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I’m an overpreparer, so I don’t generally use things like random dungeon rooms. In fact, I tend to run games without dungeons. Still, I’ve played in enough games that had delightful dungeon crawls that lasted for session upon session, run by a GM with a bunch of random monster generation tables and an endless thirst for blood and death to know that such things can be fun.
…for the GM.
Anyway, I did recently see a neat set of last year’s Kickstarted Dungeonmorph Dice. Each face of these dice shows the picture of a different dungeon room, and when rolled and put end to end on a table, they produce endless strange maps of dungeoneering goodness. You can even get the images on the die faces as a font for Mac/Windows/Linux so that you can produce your own maps in any word processor. A quick check of the map symbol key shows that the dungeons include plenty of landmarks and points of interest that could encourage roleplay beyond hack n’ slash, and a GM could easily write a series of encounters based on the symbol key before rolling (or letting a player roll.)
If you like the idea of random dungeon generation that can be done on the fly and that allows your players to interact with the “tables,” this product might hit the spot. Or mark the X. Or something. Wait…is that the symbol for big owlbear which kicks my ass?
NOTE: Recently, people have been asking how WFRP3e looks to people now that the game has been around for a couple of years. This is the first part of my response to that question.
Anyone who’s ever looked at third edition Warhammer FRP knows it’s a game with a lot of stuff. Piles of cards in multiple sizes track abilities, wounds, corruptions and party skills. Larger placard cards describe your character class, track the party tension, serve as maps, and sometimes contain pregen player handouts. Cardboard standees accompany the boxed sets to take the place of miniatures. Cardboard puzzle pieces snap together to represent your PC’s emotional control during battle. Small triangle-shaped tokens adorned with a cheerful little skull icon track…well, a bunch of junk, really. Top it all off with little paper character sheets and a bazillion colored dice for good measure.
Many of 3e’s angriest critics go completely insane over the sheer mass of stuff. They accuse 3e of being a board game. They have meltdowns about the fact that you can’t play while camping in a remote, rustic location in the mountains during a rainstorm. They claim that their friends will spill beer on a crucial component and ruin the whole expensive set. One or two even hysterically claim that no table exists that can hold all of FFG’s ephemera.
More reasonable critics point out that tracking so much stuff takes up too much time and distracts players from immersing themselves fully in the story; after all, if you’re busy moving your fortune tokens around and checking the Party Tension sheet to see whether your characters have moved from “Aggravated” to “Terribly Irritated By the Sound of Each Other’s Voices,” you might actually miss the excellent nuance as the GM sets the scene. It can get even worse if you are the GM and miss the scene altogether because you were busy moving the token one more space on the Party Tension track to “Passive Aggressively Making Jokes about Each Other’s Clothing.”
Despite the fact that WFRP boxes take up an inordinate amount of space in our tiny apartment, I can say that I really don’t think I’d like WFRP3e nearly as much without all of its bits. That’s not because I use all that junk–I’m far too scatterbrained to keep up with the basic necessities of a campaign, much less hundreds of additional data points. Generally, I pick and choose what I’ll use for each session, and then I promptly forget to track half of the things I so thoughtfully chose. Each time I open a supplement, though, and I see the new tracking stuff–because there’s always new tracking stuff–I find myself drawn into deeply considering elements of game design. I take out the items, look at them carefully, read all the details, turn all the bits over in my hands, and shuffle them about on the table for a bit. Many of them go back into their boxes and never get used. Some of them come out for one or two sessions in which they seem particularly useful, then go back again until they’re needed. A few become a constant part of our play.
Ultimately, though, I’d say that all of the stuff ends up making me a better GM. I may not choose to use the additional rules and details, but they give me options and remind me of new ways to challenge my players. I tend to learn better when I see and can manipulate a visual representation of an abstract idea, so the physical objects mean that I understand the supplementary rules far better than I would if they were thrown into charts or exhaustively detailed lists like in so many d20 books. I come away feeling that I fully comprehend the new rules’ implications for my campaign, and I’m also more likely to be able to tweak, change, shape, and rewrite those rules for my own stories–or make a solid choice to ignore them because I know that they won’t help my party’s particular play style or in-game goals.
If I have to look at something nitpicky and unattractive like this, I @#$%ed well want to be getting paid to do it.
Many people wring their hands about the advent of these “hybrid” RPGs because they claim they’ve dumbed down systems that they’ve loved for years. I think not. They’re just delivering the same material in a different way. Fortunately or un-, it may mean that people whose modes of learning were already privileged by the hobby are suddenly finding these rulesets frustrating to use, which can seem particularly alienating when the franchise is an old standard like WPRP. I’d argue, though, that such changes keep the hobby alive and well. They bring in new types of players and GMs who add perspectives to our habits of collective storytelling. Since our hobby is about experiencing narratives from new viewpoints, the more viewpoints we can include, the better. There probably won’t be room for all types of players at your gaming table (especially if it’s already crammed with 3e stuff!), but if new types of players out write supplements, contribute to forums, and give their feedback on game design, we’ll end up with a richer tapestry of both fluff and crunch to inform our own storytelling.
I have a love/hate relationship with Worldworks Games. I love them because they make the most beautiful cardboard models on the market, but I hate them because their kits always reveal the shameful limits of my ability to make things with my hands. I once bought one of their kits, printed the whole thing out, and got so frustrated just reading the instructions that I boxed the whole thing up and shoved it to the back of a shelf.
Granted, that probably says more about my psychology than about their models. Most of the difficulty of making their stuff comes from the fact that so much of it is modular, so you must construct every piece with utter precision so that the doodad can fit neatly into the slot and the whatsis can swivel freely on the thingamajig. Unfortunately, when I feel that I have made a part of a paper model “precisely,” it usually means that I managed not to glue the X-acto to my face in the process.
It was therefore with a bit of trepidation that I bought the Roll Arena. I LOVE this kit–it’s a little dice-rolling table with awesome divided drawers underneath that hold cards. I could certainly see a GM using it for his dice and, say, a critical hit deck. It gets better, though: the bottom of the rolling surface has several interchangeable inserts, all of which are divided differently and decorated with unique imagery, and the kit comes with blank cards that correspond to the imagery on the inserts so you can create your own dice games. The piece’s rather Warhammery look and its Unblinking Eye-esque insert pushed it from the “that’s cool” category over into “I’ll buy” for me.
I spent a couple of hours on it this morning, but didn’t complete it yet because work I’m actually paid to do got in the way. I’ll save the rest of the construction for another day when I have less work to do. Suffice it to say that like all WWG products, this kit presents a challenge, but it doesn’t seem insurmountable.
Here are some pictures of my process this morning. (Do head over to Worldworks Games to see the results of a competent model-maker building this.)
Setting my stuff out neatly (ie, throwing everything on the table in such a disorderly fashion that Tzeentch himself would be proud):
Feel the imprecision (and the cat fur!):
The structure of the top partially completed:
I may actually end up printing and redoing this part of the model again now that I know how it works. As you can see, though, it’s decorated with lovely graphics. I’ll let you know how it goes as I finish it up–and of course, I’ll be completely truthful about gluing my hand to the floor or whatever mishap will inevitably happen.
It’s always nice to get a surprise gift from your spouse. I have read on the Internet that some women like flowers or chocolate, but I prefer gaming stuff. (Big surprise.) Last week, I got surprised with a Fantasy Flight Supply Dice Bag. I’d had my eye on these on the website, but couldn’t really justify buying one because I don’t have many un-bagged dice lying about. But, hey, a present! You can’t say no to a present.
The bag is quite nice; it’s made of soft nylon with a suede-like exterior. Mine has the sword detail, printed in a sparkly silver metallic color. At 6.25×9″, the roomy bag easily holds far more than a full set of d20 or WFRP dice; you could probably sneak in a small pad and a little pencil, too, for travel gaming.
Mine’s currently holding the graphic Mouse Guard dice from the Boxed Set. Although I feel a bit guilty about putting non-FFG dice in an FFG bag because I’m crazy like that, the sword seems thematically appropriate for the little mice fighting for what they believe. Neither sword-wielding mouse nor FFG employee has come to my door yet to complain. Now that I think about it, though, it would be pretty cool if an armed mouse showed up at my house. If that happens, I’ll be sure to take pictures and post them.
Some of your are on your way to GenCon. I’m not. It’s a bit of a touchy subject, especially since your chipper Facebook statuses are slowly eroding my sanity. Not being at GenCon isn’t going to stop me from gaming, though!
We are traveling this week, too. Although we seldom ditch our dice if we know we’re going to be playing RPGs, we often leave them behind if we’re anticipating more board gaming than tabletopping, or if–heaven forbid!–we are going somewhere there’s likely to be no gaming at all. Still, we always bring our iPads, and since we have the books for most of our favorite RPGs in PDF form, a couple of dice roller apps ensure that we can play at the drop of a hat if a game pops up.
If you play d20, WoD, or other similar systems, you’ll find everything you need in the Dicenomicon At its most basic level, the Dicenomicon lets you assemble a dice pool, roll it, then see the tally at the top of the screen. With customizable aesthetics like dice color, background textures/images, and sounds, you can make your dice set look and act just as you like. You can also have a whiteboard function as your background, allowing you to keep notes and tallies right at your fingertips. If you’re an advanced user, you can program and save formulas for commonly used dice rolls, then put sets of formulas and dice types in separate “rooms” to keep your Pathfinder and your Vampire dice separate from one another. The Dicenomicon thus allows GMs to speed up complex encounters, especially those with nonstandard mechanics, if they’re willing to put in a bit of programming time up front. A few extras like a simple tally board make this a great investment. One caveat: the documentation for this product isn’t great, so you may find yourself struggling to use all of its features as fully as you might.
Of course, some of us madmen and women play WFRP3e, and we need our special dice. The simple WFRP Toolkit serves us well. Its grandiose name might lead you to think it’s going to be more than a dice roller; it isn’t. You can assemble your dice pool, roll it, and the app will tally your boons, banes, successes, and failures. Further, you can see a record of your previous rolls and the statistics of how often you get a particular outcome. Some have complained that the Toolkit doesn’t allow you to save a commonly used dice pool, but since building the dice pool and negotiating with your GM what to put in it is such an integral part of the game, not allowing saved dice pools seems very much a part of the spirit of the game.
It’s so satisfying to roll physical dice that I’m loathe to vote in favor of electronic dice rollers most of the time. Yet if you’re GMing a complex encounter, a programmable dice roller like the Dicenomicon can make the task easier. And if your table is cramped with all of FFG’s Warhammer 3e stuff or you don’t have enough dice for everyone to have his own set, the WFRP Toolkit can come in handy.
Happy gaming during this big gaming week, no matter where you are!
