GMing Advice From Some Guy

OK, so....I promised some GMing advice the other day. I've been thinking about this for a couple of days now. Typically, I hate it when people present themselves as being experts when they don't know what they're talking about. I'm not going to presume that this is some sort of perfect advice that will make your gaming better, polish your floors and give you a whiter and brighter smile. It is some things that have worked for me over the years, and maybe it might help you. Fitting said advice to your personal group is up to you. Comments and feedback are welcome. If you want specific advice, I can try to help...but I'm no Dear Abby. So, let's move on...

8Tracks Music Mix: From Me To You

I made my first mix on 8Tracks. I hope you like.

The Cherry from chris.helton on 8tracks.

RPGNow/DriveThruRPG GM's Day Sale

I am a little bit late to the show, because of my little vacation, but I wanted to make sure that I got this out there for those of you who might be interested (and didn't already know about it).

GMs may only get one day a week, but at RPGNow/DriveThruRPG they get a whole week...a whole week of sales that is. From Classic and Contemporary White Wolf, to Fantasy Games' Unlimted's offerings from the early days of gaming, to Fading Suns, to a swath of material from the good days of D20...this sale has a little bit of everything for you.

This sale runs until March 7, so be sure to get in on some of the action. There has got to be something that you have been looking for in this sale.

Click here for the link to the sale's sub-site. [Sale is over, so links have been removed.]

This week, while the sale is going on, I am also going to do a post or two about GMing tips. That should be fun too.

Before There Were Indie RPGs, There Was A Maelstrom

Back before there were indie games, or story games, or even before games like Sorcerer and Dogs in the Vinyard, there was Maelstrom Storytelling from Hubris Games (currently owned by Precis Intermedia).

Coming out in 1997, one of the early games in the genre of narrative games, Maelstrom is really only predated by the first edition of Atlas Games' Over The Edge in this genre. Mentioning Over The Edge is important, because both games are similar in that they use descriptors to describe your characters, however the main difference is that Maelstrom departed from the "mainstream" of game design at the time by moving to a scene-based method of resolution, rather than the task-based method that is tried and true amongst most role-playing games.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is Here!

The PDF for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is here and available via DriveThruComics, along with the other fine members of the OneBookShelf family of PDF sales sites.

IT’S TIME TO STEP UP
The Avengers have been disassembled, the Fantastic Four are somewhere in space, and the X-Men aren’t answering their phone. When dozens of dangerous villains are sprung from the maximum-maximum security prison known as the Raft, who’s going to stop them? You are.

ALL THE RULES, ALL THE ACTION

Experience all of the pulse-pounding action and nail-biting drama of the Marvel Universe at your gaming table. It’s one thing to stop an alien invasion or throw down with the Juggernaut, but sometimes you’ve got to make the hard choices—will you let a dangerous villain escape in order to save an innocent life?. With the MARVEL HEROIC ROLEPLAYING Basic Game, that great power and great responsibility is yours.

This Rulebook Includes:

Operations Manual: Easy to learn game rules for playing characters from the Marvel Universe and playing out your favorite Marvel Blockbuster Events!

Breakout: Based on the acclaimed story arc from Brian Michael Bendis’ New Avengers, including a super villain prison break and a perilous journey to the Savage Land!

Hero Datafiles: Game play sheets for many of your favorite Marvel Super Heroes, from Captain America and Spider-Man to the X-Men and Fantastic Four!

For two to eight players, ages 13 and up. Requires game dice.

This is the newest licensed game from Margaret Weis Productions, and it uses a variant of their Cortex+ rules that power games such as Smallville and Leverage. Expect a review of it soon.

RPGNow/DriveThruRPG Feburary Discount Codes

Each month One Book Shelf, the people that run DriveThruRPG and RPGNow give out a special 20% off code for certain products. These are the PDFs that you can get at 20% off this month. If you've been waiting to pick up any of these great books, now is the time.

 

Aruneus Bundle [Troll in the Corner]

Part-Time Gods [Third Eye Games]

A Peculiar Pentad - Savaged [Super Genius Games]

Ultimate Dice Tower 2 [Fat Dragon Games]

Exodus Post Apocalyptic RPG Survivor's Guide [Glutton Creeper Games]

 

Once you get to the checkout use this code in the coupon spot: GeekLoveRules2012 

As usual, all of these links have affiliate codes that raise money for things that can be reviewed here on the Blog. This coupon code is good until March 14th, 2012.

 

Origins of Independence In Comics: First and Caliber Comics

These probably aren't going to be long posts, but this is going to be the first in a series. Before Image Comics and before creators like Robert Kirkman, there were independent comic publishers championing the cause of creator ownership in comics. Today we are going to talk about two of these publishers: First Comics and Caliber Comics. I'm going to start with these two because they were the companies that I was most familiar with back in the day because of their proximity to me at different points in my life. First Comics was a Chicago-based company best known for comics like Dreadstar, Nexus, Badger, Jon Sable, Grimjack and American Flagg, bringing us creators like Tim Truman, Howard Chaykin, Steve Rude, Mike Baron, John Ostrander and others. Detroit-based Caliber is known for publishing books like Deadworld, The Crow, and Baker Street, as well as starting the comic careers of creators like David Mack and Brian Bendis.

Tony Moore vs. Robert Kirman: Saving The Comic Book Industry

So, the battle for The Walking Dead between Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore continues.

In Kirkman's corner: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=36949

The exact nature of Moore's role in the first six issues appears poised to become a key element of the dispute: While the artist's complaint identifies him alternately as co-creator, joint author and co-owner of the copyrights in "The Walking Dead" (and the other comics), Kirkman and his attorney Allen B. Grodsky repeatedly emphasize Moore was credited as "penciler, inker and gray tones"; Kirkman even provided The Hollywood Reporter with scans from the first few issues as further proof. The 2005 agreement spells out that Moore is to only share "created by" credit with Kirkman on "Battle Pope."

  In Moore's corner: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=36950

"Robert procured our agreement by deception," Moore told CBR. "He then failed to perform the agreement. While he has paid some royalties, he has refused to provide the documents and information he is required to provide under the agreement and which are necessary to confirm that he has paid what is owed. I have tried to obtain this information by means other than a lawsuit but have been denied and stonewalled in every attempt by Robert and his sharp-elbowed handlers. His conduct is unlawful and immoral, and he ought to be held accountable. He can try to falsely minimize my contributions, but both he and I know the truth, which I believe will be revealed in the course of this lawsuit."

The Cult of Personality

There is a dark underside to geek culture. It's really a part of human nature in general, but it seems to rear its ugly head in geek culture much more than it should. In the last few weeks, that ugly head has been rearing higher, uglier and shouting more loudly than I think it has in the past. The internet is a big component to this. Give people relative anonymity and the freedom from physical repercussions that they would get for delivering this level of nastiness in person, and you have a recipe for trouble.

The Cult of Personality

When we like someone, or the work they have done. We want to elevate them. That happens often times with creative people. We raise them up and up and up, until they are elevated to the levels of "genius" and "god." They can do no wrong at this level of elevation. The problem is, these are still people...humans that are capable of mistakes and stupidity and carelessness, just like the rest of us. These elevated creators speak, and the cracks in their divinity start while their humanity shows.

Then you have two choices: you stick by your elevation and defend the person, ignoring what you have to in order to keep them up on that pedestal that they've been elevated up onto, or you look at the facts and come to terms with the fact that the perfection that you've created in your mind isn't realistic. There is only one infallible creator, and not everyone accepts the existence of him (or her depending on the flavor of your faith). No one in any medium, whether comic books, movies, music, high or low art, literature or any other artistic endeavor, produces a perfect body of work. For every Watchmen there is a Neonomicon.

A fallacy of this line of thinking, which honestly might be derived from one of the Geek Social Fallacies, is the idea that if you do not totally except every bit of work of one of these "geniuses" as being genius, you are not a fan. Apparently, being a fan is like betting on Texas Hold-Em sometimes...you're either all in or you aren't in the game. This is, frankly, the tip of the iceberg of a potentially dangerous personality issues. Some people derive too much of their identity and/or self-worth from their fandom that they construe any "attack" against what they are a fan of as being a personal attack. You see this online a lot, and I have even dealt with it offline when someone attached to one of the popular online gaming forums left a gaming group we were both a part of, because I "hated on the board" because I felt (and still feel) that their reviews were poorly written and mostly missed the point of reviews.

We really shouldn't support this sort of behavior, as geeks or as humans. I don't think that I should have to explain why we shouldn't support or enable bad behavior, so I'm not going to bother with it.

There is a flip side to this phenomenon, something that grows more out of fan entitlement than out of fan worship. That is the idea that the fans know more about the property than those producing it, even when evidence (trivial things like sales) shows otherwise. This is an entirely different cult of personality, one that can often be driven by personal agendas that people want to be more widely followed. We see a lot of this in the "edition wars" between the fans of the various editions of D&D, particularly with those fans of more recent editions attempting to push their social agendas into the mainstream. Then they reply with anger and attacks when those agendas are not accepted, or are mocked openly.

We are a varied people, us geeks. There's nothing really wrong with that, we just have to learn to be more accepting of ourselves, others, and the opinions of others.

Guest Post: Annah Shilts Talks About The Maid RPG

Today, I present something All-New and All-Different for the Dorkland! blog (please always remember the exclamation point)...a guest post from someone wanting to break into the fine art of blogging. Today I present Annah Shilts, talking about the Maid RPG. I'm sure that many of you who follow me (the Chris me) here and on the various social media sites around the web know that I'm a big fan of the Maid RPG, and picked up a copy from the initial press run a couple of years ago when it debuted at GenCon. I've been lucky to talk with the translators/publishers of the English-language edition of the game (and I've worked with Ewen on Open Anime for Battlefield Press).

The link above is to Annah's profile on Google Plus (where she I and first encountered each other). If you're a gamer and you're not on Google Plus you really should look into it. It is a hotbed of gaming discussion and perspectives, with only a minimum of the hassle that you will find in online forums for gaming. I have another couple of people who have discussed wanting to do guest posts on here, so I guess we will see where this one goes.

What we have are Annah's thoughts and impressions from her first time playing a game, that just happened to be Maid. After the jump you'll find more about her experience.

First, a little about this random person writing to you: Hi, I’m Annah. A twenty-seven year old librarian with lots of red hair, not enough time and way too many hobbies. I’m classically trained operatic singer, dream of being a voice actor, and have a David Tennant cardboard cutout in my living room. I’ve been playing games since my father brought home a very old Pong console when I was four. Since then I’ve gone the gauntlet of Sega Genesis to Play Station 3.

I am new to tabletop RPGs. I was raised a (fairly) well behaved Christian home schooler from kindergartener through high school. Dungeons and Dragons were demonic and RPGS nearly so. Lord of the Rings and freaking Chronicles of Narnia were considered too full of magic and witchcraft for little old me.