Hello there, internet! You thought there was no news BUT GUESS WHAT WE GOT MORE NEWS!
First item to report is that Sordid Dystopia is coming along splendidly. Our gracious master editor Sam has created the master page templates for the published version and has more than half-finished the present manuscript. Our herculean exemplar of a writer is taking your comments from the playtests and writing the rest of the game as needed. Or as it comes to him. The world may never know.
Additionally, we’ve been lucky to start receiving fanart from some awesome people: Chris and The Blind Artist. Chris’s stuff can be found here, and The Blind Artist’s stuff can be found here. You can also check it out on our wiki page for incredibly high-resolution everything.
We cover an actual topic in this show as well: The GM Voice, and approximately how to use it to create atmosphere in horror and drama. I say “approximately” because there’s no real formula to this practice. We can only explain the phenomenon anecdotally.
These topics, your questions answered, and Andy Roonie tonight!
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My notes for this DnNewsies:
Poor poor Martin, we killed his character so bad David disappeared.
You kill me in Frieda’s now you call me money bags. I’M DONE!
I can troll forums. I cannot troll Facebook. Also the forums would help with all the listeners who “want to play Monsters” but their groups don’t allow it. We could setup Skype times and eventually become the “DnU Corp.”
A Frieda’s Source Book would be nice to help pad out a campaign idea I have can could possibly situate LFNE, MaoCT, and CoC. More things we could play/setup if we get Forums/Facebook to work.
I agree with Travis. As the newest member of the D&U FB page, I think a forum may be easier to allow for different groups to get together and plan out different times.
The ‘D&U Corp’ would be pretty cool for a forum name or a title for the Uglites….(or whatever we are XD), but I don’t know if that would be much more than a little title that doesn’t mean anything to anyone but the ones who have it.
A Frieda’s source book, I would love that, as I am attempting to run a Frieda’s inspired game called the ‘House of Knives’. I would pay for that.
Just my 2 cents on the facebook vs. forum. I personally don’t have a facebook and would rather not get one. However, I would be fine signing up for a forum. I would love a place to discuss the episodes in a bit more depth, exchange ideas, and potentially get involved in actual play. I just would much rather have it be it’s own thing than facebook.
I have updated my ‘as seen in the show’ map (again) since I sent to you after catching up completely to what is posted now. There’s a few changes to fit how you guys described it, namely bathrooms (ep 19. Pack of Wild Dogs), the description of the second floor rooms (ep 24 Fall of the House of Odyn), and all the furnature piled on the manhole in the basement because I forgot it on the first run through (ep15 Ghost Stories). I haven’t uploaded them anywhere yet. Eventually I will send them someones way. There is more tweeking required I think, but I am a horrible perfectionist.
I may have also gone above and beyond, and worked out which of the NPCs is roomed where. I don’t think I will bombard you with that.
Incase you can’t tell, I have way too much free time.
Like Nate I did study a bit of technical drawing many years ago, enough to know I wasn’t very good at it and didn’t want to waste a career on it. I seem to have become better after drawing up a few hundred dungeons/towers/ruins for D&D games over the years. I’m not a professional, but you cetainly could build an actual Frieda’s from those plans. I don’t know if it would be up to code, but that just makes it more authentic. (If you care, the scale ended up being 1 inch=1.67 pixels)
PS: He works. I am a He last time I checked. Yep. Still a He.
PPS: A forum. Do it.
I’m with the others, It would be cool to have forum. I’m in favor of it.
and for my contribution to get this done, (as incentive) if Nathan builds this forum, I will illustrate the character of his choice similar to what I did with Leadbot.
Also I was wondering if there were anymore Engine Heart sessions on the horizon?
And it is pronounced “Craze-On”
liked the addition of the topic factor, even if it does mean a lot of “you guys haven’t heard this yet…”
also wondered, is the reason we’re seeing much more Friedas and piling up on Little Fears just a change of interests, or a matter of having trouble getting together Sean and Alex with their schedules (just since we seem to see them less than most of the others)
i’d be game for the forum. I post here enough, and like internet gaming discussion without having to resort to sifting through the games I don’t know and devolving bitching of 4chan. the text rp stuff appeals a lot, been known to play in those myself, and were my earliest experiences in writing and rping
Forum yes!!!!
Hey now, I was in Nate’s awesome Little Fears game too! 🙂
Sorry I have been out of the loop for so long, I’ve got a lot of Frieda’s to catch up on now! Not too bad of a thing all things considered.
Well, I can tell you I’d love a forum and a Frieda’s sourcebook!
As for going on to the later discussion on Primetime Adventures vs Serenity, I’ve got a bit of a rant on that.
I’ve read Primetime, and it seems like a good game! I just feel like campaigns go a little fast (Having to fit a season in either 5 or 9 sessions). There was also a question I didn’t quite get answered on budget per episode, not to mention how much power the producer has and should use… Either way, they give good examples of how versatile the game is, and I would love to play it some time.
Meanwhile, I have the Serenity game, along with the ones they’ve made after it (Supernatural, Leverage, and Smallville). They are constantly changing up the system with every game.
Serenity I didn’t mind the system, but a lot of things were railroady. If you looked at pregen adventures, they expect you to play the Serenity crew, (mostly because they don’t have good rules on ship making…) and they expect you to fail certain rolls. In fact the first adventure in the Adventure book is basically, “You start on an animal delivery. The animals get sick. You have to do good roll to make them better three weeks from now. You have to do an insane roll to make them better now. Oh, the animals are sick? Guy won’t pay you unless the doctor makes an insane persuasion check. Now you’re broke, go find the client this adventure centers around.”
The game did have one upside: The Plot Point system. If you have people who don’t like roleplaying characters with flaws that actually are a problem, it’s brilliant. You can’t make the really hard rolls without plot points, do you spend them. How do you get more? Complications and good roleplaying.
But yeah, they did refine the system in Supernatural (Where they once again lack good vehicle ruled outside the Impala) so plot points and experience are separate.
Then they did Leverage where they overhauled the system and it’s probably the best I’ve seen (save for plot points being weaker) so if you want to give it a try… (biased because I love the show)
And Smallville is just strange. It focuses on drama and values and… I want to see you guys do character gen for that game because it’s just crazy.
Interesting stuff about Little Fears. I need to look into Nightmare Edition, it sounds more my speed than the first edition. A Frieda’s sourcebook would be pretty cool too.
That said, the main reason I’m posting is because MAKE FORUMS ALREADY JEEZ. Seriously, I would post all up ins some forums.
First point: Forum. Make it so.
Both text RPing and a place to get some discussions would be nice to have.
Second point: I had my first playtest of my system a few days ago and soon I hope to finish the first scenario.
Here is a topid suggestion for you guys. Character creation, how do you do it? What works for you to make a character you will enjoy playing, tips and tricks for making a believable character. Adding that third dimension.
Just chiming in my little thumbs up for the idea of forums. Let’s look at it this way, I’ve seen websites survive entirely upon their forums. Hell, I’ve seen websites that started off based on certain content, created a forum, and then became a forum and got rid of the content. You’ve got a big enough fan-base for it to be worth the effort and honestly it would create a much more solid basis for discussion. Hell, discussions on the most recent AP whenever it comes out would probably give you more than enough use out of the forum to justify it and that’s not counting anything else you could come up with. Plus, it’d be a lot better for organization than facebook, just sayin’.