Category: Meta Blogging

Dear Pathfinder,

Pathfinder and I have had a long and tumultuous relationship.

When I started Papers & Pencils, then called “Comma, Blank_,” I was still a D&D 3.5 player. I was aware of Pathfinder, but preferred to stick with the system I already had 30+ supplements for. About two years ago, by some happenstance, I was chatting with a fellow at my local comic book store, Fantasium. He was interested in starting a Pathfinder campaign, and he seemed cool, so I gave him my email address and purchased the Pathfinder Core Rulebook on an impulse. I never heard from that guy again, which didn’t matter much, because I was thoroughly impressed by Pathfinder’s improvements to 3.5. My initial reaction to the system was nothing but fawning praise, and I immediately started referring to this as a “Pathfinder Blog.”

Then I found Hack & Slash, and from there started to explore more of the OSR. I was exposed to a greater diversity of game design theories than I had known existed, and many of my fundamental ideas were challenged. My opinions began to shift. Issues which I had previously viewed as “the limitations of tabletop games,” became “the limitations of the tabletop games I’ve played.” As an example, I had long been frustrated by how difficult it was to get players to manage their characters on their own, the OSR made me realize that perhaps my game was asking them to manage too much shit.

In the last two years I’ve become increasingly dissatisfied with Pathfinder. One reader* recently told me they were surprised I still played, given how critical I am of it. And truth be told, I don’t. Not really. I do still have one Pathfinder game in progress, but I run it in such a modified form that there’s about as much Pathfinder left in that game as there is man left in Darth Vader. And when this campaign ends (presumably when I move away from the players) I doubt if I’ll ever start another game based on the Pathfinder rules.

Put plainly, Pathfinder and I have parted ways.

That doesn’t mean you’ll never see another Pathfinder post here. I’d like to finish my Pathfinder Class Analysis series, because I’ve found that project to be fertile grounds for game design inspiration. I’ve also got at least one pathfinder-specific project which I’ve wanted to finish for years now, but have been putting off because I’m lazy and dumb and lazy. What it does mean is that Colorful Characters, Merciless Monsters, and Magical Marvels won’t be posted with Pathfinder game rules any longer, which is a big relief for me, because fitting everything into the Pathfinder framework was exhausting work.

Since 90% of my readership is non-pathfinder players anyway (somehow I ended up as an honorary initiate in the OSR?) I presume this news is long overdue for most of you.

(*Hi Matt!)

The Return of the Blogger

Hey guys! Its been awhile. I’ve missed you, and I know this is never fun to hear, but we need to talk about our relationship. Because I’m a melodramatic blogger who takes his electronic word page far too seriously. There’s a TL;DR at the bottom if you need it.

When I started my little break, I ostensibly did so because I wanted to improve my life by looking for a less miserable job in a much better city. Then I got the news that my grandfather’s health was failing, which sucked. Then I had a fun little adventure in dentistry, which also sucked. Stuff sucked and I figured it was as good a time as any to take a break from P&P. Truthfully, I’d wanted to take a break for a long while, and bad stuff happening was a convenient excuse. Not to pacify you, good reader, but to convince myself I wasn’t just being lazy.

My writing here has always been more important to me than it probably ought to be. I do that; I take things too seriously. Failure to meet my self-imposed update deadlines would ruin my whole week. It’s an unhealthy way to view a project like this one, I know. But Papers & Pencils made me feel as though my life had some forward momentum when I was severely depressed from lack thereof. But it was stressing me out, and draining my creativity, and the moment I gave myself permission to be more lax about updating, I stopped updating completely.

In case I haven’t made it painfully obvious with my whining, I’m not fond of my current life situation. Things took a wrong turn for me at some point a long time ago, and I’ve felt lost and out of control for years now. I want to make a better life for myself as a working writer and game designer. It’s not a profitable life goal, but it’s a life I think I can be happy with. Papers & Pencils has been an expression of that goal. My attempt to discipline myself as a writer, to teach myself about tabletop games, and to practice my craft day after day. In these goals I think I have been relatively successful, but I passed the point of diminishing returns some time ago and I failed to notice. I need to push myself in different ways if I want to continue to improve.

What needs to come next for me, I think, is focusing on and completing larger projects. The Hidden Tomb of Slaggoth is a step in the right direction, and I want to keep that momentum going. I’m already working on a new tabletop project, which I’ll discuss in an upcoming post. And when that’s done I want to do another. A module, or a gaming supplement, or a collection of short stories, or a novel, or a complete sourcebook. Some of them will be free, (like Slaggoth), others will be for monies because at some point I have to gather up my balls and proclaim to the world that I think I’ve made something which I deserve to be compensated for.

So what does all of this livejournal nonsense mean for Papers & Pencils? Hopefully it pleases you to know that Papers & Pencils isn’t going away. But up to now, I’ve treated P&P like the most important thing in my life*. This will no longer be the case. Whatever major project(s) I’m working on will take on that role. So while I am aiming to maintain a rough M/T/Th/F update schedule here, I’m resolving not to stress about it if I miss a day.

*Yes. This is the best I could do with something I thought was that important to me. I’ve got a real future as a writer, amirite?

I’m also aiming to write shorter posts in general. I’ve always aimed for a sort of “informal essay” style while writing for this site, but that’s hard to keep up with day after day. So while an informal essay will still pop up if I’ve got a topic I really want to dig into, I suspect things will get quite a bit more “blog-ish” around here. Not to say that’s a bad thing, just a different thing than I’ve been doing.

I like Papers and Pencils. I like sharing what’s on my mind, I like the great friends I’ve made, and I like YOU. I’ve received more emails from readers in the last month and a half than I think I received in the year prior to that. It has been so encouraging to chat with the people who enjoy reading what I think, and to hear what they think. I hope I can continue to entertain you with my scribblings.

TL;DR I’m gonna spend more time working on books. P&P will get less attention, but it’s not going away. I still love you. Hope you still love me. XOXOXXXOOO

On Practicing the Dead Ways

When you move a website’s URL, there’s always going to be this annoying dip in traffic. It’s frustrating, because as a webmaster you’re doing this to improve your website and make it more accessible for your readership. But this dip is also natural. People who only ‘kinda’ liked your site won’t bother to update their bookmarks. New readers who come to your site by following old links might be interested enough to check your newest post, but not so interested that they’ll click over to an entirely new website. It takes some time for a new site to gain traction.

One of my very favorite OSR bloggers, Brendan of Untimately, is no longer of Untimately. You can now find his writings at:

www.NecroPraxis.com

I highly recommend going over and checking Brendan’s new digs out. It’s not an easy admission for me, but I honestly think Brendan is a better GM and a better blogger than I am. I consistently learn something from every post I read, and being a player in his Pahvelorn campaign has been the most consistently fun role playing experience I have ever had. No exceptions. If you’re reading Papers & Pencils, then you ought to be reading Necropraxis as well.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to catch up on the posts I missed.

OD&D-ish Stuff I've Been Doing

The scheduling here on Papers & Pencils is important to me. If I’m being honest, it’s probably unhealthy how much importance I place on my posting schedule. Anytime I miss a day it feels like the end of the world. I’ll avoid detailing my emotional pitfalls, but it can get bad. I’m also human, though, so there are times now and again when I simply don’t care about tabletop games. I mean…Dishonored is so good, and I’ve been re-reading the X-Wing series, and do I really have to write about wizards at the moment? What has often happened in the past is that I’ve solved this problem by making really shitty posts. Which actually solves nothing. I know the post is shitty, so I still feel bad about it, and the immense amount of time I spend stressing about that only prolongs my momentary disinterest in tabletop games.

I’m not announcing a hiatus or anything. Just offering an explanation. I don’t know if any of my readers pay attention to my schedule, or feel disappointed when I’ve failed to update on time. But I do know that in the past 15 days, I’ve missed 4 posts. At this point, I thought an explanation was warranted.

Moving on, I’d like to share some stuff I’ve been doing in the OD&D-ish game I’ve been running for my younger brother and one of his friends.

I call it OD&D-ish because I’m not very familiar with the OD&D rules, or with the way OD&D GMs go about things. My entire experience in that regard comes from flipping through the three “little brown books” (which I’ve found to be disorganized and nigh-incomprehensible in some sections), and from playing in Vaults of Pahvelorn. Anything I don’t understand, I’ve filled in with whatever seems to mesh with the spirit of the game, as judged by me at the time that I need to come up with it. If you thumb through my campaign pages for this game, you’ll find numerous sections where all I’ve written is “I’ll detail this when its needed.” It’s a disorganized way to run a game, but in my defense I thought the game would be a one-shot. And the kids keep coming back, so it can’t be all that terrible.

The design-as-you-go nature of the game has forced me to come up with some ideas I don’t know if I would have come up with otherwise, two of which in particular I’m happy with: Alchemy, and Trade Caravans.

Alchemy

Upon reaching second level, a magic user has achieved sufficient learning to attempt creating alchemical concoctions. This requires that the magic user have access to an alchemical laboratory, and the creation of each potion will require large investments of time and gold. Like spells, potions (and other alchemical products), have levels.

Each alchemical product requires a number of material components which must be purchased from the town herbalist, such as leaves, seeds, and nectars from plants all over the world. The cost of the components are [50gp * Potion Level] So a first level potion would cost 50gp to make, a 2nd level potion would require 100gp to make, and so forth.

Alchemical products also take time. The materials must be painstakingly prepared so as not to contaminate them, and and even once all the work is done, it can take days for the mixture to slowly, drop-by-drop produce enough of the liquid to create the desired effect even once. Each alchemical product requires 1 week per recipe level to complete.

Regarding recipes, you will need them before you can create a working potion. Like magic, alchemical knowledge is rare and difficult to come by. However, recipes are freely traded, and are normally much less expensive than spell scrolls. It’s also likely that you’ll find some recipes among treasure hordes!

It is possible to create a recipe yourself through research, but alchemical research can be an expensive and time consuming proposition! In addition to costing [250gp * Potion Level] in material components used for experimentation and failure, the process will require [1d6 + Potion Level] weeks to complete. If you have a potion to reverse-engineer, then you may reduce either the cost, or the time required by 20%. Having a magic user apprentice who is willing to assist you can reduce either the cost or time by an additional 20%. (In each case, you must pick only one of the two. If you have both a potion to reverse engineer, and an apprentice, then the two you select need not be the same).

If you do not have a potion which you are reverse engineering, Alchemical research will result in discovery of a random potion, determined by the GM.

Some alchemical products may be associated either with clerics, or magic users. For example, a healing potion will be associated with clerics. In that case, a Magic User may still create a healing potion, but the potion will be treated as though it is 1 level higher. So if a healing potion is a level 1 alchemical product, then a magic user who wishes to create one will treat it as a level 2 alchemical product, which costs 100 gp and takes 2 weeks to produce.

An example Alchemical recipe is Strength of the Bull. It’s a level 1 alchemical recipe for clerics and magic users. When consumed, it grants the person who drinks it immense strength for 1 minute. With it, the player can ignore most strength checks, lift heavy boulders, and even smash through walls. A punch from someone who has consumed a Bull’s Strength potion would be equivalent to 2d6 damage.
Bull’s Strength doesn’t make a person Superman. They couldn’t knock over a building or lift a sailing galley over their head, but their strength is superhuman none the less.

Trade Caravans

Like Vaults of Pahvelorn, all of the XP in my game comes from the players spending gold. It’s been amazing to watch just how instantaneously players internalize this fact, and become ravenous treasure hunters. It wasn’t long, though, before they’d spent all the money they wanted to spend on basic amenities, and started asking me what else they could spend their treasure on. I needed to come up with some items they could purchase which wouldn’t break my low-magic setting, but would also be interesting enough to the players that they’d feel compelled to spend piles of gold on it.

I immediately thought of Thracle’s Emporium, a shop in the town of Zorfath, which regularly sells oddities such as a miniature wyvern, Dragonbane arrows, or gems with the souls of ghosts trapped inside. The Emporium has often been the subject of discussion in the Vaults of Pahvalorn campaign, as we all scramble to find gold for whatever odd or end the shop has.

Since my game’s town, Haetrope, is a trading town on the edge of Elven territory, I decided that merchants traveling to and from the elven lands would serve the same role as Thracle’s Emporium, for my players. Every few days I come up with a bunch of random items, assign them to a caravan, and let my players know that new goods are available in town. Some of them have obvious uses, while others are simply highly valuable, and still others have uses which aren’t obvious at all. A few days after each caravan arrives in town, it leaves again. The system is pretty simple to pull off, since we manage the campaign online anyway, and everybody seems to be enjoying throwing their money at the various oddities which crop up.

As an example, here are the caravans currently stopped in town:

Marigold’s Caravan

  • 8 finely crafted oaken chairs, engraved with symbols of nature = 100 gp / ea
  • 1 finely crafted oaken table. Seats 8, engraved with symbols of nature = 1000 gp
  • 3 masterwork elven padlocks = 65 gp / ea
  • A chest with a magical lock upon it, which no one has yet been able to open = 500 gp
  • A miniature bear, about the size of a cat. It is fully grown. = 750 gp

The Corvani Family Trading Caravan

  • The Longsword of an Ancient King. It does not appear to be magical, but was once wielded by an unknown hero. It is extremely ornate. = 1700 gp
  • Exhausted Wand, crafted by an elven wizard, this wand retains no magical powers. = 100 gp
  • A ballista = 600 gp
  • 14 Ballista Bolts = 40gp/ea
  • 8 potions of healing from the elven lands = 100 gp/ea
  • 1 potion of Sight Through Walls = 200 gp
  • A block of the finest elven marble, large enough for a life sized statue = 1500 gp
  • 12 pairs of silk, elven shoes = 60 gp / ea

Dade’s Caravan

  • A grand piano. Well crafted, though not ornate = 700 gp
  • 12 Perisnia blosoms, potted in elvish soil = 30 gp / ea
  • A lightweight steel staff, topped with an owl holding a glass orb between its wings. Does not appear to be magical. = 1000 gp
  • 3 books detailing the language of Ancient Common = 25 gp / ea
  • 8 very fine elven dresses. Proportioned for an elvish frame = 100 gp / ea
  • 20 yards of elvish silk = 50 gp / ea

In closing, you should totally play Dishonored. So good.

1st Annual Papers & Pencils Reader Census Results

And now a brief interruption to the recent Halloween themed postings.

Over two months ago, I put up a reader census for the 1st year anniversary of Papers & Pencils. My plan, at the time, was to run the census for a little over a week, then shut it down, and quickly generate a bunch of graphs comparing the data. The first part worked out alright. During the week that the census was open I received 38 responses. Which may not be a broad enough group of respondents for a meaningful statistical analysis, but it is a significant percentage of my estimated readership, so I was happy. I wouldn’t trust any statistical analysis I performed anyway.

Then began the wrestling with how to make graphs. Either I’m remarkably incompetent, or this is a much more difficult task than it ought to be. And as time consuming as the process was, my procrastination instincts kicked in. Until here we are: very close to three months after the fact, and I haven’t discussed the results yet. Because I am a bad person. It has been so long at this point that it seems a little weird for me to be posting this at all. But there are some responses here which I think deserve to be shared. Particularly some of the comments. So I’m just going to post and comment upon these results without graphs, and without comparison. Hopefully I can figure out how to do this more efficiently when it comes time for the 2013 census!

Are you a regular reader of Papers & Pencils?

Yes, I read most posts. (21)
Yes, I read every post. (10)
I read the site occasionally. (7)

How do you access P&P’s Posts?

I keep the website bookmarked. (18)
I have Papers & Pencils in my RSS Reader. (17)
I get updates via twitter. (2)
Just check every few days. (1)

What is your tabletop game of choice? (Multiple selections allowed)

Oldschool D&D, or a Retroclone similar to it (17)
Pathfinder (16)
3rd Edition D&D (10)
4th Edition D&D (3)
Almost anything (3)
My own (2)
Don’t have a favorite (1)
White Wolf World of Darkness (1)
“none” (1)

I’m pretty surprised I have so many 4th edition players among my readers. Hello, peoples!

How long have you been reading Papers & Pencils?

Started in August-September 2011, when the site was rarely updated (4)
Started in October-November, when the site was updated 5/week (2)
Started in December-February 2011, before the site moved off Blogger (5)
Started reading before June, in 2012 (16)
Started reading during or after June 2012 (12)

How did you first find Papers & Pencils?

Through a web search. (12)
Via a link posted by -C on Hack & Slash (6)
Don’t remember (4)
Followed a link on Twitter (3)
Via the blogroll of another tabletop blog. (3)
Was referred by a friend. (2)
I’m a personal friend of LS (2)
Met LS in real life, was given a business card. (1)
Via a post linked on Reddit. (1)
I am -C (1)
The Link from Penny Arcade (1)
Saw LS’ comment on another site. (1)
May of the Dead Carnival (1)

That is not a real answer, Courtney. >:(

Are you a blogger yourself?

No, I’m not a blogger(22)
Yes, I also blog about tabletop games. (10)
Yes, but I blog about a topic other than tabletop games. (6)

What is your level of involvement with tabletop gaming?

Game Master (19)
Passionate Beginner (8)
Aspiring Professional (4)
Avid Player (3)
Casual (3)
Professional in the tabletop gaming industry. (1)

Dude, one of my readers is a pro? That’s awesome. Tell me that’s not awesome, guys.

What new topics would you be interested in reading about on Papers & Pencils? (Multiple selections allowed)

Amateur Game Design (13)
A larger variety of RPG Systems (11)
Nothing new, please! I like what you cover already.(11)
Book Reviews(10)
War Games (5)
Card games (4)
Board Games (3)

These are all topics which I’m interested in, and may write more about or not. It’s good to know there is at least some interest in each of them. Particularly the top 3, which are the 3 which I’m most interested in writing about. I do worry that I may not have been clear with “Nothing new, please! I like what you cover already,” because many people selected both that option, and several others.

I tend to ramble quite a bit before getting to the point of a given post. As a reader, how do you feel about this?

It is entertaining. (38)
It is annoying. (0)

Maybe people were worried about hurting my feelings with this one? Honestly, I’ve long felt it is poor style for me to ramble the way I do. But if 100% of people who participated actually enjoy my round-about way of expressing myself, then perhaps I oughtn’t worry about it.

Do you comment on the site’s posts?

No, I do not comment. (14)
Yes, occasionally. (11)
I have, once or twice. (8)
Yes, often! (1)

I’m really glad that so many people who don’t normally comment on the site were willing to fill out the form. I understand that often you don’t feel like you have anything to say in response to a post, or you don’t have time to comment on all the posts you read. The fact that you read my writing is more than enough for me.

And to those of you who do comment, thank you. I know it’s silly of me to think this way, but if Papers & Pencils goes for a week or so without getting any new comments, I begin to feel as though nobody is reading any more.

What is your gender?

Male (32)
Female (4)
“Just Kidding!” (1)

This says some depressing things about the way our hobby welcomes women. Either that, or it says some depressing things about the inclusiveness of my writing.

Either way, I’m going to do what I can to improve upon that going forward through the next year.

How would you rate P&P’s fiction posts, including the Friday characters, items, monsters & locations?

1 out of 5 ()2 out of 5 (4)
3 out of 5 (7)
4 out of 5 (11)
5 out of 5 (13)

How would you rate P&P’s posts which focus on game mechanics and system critique?

1 out of 5 ()2 out of 5 ()
3 out of 5 (6)
4 out of 5 (16)
5 out of 5 (14)

How would you rate P&P’s posts which contemplate gaming philosophies?

1 out of 5 ()2 out of 5 ()
3 out of 5 (7)
4 out of 5 (16)
5 out of 5 (14)

These three questions were probably my least well considered. To be frank, I’m not even sure how I would classify posts in which I “Contemplate gaming philosophies.” I was trying to break down the various types of posts I do into as few categories as possible, so people could rate them. But I don’t think I succeeded in asking good questions here.

Though it does make me happy to see that everything is so heavily weighted towards the positive. I love you too, readers!

After clearing out a cave filled with violent orcs, you and your party come upon a large group of orc babies. What do you do?

Find someone else to care for them. (10)
Raise them as your own. (6)
Leave them to their fates. (5)
Find an Orc to care for them (4)
Kill them. (3)
Find an Orc to care for them–But make sure it’s far from civilization. (1)
I’m usually the DM, and I don’t put orc babies in my games. (1)
Depends on the GM. (1)
Depends on the party. (1)
What alignment am I? (1)
Enslave them. (1)
Roast a few to see if orc jerky tastes good, then deal with the rest. (1)

This is a question which comes up now and again. The apparent conflicts which rise around it have inspired me to be clear with my players about the kind of game worlds I run. They are worlds where monstrous humanoids are often evil, but it is a socialized, not an inherent, trait. The write in answers are arranged from least to most evil for my game world.

What is your level of education?

In Highschool (2)
In College (12)
Associates Degree/Professional Certification (4)
Bachelor’s Degree (9)
Some Graduate School (3)
Master’s Degree (5)

I must apologize for this question. It was pointed out to me several days after the census went up that I was missing an option for “Highschool Graduate.” That was foolish of me, and possibly insulting to those who chose not to pursue further academic goals after highschool. I will not make that mistake again.

What is your age?

18-25 (13)
25-35 (18)
36-45 (5)
46-55 (1)

How frequently do you play tabletop games?

Don’t have a group right now, but want one! (2)
Rarely (2)
Monthly (3)
Bi-Weekly (7)
Weekly (15)
More than once per week (7)

Do you play tabletop games online, or off?

I only play offline (16)
I play offline whenever I can, but enjoy playing online as well. (15)
I have no group to play with at all! (3)
I can’t find an offline group, so I play online. (3)

How long does a typical game session last?

1-3 Hours (10)
4-6 Hours (24)
7-9 Hours (1)


Individual Comments

I like your distinct lack of 4th edition, but the way you still consider it’s points.

Thank you. I honestly have very little experience with 4th edition, but I’ve found very little I consider valuable in what I have read. I do not like the direction the development was taken. That being said, one would have to be a fool to act as though every idea that went into 4th edition was a bad one.

[Your] face is very “grey-beard in training”; take that as you will.

Recognizing that you prefer not to tie yourself to one system or another, the over-all resistance to engaging in a deeper discussion of how your thoughts or ideas might be applied to a particular system (as it has occasionally come up in comments), is a bit off-putting.

I’m pretty sure I know exactly which post, and which comment, you are referring to, since to my knowledge this has only ever come up once. To be clear, I do not avoid tying myself to a specific system most of the time. Sometimes, though, I write about an idea which is purely theoretical, which I may perhaps use in a future game system of my own design. In those cases, discussing the idea within the context of a specific system is often not very productive.

But your point is well taken. I sometimes become defensive when my ego is bruised, and that is a weakness of mine which I must improve upon. If I have made you or anyone uncomfortable because I was being overzealous in defense of my ideas, I do apologize.

While I was reading your Ding Two post, I looked at the articles you felt were bad. I think you are too hard on yourself, but as a fellow writer, I understand the drive for improvement and the need for self-criticism. Buy give yourself a break! It’s a blog you do for fun and for free.

I confess that anytime I write a bad post or miss my own deadlines, my imagination tends to blow things out of proportion. As though everyone who reads the blog is furious at me for failing to live up to my own expectations. Your reassurances are appreciated!

When searching in the archives it would be helpful to have page numbers we can use to find a post we are looking for. And on that topic, what about a search bar.

Page numbers is an interesting idea. I’m not sure how it would work (please elaborate if you’re reading) but I’ll take it under advisement. A search bar, as well as other methods to improve ease-of-navigation, are being worked on.

Stated reading around end early July, went from the beginning post and read every post through to now. Enjoy your colourful sense of humour. You and a lot of other blogs have made me want to make my own, even if it’s only got a few posts to get things off my head. And yes I’m shamelessly plugging: http://clockworkwizard.blogspot.com.au/

Also, as a scientist, a census refers to compulsory information being taken from every unit within a population. A census would require the survey be taken by reader visiting the site, and not just those who chose to fill it in. So it’s actually the Papers & Pencils 2012 Survey. Unless you could measure the number of people who accessed the site and didn’t do the survey, in which you could reduce non-sampling error by including non-participation as a behavioral based, observational category.

Of course, I’m being lighthearted, and would have written census myself 😛

What a sneaky way to get a link from my website!

It’s pretty awesome to have a scientist among my readership. I actually didn’t know about that distinction between census and survey, so that’s useful information. Though, like you, I think I’ll continue to use ‘census’ for these. After all, I want all of my readers to take it. >.>

Still one of my favorite blogs.

I was surprised to see you are male. I don’t mean that in a “Dude! You write like a girl!” sort of way. (Although there are linguistics studies that claim the number of pronouns used as well as sentence structure can pinpoint gender.) Perhaps it is simply that, as a female reader, I don’t feel excluded or patronized when I read your blog. I don’t feel like a “female reader”, just a reader. So, thank you.

I count this among the finest compliments I have ever received in my life. I was grinning for days after reading it. Thank you.

keep up the good work

I will try, thanks!

Always an entertaining read! Gets the mind going, and is a great place for inspiration in my own games. I always love to see how other DMs “do their thing”, as it were.

I’m glad I can provide inspiration for you. That’s one of my primary goals with this website.

Keep up the excellent work, comrade.

I will always provide according to my ability, comrade!

You are an amazing man judging from your posts on Twitter. I look forward to more P&P posts. Also, I’d like to see some roleplaying posts (I am more of a roleplayer), but only if you want to.

I’m a little speechless. Thank you for your kind words, and if I don’t follow you on twitter, let me know so I can start!

The process of getting into a role is not something I often do these days, though I’m no stranger to it. I used to be an avid role player on forums and in World of Warcraft. But as a GM, I prefer to focus on crafting an interesting environment for my players. And in the games where I am not a GM, I am most often focused on overcoming obstacles, and don’t tend to invest myself as much in my character’s personality or backstory. None the less, I’ll see if this is something I can explore more on Papers & Pencils.

Great blog.  I don’t always agree with your gaming ideas, but you do make me think.

I get bored with people who agree with me too often. Disagreement and lively discussion are how we learn about each other, and improve ourselves. So disagree with me all you like, my good man!

Keep on the GREAT work! (^_^)b

I’ll do my best. “Great” is a high expectation to live up to! I hope I do not disappoint.

Im a very amateur GM (I’ve run all of one session of my first [recently started] game, and your articles are helping me to be better at what I do. You’ve really helped me already and I love your site.

It means a lot to me to know that I’ve helped. I imagine that by now you’ve run at least a few more sessions. I’d be curious to know if there are any articles you found particularly helpful, or if there is any topic you’d like to see me cover! I’m always open to post suggestions from my readers.

The Girl and the Granite Throne – good. Get on that.

If you say so! Chapter four went up early this month, and chapter five will go up in about two weeks.

I love how you’ve explored how races of monsters are people too, just people who see things a different way.

I personally find the game world to be a much more interesting place if only 90% of ‘evil’ humanoids are actually evil (maybe 99.99%, in the case of goblins). Many people disagree with me on this, but it’s good to know that I’m not entirely alone in this belief.

I want to thank all of my readers, particularly those who responded to the census, for indulging this annual vanity of mine. I found it immensely informative, and reinvigorating. Hopefully by next year I’ll have become a little more competent with Google Docs, and be able to present the data in a more visually pleasing way.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled Halloween programming.

1st Annual Papers & Pencils Reader Census

I’ll just admit right up front that I’m completely lifting this idea from Jen McCright of Blag Hag. I’ve had the opportunity to participate in three of her annual reader censuses over the years, and I’ve always thought they were a lot of fun. So now that I have my very own blog which has lasted a full year, I thought I’d get in on that fun for myself! I’m not a scientist, and I don’t have the kind of statistical knowledge that she does, but the results should be interesting to muse over none the less.

So here’s how this works. First, you visit:

The Papers & Pencils 2012 Reader Census

Then you fill out the questions as best you can, and click submit. It’s not very long and shouldn’t take much of your time. There are only 8 multiple choice questions that are required, with some extra optional questions at the end. You’ll be able to take the survey until Saturday the 18th, at whatever time I get around to closing it.

If you read and enjoy Papers & Pencils, I would like to ask you to take a few minutes to do this. It should only take a moment, and the more responses I get, the more reliable my eventual data will be. Hopefully, what I learn here should help me better understand and serve my readership.

Ding! Level Two

WARNING: This post is self-indulgent tripe. Turn back now, while you still can!

One year ago today, I was depressed. My life had taken a number of dark turns right in a row, and even though things were getting better, I was unsure of how to move forward. I’d been thinking about getting back to my writing, so I pulled up blogger, set up a site named ‘Comma, Blank_;’ and jotted down an essay about how shitty I felt. After I wrote it, I remember feeling oddly at peace with myself. The half dozen people who read it told me it made them feel terrible, but for some reason I now felt like everything was going to be okay. That was was the first day of the experiment which has grown to become Papers & Pencils. And while I didn’t write any RPG themed articles until August 9th, nor did I start taking that writing seriously until October 10th, I still view today, August 8th, as the day the project began. The day I looked at my shitty situation and said “Fuck this noise.”

But I already wrote about all that way back when I moved off of blogger, so I won’t bore you with it a second time. Instead I figured this would be a good opportunity to take a look at the posts from the past year. Which ones are really good, really bad, or just somehow interesting. Hopefully it will give newer readers a chance to check out some of what came before, without needing to prowl the archives themselves. After that, I’ll outline some of my goals for the future of the site, and other related projects.

The past year has over 200 posts for me to sift through, though, so that’s enough introduction. Lets go.

The Girl and the Granite Throne began shortly after the site went up, and as of this writing hasn’t been updated since I started taking the blog seriously back in October of 2011. It is, I think, a story with a lot of potential. The four parts of it which have already been written still hold up well in my opinion. And now that the campaign the story was based on has officially been declared dead, it’s important to me that I find another medium through which I can tell Erin’s story. The only problem is that I’m actually a very slow writer. Between a full time job, writing 4 blog posts every week, and playing in the games which inspire those posts, it’s difficult for me to make time to write lengthy fiction.

The Hall of a Dozen Deaths is a terrible post, which is a sad thing for me to admit. Most of the time, when I’ve written something bad, I already know it’s bad when I post it. Sometimes, that bad stuff actually gets a pretty warm reception, but that doesn’t change the fact that I know it could have been better if I’d just focused more, done more research, given myself more time, or something else like that. Not so with this post. I did my research, invested plenty of time, and when it was finished I was proud of myself. So proud, I even took the time to repost on /tg/, where someone pointed out that all I had done was create an annoying series of skill checks.

Damn it.

The Corpse Sewn Hekatonkheires. Of all the monsters I’ve created, this one is still my favorite. I have a few of them wandering around my current game world, and I can’t wait for my players to encounter them. And as an added bit of sentimentality, ranting about how difficult Pathfinder’s monster creation rules were while making this beast is how I met by my twitter-pal DarkPatu for the first time.

Ability Penalty Flaws are an idea I wish I could claim as my own, but they were originally proposed by Paul over on Blog of Holding. The system is elegant in its design and application, and lends depth to the characters built using it. In the post, I revised Paul’s original idea to work with Pathfinder, and to be a little less goofy than he had originally envisioned. I love this rule, and it would probably end up codified in any serious attempt I made to design a fantasy adventure game.

Magically Generating New Adventures is an important post for several reasons. First, I think it’s one of the best and most unique ideas I’ve ever had. Second, it was my first post after I decided that I was going to take RPG writing seriously. Third, even after all this time, it is still one of my most popular and oft-linked-to posts. I’m proud of this idea, and I’m always excited when someone tells me they used it to help them design their game world.

Colorful Characters 1: The Governor was (obviously) the very first Colorful Characters post. The series was originally intended to serve two roles. First, I hoped it would provide me with something I could write quickly without to much hassle. Second, I wanted to create a consistent series of posts which readers could know to expect and look forward to. As it turned out, Colorful Characters didn’t fill either of those roles, because they turned out to be longer and more difficult to write than normal posts, and due to that fact, weren’t as reliable as I had hoped they would be.

Instead, they’ve given me an outlet for writing short fiction over the past year which has been invaluable to me. Even though I don’t have time to write full short stories, it’s nice to sit down and sketch out the highlights of a character’s life.

Non-Digital Random Map Generation. The idea I wrote about here is one of my favorites. Like Magically Generating New Adventures, it feels uniquely “mine,” and I’ve received a lot of compliments for it at the time. Sadly, this one doesn’t get linked to nearly as often as the magic card post does. One of the great flaws of the blogging format is that old posts sometimes get lost, because nobody is going to spend their time going through all 200+ posts in my archive looking for gems. I hope this link gives that post some of the traffic I think it deserves.

Simple Experience Points is another idea taken directly from Paul of Blog of Holding. And, somewhat frustratingly, it’s one of the posts which I’ve received the most recognition for. Again, I did adapt it for Pathfinder, and add a few refinements of my own to the idea, but the critical leap of intellect was Paul’s. None the less, it’s a good system, and one of the best house rules I’ve ever implemented in my game.

I wrote The Problem with Feats on Halloween night. I was covered in caked-on makeup, and had a severely burned finger that stung every time I typed with it. But it was worth it, because that post gave me my first real bit of attention from the very generous Courtney of the blog Hack & Slash. Thanks to the link he posted, I had 74 hits on my blog the next day. And bear in mind, this was back when I was having a good day if I broke 10 hits! I doubt I would have lasted long enough to write a 1 year retrospective post without Courtney’s encouragement. I didn’t get that many hits again until late February, and it didn’t become normal for me until long after I had made the move to Papers and Pencils.

Deadly Dungeons: Scholomance Part 1. Ho boy. Well, first I’ll point out that originally, I was planning to make ‘Deadly Dungeons’ an ongoing series, much like Colorful Characters. But I bit off more than I could chew with my first outing, an adaptation of my favorite World of Warcraft dungeon, Scholomance. Part of my failure there was that I failed to realize that WoW dungeons and D&D dungeons have very different design goals. Sholomance, in WoW, is one of the most sprawling dungeons in the game. In D&D, it’s a very brief, very combat-heavy dungeon, which lacks a lot of flavor.

I’d still like to revisit the idea of transforming Scholomance into a dungeon someday. Particularly since Blizzard recently brutalized this beloved dungeon of mine, sucking out everything that made it beautiful in the first place and making it linear. I’m not sure when I will tackle it, but when I do it will likely be a fresh start, with a completely different approach.

Funny story: I’m very proud of Thoughts On Hero Points, but I still don’t use Hero Points in my game, nor do I really intend to start doing so in the future. It’s a good post with good ideas, but they don’t really suit my gaming preferences, or those of my group.

Sitting Behind the GM Screen stands out in my mind as one of the worst posts I’ve ever written. My thinking, at the time, was that it would be cool to write a post about how I prepare for games, and how I set up my table before my friends arrive to play. I’ve never been happy with how the post turned out, and generally try to avoid remembering it. Which is too bad, because that’s an excellent photograph of me.

My book review of The Worldwound Gambit is kind of a dickish piece of writing on my part. I stand by every criticism I made, but in my attempt to be entertaining about it, I think I just came off as mean-spirited. None the less, it’s kind of cool that my review of a book is currently the 5th result when you perform a Google search for the book’s title.

I’m proud of Succubi Deserve More. If I had to pick my favorite post from the first six months of the site, I would probably pick this one. I don’t even have all that much to say about it, except perhaps to mention that after it went up, I suddenly started getting a lot of hits from people searching for Succibi.

No More Overzealous Paladins was really just a rant which didn’t turn out as well as I wanted. I had this vision of finding tons of good and bad paladin stories, and spacing them throughout the post. But when it came time to write the thing, I couldn’t find any of them! Feeling defeated, I jotted down what came to mind and wrote it off as a bad post. The next day I woke to discover that it had been reposted to several different websites. This was probably the first post of mine to get circulated around the internet much at all.

Obfuscation Through Volume. Aside from being a solid post about Game Mastering techniques, this post made it onto the OSR Required Reading List posted by Courtney over at Hack and Slash. That was a proud day!

After writing Colorful Characters for months, it started to become more of a chore to do it every single week. So I started writing the Magical Marvels series, starting with Kofek’s Tongue. These have always been really fun, because I was able to work together with my ladyfriend Morrie on the art. Plus, they allowed me to share the history of my game world by describing the history of artifacts found therein. I think pretty much every Magical Marvels post I’ve written to date holds up very well, and would recommend giving them a look.

I don’t have a lot to say about A Personal History of Role Playing. It is a post which I felt like I had to write, and I’m glad I did. I feel as though I expressed myself very openly, honestly, and clearly in that post.

As I mentioned, after writing “Succubi Deserve More,” I started to receive a lot of hits from people searching for Succubi on Google. Oddly, one of the most common searches was for “Succubi in Succubus Town.” To this day I’m still not sure why that happened, but I decided to write a post about it. What started as a shameless attempt to draw in more traffic turned into an interesting exploration of what a succubus society might look like.

NPC Reactions is the single laziest post I’ve ever written for this site. I am ashamed of it.

Roughly halfway through the past year’s posts is Deities Defined. Some might argue that it’s pointless to spend too much time working on the mechanics of a god, since in essence, the gods are just a tool for the GM to manipulate the game world with. Keeping their powers nebulous and undefined is valuable. But I think gods are interesting. I love the idea of players being pawns in a war between deities, or entering a realm where their god cannot help them. I honestly view my system for defining the limits of the gods to be one of my best additions to Pathfinder.

After writing Merciless Monsters 2: Bloody Avenger (Bloody Mary) I received one of the best compliments I think I’ve ever received about my game design, again from Courtney of Hack & Slash:

Hello Friend.

You’ve committed the wonderful gygaxism of generalizing a specific creature into a monster! (Gorgon, Medusa et. al.)

That made me feel like a god damned badass.

Player Agency in the Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon. After watching the 80s D&D cartoon, my ladyfriend and I joked that whoever was running that D&D game was a terrible GM, because they weren’t giving the player any ability to affect the outcome of the adventures. It seemed like a fun idea for a post, so I wrote this. Like the book review for The Worldwound Gambit, I stand by everything I wrote, but I feel like I may have come off as mean-spirited when I was really just attempting to be funny. There’s even a Facebook thread out there where a bunch of people complain about what a dick I am for writing it. Ernest G. Gygax Jr. even left a comment in that thread talking about how hard they worked on the show, though he didn’t give any indication that he read the article itself.

I tried to play up my hatred for the show to get laughs, and I wonder if I did a poor job of that. Though, bad as I might feel, I seriously considered making “Gary Gygax Jr. Disapproved!” the tagline of the site. >.>

After the success of my Bloody Avenger post, I decided to find another little-known undead monster I could convert to Pathfinder. I settled on Merciless Monsters 3: Draugr. All I remember about this post was that it took forever to write, and I was up for hours working on it at a snail’s pace when I really wanted to be sleeping. I’m happy with how it turned out, though I was disappointed when I learned that I had failed to notice the Draugr’s presence in Pathfinder’s 2nd Bestiary.

Making Travel More Engaging and Hex Crawling Encounters were written as a pair, and they basically epitomize what I want to do with this website. I want to identify gaps in tabletop RPGs, and I want to thoroughly discuss how those gaps could be filled. I want to improve upon gaming’s weaknesses. These two posts are largely aimed towards Pathfinder players, and attempted to re-introduce concepts which were commonplace in the early days of gaming, but have become forgotten over time.

Like the previous posts, A Paladin’s Fall and The Paladin’s Oath, and GM Clarity were written as a pair. The success of my rant about Paladins a few months prior had left me thinking about the class a lot. It is a class with a lot of fun potential, but one which is often improperly handled. The three posts were my attempt to articulate and address those problems intelligently, and I think I succeeded to a reasonable degree.

Making Encumbrance Work is another example of a post where I took something which I don’t think works in modern games, and I made it work for myself. I’m proud of how it turned out, even if I think the system presented there needs some improvement based on reader feedback, and my own playtesting.

March 2012 was apparently a pretty good month for me!

Oh, wow. I’d forgotten about How Players Make Enemies & Influence People. This was a decent idea, ruined by rushed and lazy writing. It’s easily a contender with ‘NPC Reactions’ for wost post I’ve ever uploaded to this site.

I spend a lot of time thinking about features that might improve Papers & Pencils. For awhile, I was really set on the idea of having a sub-section of the site where I just posted adventure notes. My thinking was that I would write detailed notes for each adventure, and others could use them either to follow the progress of my game, or to run my adventures within their own campaigns as a kind of mini-module. The only thing which ever came out of that idea was Behind the GM’s Screen:ToKiTiMO 3. Writing such detailed notes was simply too much work to keep up with. And since my players started to make their own plans, rather than following the adventure hooks I put in front of them, my style of note taking has needed to adapt to a format which would be much less enjoyable to read.

Then there’s the grand overview of skills. Christ on a Cracker, was this a lot of work to write. Eleven posts in all, which took over half of the month of April to post. This is probably my most notable work to date. And while I have had one person complain that they were far too dry, I’ve also had at least three other blogs start similar skills series of their own, citing me as part of their inspiration. That feels really good.

While it is far from completed yet, Page By Page: Gary Gygax’s DMG has been an educational thing to write. Slowly reading through the original Dungeon Master’s Guide, and writing down my thoughts on sections which stands out, has helped me to better understand a lot about gaming’s origins. I look forward to continuing this series into the next year, then finding another book to do the same thing with!

I was honored when I was asked to participate in the May of the Dead Carnival. So much so that I asked if I could write four posts instead of only one. From those, I think Undead Items is the best. Followed closely by The Crypt of Ancient Wisdom. I have a penchant for the macabre, and I got to exercise that here. I really ought to come up with another post about Undead Items!

The Wide Swing Dilemma created some fascinating discussion in the comments. This was one of those rare cases when I honestly was not sure what the correct response was as a GM. Normally I’m pretty confident in my decisions, even if I later decide I was wrong. But in this situation, I had my personal gaming philosophies on one hand, and an important game mechanic in the other. It was a difficult choice, and not one which everybody agreed with.

My post on Fantasy Languages was the first time in a couple months that I really tried to comprehensively address a problem with RPGs. To date I think this is one of my most underrated posts. I’ve never received any comments or feedback on it, despite pouring many hours into its development. Maybe this is a subject which just doesn’t interest anybody but me. But that’s fine, because I myself have used it as a resource several times already!

If you want me to write for anybody but myself, you gotta pay me.

Writing What I Want felt like writing a manifesto. I stated my goals, and I’m going to work towards finding or building a game which meets those goals. And once I’ve done that…well, I’m sure I’ll have new goals by then!

While it wasn’t the first in this series, Lively Locals 2: River of Blades is the first Lively Local post which I felt a strong connection to. Lively Locals finally did what my “Friday” style posts (Colorful Characters, Magical Marvels, Merciless Monsters, and Lively Locals) were supposed to do from the beginning: they don’t take forever to write. I can bang one of these out pretty quickly, and I think most of them have been both entertaining to read, and useful for GMs.

The Updated Forest Battlefield Generator might just be the most useful GMing tool I’ve contributed gaming community. Which, come to think of it, is kinda sad. And on top of that, I completely forgot to add another sub table for elevations! None the less, I think it is a solid tool, and I use it in many of my games.

My post on Weapon Mechanics is one of my favorites from recent history. One of the things which keeps me from abandoning modern gaming and jumping completely into the OSR is my love of deep, tactical combat. But what modern gaming does wrong is that much of the tactics come from character build options, many of which unnecessarily limit what players can attempt within the game. I think increasing the importance of which weapons the character chooses to carry is a much more interesting way of enhancing the tactical aspect of combat.

This is getting to be pretty recent, but I very much enjoyed my posts on Tabletop Magic from Final Fantasy, and Tabletop Items from A Link to the Past. These posts were written over a week apart apart from one another, but I group them together because they have the same purpose. I took a property which is similar to tabletop RPGs (in these cases, Final Fantasy games and a Zelda game), I selected an aspect from these properties which is also present in tabletop games (magic systems and special items), and I adapted them to a tabletop environment. I love this kind of thing because it forces me to change my thinking patterns in order to accomplish the goal. And anything which forces me to approach tabletop gaming from a fresh perspective is a good thing in my mind.

My Product Review of the AD&D First Edition Reprints was a cop-out post. A friend of mine had spent the day with me, and I didn’t have time to write a proper post. So I took a bunch of pictures of my new books and threw up a review of them. This post wouldn’t be even slightly notable, except it somehow got me a link from Penny Arcade, which shot my traffic into the stratosphere for a day. It gives me a lot of hope when something I’m not particularly proud of can still be important. It makes me think that perhaps I’ve got a chance at doing something more than uneducated labor with my life.

And finally, Product Review: Using Banners on the Cheap for Maps. Even if this wasn’t a very good post, and even if the product was bad, it would still be important to me. Because for the first time, a company gave me free stuff in exchange for a review. That kind of recognition, combined with the Penny Arcade thing, really makes me feel as though this writing is a valuable use of my time. (And by the way, the post is pretty good, and the product was awesome)!

And that’s it. An overview of what I think are the most notable posts from the last year. This is already the longest post I’ve ever written for this site, but I promised a look at what I want to do in the future, so I’ll go over that quickly here:

  • I want to learn to write faster, which I understand means I need to lower my standards for what I write, and raise my standards for how much I edit. I’d also like to inject more humor into my writing, because I like to think I’m a funny dude.
  • There are a number of improvements I’d like to make to the site itself. I have a long-standing bad habit of constructing extremely over-designed websites with very little content. And now that I have tons of content, I worry that I’m not displaying it as effectively as I could. I would like to find a way to integrate some kind of automatically-generated navigation system, which allows people to go through the various posts in a more organized fashion. Doing so will probably require me to revise all of the post categories and tags, which means:
  • I need to revise all of the post categories and tags.
  • I need to begin working my way through my archives and making sure all of the images I use are properly attributed to their respective creators. As the site gets bigger and more people see these images, the people who created them really deserve to get some attention for it. This is something I should have been doing from the start, and I’m trying to improve on it now.
  • I’d like to integrate a few other kinds of content into the site. I’m very interested in both board gaming and war gaming. I doubt the focus of the site will ever stray far from its pen-and-paper roots, but these are related topics and I think it would be not only fun to cover them, but valuable to examine them and how they relate to tabletop RPGs.
  • I have and idea for a space-combat board game which, I think, is quite good. It is in very early development at this stage, but my hope is to eventually produce a complete set of rules which can be played with household objects. Once I’m there I can’ start looking for groups interested in playtesting the game.
  • I’ve written a script for a 5-10 minute comedy video centered on tabletop RPGs. I don’t want to reveal much about this right now, but it’s a project I’m extremely excited for. The biggest obstacle is that I don’t yet own a video camera, nor do I have a computer which could easily handle video editing. Both of these problems are being addressed, but may take some time.
  • While I’m sure the site will always have a lot of one-off posts, I want to move towards doing more series, similar to the one I did for skills posts. Not necessarily that long, mind you, but there are many topics which are better covered in 3 or 4 posts than they are in only one.
  • I would like to begin writing more fiction for the site as well. I think I’m a much stronger fiction writer than I am an article writer, so the fact that I’ve hardly posted any fiction in the past year is kind of silly. Returning to, and finishing, The Girl and the Granite Throne is high on my list here. But I also have an idea for a much shorter story about a lowly porter, and his adventures with a Fighter, a Paladin, a Wizard, and a Sorcerer.
  • I’d like to begin covering a larger variety of games. Which means I need to start playing a wider variety of games!

And that’s that. First year under our belts, and if I have anything to say about it, the second year will be a lot better than this one was.

Lets do this

Serius Biznis

There are two things you should know about me: I’m serious about making writing my career, and I’m a huge dork. Getting business cards was really the only logical thing I could do. After all, nothing says “take me seriously” quite like business cards for a blog.

I’ve always planned on getting cards for this place eventually. A couple years ago when I met Jen McRight, she gave me a business card, and I just thought it was cool. It’s one thing to talk about writing stuff on the internet, it’s another thing to be able to hand someone a tiny, physical banner ad for your website. I’ve been putting it off for a few months, because I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. But I’ve had a few conversations recently where a business card would have been handy. Plus I’ve got Paizocon in a couple weeks, and it would be nice to have them on-hand while I’m there.

With so many websites claiming to print business cards so cheaply, I had some difficulty finding one I felt I could trust. In the hopes of saving others the trouble: I used Vista Print. The base price for their cards is better than most places I found, and my cards arrived less than a week after I placed the order. I’m very happy with the product, but I did find their service severely lacking. I needed to click through something like 15 pages of addons before they would let me check out on their website. Page after page of “would you like this image on a coffee mug? No? Well how about on the hood of your car then? On a T-shirt!? PUT IT ON SOMETHING, PLEASE!” It was like web based version of that guy at Best Buy who keeps pestering you until you want to punch him.

To add insult to injury, the last thing they offered me was a discount on additional cards. So let that be a lesson: if you want more than the minimum 250 cards, order 250 and wait until they offer you a cheaper price on 500!

If you’re interested, here’s the design of the card. I’ve already got some thoughts on what I’ll change in my next batch. But I’m rather proud of how it looks already.

Looks Familiar…

Okay, I know we weren’t being very original when my designer friend and I decided on a sword-and-shield motif for the Papers & Pencils logo, but this still made me giggle when I found it in one of my old Dragon magazines. And what the hell? I can share whatever pointless minutia I want. It’s my blog.

I really wish one of us had thought of the D20 morning star. We had two really great ideas with the pencil swords and the paper shield, but a D20 morning star would have taken the cake. I may need to steal it if I ever do a redesign!