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Showing posts with the label Plot Hooks

Reindeer Games: The Rudolph Campaign

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. Comet, Cupid, Donner…ah, you probably recall all of them including Rudolph - the most famous department store mascot reindeer of all. If you're a regular reader of the blog, it shouldn’t be any surprise we’re bringing up a Rankin-Bass Special yet again . Previously, we've dissected Mad Monster Party , frequently referenced their animated Tolkien adaptations , and taken inspiration from both Santa Claus is Coming to Town and, yes, Rudolph .  This time though, especially after having just passed the 60th anniversary of the original airing, we revisit Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and take a look through the lens of a classic tabletop adventure. So pull up your ice blocks, lend your ears, and keep an open mind about treating this holiday classic as an adventure. Peppermint! The story itself works best as a starting point, or even backstory followed by a shorter truncated adventure. You get introduced to a few of the main cha...

Get Them Gaming: The Pitch

How do you teach a person gaming? Back when I was in high school, it's no surprise I was a bit of a nerdy outcast. Lunchtime was a big concern, even more so than in middle school. The mix of kids there was different, and many of my friends from former years had gone to different high schools - even the two of us at Never Say Dice, were split up. However, this time I was fortunate: a group of card players sat next to me. As creatures of habit, we pretty much stuck to those same seats throughout the year. Every day while they ate, they’d play round after round of Spades. Occasionally they might mix it up with poker, hearts, or some other game, but Spades was the go-to. After a month or two, one of them was out sick and the rest were bummed that they wouldn't be able to pursue their favorite pastime. Showing unusual courage and social acuity, I piped up and offered to play a hand. I’d never played before, but had picked it up by watching them. From then on, I was always an alterna...

Look Before You Leap (Day)

While someone born on February 29th in the year 2000 would be 24 in regular calendar years (they'd use March 1st as a birthday) they’ve technically only had six birthdays. While "technically correct" is the best kind of correct , we still can’t stop the ravages of age. Leap days/years are of course necessary with how we’ve set up our calendar: due to some large egos (and poor math), we need an extra day every four years to keep things like the solar year, equinoxes, and solstices on track and synchronized. While keeping track of calendars is something many of us neglect in our games, and those that do are likely try to keep it simple, adding a special “leap day” to games can provide an opportunity to include new adventures, events, items, or quirks. So in honor of our real world’s Leap Day 2024 , take a few moments with Never Say Dice to ponder some of the possibilities of this rare inspirational event. Character Changes Plenty of people are born on leap days. As mention...

Some Great Pumpkins (We Think) For Your Games

Orange gourds and their kin are popping up all over. Halloween decorations are starting to dot the North American landscape. “Basic" people (we're told) are rushing to the shops to get themed lattes. The smell of the fall season is in the air, and the time has come to bring that fall feeling into our tabletop games. And I’m not just talking about the Risus Pumpkin Spice Edition ... no, this week we’re talking about the pumpkins themselves! From the smallest squashes to the greatest of orange fruits (yes, pumpkins are a fruit, not a vegetable!) pumpkins dominate the fall season. And what better way to bring all that autumn-ness into our games than by incorporating this old favorite. And just how will we do that? Grab yourself a slice of pumpkin pie or bread (or maybe some pumpkin soup? Roasted pumpkin? You pick!) and join Never Say Dice as we do a little picking at our pumpkin patches. - A Flavored Text The quickest and easiest way to get fall, and pumpkins, into your game is t...

Fantasy Forward: Economics

Last week, we started a new series of posts on how one might go about changing the stagnant nature of many “default” sword-and-sorcery fantasy settings by exploring how various aspects of the setting might develop over time and how the protagonists (or players, if this is in a tabletop RPG) might have an effect on these changes. While we started with one of the most obvious factors (technology), this week we thought we might go with something a little less so: economics, including the effect dungeon crawling might have on a regional economy that finds itself inundated with recovered treasure and artifacts… not to mention the adventurers who show up looking to get in on the action.  - B A :  The economy might be one of the most difficult things to consider in a game world - it's dangerous to upset the balance of your tabletop games. Just as with our technology post, a small change in the economy can have huge ripple effects. This is something we were even touched on: the city w...

Expanding the Idea of "Campaign"

Campaigns are a staple of tabletop adventuring. You and your pals gathering together regularly to tackle challenges in the same game world, session after session. Campaigns can be a great way to explore a tabletop world and your characters' place within it. That continued development and growth, along with the familiarity of that particular fantasy world, is likely what draws us back again and again. When you hear the term "campaign," there's a good chance you picture something pre-made like Curse of Strahd or Ghosts of Saltmarsh . You might think about the running live plays of various groups such as Critical Role, Acquisitions Incorporated or High Rollers. If you’re lucky, maybe your game has a wonderful custom campaign your GM created themselves (or you created if you're the GM.) (Websters' defines campaign as a "white sparkling wine made in the old province of Campaign, France.")   What does it really mean to be "in a campaign," though...

Hooked with a Feeling: Reaching Prospective Players through Media

“Oh man, it was so cool when…” We’ve all heard it from our friends and the people around us when talking about the media they’re engaging with, whether it be movies, books, TV, comics... you name it. For those of us who run tabletop games, words like these tend to get our GM-senses tingling. But how do you go about “making the pitch” to get them interested in joining your game? How can you take the things you know people like and build interest through them, even if your game isn’t officially attached to that media property? After all, “I heard you like explosions…” only tends to work on other GMs! - B   A: You'll probably find that there's a decent system for whatever media you overhear someone showing an interest or appreciation in. Spy movies, action flicks, fantasy shows, space operas... they all have their own systems, sometimes multiple, and often even attached to the specific property they’re interested in. It won't necessarily be what you want to run a game in, tho...

Open Discussion: Conversations with NPCs

It doesn’t matter if your games are at a tabletop or one in the digital realms of consoles and PCs, at some point in your role playing adventures you'll wind up interacting with a Non-Player Character. Unless you’ve a really weird game going on, you’re probably dealing with multiple NPCs regularly.  Non-Player Characters are the denizens of our imaginary worlds that bring them to bustling life. Even the most mundane outline of a person rounds out the settings we create in ways we don’t often consider. As the blog has discussed before, a lot of storytelling can come from the environment , but we shouldn’t neglect the people that dwell within the places we present and play in. Non-Player Characters are our vendors, our adversaries, our allies, our victims and our quest givers. At times they may just be part of the background, but without them our roleplaying games simply wouldn’t work. Interactions with NPCs can range anywhere from a brief visual description to a full-out member of y...

Pi Day 3(.14)

Happy Pi Day everyone, and Happy 3rd Blogiversary to Never Say Dice and all of you dear readers. It's hard to believe that we’ve been putting out posts every Saturday morning for two years now. As mentioned last year , we wouldn’t be able to keep doing this without the support of all of our readers. So, for our Pi Day Post this year, we’ve decided to do something different. You may remember our pie-pun filled adventure hooks in the previous years posts Happy Pi Day and Pi Day^2. This year, we’ve decided to slice up some character concepts that should serve as great  filling for your games. Before we serve those up though, we have another roundup of some of our favorite posts from the past year, and we’ll top it all off with a dollop of what you might see from Never Say Dice in Year 3(.14). - A Andy : It is hard for me to not select " The Matt Mercer Effect " as my favorite post that I did this past year. It's been the most popular post on the blog by far. Was it serio...

Pi Day^2

Once again, a Happy Pi Day to everyone and a Happy Blog Anniversary to Never Say Dice! We sure are glad that we've been able to put out some great posts every Saturday over the past year, and we’re especially that you've joined us. Special thanks to everyone following @neversaydice2 on Twitter who's helped us get to (and beyond!) 314 followers for this special occasion. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all of you. Last year, you may remember us baking up a few pie-pun filled adventure hook treats for you. This time around, we’ve decided to do a brand new set that will be radian minute for you. First, though, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite posts from the past year, and a few thoughts on where the blog will go from here. - A Andy : One of my favorite co-posts of the year would be the one we wrote about The Twilight Zone . We covered a lot of ground in that post, and it was one of our first to get over 100 reads in its first week. We posted it right before we got ...