Dungeon Chatter

A Party Comes Together: A Modal Approach to Group Dynamics Travis Joseph Rodgers Ars Arcana Blog Volume III, Number 1 Two of the central struggles associated with an RPG party - as opposed to the players or the game itself - are how to bring a diverse group of characters together in the first place and how to keep them sufficiently together in the long run to keep them a party. I draw out two distinct polaristic approaches that are especially difficult to make work for most groups: hard railroad and utter chaos. I draw out a third possibility, based on modal operators (what is possible, what is necessary, what is impossible). Hard Railroad Whatever railroading is in an RPG, there is a bad version of it. Eliminating player agency altogether seems also to eliminate the role of the player. This seems antithetical to the nature of an RPG (it's a ROLE PLAYING game, after all). At the same time, what amounts to railroading will depend upon what an agent wants to do. If an agent w...

Ars Arcana Blog: Bringing Your Character to Life with SPARK Travis J. Rodgers The Challenge(s) For the grizzled vet of RPGs, creating a character is often a struggle of too many options rather than not knowing where to start. The character concept comes easily to mind, either because there is a character the vet has been wanting to play or because vets often have served as GM as well as player for so long, character concepts seem to spring from an endless font. The challenge becomes determining which of the system options is the best way to make use of your character concept. Let’s call this the “How? Question” of character design. On the other hand, for the relative novice to Roleplaying, the challenge is two-fold. In addition, to the struggles of navigating a system’s options, the novice may not have, and may struggle to create, the character concept. Let’s call this new question the “What? Question” of character design. The SPARK In an episode of the Dungeon Chat...

Dungeon Chatter Podcast Episode 6: F is for Fail In this episode, Travis and Victoria discuss modeling failure in an RPG. It seems clear enough that a successful attack hits and deals damange, but what does a failed attack mean? We discuss failure in combat, moving maneuvers, perception, and persuasion. iTunes Link https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dungeon-chatter-rpg-podcast/id1435743168 Works Discussed TTRPGs AD&D, Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP) Video Games Super Mario Bros., Wasteland Concepts Failure, Critical Failure, Natural 20, Natural 1, The DM Screen Show Notes Victoria is becoming an editing pro. This episode sounds great, and she should soon edit out an F-bomb that she missed in the first edit through. The Pitch Simple Failure: Die rolls of 0-9 represent rough percentage of task completed. So, 10% x die roll = % of action completed (6x10% = 60%). Critical failures In general, they set you back, offering a penalty to further attempts. neg...

Dungeon Chatter Podcast Episode 5: E is for Experience In this episode, Travis and Victoria discuss experience points, milestones, leveling up, and becoming harder to defeat. Podchaser RSS Link https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/dungeon-chatter-rpg-podcast-724742 Works Discussed TTRPGs:  AD&D, Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP), Rolemaster (RM), Generic Universal Role Playing System AD&D 2nd edition, Unearthed Arcana, MERP, RM, World of Darkness, GURPS, Shadow Run Video Games:  Darkest Dungeon Literature:  Rilke Concepts:  Experience for killing stuff, possession of magic items, "defeating" enemies, experiencing the dungeon, using skills, failing, Milestone Leveling vs. Experience Leveling. Show Notes For the second show in a row, I think this was our best sounding podcast, from a technical point of view. There are fewer pops, too, this time around. Mostly Travis’s fault. The Pitch Blood of Heroes: Experience as...

We are officially on iTunes, and our first four episodes are now posted! You can check them out at the link below: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dungeon-chatter-rpg-podcast/id1435743168 Episodes A is for Armor B is for Blood of Heroes C is for Character Creation D is for Damage

Dungeon Chatter Podcast Episode 3: C is for Character Creation In this episode, Travis and Victoria discuss character creation methods, including how the system functions in Blood of Heroes. We create Han Solo using our heroic creation method. Soundcloud Link https://soundcloud.com/dungeonchatter/003-character-creation Works Discussed TTRPGs AD&D, Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP), Rolemaster (RM), Generic Universal Role Playing System (GURPS) Video Games I don’t think we touched on any specific ones here. Literature Star Wars Concepts PBTRPG (Play by Tweet/Text RPG), PBM (Play by Mail), PBEM (Play by Email). We also discuss charisma and interactions, specifically regarding a party member (my son) who is on the autism spectrum but plays a character with a high charisma. Probably worth an entire show on its own. Show Notes I think this was our best sounding podcast, from a technical point of view. Realizing we need to reduce our mic pops...

Dungeon Chatter Podcast Episode 2: B is for Blood of Heroes In this episode, Travis and Victoria discuss the swords and sorcery setting they’re building. Soundcloud Link https://soundcloud.com/dungeonchatter/002-b-is-for-blood-of-heroes Works Discussed TTRPGs AD&D, Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP), Rolemaster (RM), Mage: The Ascension (Sorry I couldn’t remember the name at the time), StarWars the RPG Video Games Wasteland, Bethesda generally Literature Harry Potter, JRR Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, Mickey Zucker Reichert Concepts The majesty and prevalence of dragons, ritual magic/divine magic, blood magic/demonic magic Show Notes Occasional fireworks because it was July 4th The Pitch Swords (technology level) and Sorcery (there is magic) The flavor of Republican (and possibly Imperial) Rome (technology and flavor) Dragons as rare but incredibly powerful Magic as truly arcane, also possibly establishing some “good vs. evil” poss...

We've done it! The podcast is now alive on Soundcloud, and we'll post it to iTunes and a few other places this weekend. Please head over to https://soundcloud.com/dungeonchatter to listen to A is for Armor, B is for Blood of Heroes, and C is for Character Creation. Dungeon Chatter Podcast Episode 1: A is for Armor In this episode, Travis and Victoria discuss armor systems in RPGs. TTRPGs discussed: AD&D, Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP), Rolemaster (RM), Marvel Superheroes, StarWars the RPG, Fading Suns, Rifts, Generic Universal Role Playing System (GURPS), Video Games discussed: Knights of the Old Republic, Shadow Run Concepts Discussed: thac0, Armor Class, Double 20s, Decapitations Show Notes: around 17 minutes, the audio becomes a bit fainter briefly; we’re still working out our audio. ARMOR PITCH The armor pitch is based on armor types and two characteristics:              ...