video jukebox campaign seeding

Over at Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies a cunning plan is afoot to take five individual music videos from YouTube, create a setting seed from each then stick all of them together into a campaign. 

DragonForce - Operation Ground and Pound.
Setting Seed: The wasteland is scoured by flying vessels raining down lightning on the land; setting fire to buildings and destroying anything that looks like it would blow up.  Amid the chaos of the wasteland bards compete against each other at the behest of strangely-familiar entities to earn ethereal praises.


Nightwish - Nemo

Setting Seed: On the edge of a subarctic fishing town, a lone woman appears, held up like a marionette by a murder of crows tethered to each wrist.  Those who approach see her death's head eyes and hear a voice cold enough to freeze hearts and a shadow that resembles a holy symbol.  She is an amnesiac apostate who has become undead, yet who tries to seek her lost identity and be laid to rest.

Nine Inch Nails - The Perfect Drug
Setting Seed: In an opulent manse, a dabbler in strange sciences succumbs to madness from taking an elixir that lets him see his dead son.  With vultures and strangely-garbed companions, he stalks the party with daggers made of icicles through frozen rooms, chases them through a garden maze to a rooftop battle finale. 

Rammstein - Sonne

Setting Seed: A demihuman mining community is dominated by a beautiful yet terrible enchantress with a drug habit.  The demihumans adore her and will resist attempts to oust her despite her ways.  Will the party  overthrow her tyranny despite their adoration of her?

Tenpole Tudor - Swords of A Thousand Men

Setting Seed: The party attend a noble court where a band of knights boast of their exploits and of the coming battle against an enemy.  They fully intend for the party to be allies on the battlefield - will the party join in the battle or will they decide which side they're fighting for?

All together now...
The party are invited to court and given the choice to fight in a glorious battle or risk accusations of cowardice from the court.  They're sent to investigate the mystery of a women held up like a puppet by a murder of crows, discovering she is undead they can either engage in combat or lay her to rest.  A reclusive sage has the answers they need but he is driven mad by the green drug that lets him see his dead son.  In his house the party learn of a dire threat to an allied realm where strange flying vessels destroy the land and that the vessels are coming towards their homeland.  News of his death must be brought to his sister, the owner of a mine run by demihumans who in her grief becomes a tyrannical addict who must be saved or overthrown. The only way to defeat them is to unite a band of bardic rivals, storm one of the vessels using an artifact found in the sage's house that flickers with lightning and banish the strange vessels to another world.

Music is a wonderful spur and the videos help establish a look and feel. What's on your playlist and what campaign can you come up with?

tyranny, self-entitlement & getting over it all

I want all of you boys to be able to look me straight in the eye one more time and say: "ARE WE HAVING FUN OR WHAT?" -- Top Dollar, The Crow.

Ever get into one of those dialogues where you don't want to say anything but know that you'll have to? There's been recent themes in my blogosphere of late. First - a so-called tyranny people submit to when they experience a game or story - an interesting point-of-view. Tyranny implies an arbitrary or brutal exercise of power, abuse of authority, severity and oppression.

When you hear this phrase being applied to concepts like fun, the role of an author/game master or participant then you consider what boundaries of trust or consensual play have been violated. The concept of social contract (discussed here) means participants need to be honest with each other - an honesty oft set aside in the name of compromise or social fallicies.

Your time is important. It's non-renewable. Getting an invitation to 'Titanic' to discover you've arrived in 'Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus' will annoy. Communication and effective feedback is essential. Keep with what you like and acknowledge when it doesn't inspire. Speak up - you're with friends (or people with a common hobby) so why suffer in silence?

That said, who wants to be an ass? Consider how you'd respond if your statements were made to you. Think about the words you're using before going as a friend of mine puts it 'all bardic vomit'. Give respect and you'll get it back. It's really that simple. Tactful suggestions on how it might go better can help steer people towards greatness.

Secondly is the opinion tabletop RPGs are doomed. This particular saw has been played since the 1990s by people who fear their hobby will fold in the face of large-scale collector games or computer-based gaming. The latest view is customers are so cheap that when they can find free alternatives, they do so, rather than spend money on merchandise that can be hard to find.

This pessimism is taking the industry further away from it's audience. It implies a basic lack of respect about the product and it's seller. So is complaining about how hard it is to make it in the hobby today, about which version is best, or how it doesn't fit your vision of the ideal game even though they make blog content. You might have to move on. You might have to get smart.

Choose carefully - remember your time is important. And if you think your audience or peers are petty, self-entitled whiners you may be in the wrong business or peer group. I'd rather be with a bunch of discerning, creative enthusiasts. I know they're out there. So do they - and I don't have to insult or litigate against them to get them to listen. Does that count for something?

You might even want to look at how people who are making it in the environment are going on. In closing - a video of a presentation by Mike Masnick of Techdirt.com on a case study featuring Trent Reznor, Jonathan Coulton and others who have realised that it's now about the patronage of the customer. It's a bit lengthy - start from 02:30 if your time is short - but worth it.

P.S. By the way...
Have you?

three things: you might want to know

Free (as in beer) music - In these times of shocking piracy (which has been going on since Usenet I hasten to add) it's refreshing to find someone willing to showcase something for nothing. A beat combo called Nine Inch Nails who did the music for Quake back in the day have lots of free music in return for contact details. Take a look at Ghosts, The Slip and the Remix section (which is an absolute goldmine) - Hollywood use them, so why shouldn't you?

Tell your friends - In the wake of that decision, a number of publishers are stepping up to discount their own PDF products, whether to take up the slack or steal a march, we're not sure but we aren't minding it either way. Chaosium announced a Basic Roleplaying quick start and DriveThru RPG are currently selling Exalted 2nd ed for the princely sum of nothing. I've never seen one gaming company's decision spark so much interest in it's competitors.

Writing opportunity! - 6d6 Fireball are running an adventure-writing competition in both amateur and semi-pro. You may find it helpful to include bearded devils in your adventure and if you include a boss and three minion-types that's just peachy. Deadline is May 12th so boot up your word processors and get going. They'll publish the winning entry and you get profits and the chance to further your name.