Technology for running traditional tabletop RPG games using online software has been around for a few years now, but I’ve noticed we seem to be reaching something akin to Critical Mass in the use of these tools to supplement face-to-face gaming. For example, this weekend in my game group we’re using Google+ to video conference in a distant player while the rest of our group game meets around a physical table. Kickstarter and online ‘virtual’ conventions also point to the surging interest in online virtual tabletops.

Kickstarter

There’s been a lot of buzz on Kickstarter regarding two very similar new tools: TabletopForge and Roll20. Both have had very succesful Kickstarters. Of the two, I’m more familiar with TabletopForge which has the promise of being perpetually free, with features like 3 D dice rolling in the works. Their Kickstarter metrics were as follows:

Roll20
1,580 BACKERS
$39,651 PLEDGED OF $5,000 GOAL

TabletopForge
1,926 BACKERS
$44,413 PLEDGED OF $5,000 GOAL

Virtual Conventions

Now comes online ‘virtual’ conventions. Of the five below, Indie+ and Aethercon seems to be the best organized and offers dozens of games over several days.

1. Indie+ July 9th – 15th, 2012
2. Fantasy Grounds Virtual Gaming Convention July 20-22, 2012
3. Concurrent Aug. 15-18, 2012
4. MonkeyCon October 19th and 20th
5. Aethercon Nov. 16-18, 2012

Have VTTs (virtual table tops) come of age? What has been your experience with virtual table tops? Are these tools beneficial to your game group?

Over the last year I’ve been focused on running ‘episodic’ games than have a clear story ending in 4 hours in my home and gamestore games. These same skills are very helpful if you want to run a 4 hour con-style game.

Here are my tips for running 4 hour games:

For all types of games, have a clear quest or goal so the character know exactly what their mission is, with the mission something achievable in 4 hours. (In campaign settings, I have the players be part of an organization which gives them missions).

In non-Dungeon games:

• Plan for 5 scenes, with at least 2 or 3 of those scenes involving combat.
• I like to have a red herring or twist be part of those stories, with a big reveal in the final Boss Fight scene.

In Dungeon games:

• Have 12-20 rooms prepared. Usually you’ll only cover 7 to 12 rooms total.
• Of the 7 to 12 rooms you’ll actually explore, 5 to 7 rooms will have combat or extensive roleplaying. The rest of the rooms (2 to 5 non-combat scenes) will be empty or have puzzles, traps or something minor to explore.
• Throw in a combat by the 1.5 hour mark if you haven’t already had one.
• Be prepared to move rooms around in the dungeon so they will always happen to get to the key parts of the dungeon (especially the Big Bad Boss at the end). Usually I just have 2 or 3 ‘key scenes’ which I will make sure they hit, with the rest being optional. This means you don’t give the players a map as you may change the map on the fly.

If you’re running a campaign in a home setting, I’ve found having the players have a ‘home base’  where they will be or will be en route to at the end of each session to be invaluable. This way when you have absent players you can explain that they didn’t come on this mission. If you have a society, have the society have bases in several key cities. If you running a space campaign or ship campaign, have the vessel dock to a port at the end of each game.

I’ve recently started using a 5.5×8.5″ binder from Staples to organize my RPG notes for Savage Worlds and other games.

These binders are truly something special — Staples has produced a binder which has a rugged rubber edge. As such it won’t crack and wear out as easily.

They come in several colors — I like white and black the best.

More importantly though, it gives a certain weight to the binder which makes it sit snugly on the game table with little chance of tipping over accidently. Below you can see it in action sitting nicely in front of the GM (me!).

From the player’s side, the clear covers allow you to insert a picture — making it a sort of mini-GM screen. The small form factor means it doesn’t get in your way. It gives the feel of running without a GM screen with the convenience of having what amounts to a full 8.5×11″ page of content visible.

In the inside, the left flap lets you insert some documents — I like to stick 4×6 notecards with my NPC stats there. For dividers, I create my own using a paper cutter to cut heavyweight paper to 5.5×8.5″ size, and use Avery tabs on them. You can buy commercial tab dividers at this size if you prefer though.

Below is a screenshot of an OpenOffice template I use to write up my adventures. I then print them out double-sided, and cut off the extra space and hole punch it to fit the divider. I’ve developed a template to support RPG scenes, box text, and character stats blocks.

Download the OpenOffice 5.5×8.5 RPG Planner Template here. OpenOffice is available for free download. To get it to look just like my layout, you’ll need some free fonts: Open Sans and SF Fedora.

Has Savage Worlds replaced GURPS as the generic RPG system of choice for this decade? ICV2 columnist Scott Thorne says this:

With the release of Beasts and Barbarians, a fantasy supplement from Gramel Publishing, Savage Worlds moved one step closer towards its apparent goal of replacing GURPS as, well, a gurps.  By my count, so far, Savage Worlds has a horror supplement, a couple of fantasy supplements, a superheroic supplement, two versions of Martian high adventure,  science fiction horror, a zombie outbreak supplement and, oh yeah, let’s not forget Deadlands.  While certainly not as comprehensive as Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS (especially the Third Edition, GURPS Robin Hood anyone?), Savage Worlds is the only print RPG I have seen making use of its core system to expand into other genres, as Chaosium has its Basic Role Playing System but hasn’t expanded it much beyond Call of Cthulhu and, during the last presentation from them I caught, Steve Jackson Games didn’t even mention the fact that they publish what was at one time one of the top selling RPGs. Source

With GURPS moving to a PDF only model for more new materials and Savage Worlds being under very active development (including several recent Kickstarters) it seems that Steve Jackson games has ceded the generic RPG market to Savage Worlds, choosing instead to focus on more profitable efforts like Ogre and Munchkin.

While I have no doubt GURPS will remain entrenched for some time (note how popular it remains at Con games), I’m seeing a shift to Savage Worlds which will only continue in the near future.

What do you think?

I usually like a bit of backstory for my player characters. Player backstories can provide powerful game ideas for the GM.

I partucularly like the idea in Mouseguard of having ‘enemies’ so that in the players’ turn (the sandbox portion of a Mouseguard game) you have something to springboard off of.

Backstories have some problems though:

• As a GM though, I don’t usually have time to read the long (2 pages or more) backstories some people write.
• Not all players like to write long backstories.
• Some players can’t devote time outside of the game to create backstories.
• Without backstories, background information like ‘how did we meet’ is often lacking.

To remedy these issues I’ve developed what I call the Three Sentence Backstory™.

The first sentence is the character concept — this may include the character’s background, archetype, class or other information which quickly gives other players a simple summary of who the character is.

The second sentence defines the character’s connections. At the gametable I like to roll a d6 — if the results are odd, players must come up with some sort of connection between their character and the player character to their right. If the result is even, then the connection is to their left. If doing this by email before a game session, I have player’s make the connection alphabetically (a player with last name Smith makes a character background connection with the player Thoreau). I do this at the first game of a new campaign, and incrementally do it for new players who join later.

The third sentence lists the player’s biggest enemy — usually this is an NPC or perhaps a gang, mob or something else which the GM can bring into the game as a foil to your character.

Here’s an example of the Three Sentence Backstory™  in action, using Mal Reynolds from Firefly:

Sentence 1: Concept

Mal fought for the losing side in the Unification War and now finds ways to keep his ship flying while taking pot shots at the Alliance.

Sentence 2: Connections

His current crewmember Zoe served with him in the war, and fought in one of the war’s bloodiest battles, Serenity Valley.

Sentence 3: Enemies

Taking barely legal odd-jobs to stay out of poverty, Mal has had multiple run-ins with the sadistic crime lord Adelai Niska who remains Mal’s chief enemy.

On the character sheet, I may run the sentences together, so the final result would look like this:

Backstory: Mal fought for the losing side in the Unification War and now finds ways to keep his ship flying while taking pot shots at the Alliance. His current crewmember Zoe served with him in the war, and fought in one of the war’s bloodiest battles, Serenity Valley. Taking barely legal odd-jobs to stay out of poverty, Mal has had multiple run-ins with the sadistic crime lord Adelai Niska who remains Mal’s chief enemy.

Just enough to give the GM what he or she needs to spin a compelling story, limit the overly long backstory some write, give the players a shared history, and is something you can knock out in less than 15 minutes at the start of a game.  Happily, this is something you can use across a variety of games regardless of setting or ruleset.

The next time I create a character sheet template I’m considering including three lines — Concept, Connections and Enemies — to support this idea.

What do you think? Would this be useful in your games?