, but the interrelationships of various NPCs in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.
2. When was the last time you GMed?
A week before Sunday.
3. When was the last time you played?
At least a year.
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
The PCs are teenagers in a small Midwestern town stalked by evil every Halloween night.
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Prepare.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
I like pizza the best... cookies or other baked treats are also good. Last session I ate quite a few fresh dates. To drink I like iced lattes or cream soda.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
No. I find it a little invigorating in fact.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Killing a giant skeleton, wrenching its skull off, sticking it on the end of her trident and hurling the whole thing at a bunch of cultists, knocking them all over like bowling pins and killing several, then chasing down their vampire leader, who was riding away on that same skull, leaping atop the flying thing, and bum-rushing her off.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
Never-- but unless I'm going for horror I don't have a serious gaming bone in my body.
10. What do you do with goblins?
Traditionally I've just run them as normal dungeon nuisances, and I feel that there's a place for them in that role, but lately I've developed a taste for the goblin-as-supernatural-gremlin-thing.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
Tie between My Little Pony or Batman Beyond.
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
My PC in the aforementioned Batman Beyond campaign asking Commissioner Barbara Gordon why she couldn't take Batgirl for her alias, and received an extraordinarily dirty look.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
JAGS Wonderland, because I'm pretty sure it's been updated, which I've been waiting three years for.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Mike "Gabe" Krahulik, Rich Burlew, or James Stowe.
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
I try!
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
I usually have a lot of fun with Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
Large, moodily-decorated room, decent sound system, comfy chair, a big table (a ping-pong table would be about the right size, but maybe something a little more stylish and with some furnishings, my laptop, a GM's screen, and abundant snacks and beverages.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
JAGS Wonderland and Sidekick Quest. One's a setting of bizarre and traumatic psychological horror, the other is an upcoming kid-oriented Type IV D&D knockoff where the illustration and stats for Goblin leaders, respectively, are a goblin dressed like Jareth from Labyrinth, and make frequent reference to the leader keeping tight hold on a mysterious package stuffed down its leggings.
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
Adventure Time with Finn and Jake and The Thing.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Not too serious, not too jaded, very inquisitive. Does not care about "system mastery" or "twinking". Preferably LGBT.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
My Wonderland games have been tinged with elements of my own mental afflictions.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
The Wonderland Home Companion, more Wonderland adventures, Microlite74 Monster Mash edition, Nentir Vale Campaign Setting/Player's Guide, a mass-published edition of Castle Xagyg: The Upper Works, Adventure Time RPG, Far Trek TNG/DS9 era Sourcebook, Fallout RPG...
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
Not really.
Ballamo':
http://hitting-dirtside.blogspot.com/2012/01/maybe-its-for-research.html
Great questions and answers, people! I posted my replies on my blog here.
My reply is at my blog
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
- Pass (I'm off to a good start). I've had some little tricks that I've enjoyed, but nothing that I think of with real pride.
2. When was the last time you GMed?
- Last Saturday. My cousin considers me a good GM, so he invited me to run a session for his PCs while he ran an NPC. It went far better than I was expecting!
3. When was the last time you played?
- Sometime last semester (still in college). The campaign may start up again if our GM has enough time. I'm playing a reckless young duelist with an iron constitution.
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
- Two orc brothers, back from their quest of passage into manhood, must return their warrior father to justice after he kills a prominent shaman and flees with a mysterious and disconcerting man.
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
- I pace, encourage, and ask questions (and occasionally go to get some water).
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
- Chinese food sometimes, pizza sometimes, but we mostly take breaks for food rather than playing through.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
- Yes. I'm a fairly physically active GM, and I my muscles subconsciously tremble when I'm performing in front of people (my confidence level aside), so that can tire me out.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
- It's disturbing to me that nothing is coming to me. I had a player convert an entire crowd of people to his heretic religion with a single speech (and a little bit of miracle-work), but in terms of true ingenuity, nothing springs to mind.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
- My players are pretty good about keeping my setting in a stable tone. I tend to run fairly "meta" antagonists (villains who know they're villains), so that keeps things light without making it silly or unserious.
10. What do you do with goblins?
- My goblins are descended from nature spirits, and are call Sli'kie. They travel about like gypsies, and each individual has an animal associated with it. As they age, they become more and more animal-like until they are finally their totem animal in form. There are also goblins called Ashkie, which have had their animal spirit removed. These are immortal, but eternally grieving and forlorn, missing the wildness and joy that has been stripped away from them. (Technically, the Ashkie no longer exist, as my PCs ended their curse, giving them all the well-deserved rest of death)
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
- Everything about Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I'm about to start a campaign with a heavy tonal influence.
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
- I got nothin'. Sessions blend together a lot in my head.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
- I constantly refer back to the Burning Wheel handbook for clarifications and ideas (Burning Wheel is my game of choice), so that must have been the last.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
- Wayne Reynolds. His stylized paintings ALWAYS make me want to create new characters, settings, and stories. I've never seen an illustrator produce such stolid, believable heroes and monsters.
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
- I doubt it. Excitement can get high, but I don't think I've ever seen genuine fear.
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
- I don't believe I've ever done such a thing. Some kind of pride, I suppose.
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
- Room for me to prance about and a large circular table with a leather top.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
- I don't use a ton of different game systems (the ones I didn't like, I stopped playing). The games I currently play (Burning Wheel, In A Wicked Age, Apocalypse World) all have similar methods of telling a story.
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
- Princess Mononoke and Zak's megadungeons.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
- A player who really runs with his/her character's motivations, getting emotionally involved in NPCs and storylines while understanding how best to manipulate the system to make interesting narratives.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
- Nada, consciously.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
- A REALLY well-done martial-arts game would be amazing. I love martial arts like a motherfucker, but the genre lends itself to a lot of tropes and game rules that I find annoying.
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
- My brother used to be a player, but hasn't been in a game in years. I still talk to him about gaming sometimes, but I'm hyper-conscious of the fact that I am FAR more engaged in role-playing theory than he is, and I hate boring people.
Hey all!
Here's my answers....
http://thisisdicecountry.blogspot.com/2012/01/good-bad-and-dice.html
1. Having a dungeon that would change the era of the dungeon based off which way a statue is facing, travelling through time...and altaring the denizens of the creature to be appropriate to the era.
2. Earlier this week.
3. Same as above.
4. I would like to run a campaign where all the players are small-weak races such as Goblins, Kobolds, and they all unite against a common threat, but mostly because no-one else will adventurer with them
5. I comtemplate what in-game factors are taking place as they take thier time, the real world doesnt stop because they want to huddle.
6. Chinese is a meal of choice...singapore noodles is a favourite.
7. I put alot of energy and time into my game, I get a bit tired and wired after games.
8. Dwarf Ranger pretended to fight off invisible spectres in a abandoned dwarf dungeon so that he could get a look at the treasure inside claiming "the dwarf runes say that a dwarf must face the challange to enter the vaults, wait here I will return with the contents".
9. The game is fairly light hearted and we joke around...but is very serious when it gets down to it.
10. This one was always a tricky one for me, I highly disapproved a GM rolling goblins on the random encounter chart and without rolling said we instantly won the encounter...to me that robbed me of the challange, removed the mystery of the game...
In order to change that I deal with goblins in two different ways, each look distint
i) Inventors and masters of warmachines...if there is this type of goblin there is surely a construct of some kind nearby...
ii) Extreamly organized guerilla tactics...keeping distance and plinking off stragglers...using wolves/spiders to keep distance.
--Its worth noting that one of my main villians is a Goblin Warlord and is gathering forces from an ex-dwarf hold.
11. S'pht Compilers from the Marathon series...
12. In an evil ADnD campaign our only fighter decided that he should follow Pelor, and would periodically hire peanants to walk around town with sandwich boards decreeing "Malfrag loves Pelor", Malfrag being the half orc assassin/cleric of Gruumsh...who absolutely freaked out. The city soon put a ban on sandwich boards as peasants with them soon found themselves dead...i photoshopped a picture from die hard II, the one with Bruce Willis' sandwich board to say "Malfrag loves Pelor".
13. To be honest I have been looking at picking up Vornhiem, I am intrigued.
14. Matt Dixon http://mattdixon.co.uk/
15. Yes...I implement alot of suspence and alot of use of cliffhangers.
16. Not Applicable
17. A refurnished office.
18. Iron Kingdoms Character guide (Iron Kingdoms setting) and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2.0
19. Machavelli's The Prince and Lord of the Rings ( Fantasy as we know it is largely based off of LotR)
20. I want someone who can immerse themselves in my campaign and play a believable character that THEY enjoy, someone who is there for more than just rolling dice.
21. Dealing with Death
22. a bag that can teleport all dice into it so I dont lose any...stupid laws of dice attrition
23. I am living at Uni and I am quiet a bit older, people's mindsets are still stuck in the 70s here, thinking that people kill themselves over DnD.
Answers posted here:
sevenarmynation.blogspot.com
-Nation (formerly "Pturtle")
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
Caterax - The Blind Wizard NPC from my D&D Game.
2. When was the last time you GMed?
15th January 2012 - Privateers and Gentlemen
3. When was the last time you played?
12 November 2011 - James Bond
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
In 1920's Hollywood, a cursed Script unlocks a portal to the Dreamlands situated on the derelict sets of an Cecil B DeMille type biblical epic.
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Smirk.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Usually nothing.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
No.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Trying to reason with some mind controlled guards, while getting my gun out.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
They make jokes in serious games I'm trying to run, but so do I when I'm playing so I can't really complain. Joking around should be what happens when you get a group of friends together. It's a game, not work.
10. What do you do with goblins?
Use them a cannon fodder.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
Google Earth image of a Caribbean island that I converted into a Pirate Treasure Map, with Photoshop.
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
In the Celtic Legends RPG there is a spell called Druidic Cat, in order to always have the spell components to hand one of the PC's decided he would always carry a Bag of Cats. The image of his character with that had the table in stitches for half an hour.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Icons - because a friend of mine had just bought it, and I was looking through it.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Larry Elmore.
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
I have made the players anxious about the survival of their characters, so I suppose it has.
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
I rarely run adventures I haven't written, as it is quicker, and more satisfying, for me to create my own adventures. I've run some of the free adventures you can download from Yog-Sothoth.com. The ones by Michael C LaBossiere were fun, as some of them were set in Scotland, where I live.
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
Depends on the game. But for Call of Cthulhu it would be, card table, green leather wing-back chairs, roaring fire, storm outside, glass of whisky. But mostly a table, comfortable chairs.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
Bushido and Everway. From full fat crunch to new age woolly.
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
At the moment, Jerry Bruckheimer and HP Lovecraft.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
One that listens, pays attention to what's going on, and is engaged in the game.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
Visits to the various castles of Scotland help design fantasy castles for the players to loot. Knowing that people just crapped out the windows of some castles makes climb checks more interesting.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
The Hellblazer RPG. Tried to make one myself, but it never got finished.
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
I have a friend who used to play, but just got burnt out. I still tell him what happens in some games. He's more interested in the players and their actions than anything to do with, systems and rules.
Your number 4 is the current campaign party in my group. There's a kobold neutral cleric, gnome barbarian, goblin wizard, and halfling scout. The gnome/kobold issue was addressed and properly dealt with. The DM hates us all for it, because he hates small character races.
Haha That sounds epic, in my ADnD game I played a goblin Thief-acrobat/Manhunter (evil ranger) using rules in a Dragon Magazine, I had alot of fun playing him, especially at seeing how devestated a single goblin could be...so Goblins in my sessions are very rarely trifled with...years of being being underdogs is grounds to making goblins tough to fight.
I'm clearly late to the party, but I finally posted my answers to 23 Questions on Dungeon's Master.com.
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be? - An ancient assassin's blade that operated as a crystal ball, but only after appropriate sacrifice (the image seen was in the carved body of an unwilling participant).
2. When was the last time you GMed? - I GM every Sunday.
3. When was the last time you played? - About three months ago.
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to. - The dungeon is big and scary and there's a rumor of treasure there!
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things? - Go over notes/etc to make sure I'm completely familiar with where they're most likely to be going.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play? - We usually play at the game shop, so their deli food.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting? - No.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing? - Scouting a frost giant's lair while flying and invisible.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither? - They are good at going with the flow, although one is a bit too punny and he can ruin a somber mood.
10. What do you do with goblins? - Depends on the game. They range from fodder to weird shamanistic tribes that perform dark rites that result in gruesome and unexplained results.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)? - A bridge crossing a local river with a weird tower in the middle of the river attached to the bridge.
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now? - The party's cleric asking the shapechanged dragon for information about the dragon to better kill her.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it? - 4th edition MM. I like the pictures and it encourages me to be more creative with monster types.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator? - Otus influences my vision more than any, but I don't know that I have a 'perfect' one.
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid? - Yes. There have been several senses of impending doom.
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever) - Dyson Logos' Dredger Gully was an awesome start to our campaign, but the basis for the campaign was Stonehell and my party adventured in there for months. Dreaded Island (an Isle of Dread reboot) was pretty freaking awesome as well.
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in? - I prefer close and cramped. Seriously. I hate when people are far away.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be? - D&D and poker
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be? - I have no idea.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table? - Involved and considerate of others.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms? - I once killed a dragon with a magic sword.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't? - No, not really.
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go? - Most of my co-workers. They feign interest, but are cooperative in me starting an after school gaming club for my kids. My friend Scott likes to ask me if I brought my Scepter of Power when we go out for drinks. Of course I brought it. I never leave home without it.
Hah mine's too big to fit, so if anyone gets this far and wants to read another one:
http://terriblesorcery.blogspot.com/2012/01/23-gm-questions-la-zak.html
My answers are at my so-shiny-it-burns-the-retinas-new blog, Really Bad Eggs.
my answers..
http://poolofdice.blogspot.com/2012/01/gm-questionnaire.html
Answered here: http://barrowsandboggarts.blogspot.com/2012/01/in-order-to-get-back-into-spirit-of.html
1. Flavin’s Random Teleport, a last-resort (3rd-level) escape spell that blips you a random distance in a random direction. Hilarity always ensues.
2. 8 months ago. Maybe 9.
3. 6 months ago. Been a rough year. ;)
4. 'Gilligan’s Island' meets the original 'Land of the Lost.' And no, I don’t just mean 'Lost.'
5. Watch the fracas and make sure I have coffee.
6. We usually start the evening with the girls (including my wife) all talking in the living room while we guys cook a full supper. After supper, we play. And then it’s strictly coffee for me.
7. Only if I’m phoning it in. When I’m focused and excited, GMing energizes me.
8. There was the ranger that fiddled with a crazy, naked gnome’s gizmo and wound up in the World of Warcraft.
9. Humor is wherever the PCs are, regardless how serious the setting may be. It underscores the seriousness nicely. Makes danger and evil .. moreso.
10. I’d love to play them as Pathfinder maniacs, but my attempts tend to wind up just a little bit sad.
11. Hazard: A crazy bio-engineered lizard that carries seeds in cysts under its poisonous skin. It rubs against plants and rocks and whatnot, dislodging the seeds, which grow into horrible weaponized vines with retractable, toxic thorns. The lizards are immune to the vines’ toxin. West of Eden series, Harry Harrison. Great stuff.
12. We have too many to choose from.
13. 'Deadlands: Hell on Earth.' I love me some post-apocalyptic role-playing, and this is the only physical game book I have in the genre.
14. If Wayne Reynolds and Larry Elmore had a vat-grown kid, that would be acceptable.
15. Tense, but perhaps not genuinely afraid. I think fear is difficult to elicit when everything in the game is so defined and codified. I’m relatively new to OSR concepts and making Weird Fantasy work, so I’m hopeful the day will come soon.
16. 'Tomb of Horrors,' definitely. It was the 3e updated version (not 'Return to') and although I modified it a bit, I played it pretty close to RAW.
17. Large, comfy couches surrounding an impressive gaming table of my own design, part coffee table, part pool table, part Gibraltar. Spacious room, lots of openable windows. Sort of like a common area you may find on artsier college campuses.
18. Anything Planescape vs. Ninja Burger (the card game).
19. 'Chuzzles' and the Bible. And anthropology. And probably cooking. And 'Mad Men.'
20. Someone who is not there for me to entertain, but is capable of finding fun in everything. These are the people that drive the game in ways I never foresee, and that, for me, is the chief joy of GMing.
21. A wildfire I accidentally started when I was a kid that took out 5 acres of my grandparent’s land and almost started a forest fire.
22. A hardbound, full-color, fully-illustrated Fallout RPG that takes the content of the various Fallout games as a meager starting point and explodes from there.
23. At any given time there usually are several, but it doesn’t take long for them to become roleplayers themselves.
http://yetanotherfriggingamingblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/kobold-ate-my-homework.html?zx=89d96ba9de85b1ba
Here, we'll add our answers to the melee at Starting Young
Here's my reply.
My answers
My answers are here.
The answers lie within.
Too much gibberish in my reply. I'm slow.
http://sendmoremonsters.blogspot.com/2012/01/response-to-zak-sabbath.html
Late to the game:
http://beyondthedrowningwoods.blogspot.com/2012/01/zaks-gm-questionnaire-my-answers.html
http://beastsdwellers.blogspot.com/2012/02/gm-questionnaire.html
Here is my reply: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SYIqGGsk88
Here's my reply.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahw3vJakW1M
1. My custom rule set for building settlements and mass warfare for Artesia: ATKW
2. Last Week
3. Puh...Lay?
4. You are all Wanzer (mecha) pilots for the OCU deployed as counterinsurgency operatives for the current de facto junta leaders in Sudan to mitigate a breach in diplomatic relations.
5. Write down useful information such as what actions the PC's may have made that will have long term repercussions and their paranoid musings so I can shock the hell out of them with an interesting twist.
6. Homemade butter chicken pizza, pita and hummus and... Pickled herring like a boss.
7. Mentally yes. Especially when you've just finished a 9 hour session and they want more.
8. He was a scholarly man of letters and Alchemy, so we were in a completely foreign culture but luckily for us I had plenty of ranks in the languages, so we almost became full-fledged murder hobos but instead we pooled our resources and convinced the apothecary guild to hire me as a translator for numerous alchemical texts. I became like the Avicenna of the setting where my character helped to open intellectual floodgates and helped started the countries scientific revolution by translating the more authoritative texts of Philosophy, Natural Sciences and Alchemy.
Yeah our games are dumb.
9. I will say that one time I ran Maid: The RPG my players really got into their characters. The only person in the group that didn't like it was a girl, she wanted to "use her sword to stop things from moving so she could gain XP."
10. Never cared for 'em, I like running low-fantasy, low-magic games.
11. Isometric cutaway views of the ancient pyramid tombs in National Geographic magazines, Travel guide to Berlin (For a NWOD game), books on the history of the Reformation in England, etc. etc.
12. We were playing Pathfinder and one of my friends was playing this bad ass, tough as nails rugged survivalist ranger and we were circling down a set of stairs wrapping around a massive column of bookshelves under the Wizard academy library and she attempted to climb the bookshelves and rolled a natural 1.
She fell on her ass and my other friend figured out the staircase was magic and just "Used magic device on it" and we descended and ascended the column like bosses without giving a fuck afterwards.
13. A song of Ice and Fire from Green Ronin. I was looking at it because I was appreciating the dice tables for House, Heraldry and Kingdom generation.
14. Mark Smylie. Amazing, beautiful water colors and his tiny pocket sized adventurers in the Artesia: ATKW book remind me of Ogre Battle and/or Final Fantasy Tactics.
15. Only once, that was a NWOD mortals game where I did the zombie apocalypse. But my friends are zombie conspiracy dorks and this was like shooting fish in a barrel.
16. I've never done this. I am a newbie DM and published adventures just seem too much like a script to me.
17. A clean living room with plenty of space, nice couches, a table large enough to put my notes on and a mini-fridge full of junk food for my friends and coke zero and yogurt for myself.
18. Easy, Maid:The RPG and HarnMaster. lolololol.
19. John Hughes movies and stacks of comic books that betray my voluminous erudition.
20. I'm down with anyone really, but I like players that are willing to invest a bit in their characters by being there, being courteous to others and are less likely inclined to follow a given story line and start doing what their characters would do.
21. I'm always doing this.
22. A complete book of hex dressings and INTERESTING random encounters that extend beyond combat scenarios and are written for people playing games where combat may not be involved in every session.
23. Oh God. I need to learn how to press that "OFF" button, NOBODY CARES if I'm using HarnMaster supplements in my Burning Wheel games.
1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
Most probably when I swiftly made up the rules for how much damage a backpack filled with bottles of alcohol would do if it would explode
due to a fireball hitting it. (WFRPG 3e)
2. When was the last time you GMed?
About 2 weeks ago.
3. When was the last time you played?
Three days ago.
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
No special
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Check up npc's for upcoming battles, try to plan upcoming parts of the adventure.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Soda, chips, candy and grapes.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
More mentally exhausting.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Well usually it is the whole party of PCs that make the thing interesting. An example is when they had captured a mobsters wife in my Neotech 2 campaign (sorta cyberpunk set in 2059). They setup the exchange happening in a forest outside of town, the plan is to lure most of the guards there so they can break in to the mobsters house and rob him. The whole thing ended with a awesome car chase and gunfight and the party capture the wife ones again.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
Not really.
10. What do you do with goblins?
Try to avoid them since some of my PCs are tired of just killing goblins.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
I made an adventure out of a The phantom comic.
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
a classic:
PC 1 - How much does 0.1kg of tobacco weigh?...
the rest - starts laughing
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Anima beyond science. We decided to give it a try last weekend.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
No idea.
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
Most probably not.
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
When the group manage to roleplay for almost two hours just by sitting in the tavern. (dnd 4)
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
A living room or similar room with a good sized table to fit notes and battle-map if needed, a fridge not to far away to keep drinks cold and comfy chairs.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
DnD 4 and Neotech
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
Comic books and movies.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Players that try to do what their character would do and act nice to the other players.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
None so far that I can remember.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
Not sure.
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
Well usually try to explain what and why I play RPGs.
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