Reviews (and a solution) of Kuro: Makkura and Kuro: Tensei

A short explanation: I decided to cover Kuro: Makkura (a.k.a. The Not-So-Great Kuro Campaign) and Kuro: Tensei (a.k.a. the "Where's my kewl powerz?" supplement) in a single post. Why?
They're meant to be linked...chronologically, even. You introduce Tensei after you play through Makkura.

OK, first we're going to talk about the presumed Kuro Campaign...a.k.a. What Asen Doesn't Like About Kuro.
Yes, I'm serious. But it's still presumed you'd be using it...no, don't tell me it's not - everything even in the corebook points you in that direction. The adventure in the basic book is part of it, and you basically have to play through Kuro: Makkura to get to Kuro: Tensei!

SPOILERTIME:
The Incident, the Blockade - they're both parts of it. And they're part of the reasons the setting is what it is.
/SPOILERTIME

So...this won't be the usual review. Instead, I'm going to talk a bit about the campaign, and a lot more about how to salvage it.
Yes, it's that bad, speaking from experience. I've run part of it (readers of my blog can remember that this is one of the very few campaigns I've tried to run...and it's also one of the reasons I'm not actively looking for other people's campaigns).

So, what is the campaign.
It begins with the adventure in the corebook (mandatory - you introduce recurring NPC there), and continues. The point is to get increasingly deeper in the occult world of Shin Edo.

SPOILERTIME 2!
So, first the characters are kidnapped by terrorists and save themselves or are saved, not without the help of an AI (or is it an AI?) they meet in the next building - a laboratory - after the terrorists blow up the floor.
Then they chase a murderer who's obviously not merely human.
They try to save missing students and find themselves in a demon's realm.
Then various shenanigans ensue. OK, that part isn't exactly spoiler-worthy. Oh, and more recurring NPCs are introduced!
FWIW: all the 7 adventures are keyed to the days of the week.
And then they have to chase the demons to prevent a great evil from appearing....but they fail (no questions here).
And then they have the option to return to ordinary lives, or become avatars for the kami who were their ancestors, and to fight demons (though not with this exact wording). You know what PCs are going to pick, right?
(The question, though, is asked as "Do you want to live or die?"
/SPOILERTIME 2!

What's bad about the campaign?
It's frigging linear. Like, I've read a short story ("Regret With Math", by Greg Stolze) that was less linear.
And this is supposed to be a game. But you can change nothing.
If I had to guess what the authors were thinking, it would be something like this...
"The players aren't going to read all about the setting (arguably true in some groups). So, the characters have to reach from A to B by clearing middle points C, D, E, and F, and by the kami, they're going to do it! And the players are going to get immersed in the setting in the process! Those baka players just need to pay attention to the scenery as the train is passing!"
Ahem, maybe not quite like this, but it's what I imagine - not what happened.

Now, for those without the game, and for everyone who might think I'm exaggerating: The adventure in the corebook is, like, the worst example of a glorified railroad you can think of. Or, quite possibly, worse than that!
I mean, it is fully linear. You can't, by design, stray in any direction - short of dying deliberately against obviously superior forces (NPCs with assault weapons and power armour, while the characters are unarmed...exactly how stupid do you have to be in order to stay and fight?) It gives you TNs for checks and stats for NPCs that are going to be fighting. And it also gives you an explanation why, if you fail the checks and have the mind to run, you're still going to pass - and the NPCs couldn't chase you!
Though admittedly, there are brighter moments in the campaign...like the Darkness Demon, amusingly enough. At least you could die for something other than bad dice rolls.
Verdict: Kuro is a great game, and well-researched, but the campaign basically makes all its potential unnecessary, except as a combat engine!

What's good about the Makkura campaign? Why is it even worth salvaging?
The campaign is exactly as bad as it seems, while the game and the setting are exactly as great as they seem. But it is a good way to showcase the setting, and to introduce its darker parts, and unknown beliefs - step by step.
So, how to combine it with an actual, you know, game (where, by definition, your decisions should be able to change the outcome)? I have a solution!
Here's what I actually did, and I'd recommend the same to you as well. It's the adventure in the corebook (yes, that same one) that gave me the idea...
Remember, it is fully linear. So, obviously the authors wanted to tell you this as a story. Should I rewrite it with much effort, or should I run a railroad? "No way" to both, I said.
Instead, I allowed them to do exactly what they wanted (and I recommend you doing the same). I told the players the story.
So, listen: the game begins less than a week after the corebook adventure. The PCs meet and introduce each other, but you tell them that they know each other.
At this point, let the players introduce the PCs.
And then tell them the first adventure as a cut-scene: "Three days ago, you met at the bank that was attacked by terrorists and survived together. Worse, some things you found while escaping point to you that you're all related in some ways! At the least, your names are all on a list." (Also refer to the spoileblock).
Then I read them how the adventure was going to go anyway.
(The players, of course, asked: "why aren't we playing through this?" They were assuming they might do something that might change the events, the poor souls...
Me: "Because it's a total railroad and I can't stand to run it, nor do I have the time to re-write it basically from scratch. And when I say this, I mean it doesn't matter what you're going to try and do").
Then you serve them the actual adventure. See the parts with "adventure seeds" (after the adventures in the campaign, titled "Continuing the Day of..." and on p. 183 of the corebook)?
Those are almost as good as the actual campaign is a failure (for me, at least). They give you suggestions, point out what info about the setting they're meant to introduce, what to focus on...
They are even grouped, so you could pick one depending on the party composition!
So, I'd read each adventure in the campaign as a cut-scene (barring maybe 3 of them, but probably less). The rest of them, and that's the majority unless you're willing to do a lot more work than me, you introduce as cut-scenes.
Remember, they're meant to evoke a mood and progress a plot. Let them do it!
Then you use what you've actually got, and run the adventures that are obvious in the adventure seeds!
And you can decide to stop after some of the events - especially if you don't want to get into playing Kuro: Tensei (where the game becomes less of a horror and more of a supernatural technothriller in a dystopian future...like Eric van Lustbader on steroids. I mean, his ninja guy never met the Japanese Emperor...)
Also, the events from Makkura, which are meant to pre-date Tensei, need never happen - unless the group would like that! Just because you're using them as background, doesn't tie you to that turn of events.
You can even play Tensei without the kami returning in such a spectacular fashion...they players have been considered "worthy", and got a kami's attention. Period. Like so much else in the game, it's a mixed blessing...
Or they might decide to continue the same way as before, without the Ki Powers in Tensei. Personally, I'd love that!
And you know best what your group would like.

Tensei
So, maybe you played Makkura, or maybe you're introducing just Tensei. Either way, it's assumed that a kami (a spirit of a Japanese hero) has merged with your character. It's not possession, see - you're their descendent, so it's obviously fine!
But no matter, the point is that mechanically, you're introducing Kewl Powerz. (And narratively, you're now becoming one of the movers and shakers...while in-world, your PC is now indeed apart from the common man - or woman - at the street, and risks forgetting who he or she used to be in the 21st century).
Oh, and you now have the option to play one of the Onimachines. Get the supplement to learn what those are...

One of the options is Musashi Myamoto, BTW. Other options are Abe no Seimei, Himiko, Lady Tomoe, Kusunoki Masahige and Saito Musashibo Benkei. I liked the spread. (And I like even more that Musashi is NOT the Samurai archetype. He's a Duelist, the samurai is Kusunoki Masashige).
They all give you access to different abilities. For example, all the warriors except Benkai give you only the techniques Kekkai and Okuden - while Himiko, the Miko archetype, gives you access to Divination, Kagenie, Kamitsuki, Kekkai, Kichiyose, and Kuji-Kiri.
Kekkai, for example, are "areas of supernatural purity, where the supernatural cannot harm innocents". The PC(s) and your opponent(s) simply disappear, and fight in a place with no bystanders (unless you want to protect those...them dying leads to Taint), but with all the structures that were there. Anyone who dies there, is dead, but that's it. You can blow the Emperor's Castle, but no
They've got different "Sacred Gimmiku", different ways to recover Ki, allow you to use different items and amulets. The only thing they have in common: the closer you get to "your" kami, the less human you become - and the more powerful.
And since I know you want it, here's the list of "powers".
Divination (duh!)
Kekkai (see above)
Kagenie (the ability to create a paper doll that augments someone's abilities)
Kami-Tsuki (summoning kami to control things around you, like the kami of a house, a car, or whatever)
Katatagae (teleportation)
Kuchiyose (summoning protective spirits)
Kuji-In (using 9 magic rituals to augment your abilities, cure ills, become invisible to impure beings, or throw energy attacks)
Kuji-Kiri (using the raw power of Kuji-In - regardless of whether you know Kuji-In itself - to generate a terrible energy attack)
Maboroshi (wounding your opponent with terrifying illusions woven from Ki)
Okuden (create weapons of energy or inject existing ones with Ki to improve them)
Shinobi ("the originus of the occult knowledge of assassins, ninja and hinin spies", this Technique modifies your body, changing it to fight or fool an enemy - and it is enhanced by having Taint).


Even more importantly (meaning, I don't see any reason not to use those rules and information in the game before Tensei), you get an in-depth explanation of Purity and Taint, and ways to remove the latter. In fact, I believe this should have been in the corebook!
There's also a chapter detailing which regions of Japan are more or less tainted and what it means for those visiting it or living there. The Shin Edo (the New Tokyo capital, remember?) is given its own chapter.

There is a list of the different factions of supernatural creatures, and stats for some of the supernatural creatures (but fair warning: without the options in Kuro: Tensei or really damn heavy cybernetics, you're toast against one of the weak ones, like Okami-Otoko, or Ybao-Kuni).

There's two adventures. What was said about Makkura, applies here as well, in spades. Except there are no Adventure Seeds.
That's fine, though. The whole book is one giant adventure seed - especially the parts about Taint!

For obvious reasons, I'm not going to rate Makkura.
Tensei gets the following ratings from me:
Style: 5/5
Mechanics: 5/5
Setting: 5/5
GMing advice: N/A
Adventures: N/A

My Tekumel Campaign

This isn't an Actual Play Report. But it's probably the closest I'm likely to get to an APR for my Tekumel campaign (which is currently on hold).
Mostly, it's info the characters had uncovered.

Here's things I can share with you...strictly non-canon (hear me, Tekumel Foundation:D?), of course!

1. There's Grey Ssu, and Black Ssu. You know you're in trouble when you see the Red Ssu: roughly average height between the Grey and Black, same form, masters of Ssuavate...they're the "commando forces". And they know strategy and tactics, too!
2. If you see the Green Ssu, you're doing fine: those are field researchers. It is in your best interest to kill the Green Ones ASAP, because they're skilled in remaining unseen, planting incendiary devices, and pulp-science-enhanced-unwholesome-acts. Of course, they avoid doing either when in their own territory!
3. The appearance of Green and Red Ssu might be tied to recent genetic experimentation by the Black Ssu. The purpose of such is unknown.
4. Another hypothesis is that they might be stages for the Ssu. I mean stages in the lifecycle of the species - like the egg-caterpillar-cocoon-butterfly cycle, except with generations of individuals. If this might be possible, it is unknown whether either Red or Green are the last stage.
5. Zuur is more and more being used to de-stabilize select human settlements. Usually those that get the cheapest sales are also those that have the most strategic position from the last place where the Red Ssu had been noticed.
6. The Food of the Ssu has been surprisingly versatile lately. Sometimes, it looks like plants that are edible to humans...but remains poisonous. Worst part of it: some people swear that small patches are able to move. The smaller the patch, the faster the move...one wonders what a single "Ssu vegetable" would be capable of!

And that's it for today. Stay tuned for the next update!

Unfettered or Fettered: GMing styles and modules

"Before I learned how to play and GM with gamebooks and RPGs, playing pretend was testing whether you could deal with X, and ALSO was telling a story, AND the story had to make sense - that includes not violating what I know of munitiae like sword swings and your state of mind when someone is trying to push a blade into your skull*.
When I learned gamebooks, and later RPGs, I discovered the Three-fold theories (both of them!), and suddenly the game EITHER was about what you do to deal with X, OR about telling a story, OR about respecting and exploring munitiae like sword swings or conversational tactics, or whatever.
Now I understood Unfettered GMing, also known as Lazy GMing, and I'm just running a game that explores the munitae of details, and that produces a story, and people at the table treat it as a game."
Asen R. G., your host

Ok, that was a rather clumsy way to paraphrase well-known sentence ("Before I learned martial arts, a punch was just a punch and a kick was just a kick. When I studied martial arts, a punch was no longer just a punch and a kick was no longer just a kick. Now I understand martial arts, and a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick." - Bruce Lee, who was in turn paraphrasing Takuan Soho, AFAICT).
Anyway...
After reading Ron Edwards's Sorcerer (the annotated edition), I noticed that he's saying the campaign when he was "just playing the NPCs, and this generated the narrative" as one of his most successful ones).
I'm doing the exact same thing "the father on Narrativism" recommends - although I consider myself a Simulationist. Then again, I've heard the same advice from mainly Gamist players.
Yeah, the divisions in the RPG hobby are mostly BS, indeed.
I had discovered the "just play the NPCs" GMing approach in, more or less, the same fashion as Ron Edwards. I was running a game; the game was set up with interesting characters from both sides of the screen. There were conflicts and alliances between them to give a pause to any Vampire chronicle.
So I just asked myself "why the hell should I prepare it in advance, if the players aren't going to do what I expect anyway - and I find it fun to catch this kind of surprise shots and return them?"
The answer was "no fucking reason in Hell", and so I ran the next session... two hours after the one that had just finished.
At the end, I had more material than I had before, because no PC ran from conflicts. The players laughed, and cried - for real, not roleplaying - and were exhilarated.
Years later, I almost got a beating when I announced ending the campaign...
But all of this was because the players knew that risking your character is fun. To the PCs, that's no doubt the analogue of playing extreme sports...but then most PCs should be extreme sports enthusiasts.

The end conclusion is, to me: You need to teach unfettered roleplaying to the players, if it doesn't come naturally to them. After that, you can be the Unfettered GM.

Most books teach you to be the Fettered GM. Take an adventure, self-made or not. Start the PCs so and so, says the adventure. X happens... After that, Y happens. After that, Z happens (and hopefully, that means you get to meet Zorro). That's how I began running games, too.
But right now, I only need a setting book and easily applicable rules. Everything else, including genre supplements? Yeah, nice, but largely unnecessary. "Just play the NPCs", and if it needed to be said, make them interesting. (Nobody is completely uninteresting in real life, either. If you didn't learn that in English classes, learn it now, and practice. Talk with a boring guy and find something that makes him non-boring).
I mean, the guy that makes your accounts might be a Combat Sambo champion (yes, I know such a guy!) The plumber next door might be an ex-convict, or just having had an interesting youth. You** probably have a hobby that's out of the ordinary for your profession - namely, roleplaying. And you're reading RPG-related blogs! In your FREE time! Seriously, do you have any idea how obscure that is to everyone else? (I guess you have an idea, indeed).
Yeah. People with no unexpected interests and skills are so rare, this makes them interesting. So, yes, it's impossible by definition to be boring.
Don't be afraid your sessions would be boring - just make them interesting.
You don't need pre-planned adventures for that. You just need to have the GMing tools internalised, too. And that means "playing the NPCs as logically as you'd play a PC".
And if your playing PCs is lacking, you should work on that.

Or maybe I should just write a module the way I imagine it should be done.

*Yes, that's for the kind of first-hand experience that I haven't asked for.
**The "you" that's reading an RPG-related blog.

A site with music for RPG sessions

Want athmosphere for your sessions? There's some guy who has organised his music by category, and so on, and you can play it from his site.
Granted, the tracks are short, but you can loop most of them, and I'd generally use them for peak moments.

http://soundimage.org/dark-ominous/
I'm planning to use it next time I run something (though at the moment I'm being a player in our WHoOG campaign and having lots of fun). But I thought you might want to know the site exists.
There are also textures you can use to...represent materials in games, or something. Not sure whether I'd use those ones, but whatever.

FWIW, I'm not affiliated with the creator of the site. Just saw it and liked what I'm hearing.

Reading Sorcerer RPG: does it work as a manual for simulationist GMs?

I purchased recently Sorcerer RPG by +Ron Edwards from Adept press. It was in a Bundle of Holding, or I might not have bothered.
Then I started reading and went "wow" (not as in the notorious MMORPG - it was more of "wow, that's what I'm trying to tell my friends - the ones I'm teaching GMing"). Because, well, that's what I call Simulationist play. As in, "pretend to be the character to the point that you only bother with what the character is thinking - no story arcs, no pre-planned plots, no nothing".
And that's almost word-for-word what +Ron Edwards is advising you to do as part of his "Narrativist" game. Even more, that's THE game for narrativist players - AFAICT, storygames started with it!
Still, so far, I only disagree with one sentence in his advice. "Don't play the setting". Well, no, you can't do that if you need to play the NPCs...because the setting is an NPC, too (just like any other organisation)! But that's ONE sentence.
I usually disagree with half the GMing chapter in "traditional" games. Seriously, guys... ONE sentence? That might as well be written by me (no, I'm NOT claiming credit-I discovered my current GMing style long after Sorcerer has been written. I just haven't read it, for various reasons that are kinda besides the point).
And then I remembered that the OSR advice has similar points, where I'm nodding my head in agreement.
The only other games where I agree with the GMing chapter to such an extent? Atomic Highway, Fates Worse Than Death, Crimson Exodus/Fantasy Dice RPG, Legends of the Wulin, Apocalypse World/Monsterhearts. Runequest 6 also comes close. But that's not even 10% of the games I own...
Still, all of these games are from wildly differing "schools". Seems like good GMing is good GMing, no matter who's doing it. (Well, if it's "open-ended" GMing, at least. I've run games that were going against this, and the players were still happy. So it might be called "good" GMing - although I'd consider my current style to be far superior both in terms of simulation and in terms of story - but it would be wildly different).
Just food for thought.

And in the meantime, I purchased the Sorcerer supplements, and I'm looking into other games by the same author, too. He's got a KS campaign for his "S/Lay w/ Me" game (which I discovered the day after buying the PDF). Of course, I'm now a backer.
The only other KS I'm currently backing is the one by +Levi Kornelsen for his zombie apocalypse game. But that's another story and should be told in another blog post.

Why I don't use adventures (as a general rule), or an insider look at the history of RPGs in Bulgaria

WARNING: Don't read this unless you want to learn about the history of (a sub-set of the people) playing RPGs in Bulgaria. As that's the early history, to boot, it might be interesting to some of you.
Of course, I'm giving you my perspective on it, and mention people who played differently. But I'm going to talk about what I know.


Recently, I realised there's something about me and the people I play with that I don't see as much on Western RPG forums. Namely, some people seem to need adventures in order to run a game.
I don't even read them most of the time. Why? I simply don't use adventures, pretty much never*. The books the help me running a game would be setting material, especially if it presents some faction's or religion's outlook on some major conflict in the setting (something like Caste Books/Masters of Jade for Exalted...which are setting books, if you're unfamiliar with Exalted lore. Or the Sunward in Eclipse Phase. Or Behind the Eyes of Madness for my current FWTD game).
I'm double more likely to use some setting material if it leads to social upheaval, BTW.  Like "here are those inventor guys we mentioned in passing before. Yeah, they've perfected water mills, and now use them for forging stuff as well... so they can mass-produce armour if they get the raw materials".
(That would be boring and like-a-handbook to some people. I can center a campaign around such a detail. I guess "boring" is relative).

But - back to the topic - I'm simply not used to using adventures. I'm used to passing without them, to the point that it literally takes me longer to read and prepare an adventure, than to construct one myself. I mean, I'm using about 15 minutes per session, for major campaigns, usually in the bus while travelling to the place we've decided to gather that week. I need longer than that to even read a 32-pages module, and even longer to extract the information I'd see as "useful".

Yet some of my players wanted to write a novel, a series, or a short story****, about my campaigns. I guess it's not impeding my ability to have fun stories emerge in gameplay.

See why I like the "Lazy GMing" moniker and proudly display it on The Big Purple?

So, in short: we couldn't get adventures when I was learning to GM. Hence, we learned to make our own early. It's still largely expected the GM would be running their own campaign, too - I think I've seen less than half a dozen people asking about which adventure to run next.

Actually, the last one said "now that we finished (a customised Keep of the Borderlands, I think), I've got time to cook my own campaign. But just in case I'm not ready, what would you recommend me to run in the meantime?"

The answer was "X isn't all that bad until you settle on something more long-term". Long-term games are definitely expected to be "GM-prepared". Again, it depends on the group - but that's an almost unquestioned consensus on the Bulgarian RPG forums. Yes, it's not in any way unique about me and my groups.

NOTES:

*I've tried GMing some modules for the regulars, just to see how it works. They effortlessly broke the railroad/plot-based one - I just rolled with it, but it means I could only use the opening scene. Next time I tried it, they almost effortlessly ended the events-based one prematurely, without really trying. Keep in mind, their actions were entirely logical, or I wouldn't have rolled with it - I actually wanted to run a module. Just to see what it's like, if you can imagine what it is to have run games for around a decade without ever using anyone else's adventure.

Still, the only one that worked has been a mission-and-events based one adventure from the FWTD, and that was as a part of a larger game where most PCs didn't even know about said "mission".

I'm now wondering what they would make of a site-based adventure. I suspect they would make of it...fun. Last time I showed them some OSR material detailing a whole city, the comment was "Did you say OSR or OCD? Seems like OCD to me to detail all of these NPCs in advance" (and she's studying for a psychologist, so it was doubly more funny. Of course, it was obvious she didn't mean it).

BTW, that's not in any way unique for the Bulgarian GMs, especially those of the "first and second generation" like me. Most of us simply had to make do without anyone's help and without additional published materials... often for purely financial reasons**. So we've had to gravitate towards GMing styles that only use setting info and what the player's backstories contain. I remember a thread from a Bulgarian RPG forum - the biggest one - where one of the "more fortunate" GMs (meaning one who had the means to acquire adventures and was used to running them) posting a poll. "Do you prefer site-based or events-based adventures?"

The answer was a pretty overwhelming "Fuck that, character-based for me!"

Keep in mind, I'm not complaining! Just explaining why I have almost no use for something most GMs in the USA and UK use widely. Personally, I find my GMing style only got better by the lack of pre-packaged materials. Because it's always custom-tailored for the campaign, and according to my players, this shows. And I'm now in the habit of not using adventures.

Consider this: first-and-second wave GMs in Bulgaria have been running games since about 2000-2001. That's nothing compared to some people on RPG.net, but the fact is... it's enough to learn a certain style of GMing, or more than one in my case (I've fluctuated a lot). Since we've never had to use adventures, and most of us couldn't even if they wanted, until recently, it means we've already learned some styles of GMing where the adventure is simply something that doesn't exist.

And we're the ones teaching the new GMs. So, unless they're self-taught (since today, they could possibly afford an adventure AND a rulebook), they would be running it like us.

Funny enough, when Vincent Baker, the author of Eberron, came to Bulgaria (he wrote about it in the Escapist), he had met some of those guys that had the money/connections to get adventures back then. They're also a much less of a DIY crowd, as their whining about lacking polyhedron dice*** showed.

**In Bulgaria, most of those the first-and-second wave of GMs had started GMing at the end of the 90ies or the beginning of the 2000s. An adventure from Amazon could easily reach 50% of a monthly wage for what people in the beginning of the 2000s were making, or - hold to something - more than a montly salary in some years of the 90ies. Well, I wasn't playing in most of the 90ies, but you get the idea.

A new adventure every month? As you can imagine, that wasn't possible for most of us, period. So, we litterally couldn't afford having adventures.

***Several other groups just emulated the spread of probabilities in polyhedron dice with d6. And I mean with equal probability for every number.

For example, a d12 isn't rolled by just rolling a 2d6. It's rolled with two clearly distinctive d6, one of which is to be the "number" die, and the other, the "heads or tails" die, because it's acting as a d2. You use distinctive dice (my favourites being a black and a read one) in order to be able to to throw them together, but to read them separately. All the methods of emulation were based around it.

So, take the number the "nimber" die is showing. Heads, leave it as is. Tails, add 6 to it. You've got a d12 now! (Alternative method: multiply the number on the "number die" by 2. Head, leave it as is, tails, subtract 1. That was actually what I was using, since multiplication is as fast as addition to most of us). And you can do the math, if you don't believe me - it's got exactly a 1 in 12 odds to roll any particular number!

Admittedly, rolling a d100 was more complicated, and usually required rolling 2d10 in order, not together. But it worked, too.

The only reason we even bothered to get polyhedron dice were the dicepool systems. Some got them for WoD, I personally wanted to play TRoS, and others wanted to play Exalted. I already had got a standard set of 7 dice just for the d100 rolls, which I needed for d100 systems.

****Curiously, all of them cited different things they had liked - but then, these were different campaigns.

One of them thought it's been an epic story (it was a mythological steampunk with strong ecological elements).

Another wanted to make a short story from another campaign, because they thought it "feels like life and not fiction". Yeah, that's exactly what I was going for, indeed.

Yet another felt another campaign has been like soap opera...except with sex and violence.

In all 3 cases, that was the feeling I have been going for. I'm proud with all 3 offers (as you can tell). Sure, I'll believe any of them might carry through with it when I see the first draft. But the offers sure were nice!

Books I find inspirational for RPGs

Here's my list of non-RPG books that have influence how I play RPGs. I tried to mention the authors whenever they're known and whenever I can remember them.


Bulgarian folk tales, as well as Persian tales, Japanese, Hindu, Turkish, Russian and assorted other Fairy Tales. Tales of 1001 nights and Brother Grimm's stories deserve special mention, but I've also got the (translated) German tales they based their work on. They immediately reminded me of the Sea Tales book I had read earlier (most of them seemed to originate from the Northern countries).
"The little Mermaid" and everything else by Hans Anderson
Greek legends and myths, The Illiad and Odissey aren't all there is!
The Last Battle of Sandokan, The Last Flibustier, by Emilio Salgari. Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
Les Trois Musquetaires by Alexandre Dumas (and petty much anything swashbuckling I was able to get my hands on, if it's well-written)
Lord of Light, Amber and pretty much everything by Roger Zelazny. If I don't own it, I've probably at least read it. Same applies for the original REH stories.
Most stories of Jin Yong, if you can find a translation.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong
Many other mythological stories, including some currently designated as "religious". Mahabharata and Ramayana are among my favourites. I actually didn't know they're religious stories for some people when I found them on my mother's shelves.
The Hobbit, and the Silmarilion by JRRT. I like Lord of the Rings much less.
Pretty much anything by H.L.Oldie, but I'm especially fond of their (this is the pen name of two Ukrainian guys) Greek cycle, the Hindu cycle, and the space stories of Luciano Borgotta. If you're seeing a patter, it's because it's there!
Wiedzmin/The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski (and his next book, which is historical fantasy).
It's hard being a god by the Strugatsky brothers, if I have to single out any of their books. Because it shows how outside help might not be the best for you.
The Grey Mouser and Fafhrd's stories by Leiber, Fritz.
The magic of Volkhavar by Tanith Lee.
The Long War series by Christian Cameron.
The Fencing Teacher and the Captain Alatriste series by Arturo-Perez Reverte.
The Waylender and White Wolf seried by Davidn Gemmell are totally worth reading, too.
"The erotic side of folklore", can't remember the authors (and it's in Bulgarian anyway). But if you think nothing that has to do with sex has a place in a game, consider finding a book like this one and reading it!
Blood and Violence in Early Modern France, by Carroll, Stuart.
The Clash of Civilisations, but mostly by what I consider the author to be getting wrong.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
My manual of Roman law, but I'm sure you can use any manual of Roman Law.
The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker
The Art of Fighting Without Fighting by Geoff Thompson
Street E&E by Marc Macyoung
Balisong Iron Butterfly by Cacoy Boy Hernandez
Chinese boxing, masters and methods
Homo Ludens, by Johan Huizinga (1938)!
Paradoxes of the Defence and Brief Instructions Upon My Paradoxes of the Defence, by Silver, George.
The Flower of Battle, by Fiore dei Liberi
The Mabinogion and the sagas, if you find them. Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory. Beowulf.
For A Fistful Of Dollars, although it's a movie.

And then, there are gamebooks, which deserve special entry because they're stories with systems (at least, most of the good ones).
Fabled Lands, Bloodsword, Way of the Tiger, Talisman of Death, Virtual Reality are all series you might be familiar with.
"The Shadows of the Darkness" by Georgi Mindizov (pen name Bob Queen) is a title you're much less likely to know. However, it introduced a system of styles that "trumped" each other. "The Dragon Road", by the same author (different pen name), had sandbox elements like those I saw much later in Fabled Lands.
So, yeah, the gamebooks from back then introduced me to a lot of mechanical and setting concepts I saw in RPGs much later, up to and including stats as resource pools.


I might edit this post at some point, but fear not, I shall not remove anything!

So, here are my inspirations. What inspires you?
Let me offer you something, dear readers. If you ever write a post on this topic, post a link in the comments and I'd include it in the body of this post (along with your pen name for the blog). The only condition would be for you to post a link to this post as well. Although if I find your list interesting, I might add your link even if you don't post one.

GM Preparation: Canned or Home-made?

I just read this post on Zak S' blog (which is very much NSFW, even if only for the name).
Edit: As I understood it, he's challenging people to compare which one is cheaper and more satisfying to the group-preparing to run a module, or preparing the session by themselves. Then he invites them to post the results.
Now, Zak called me after this post was published, and explained he meant nothing of the sort. He merely invites people to do both and compare the experiences, not to look for the "superior way"! Therefore, it was my misunderstanding that sparked the following post.

Even so - I still think it's worth trying both. Especially if you're using modules, I invite you to participate in said experiment.
(Personally, I'm sorry, but I simply can't join. I need more time to prepare a game from a module! Yes, tried that long ago, the difference is about 300% more time when using a module. Therefore, I couldn't compare the two, as one would be in unequal position. If I was to use the same time I use weekly in order to preparing for running a session from a module, I wouldn't get to run the module for about 4 weeks!)

Really, guys (and gals, and whatever other word you might like being called) - screw modules!
No, wait, that's a fate too good for them. Rather, forget modules!
You can do better by yourself. You really can. And it's going to feel a lot more entertaining, because it would be tailored to your specific group.

Does it mean I see no value whatsoever in modules? That would be wrong.
Modules can be used as a short-hand way to showcase a setting. You can use them to show typical NPCs, typical conflicts and themes in a setting. So, I like having one, max 2 modules, as addition to the setting's book (provided they aren't some railroad schemes - I learn nothing out of those).
And of course, I don't mind them provided they aren't taking too much space. In Fates Worse Than Death, the book itself has 2 modules, and I don't mind. But the book itself has a great setting, and it's 485 pages setting+system combined!  If the book had less than 200 pages? I would have minded even 1 module.
In short, there are some uses for a module. But making running your games dependent on having/purchasing a module? Come on, people, you can do better than that!