Friday, August 17, 2018

#RPGaDay2018: Days 13-16


WEEK THREE: DESCRIBE...
13) ...how your play has evolved.
This is a difficult question to answer concisely, because I've been playing and GMing RPGs for over 30 years. Instead, I'll address one piece of it that came up in an online forum recently: maps and minis.

My longtime readers will be aware that I started using LEGO minifigures as RPG miniatures around 20 years ago. This started small, with just the PCs being LEGO, but then as my collection grew, I've been using LEGO more and more exclusively. I still have a small collection of prepainted D&D minis, HeroQuest pawns, and plastic toy animals that see some use, primarily as a "mook box" of common minis (reptilian humanoids, undead, orcs, etc.) that my wife and I can quickly pull from for Pathfinder Society and the like.

My preferred battle map for the past several years has been a 1"-gridded easel pad. Depending on the adventure, gaming group, and time available, I sometimes draw out the map as we play, and sometimes draw them ahead of time. As my wife and I have done more GMing for PFS this past year or so, we have purchased a number of Paizo's flip-mats and map packs to simplify prep for those games. We primarily invest in maps that either see use in multiple scenarios, or that will likely see use in a home campaign. (Right now, that primarily means anything related to deserts, plus a few dungeons.)

14) ...a failure that became amazing.
One of my Buffy/Angel characters, Patricia "Trick" Tillinghast, had a long history of screwing up royally but going on to bigger and better things. She started out as a normal human, albeit one highly trained in fencing and the use of other weapons. Early on in that game, she agreed to become a champion of Dionysus in order to better help her Slayer best friend. After some time, she came to regret her decision, partly because Dionysus was a major jerk (like most Greek gods are) and partly because it became a far-too-convenient excuse for her own bad behavior.

Meanwhile she had become friends with the Raven Totem, in his identity as Jonathan Poe, the owner and bartender of a local club. Poe liked Trick a great deal, but had already invested a champion shortly before meeting her. That Totem Warrior died within a year, but by then, Trick was a Maenad, and increasingly unhappy about it. One of Poe's signature powers was a limited-duration reality shift lasting only one day, which most often saw use in seemingly silly shapeshifting pranks meant to teach their victims a lesson. He attempted to use this gimmick to make Trick his champion for a day, in the hope of freeing her long enough to start working on a more permanent solution. This plan backfired dramatically, and she ended up as the champion of Puck, another trickster, instead--and Poe couldn't reverse the spell without Puck's consent. Trick managed to acquire that, mainly through brazen stubbornness, and ended the day exactly where she was before.

However, successfully standing up to two tricksters gave her the confidence to confront Dionysus about their arrangement. When she demanded to be released from the wine god's service, he laughed in her face. This infuriated her, and in her desperation, she attacked him with the very sword he had given her--to no effect, but her fighting spirit impressed him enough that he consented to her request. Undoing her status as a Maenad proved very dangerous and nearly killed her, and surviving the ordeal lefts its own mark: She would always be attuned to the mystical world in some way, and now she started having visions. But that's a story for another day...

15) ...a tricky RPG experience that you enjoyed.
My previous answer answers this question, too.

16) ...your plans for your next game.
My next game is actually the same as my last game. My "Time of the Tarrasque" Pathfinder campaign has been on a long hiatus, but will be resuming soon. We have a tentative date set for early next month.

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