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Random Kindness Realized!

Ryan Macklin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 06:12:43 +0000

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Random Kindness Encounter Bundle!

575 People

$15,225

In 3 days, 10 hours, 2 minutes and 45 seconds

Damn. We did a thing here, gaming world. Thank you very much.

- Ryan

(Oh, and now my promo widget points to a man who would like to see a dream come true, a dream of ghost piracy. It’s not cancer-fighting, but it’s worthy of support.)

RKE Bundle Reaction Video

Ryan Macklin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 23:08:35 +0000

A personal video reaction to how amazing y’all have been:

Too Long; Didn’t Watch:

We’re capping the donations at $15K, because woah.
Holy crap, you’re awesome. wut i dont even
I’ll talk more about Mythender later, because I have my hands full with managing this project. :)
Holy crap, you’re awesome.
I drink passable coffee.
Apologies to David & Filamena for spacing — it’s been a long couple days.
Incidentally, in the first 24 hours, 395 people raised $11,325. Again, holy crap, you’re awesome.
My video comment about the amount is awesomely out of date.
And for Will Hindmarch‘s Always/Never/Now:

- Ryan

Unknown Armies Fillable Character Sheet

Ryan Macklin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:19:16 +0000

I decided to put up a place where I can post useful, downloadable stuff I make!

The first thing I’m adding to it is an Unknown Armies 2/e fillable PDF, because I love running Unknown Armies for people and my handwriting sucks. :)

Note that there’s a weird bit with the Hardened & Failed text, because the fonts there in the original PDF are weird. Sorry about that! I also removed the lines under the notes section, to let the text flow as needed.

If you have any comments, let me know! Also, feel free to take this and make a better version, if you like. That’s always awesome.

Thanks to Jess Banks over at Atlas Games for giving me the green light to post it up!

- Ryan

Taking a Few Days Off, November 2011

Ryan Macklin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:45:39 +0000

Folks,

I’m gonna take a few days off from blogging. I want to hunker down and finish a project I’ve been working on, which I’ll share with y’all soon enough. And lately I haven’t been able to quite manage both a couple thousand words on projects and writing up a blog post. And I’m going to use that as a segue to talk about mental health.

This constant workload is one of those things that ends up biting me. Lately has been a lot of “burning the candle at both ends” sort of activity, to finish up some stuff for other people. Unfortunately because of that, some days I just can’t get the words together at all. This is partly do to dealing with a psychiatric condition that causes excruciating headaches in times of stress or heavy continual brain contact. With the anti-anxiety medication I take[1], working an eight-hour day is doable, but the eleven-hour ones eat up my spoons quickly.

Having to deal with being a creative and dealing with psychiatric conditions means gauging your ability to work, and not working like you see other people doing. I would love to have the output that, say, Matt Forbeck has. Especially with his 12-for-12 project, which I encourage you to check out. But I can’t do that; I’ve tried, and found my neurochemistry doesn’t support my desired output. Since I’ve come to terms with that, I’m pretty watchful for “wait, the extra hour of work I’m about to do tonight is going to kill my brain for the whole of tomorrow. Fuck.”

I want to finish this project without crashing myself. And I want to finish it soon, because that’ll make me happy. So I’m at that point where I look at the “this is what I want to do” pile and “this is what I have the bandwidth for” meter, and decide what has priority.

Anyway, I figured I could just say “Hey, taking a break! Working on something cool!” and folks would just nod. But I wanted to say a little more, because I know I’m not the only creative type out there who deals with mental health issues.[2] I’m rather resentful of this limitation, but that’s what I get to deal with.

In the meantime, you should check out Elizabeth Shoemaker-Sampat’s new blog. Her first post is pretty amazing.

See you in a bit!

- Ryan

[1] Which is why I’m so very damned loud about health care in this country. Because I pay for the medication out of my pocket, and my thought process each time I do is “Okay, I’ve bought another 100 days of sanity & ability to work. What can I do with it?”

[2] I’ve always been quiet about such things, because I’m genuinely afraid that it’ll cause me to not get hired by some people. But I think I’m done being quiet.

Audience Participation: What’s My “Must-Read” Post

Ryan Macklin — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:46:37 +0000

I’ve been told by a few people that I should submit my blog for this year’s ENnie Awards. So I’ve looked over their rules regarding e-submissions, and here’s where I’m stumped:

Podcasts and Blogs: You must send a link to your site and specify one “must-hear” episode or one “must-read” article/issue. The judges will select another “must-hear” episode or one “must-read” article/issue that they all listen to/read. Each judge will then select another episode/article/issue.

I’m stumped because I live in my head and I just vomit forth whatever I’m thinking about. I’m sure some posts have resonated with folks more than others. So, your mission, should you choose to accept it: Which of these posts from last year (starting May 1, 2011) is my most “must-read” post? Why?

If you help me pick my post, I’ll likely by you a drink at a con, whether I actually get nominated for an ENnie or not. Because this sort of thing is drink-worthy.

My posts from the last 12 months:

Again, a huge thank-you in advance to everyone who helps me out here!

- Ryan

Goals for 2011

Ryan Macklin — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:00:42 +0000

I have a goal for this blog in 2011, something I’ve been thinking about for the last month.

See, the amount that Rob Donoghue writes continues to amaze me. Something every damned weekday. But I also know my own limits, so it’s not something I can do. In the words of Saint Callahan:

A man’s gotta know his limitations.

I’m going to try for 13 posts a month. That’s 156 posts in the next year. I have a Google doc with a crapton of blog post ideas that I’m going to work out. Knowing that Rob often writes the night before and schedules it for the next day is something I’ll probably do (and did with my Con Burrito post, and doing with this post). That he blogs about whatever is on his mind, from gaming to the iPad, is probably something I’ll avoid — but maybe not on occasion. I dunno.

Importantly, there’s something I told Mick Bradley a few months back:

I will tell you what I tell people who say this: 500 words is the new black.

Try putting a thing on your calendar that recurs one day a week that says “hey, blog about something for a small amount.” Practice. Make it a habit.

More importantly, make sure you enjoy it.

I try for 500 words. I often overshoot. I want to overshoot less, honestly, because (a) that’s a huge time investment for something I don’t get paid for, even if it’s building my brand of whatever, because, hey, my brand isn’t paying my rent, and (b) smaller posts are smaller ideas, and smaller ideas are easier to poke and and understand where my thinking is wrong.

Which brings me to my thoughts on blogging in general:

Be comfortable posting “half an idea.” I frequently chat with people about working on little, nimble projects together rather than doing a lot of work solo, and that’s because I believe that me plus others is smarter than me alone. Similarly, I feel like I should create a “fully baked idea” for my blog, because me plus people commenting is smarter than me alone. I haven’t written my follow-up post about Adventure Games and the Myth of Arcs, but that I did that post and the comments I received have made me think and have made me smarter. To that, I have to say: fuck yeah.
“500 words is the new black” isn’t just a cute saying. But I already went into that. Clearly I’m writing this stream-of-consciousness style.
Which brings me to why I don’t really edit my blog posts: I actually want many of my fuck-ups and flubs to remain public record (though I will copy-edit a little after posting so that the text is clearer). I’m a flawed individual, and I totally fucking admit that. Cuz, you know, I’m human. That means I’m going to be wrong. So I’m willing to be wrong publicly. That’s how we learn. That’s how we become awesome.
Similarly, a blog post is the start of a conversation (hopefully), so having incomplete ideas and being willing to be wrong is part of being able to have that conversation rather than a lectures and dissertations — which might not actually be the best use of this social medium. I think the shorter posts facilitate that.
This doesn’t mean “be half-ass.” it means it’s okay to be rough & incomplete, if your goal with blogging Is to learn. (And if it’s not, what the fuck are you doing?)
Have a fucking voice. You don’t need to be dry. But don’t be a slave to your voice, either. It’s hard for me to talk about that one, it’s just something to feel out and experiment with.

But that’s me and my blogging philosophy. Your mileage will most certainly fucking vary. But that’s me and what I want to do in 2011.

- Ryan

[1] For those who don’t make the connection: Dirty Harry

The Blogger’s New Clothes

Ryan Macklin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 21:04:25 +0000

If you’re reading this off of my site rather than Google reader or something, you might notice a little something different today. I finally have a proper look to my site, rather than one of the cookie-cutter WordPress themes out there.

Check it out and feel free to leave comments. If you like the design, the credit goes to the talented and patient Mick Bradley. If you hate it, blame me for saying “hey, I like this.” (And if you want to hire him, he tells you how to do so on his blog.) Either way, I’m sure we’ll (or at least I’ll) be tinkering with the site further, since I can’t not — I’m an editor and engineer, two pursuits that cause one to Not Leave Well Enough Alone. :)

Soon, I’ll edit my About page to actually have something meaningful there. But I wanted this done and up first, since one question I get (that I want to answer on my About) is “What’s up with the pig hat?”

Also, a huge thank-you to my friends who helped me critique various stages of the design. Albert & Nancy, Chris, Matthew, Amanda, Jess, those I’m totally spacing on and thus being an asshole to right now, I owe y’all a drink.

- Ryan

Irving Batman: Geriatric Crusader

Ryan Macklin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:00:43 +0000

Oh my god you guys! You won’t believe this, but yesterday we finalized the contract for Tomorrow the World! Games to produce the RPG for the hit new live-action web comic, Irving Batman: Geriatric Crusader.

It will be very faithful to the original material, and not some uninspired piece of churned out crap like The Dresden Files RPG or The Leverage RPG. No, we’re going to do this one RIGHT. Check it out!

20 ORIGINAL classes, including Weremanservant (who doesn’t love Night Alfred!) and Catsmanduex Master
50 weapons! Yes, fans, I know you’ll ask for it. So we’ll definitely have stats for Death Pudding!
Entirely new subsystems for Combat, Social Combat, and Nurse Action!
Just like the live-action comic, there will be slutty-dressed women everywhere! Who doesn’t love that?
FULL COLOR! 600 PAGES! HARD BOUND! ONE BOOK FOR ALL YOUR IRVING BATMAN NEEDS!

And more!

But remember, this isn’t just going to be The Definitive Game for fans. No! It’ll be the launching of our new generic RPG: the MASTER system. What does MASTER stand for? I haven’t figured it out yet!

Remember, Batketeers, GO FORTH AND RULE THE NIGHT!

- Ryan

A Montage hack for 4/e

Ryan Macklin — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:38:15 +0000

In my D&D 4/e game, two of my three (yes, I only have three!) players are leaving in September. When I heard this, I told them that I’d like to see what paragon is like, as I’ve only seen lower-level Heroic. They were level 2, so we were going to level 11. We were also about to go on a three week hiatus thanks to mismatched schedules, so session before that was built as a chapter close — they were the City Watch, but the city was overrun by the undead, and they had to flee and fire-bomb it from airship.

For those familiar with my dragon-halfling war idea, the PCs were on a Halfling Flagship called Bahamat’s Doom — but they didn’t know the airship they were getting on was a Halfling ship, or the name of it. All they knew was “Man, we need to get to the Dragon Empire, where our new friends are!” Two of there were (willingly and happily) psychicly bonded to a gold dragon traveling in a water ship below them, the Emir of Light. And they were on the ship that has killed dragonkind. They had a nice “oh, shit!” moment at the end of the session.

Now, we all knew the action would take place back in the city they came from, as they went to go kick a god’s ass and deal with the evil Eladrin mayor. But, I didn’t just want to say “and now you’re back!” or anything like that. I wanted to model a bit of a feel like “hey, you really just spent 9 levels being badasses in the Eastern Continent — what happened?”

So I came up with this Montage system. It’s simple:

I have an index card for every level with a situation on it.
Each player has 6 six-sided dice.
I describe the situation that happened.
They each describe something they do.
All of them roll their dice, totallying them up.
The highest gets to endcap the narration, and in the case of PvP (two people saying they’re doing opposing things), they decide which one actually succeeded.
The winner hands me one of their dice, so they have fewer going into the next one.

The result was better than I had hoped for. They had a rich story of what happened, with new plot threads and hooks that wouldn’t have happened if I just simply asked “hey, what did you guys do there?”

I’ll describe all nine situations, for those interested in how I used this specifically. After that, I have a question, one prompted by a discussion I had with Leonard Balsera regarding what it means to “play” Fourth Edition.

First situation: Strange metal beings attack — “winged warforged, much like the non-winged one they encountered in the god’s dream world, attack while you’re on the sea.” It took them a moment to get the feel of what I was going for (though, luckily, one of them played Mythender, so they had the “narrate your awesome” muscles well toned), but once they did, they talked about rallying the halflings, repelling boarders, and taking some wings out as they approached.

That was my “warm-up” situation. Simple, straight-forward. Then I turned up the heat.

Section situation: Halfling blocade! — “A Halfling cross-navy (air & sea navy) sits before the port the sought to enter, as the closest port to Bahamut’s Jewel. They are repelling all those who would seek to enter.” The human decided to rally the human servants on the ship to mutuny and take the ship for himself to charge through the blocade. The genasi (the one who wasn’t connected to the Emir of Light, but was bound to the god they have to kill) wanted to stop that from happening and simply protect the dragon. The half-elf wanted to use gentle diplomacy to get their way through…and won, so she decided part of that “diplomacy” involved the mutuny happening.

The guy playing the human ranger said “Holy crap, I have an airship! Okay, we really got to change the name of this.” The guy playing the genasi cringed. I didn’t expect the PvP element here, but I’m pretty happy with it.

Third situation: Negotiations with the Dragon Empires — “While the Dragon Empires are grateful for the return of the Emir of Light unharmed, they see little reason why they should aid you in reclaiming your Western city.” They did various methods for stating their case, including some strong-arm diplomacy and passionate rhetoric. While the system didn’t favor her mechanically for this reason, it was appropriate that the badass diploamt half-elf won that one.

In her narration, she also convinced the halflings to cease fire, for now.

Fourth situation: God-king Dracolich! — “A port city to the north is suddenly taken by the undead, with a dragon lich commanding them all!” They did various things, from attacking with their airship (still geared to kill dragonkind), to working to subdue the dragon lich, to finding survivors in teh city and helping them escape. The genasi won, and he wanted the dragon to talk before killing it.

Since he was my normal story game player, I turned the tables on him and asked him what the dragon told him about this sudden plague. He said that the dragon lich itself wasn’t part of the plague, but it got the plague from the Eladrin and used it to create an army here. Juicy stuff that just makes them want to take on the Eladrin even more.

Fifth situation: Assault on Bahamut’s Jewel — “Zealots unable to live in a peaceful world march on crusade and have attacked the capital city of the Dragon Empire.” Here’s another place where the party split: the half-elf did “diplomacy by sword,” the human lead a dragonkin army, and the genasi scuttled the biggest symbol of hate between the halflings & dragons — the dragon-killing airship.

The genasi player won, and suddenly the human was once again without an airship. He was bitter about that.

Sixth situation: The Son of Storm — “An ancient halfling sorcerer, one legend calls the Son of Storm, marches on Bahamut’s Jewel — not to engage the dragons, but to deal with the human who killed his descendants.” This was another juicy situation, as the human wanted the sorcerer’s head, and the genasi & half-elf wanted to talk sense into him and calm him.

The half-elf won and the end result kicked ass: the half-elf diplomacy, beautiful and rare, agreed to marry the Son of Storm as he felt in love with her. They would forge a peace between these two worlds. But before that, she had to finish her business of wiping the sourge from her home, the Western City of Oceandawn.

(Quick note: This is the halfling sorcerer that Fred Hicks played a couple months ago. He emailed me with the character, saying “Dude, this guy is in your game!” He totally is.)

Seventh situation: The eastern cult of Aeyrholt — “A cult of the god Aeyrholt, the god they are by prophecy fated to kill, has made itself known. Lead by tieflings, it has halfings and dragonkin as members, terrorizing the populace.” I accidentally forgot a bit on this card when I described it to the players, so it turned into a “fight the cult” situation. I meant it to be another social one, but that’s what happens when you forget importnat notes! Still, I like what happened instead, because it told them, for sure, there the temple of Aeyrholt was.

(Oceandown is Fantasy San Francisco, with the Spiral Tower — yeah, the one from the paragon path for Eladrin Wizards — bring where Alcatraz is. And that’s where Aeyrholt’s temple is. They guessed that, but finally had evidence.)

Interlude: Ready, they set back to the Western Continent. Due to their influence, the half-elf commisioned an air armada to be lead by the human, crewed by halflings and dragonkin. Disciples of the Son of Storm travel with the half-elf as her personal guard. The son of the Emir of Light, a Gold Dragonborn, has chosen to follow the human into battle to earn his glory (a fact that I retconed in after the players left, because, hey, potential hostage). And they all set off.

Eighth situation: Challenge of the Sea God — “The sea-god Levithan attacks, knowing one of the PCs to be bound to Aeyrholt, an ancient foe.” Two of the, the genasi & half-elf, wanted to talk. The human wanted to humble the god. The human won (and it sounds more and more like we’re playing Mythender here), and the sea-god agreed to help, bonding himself with the genasi who is also bonded to his foe.

Seriously, the genasi player is on some sort of “collect the whole set” thing with gods. We jokingly retconed that he also bonded with Bahamut. I don’t know if it’s the sort of joke that did or didn’t happen, though.

Ninth & climatic situation: Eladria’s Armada — “Knowing her foes are coming, Eladria, mayor of the now-undead Oceandawn, supposed leader of the cult of Aeyrholt, sends her nay to stop them.” They describe various ass-kicking actions, with the winner cashing in Levithan’s favor by causing the sea to raise on both sides of the armada, turning into two hands and crushing the ships in between them.

That was around an hour of play, which gave a good sense of “So, this is how we got here. I can’t think of another way that would have resulted in a political marriage, a personal armada, becoming bound to another god, etc. that would have still worked in the short time. I’m really happy with how it all worked out.

So, that’s what happened. Here’s my question:

Were we playing D&D 4/e?

At the surface, you have to say “No, clearly not.” And true, we weren’t engaging in the system. But the same argument is used to say one isn’t playing the game during those sessions where dice aren’t rolled, and lately I think that’s a flawed argument.

I think we were, because we were playing within the context of D&D — they had a sense of what the warforged could do, because they fought one. The threat of the undead was faced first-hand by them. We’ve been playing this game for a few weeks now, and all that context poured into our montage. It’s one of those “setting vs. system” discussions, and while we created a custom setting, that setting is saturated in the D&D context.

But it’s an honest question. If we didn’t, why is context not enough to play a game? If we did, why do you think that?

- Ryan

Kind words about Master Plan

Ryan Macklin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:41:45 +0000

Amy Garcia, co-creator of Empire of Dust, has said some kind words on her blog about Master Plan:

Ryan Macklin’s 50th episode should be airing Tuesday, June 30th. I believe that this specific episode is about A Penny for My Thoughts with Paul Tevis. I’m so excited. If anything can be said about Ryan, it’s his undying love and dedication to RPG’s and the roleplaying community. I’m so grateful to him and all the work he does. I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to Master Plan and just became completely inspired and empowered to create.

She is indeed correct — that’s the plan for MP #50, date and topic.

Daniel Solis has got something cooking up, apparently. The other morning, I was greeted with this from his blog (as well as a Story-Games thread):

Hey Everybody,

Ryan Macklin’s about to release the 50th episode of the Master Plan. Since 2007, he’s been ladeling out a thick, savory stew of game design advice into our dirty, orphan bowls.

His friends are asking you to send well-wishes, congratulations and otherwise humorous messages in an audio format. Post them online or send them straight to the man himself at:

ryan [at] masterplanpodcast [dot] net

Better hurry! The 50th episode will be released pretty soon and you don’t wanna be the chump sending belated congrats. :)

Y’all are generous with your praise. (The fact that this is text means you can’t hear how everything else is just me blundering and failing to find the words to express my gratitude to my awesome fans — especially with the audio I’ve received since Daniel posted that up.)

Thank you, both. Thank you, all.

- Ryan

I have arrived to 2007…

Ryan Macklin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:37:12 +0000

So, I’ve had this domain name for nearly a year, and have been thinking about doing this WordPress blog thing for my thoughts in a more professional nature — that is, on the topics of gaming and new media. Inspired by Paul Tevis doing the same, I figured I should get a move on.

I’ll keep the LiveJournal thing going for a more quick, personal posts, and it’s a convenient way to follow some people. But from here on out, you can catch me on RyanMacklin.com.