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Hello All,

Here is Episode 5 of Made Men. Full Circle. This is the last 50 minutes or so of our initial Saturday, All-day, gaming session which was originally supposed to be a one-shot DnDNext Play test. As we’ve already discussed, the game was a hit, so much so, that we decided to scrap the original story line and continue on using these characters.  As was also covered in the last episode, despite the fact we were having so much fun, as the game drew on, we got tired and the game got sloppy.  This last bit really, really shows that. I had to cut out a lot of side conversations, as well as more of that odd “who’s moving the Micro-phone” sound.

********************SPOILERS******************* I suggest you listen before you read below!!************************

My original intent with this game was to give the PC’s (Marcus, Rook, Sampson and Jared) a glimpse of the City they were headed too. Eventually I wanted to the two groups to meet up. I thought that would be a fantastic Role-Play situation (or *COULD* be), so my goal was to wrap up the night with the Players (not the PC’s) knowing that their original characters would be targeted by the Play test characters.

So, at the end of the session when Gradon tells Zaine that he can come back into the good Graces of the Crimson Claw Crime Syndicate and all transgressions will be forgotten, and all he has to do is track down the killers of the Princess and Sir Acues, that was designed to tell the Players that their characters had been framed for murders (i’m sure they assumed I didn’t actually have their PC’s kill those NPC’s) and that Zaine, Yomi and Grexxil would be after them.

In-game I don’t think it had the affect I wanted, looking back at it, that is likely because none of the Players had any where near the attachment to their old characters that they had to their new ones. They weren’t afraid that their old PC’s would have to face their new ones and might not survive (The new play test PC’s were a level higher and overall tougher).

I’ll most likely go back and do a regular post about why I think that is, going into some detail, but the short version is that I was trying so hard to keep the original story’s big mystery a mystery (that the PC’s had traveled ahead in time about 1,000 years) that I had to keep them from knowing too much about *WHERE* they were as well as *WHEN* they were and that kept them from becoming attached to the story or their characters. In a story, I think the reader would be able to think back and go “Ahhhh, that’s what that was?” but as Players, it put up a barrier between them and their characters.  I tell myself all the time, “A good story and a good game are not the same thing,” but it’s still hard to separate the two.

I’m going to start work on editing episode 6 and hope to have posted next week.

As always, thanks for listening. We always appreciate feedback and opinions.

Thanks!!

E-mail us at Podcast@TheRpgAcademy

Hello All,

Here is Episode 4 of our D&D Next Playtest campaign. This was an interesting episode to go back and listen too and edit.  By this point we had been playing for several hours and despite the fact that we were having a lot of fun with the game, I can tell people were getting tired. Side conversations kept popping up and we were getting easily distracted. I edited out as much of that as I could, which may cause for some strange, choppy cuts. There are a few things I wanted to comment on, about the game, though.

*************SPOILERS*************** I suggest listening to the podcast before you read this!!***********************

1. This was originaly designed to be a one-shot. As such, I gave each of the Pc’s some secrets that related to other PC’s or NPCs that might cause conflict. As the game progressed I tried to get these to start to come out and kept pushing the action as new thing after new thing kept happening.

2. There were *A LOT* of notes being passed from the Players to me. Mostly because of those secrets. I tried to cut out a lot of the dead air that these notes created, but from an in-game persepective they were very effective and helping keep the game moving, just not good for listening.

3. One of Yomi’s secrets is that he had hired Stannis to get the drugs that he never paid for. Yomi is a Rexan Addict and wanted to keep it from the other PC’s (you may recall that Yomi was trying to be insistent that he could handle the Stannis situation – now you know why!)

4. Yomi’s other secret is that he is also sleeping with Grexi’s girlfriend Alishia.  Niko as a player knew this, but supposedly Grexil does not (Actually though, Grexil does know. One of his secrets is that he is actually working for a rival gang: The Silent Sisters and Alishia is his contact. To keep up his ‘too dumb to worry about status’ Alisha and he worked out an arrangement where she slept with Yomi to make him look clueless).

5. As I’ve mentioned before: no matter how much planning you do, the Players will always do something you don’t expect. I never would have guessed that the Players would have decided to open the box of Rexan they had picked up. I guess as a DM I was trying to push the action as the game drew long – the Players were doing the same.

6. A lot of notes were being passed during that scene, because both Grexil and Yomi were taking baggies of drugs without letting anyone one else notice – this casued some confusion in and out of game later – but was awesome!

7. The Shaugin encounter was supposed to be the second fight of the session, but because the Players decided to avoid it, I allowed them too. I wanted another fight just to try out the mechanic’s but the character’s actions were so much more fitting I thought it worked out best (Yomi especially!)

8. My biggest mistake in this session was glossing over the Shaugin attack. Again, trying to push the action I wanted to get to the Princesses murder – which was one of the key-stone events. I wanted to make that such a big-deal  by making the Shaugin attack so minor in comparison, but listening back the Players didn’t see it that way and I should have handled it better (if I knew we were going to keep playing I would have waited a few ‘days’ before that murder happened.

9. At several points during this episode there was some weird ambient noise. Sounded like we were moving the microphones a lot. I did my best to cut it out, but there are times when the conversation couldn’t be skipped. Sorry about that!!

I hope you continue to listen. We have one episode left from the original one-shot sessions and then we continue the game in our regular bi-weekly sessions. The group is still having a blast with the game and many of the secrets are being revealed and keeping the players on their toes. I have a couple big-reveals coming up with Gradon, Zaine’s handler that will hopefully propel the game into new territory.

As always, thanks for listening and comments and feedback are always welcome.
Thanks!!

Michael – AKA Mumbles

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Hello All,

So, apparently Evan and I messed up. The podcast posted as episode 2 was actually episode 3. I’ve changed the posting title, but the recording is the same. If you are interested in episode 2 you can find posted as Dungeon Talk: Episode 8.1 The Battle.  It was originally posted as part of our DndNext Playtest discussion.

In this episode, the Pc’s finish up their first mission of getting protection money from the shops along West Market Street. They go back to meet Gradon who doesn’t seem to happy with how things played out. He then gives them a couple more jobs to do; One of which is to meet up with Sir Acues head of the Royal Guard for his quarterly bribe.

As has quickly become the norm, things do not go as planned.

Comments and feedback are always welcome.

Thanks!!

Michael – AKA Mumbles.

E-mail us at Podcast@TheRpgAcademy

Hello All,

Here is Dungeon Talk: Episode 10.  The title comes from the fact that we started twice before we were actually recording (once for about 45 minutes . . .) and then on take 3 we started laughing at ourselves and had to start over again.

We had a couple suggestions for topics from Twitterer @Berliad; Running a game in an official setting (Eberron, Dragonlance, Greyhaw, Forgotten Realms, etc . . .,) vs Homebrew and then running a module vs. a homebrew adventure.  We had covered it twice before we recorded so I’m not sure we had it in us to give the topic justice that third time.

We also covered group size and when should a player or DM cancel a game.

Please stick around till the end. Evan recorded a new outtro piece that is awesome!

As always, thanks for listening and feedback/comments are welcomed.

Also, here are the game notes that Niko was talking about for when he writes up adventures for him to run.

E-mail us at Podcast@TheRpgAcademy

Here is the second half of Dungeon Talk Episode 9. Enjoy!

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Tonights podcast is just a little different.  We played our usual weekly game, and when it was over at around 10 pm, we decided to stay at Michael’s house and record an episode of Dungeon Talk.  Niko and Jared were able to stick around and join us which was fun because I always think the conversation is better when there’s more than just me and Michael.  The quality is a not as good since it was in Michael’s basement and the sound really echoes down there.  Also sometimes you will be able to here the furnace running in the background, hahaha.   If i didn’t think the conversation was that great I probably would have opted to scrap it and just record another one, but I thought there was some really good back and forth going on and good questions too.

Some topics we talked about were:

What made us want to switch from playing characters and be a DM.

Of course we talk about DnD Next and how great we think it is, although Jared offers us some reasons why he enjoys 3.5 more.

The differences between building and developing characters in DnD Next compared to past games.

Michael asked what advice I might give to someone who was thinking of DMing for the first time.

Hope you enjoy, and as always please leave us some comments and suggestions for topics.

E-mail us at Podcast@TheRpgAcademy

Hello All,

Here is the inaugural episode of our new The Campaigns series of podcasts. These are actual play sessions of our current D&D Next Games.

In this episode we meet the main characters (all except Wang, who is Jared’s character and did not come in until the following session. You should meet him around episode 4) Zaine, played by Evan, is a Human Rogue with the Scavenger background (home-brewed) and Survivor Specialty.  Yomi, played by Rob is a Halfing Rogue with the Bounty Hunter Background and Archer specialty.  Grexil, played by Niko, is a Mutant (home-brewed) Fighter with the Spy background and 2-handed weapon specialty (home-brewed).

Please take a listen as our Hero’s, um . . . PC’s come to life at the table and experience their adventures with them.

Comments and feedback are always welcome.

Thanks!!

Michael – AKA Mumbles.

E-mail us at Podcast@TheRpgAcademy

Hello all,

Here is the back half of the recap/discussion we had after our DnD Next Playtest.

Thanks!!

E-mail us at Podcast@TheRpgAcademy

Hello all,

Here is a slightly edited version of the battle I ran during the DnD Next Playtest.  This battle was all Theater of the Mind; no mini’s, no grid.

Please look over Evan’s sniffles . . .

Thanks!!

E-mail us at Podcast@TheRpgAcademy

Hello all,

Last Saturday, I ran a DnD Next Playtest for my regular gaming group. We had been running a 3.5 game and because we had 3 out of 4 PC’s that were non-core classes it would be difficult to switch over. So I decided to run a alternate game that ran side by side of the  regular game.

The Players were given pre-gen characters. Each were essentially low-level gangsters; Part of the Crimson Claw Crime Syndicate. This session occurred in the city that the PC’s were currently heading toward.

Zaine, played by Evan, was the crew leader. A human Rogue with a Scavenger Background (House Ruled, as he worked to find lost artifacts in the wasteland north of the city) and the Survivor Speciality.

Grexil, played by Niko, was the muscle. A muttant (long story, but my game includes an alien race that took over the world and then left ) fighter with Slayer background and 2-handed weapon specialist (House Rule).

Yomi, played by Rob, was a Halfing Rogue with the Bounty Hunter Background and Archer Specialty.

The play test went over great. All the players did a fantastic job and wanted to drop the original game and switch over (which makes me happy and sad at the same time).

Here is the discussion Evan and I had about this play test the following day.

Thanks!!

Michael – AKA Mumbles

E-mail us at Podcast@TheRpgAcademy