Wednesday, October 28, 2009

"Rats Live on no evil Star." (A conversation piece edited for your taste.)

Hey all,

"Radio killed the Radio Star, Radio killed the Radio Star.." And rats live on no evil star. *garble garble*

The last line might have been pushing it a little, but palindromes have been around for ages, and I for one have been intrigued by them since young. Back to the front, and front to the back, always constant, yet so different at first sight.

Okay, an update on Chapter 2 of my Caen Campaign. Shell recently revealed to me that his current campaign arc will end in about a couple of months, which means that mine will probably start in December thereabouts. For the campaign-related articles that I promised the last time to ease the players into the new chapter, they will appear weekly in the month of November.

In this day and time, Humans residing in Singapore have a lot on their mind, be it pondering on their next life quest or deciding on what item/s (vehicles, entertainment, necessities) to spend their gold pieces dollars on, or just basic responsibilities. DnD is a past time and not a full-time job (nor is it mine), so releasing the campaign-related information a few weeks before the start of Chapter 2 actually makes a lot of sense.
Our attention span can only last so long, and this way, the players would be able to recall and use some of the information, or jot it down somewhere for future references.

Recently, I had a conversation with an old friend of mine. He was mildly interested in joining the DnD sessions and being a Singaporean Gamer, until he realized that he did not want to be: a typical Singaporean Gamer.























The above images depicting typical "Singaporean Gamers" must have gone through his mind. No wonder he was scared. Composing himself, he gave me his initial view of my players and my sessions (without seeing or knowing my players.)

  • min/max abilities, 
  • not wanting to role-play much but just see the game as a goal-oriented activity (rat-race).
  •  requires a great deal of help from the DM for quest-related information that are not obvious in the first place or tied to an ostentatious amount of XP. 


Yes, our DnD players do have some of those traits but to a certain extent, except for a select group who has all of those qualities. I retorted that there are many different players who derive joy from DnD in other ways rather than the traditional "role-play" way. Then he said something that was rather narrow-minded but made some sense.

"I understand that there are different people around. But why play a role-playing game without much role-playing? The environment should encourage non-linear play, interaction between the characters, and the goals should just be markers of your path through life."

He continued, "But this is impossible amongst typical Singaporeans. They worry too much about making the right move, how not to look "foolish" to their other gamer friends so that they can succeed and not be considered a failure. DnD originally allowed one to be a hero, and for one to act as one in his own way.

He laughed cynically (he is compulsive at that), "But for typical Singaporeans, they never were comfortable in doing things their own way. Our society does not promote that. We turn out to be mere unfeeling robots, squeezing the life out of an activity that is supposed to be fun and natural, and trying to win a non-competition."

I kept quiet for a while after his rant. I wanted to tell him that what he said was totally not true of my gaming clique. But I did not want to lie. I have many players who take the game this way. They feel pressured, angry and dejected after a session. Rare are the days when players recall fondly of gathering up to adventure in a faraway world, killing mythical creatures and saving a damsel in distress, instead focusing on whether they got the most out of a situation or what could have been.

But there is hope yet. I told him that I can see that in the right environment and setting, those same gamers will role-play. That plays a big part in making someone come out of their private shell and be someone else.
I mean why bother if there is no difference if one role plays or not,-and I'm not talking about XP or rewards here-, just that would it have made a difference at all?

Also, another thought struck me. If my friend was stuck in an environment where nothing you role play matters, he might just turn out to be the typical Singaporean Gamer that he hates so much.

I too, have a bit of those traits in me as well. But the desire for me to play/win with a certain style is very strong and tends to overwhelm my Singaporean instincts. I purposely roleplay out most actions to minimize the impact of the move just being a cold and calculated, min/maxed Singaporean Gamer move.
This is also one game that I can min/max my character but I do not need to min/max my actions. The min/maxed character simply gives me the option to do so if there was a situation that arose- aka "be ready for anything".

All I am saying that is we might never be amazingly eloquent gamers like some ang-mos or arty-farty dudes are, but the keyword here is "some". Not all of them are eloquent and cool, and I know of a few who are even worse than "Typical Singaporean Gamers".

All we need is to maintain a certain style and the simple joy of going into something without actually coldly calculating every move (unless we are dying of course), then we can go beyond our "Typical Singaporean" roots, and leap into the untapped realm of our imagination.

Singaporean imagination. *grins* An oxymoron no more.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The Positive Evolution of 4 Point Oh. (Recent Musings of FieTheDM)

Hey all,

The DnD website had been redesigned a couple of weeks back and me for one, feel that it is an upgrade over the previous installment. Its magazine front is much more eye-catching, and there is a certain gloss and structure to it that makes you want to read its content.

Just like the 4.0 game itself, the newly integrated website (nicely linked to its forums etc) strives to change itself for the better over time so as to entice people to look, to try and ultimately, hope to engage its core crowd enough for them to click a link or play the game. That I feel, with the exception of the ugly new forums, is a step in the right direction.

4.0 has been going towards the direction of multiple but much shorter adventures (delves they call it, or "3 to 4 encounter" sort of dungeons/quests), which can loosely link themselves to a main storyline or an end-goal. I am heartened to see this change as many potential DMs are intimidated by having to make a really long dungeon romp if they are just starting out and this delve-concept provides chew-sized pieces -easily digestible- for the creative mind.



The new Chaos Scar campaign is one example. It actually returns to old-school role playing roots. The plot structure is more open-ended now, with the description of the region given, and only the start and end-goal stated. How the DM and the players get there (to the end-goal) is entirely up to them.

Simple. Clean.



Hooray for simplicity and allowing decisions to affect the game-world. Wonder why it took them a whole year to realize that DnD featuring the ideas of the players, and allowing them to immerse themselves in the world by being able to contribute/change it will make a happy campaign?
WoTC's action-first "Movie Scripted"-driven plotline is still around, but is no longer the default pace for every single minute of the campaign, but rather encouraged at given points in the adventure.

New DMs reading and wanting to start a campaign in the Chaos Scar region will thus find that free reign had been bestowed on them. Some say that with freer reign comes greater power comes greater responsibility comes a greater chance to do wrong too, but without a clear right or wrong, the new DMs would be more willing to imprint their own ideas and style on the campaign, which was tougher to do in the tightly scripted Scales of War or their previously published adventure material.

For example, Shane had to alter whole parts or delete complete encounters to place some of his own designs in Scales of War, to give the campaign his own feel. I totally agree with that choice, but more often than not, the adventure still feels like Scales of War due to its pacing and inherent railroading of choices, as being participants of an action movie is the campaign's trademark.

If so wanted, Chaos Scar can allow freedom of movement between quests and adventures, to the point that a party (without proper planning or background evaluation) can venture into a dungeon not meant for their "skill" or "level" and get royally crushed by over-leveled creatures.

This leads back to the DM's discretion. How he plans the control of "his" Chaos Scar will alter the mood and the pace of the campaign. I can safely say that if three new DMs run the open-concept campaign next week, their individual sessions will almost be like playing three largely different campaigns, flavored with their own unique journey from Point A to B- which is the party's goal.

It is early days still, but let us all applaud this small step in 4.o, which makes a giant leap in the direction of old-school gaming. Folks, not everything old is obsolete, or everything new -great-.

In fact if you give Old a go, it might actually turn out to be gold.


Thursday, October 1, 2009

The newest addition to Gamer-dom and a free passport to Nerdaria.

Hey all,

My brother's (Shane) son Christian is gonna be one tomorrow! Here is a huge shout out from me to our newest Gamer-dom addition.

*issues the boy a passport to Nerdaria*

Christian will soon be able to mumble coherent words, so... watch out world! That simple fact itself will make him a better role-player than Alex ever was.
Umm yes, that one. Alex the 6-year old drama student; he does try his best to act like a retard role-play, but alas.

I hereby dedicate this article to Christian Caden Kwek. May he grow up to learn that pure DPS is not always good and that Uncle Fie adores him.

"Care for a left handed forehand, kiddo?"