Things We Find in the Dark
The above is a page from a book that exists in a TTRPG universe. It’s perhaps of moderate interest to the current player group but no one else, unless they just want nightmares. It was not handed out last session. Same goes for the second image which is a handout, but was not handed out. That’s the theme of todays blog.
There’s been an ongoing discussion between myself and several beta groups about player handouts. Some of them may not have been talking about handouts specifically, but it was the general concept of how much information is given to the players written down, versus how much they should remember or write down themselves if need be.
TLDR: It depends on the adventure you are playing and the players you are playing with. If that’s a good enough answer for you then thanks for stopping by and I hope I’ve got something more interesting for you next time…
For those of you who are super nerdy like me and into this stuff, I’ll try and skip across the surface level of the main arguments in a way that is unsatisfying and non-conclusive so that you can argue about it amongst yourselves. Glad you’re still hear, enjoy your hate reading.
When solving a mystery, a large majority of players wanted to have handouts for physical things or important notes or evidence, but absolutely refused the idea of handouts for rumours or snippets of information they had heard/seen. They instead wanted to either write it down, or just remember it. the main argument against handouts for information you gain is that it changes the mystery into a collection quest. In the same manner that a lot of video game RPGs have you collect the right evidence and then the proper dialog appears, without the players ever putting 2 and 2 together… or as I’ve been guilty of, even bothering to the read the dialog. You can only deal with so much bloated drivel before tuning out… hmm. Should I be self-aware here…naaaah.
The counter argument to this is that play sessions can often be a week, or even a month apart, and it’s hard for players to retain everything about a game when they have other things in their lives to deal with between times: the kind involving real world consequences. Many experienced DM’s may poopoo this because that is the whole point of the recap in a complex campaign, but I’d argue not everyone does a recap, and with a complex campaign it still needs the DM to have taken notes or have a very good memory in case there are conflicts between the players as to what actually happened. (Notes go a long way to help that)
The second area this comes up is, ‘things the players character would know’, and you could give out a handout for that in some circumstances. However, if you are giving a player a large sheet of pre-game reading, chances are you’ve already put them off the game and I think most DM’s can tell you a story or 500 of giving something to a player and them just not reading it. The argument against this is that the DM can always butt in and say “Your character already knows X about Y” when it is appropriate. This lets the player build up their character and the world lore as the game progresses… I shouldn’t have mentioned world lore. Discussing world lore is a whole different topic that has been covered by far beardier DM’s than me, so I won’t get into it.
Right! Unless someone has questions or wants to add to the discussion, that’s as much as I’m publicly saying on the matter of handouts. You may leave. Remember to always use social media responsibly because it’s full of children, and some of those are also young people. Bye for now.
Still Making Stuff
Ahhhhhhhhhh! I’m doing stuff, but here’s me doing a last minute blog before I run out of month. See this guy above? This is Mato! He is a large man, and he likes to do some skull crushing… Wait, I meant comparatively. He’s a large man, compared to other men with a 25mm base.
Almost naked buff dudes not your thing? Ok. Here’s something else instead.
I finally got around to adding the missing Beaky Boi. This is Beaky Boo, more commonly known as Sneaky Beaky. I also painted a pink variation with spikey knuckles, and a version with green feathers. I had no reason to do this. I just did. He’s basically a beaky bonus.
Now Here’s a barrel.
It’s a digital barrel. It’s what I made this lunch time before doing this blog. I will now do a 3d print to make sure it can be a physical barrel as well. I just thought I should post something that is actually current and that was as current as I could possibly manage.
For those of you who got to the end of this, I am sorry for you, but thankful that you did. Feel free to do social media stuff like saying hello. We have social media somewhere.
Neither Cowboys nor Indians
I already admitted that I’m bad at the blogging thing. I could try doing the talking head thing instead but I’d either have to spend a lot of time editing the videos, or just have you all listening to me rambling on about how a specific maths change in the system affects the probability of outcomes and by extension the narrative feeling for players.
That’s pretty much the reason I don’t tend bring up mechanics when doing these blogs. I’m sure I will just nerd out at some point with numbers, but I’d much rather show you stuff that other people have been helping me with.
I realise that officially I am just a one idiot show here at Radiationburn.net , but like other men, I am not an island. I have plenty of help from a whole host of people. Ben: who has made an enemy of Microsoft word after negotiations between him and the tables tool broke down), multiple artists; who have leant there dexterous fingers to many a doodle, dozens of beta testers: who sacrificed their time and sanity for the cause, and the guy I’m highlighting today, Vermillion Painting: who has very kindly taken on the task of painting many many minions for the western setting (and for an exceptionally reasonable price). Both the bandits above, and the natives below, are painted by his nimble fingers. So just have a gander at those for a moment….
Aren’t those nice?
In truth, he’s also done another batch of characters but I’m not showing those yet.
Ok. enough of this blogging malarkey for now. I have several more minis to paint, documents to write, and, other super secret stuff.
You could try contacting me on social media ( YouTube, twitter, Facebook, etc), but it’s unlikely you’ll get me tospill the beans there either. Bye for now.
Busy Busy Bang! Bang!
So I got to the last day of the month and realised I hadn’t made a blog for January. That isn’t a big deal, just bad behavior on my part. Nothing to worry about. If I don’t make a blog post for a couple of weeks to a month that just means I’m busy. Those pictures above were both from 2020. Those guys are all painted already but I’ll cover that in another blog…probably.
As you can probably make out from my poor attempts at photography, all the cowboys and natives models are made and printed for the Wild west scenario. That actually puts us at about 20 models out of the original 6 I had planned. But since covid has decided to hold the world hostage and delayed the release of SARIL, I might as well make it bigger and better while I’m waiting… although I do miss coding a bit.
If you actually sat and counted the different models in each picture you may notice that there aren’t 20 distinct models and I applaud your thoroughness. Know that I just haven’t shown you all the models yet… for reasons.
Unrelated to that… and most of the rest of the universe, I thought it important to point out that my toaster decided to introduce a diversity quota. 2020 was a strange year.
Toaster politics aside, I’ve been working on documentation mostly this month. Tidying stuff up and filling in any bits and bobs that might be obvious to me but others would like described more specifically. No point in showing you 200+ pages of documentation just yet so you can settle for the current version of the symbol font but with no context. Good luck decoding it.
I will try to be a good boy and post a blog a bit more often in the coming months, but If I’m posting multiple blogs each week that probably means I’m procrastinating so you don’t want that.
Call to action. YouTube, twitter, Facebook, yadda yadda yadda etc. I’m off. Bye for now.
WikiWiki Wild Wild West
Yes. I did start this blog post with a reference to a terrible film. I’m not even ashamed.
Production continues on the Wild West scenario. Lots of text is boring without context and there is a huge risk of spoilers, so here we can see the first stage of painting the Gambler and the Demolitionist
I actually finished painting them, but the cat commandeered my lap so I can’t go take pictures of them yet. The important thing is, I am now slightly less behind on my miniature painting schedule than I was a couple of days ago.
Looking at the picture, some of you may be thinking I am disrespecting something by using ancient paints as model holders. I say NAY! I am honouring the superb hexagonal bottles with life beyond death?… Paints might be fine inside. The point is that these bottles let you put the model down flat at 7 different angles… and I think I also get extra geek cred for having them.
Back to sculpting the rest of the crew I think. Wait. I forgot my call to action. EVERYONE! GO DO STUFF! Sorted. Bye for now.
A Week of Printing
In an attempt to actually tell people what I am making another post. Since a picture is worth a 1000 words I’m going to assume a blurry picture is maybe worth about half that so I’ll keep this short.
The last week I was making generic bandit models. You can just about make them out in the image above. these are for the western scenario (DUH!) There are 7 variant models with different guns and clothes. I think I should just give one of these fellas away for free at the end of this month. Not sure which one though. If someone actually reads this and contacts me it can be their choice.
Simulations continue to be done, playtests continue to be done (although slowly due to restrictions), and Francesca continues to create nice art for the Core Rules and scenario books.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go fight some html code that looked at me funny. Bye for now.
Testing Blog Posting
Why are you here. This is just me testing that news posts are working. Not that I’m too likely to make many. I’m far too busy creating actual fun stuff. This blogging tomfoolery is a little close to admin for my liking. At least I can say whatever I want.
“Floobadee wibblehop!”
Deal with it traveler.