It’s the shortest — and the s$&%iest, in Wisconsin — the shortest month of the years. S$&%iest weather-wise anyway. From a non-weather standpoint — including personal and health bulls%&$ — I’m hoping January turns out to be the s$&%iest month of the year.
BWA HAHAHAHAHAHA! Like that’s going to happen
Optimism is for losers who want to spend their whole lives disappointed.
But, anyway…
It’s time for my February update.
As you might remember — and as I hinted above — January was a bit of a mess. And it left me really behind on the whole content release thing. Lots of stuff got delayed and then dumped into the last week of the month. Which is rough on you — the people who have to read 15,000 words of my bulls$&% in just five days — and rough on me — the guy who has to actually write the 15,000 words.
But 5,000 of the 15,000 words I dump on y’all really seemed to resonate. Everyone’s excited to see that whole Let’s Start a Simple, Homebrew Campaign thing play out. Possibly because its content people are desperate for. Possibly because you all know me and my history with series like that so you’re watching for the same reason everyone watches NASCAR. You’re just waiting for the spectacular crash.
One way or another, I’m sure I won’t disappoint.
I’m still playing catch up. But only just barely. This week, I’ll be back on the regular Early Access Wednesday schedule thing. Unless my computer explodes or something like that. Don’t laugh, that’s happened. I ain’t just being hyperbolic. The week I had to get [[LINK ME]]Game Angry manuscript to the editor, my computer literally exploded. Well, not exploded. But there was a bright flash of light from inside it and a bunch of smoke and the computer was dead forever. And s$&% like that’s why it’s hard for me to maintain a cheerful, optimistic disposition. Of course, if I suddenly dropped the sweary a$&hole disposition in favor of optimistic cheer, none of you would read my s$&% anymore, would you. A$&holes are fun to watch and read. As long as they’re being a$&holes to someone else anyway.
But anyway…
This week, I should be back to releasing early access articles at Patreon.com/TheAngryGM every Wednesday for those of you who pay me. And next week, I’ll be back on my behind-the-scenes regular content creation workflow. And then all will be right with the Angry world. Until the next explosion.
That said, thanks to all of those who reached out with well-wishes, encouragement, sympathy, thoughts, and prayers. They were — and always are — appreciated. If nothing else, they remind that I’m surrounded by an amazing community for which I am tremendously grateful. And you’d think that’d make it easier to maintain a sunny, optimistic disposition.
Any…
…way…
It’s monthly update time. And given I’m still in ketchup jelly bean mode — there’s an obscure and dated reference for y’all — I’m not going to drop any big announcements. I’m just going to let you when to expect what features, when the live chat is, when you can buy official Angry Tension Dice, and revise the release date for the first Angry Theme Pack of 2022.
February 2022 Angry Content and Event Calendar
Monday, February 7
- Supplemental Bulls$&%: What’s Really in a Campaign [Patron Early Access Feature]
- February 2022 Update [You’re Soaking in It]
Wednesday, February 9
- Ask Angry: Double Secret Game Mechanics [Patron Early Access Feature]
- Supplemental Bulls$&%: What’s Really in a Campaign [Feature Article]
Wednesday, February 16
- Let’s Start a Simple Campaign: The Premise [Patron Early Access Feature]
- Ask Angry: Double Secret Game Mechanics [Feature Article]
Thursday, February 17
- Angry’s Mostly Month Live Chat: February 2022 (8:00 PM EST – ???) [Patron Discord Event]
Wednesday, February 23
- 10 Campaign Alternate Continuity Campaign Premises You Won’t Believe [Patron Early Access Feature]
- Let’s Start a Simple Campaign: The Premise [Feature Article]
Monday, February 28
- 2022 Angry Theme Pack #1: Home and Hearth [Patron Bonus Content]
Future Article Ideas
Speaking of features and content, two ideas came up in Angry Discord Server this morning. I’m considering articles on both. Feel free to cut a rug if you want to see either or both in March.
First idea’s an article about running stealth encounters and infiltration scenes and also why I’m phrasing them that way and how they’re not the same.
Second’s a related idea about how to roll dice at the table. I know that sounds weird, but there’s always lots of questions that come up about group rolls and secret rolls and managing what stats you know about the PCs and who should roll what when. Call it a masterclass in dice-rolling strategies and techniques for smooth adjudication. No, that sounds like pretentious bulls$&%. Let’s go with a suggestive pun about handling your dice bag or something.
Mostly Monthly Live Chat
Last month’s live chat got long and heavy and serious and long. This month’s won’t. Unless it does. Because I can’t control this s$&%. But I’m going to try to stick to my usual format. The one where I promise a half-hour of angry monologuing about bulleted topics followed by a half-hour of Q/A with the text chat. Which actually turns out to be 55 minutes of angry monologuing followed by me promising to answer a few, quick questions and then going for another 35 minutes. At least.
At least I’ve got a plan.
But anyway…
The planned monologue topics for this month include:
- Dice Shopping with Tiny: A hilarious rant about store clerks that piss me off and stupid-a$& modern dice designs for lifestyle gamers.
If you want to propose another monologue topic or pose a question for the Q/A portion of the evening, post a comment below. Assuming you’re a patron and you’re reading this on Patreon.com.
2022 Theme Pack #1: Home and Hearth
The Home and Hearth Theme Pack was originally slated for a February 18 release to high-support Patrons. It will be done in February. It may be done by the 18th. But it won’t be. In the interest of not setting myself up for failure by overpromising, the planned release date is February 28. But I will publish it early if it’s done early.
Meanwhile, if you’re not one of the super awesome high-tier Angry patrons who get free Theme Packs every two months but you still want 10 to 20 pages of themed, original, Angry D&D content, you’ll be able to buy the older Theme Packs starting in March over at the Angry Games store. Out of respect for my awesome supporters, there will be a few months of lag between when I give them a Theme Pack and when I offer it up for sale.
Anyway, that’s it. That’s the February update. Thank you to my generous supporters for keeping me online. Thanks to all the members of the Angry Discord community. Which is literally the best gaming community on the entire Internet and the only one worth being a part of. Save some money to support the Angry Tension Dice Kickstarter coming in the middle of May. And have a great worst month of the year!
I would love a good article on handling your dice bag.
I’m currently writing a one shot but I’m struggling between determining how to prepare DCs and whether or not it should be a passive check. I want to prevent players with high skills from not knowing things because they rolled low, but if I apply passives, there’s no real challenge, because I know in advance whether or not they will succeed on the check.
I like to make passive checks slightly harder. (I treat them as 8+bonus instead of 10+bonus) It has always seemed to me like passive checks assuming a 10 is a bit too generous. Lowering the passive check that little bit seems to be just enough to keep my players from assuming they’ve spotted everything without making them feel they have to actively search every nook and cranny. This still has you knowing in advance whether they will auto-succeed, but for me at least, that bothers me less on a check that can be made with an 8 than with a 10. (I think because it would feel a little unusual for them to fail that check actively, where the 10+ feels more up in the air)
I think Angry may have spoken against this house rule in the past, but I can’t remember when/why. Perhaps because he considers it unnecessarily complicated, which is fair. It’s not that big of a change.
Thanks for the insights! I’ve been thinking about this for a bit and it’s actually a pretty interesting thought exercise about passive checks in general.
For a normal skill check you roll a die, add proficiency and/or attribute modifiers, optionally apply advantage or disadvantage and compare that against a DC or opposed check.
Proficiency and modifiers represent your character’s skill towards completing a task, (dis)advantage represents (un)favorable conditions and the DC is the difficulty of the task. I feel that the die roll represents raw luck: all the little influences that you should not attempt to model. Is the sun in your eyes as you fire an arrow? Is a rock looser than expected while climbing a wall? That’s all factored into it.
What’s interesting is the degree to which these components contribute to the result. At level 1, characters have somewhere between -2 and +5 skill. Getting advantage is considered to add on average about +5. Yet the die roll can go anywhere from 1 to 20, which makes it the most impactful part of the check. This means that with some luck, the dumb-as-bricks barbarian knows more about the arcane sigil than the wizard who studied magic all his life.
A passive check solves this issue. With passives, your wizard will always know more about magic than your barbarian. The problem I got from this is that it does not feel satisfying to me as a DM. I enjoy creating scenarios without a fixed path to achieve a goal, and then playing to find out how the situation is going to go. A passive check is less interesting to me because I already know what the result will be.
I’m currently considering forgoing the passives and calling for active checks when they are relevant. “The room has a symbol drawn on one of the walls. Everyone: make an Intelligence (Arcana) check.” If the barbarian somehow manages to outperform the wizard, we’ll have an interesting conversation piece. “Durger, you have seen this symbol before when you raided a wizards’ headquarters. You overheard them talking about necromancy before you bashed their heads in.” I’m not entirely sold on the degree to which the d20 influences the results, but I also don’t really have a proper solution to narrowing this range without breaking the entire game.
Anyway, thanks again for your comment! I know I kind of strayed away from it with this follow-up, but it did help me kick-start this thought process!
Angry has talked about passive checks more then a few times, and wrote an article about when to roll dice in general. https://theangrygm.com/how-i-learned-to-hate-the-dice/
The short, general advice is to AVOID rolling the dice whenever you can.
Yes, rolling dice is fun. But just like anything else that’s fun, if you do it too much you will dilute the fun. Also, every time you need to stop to roll the dice, that creates a road bump is the pace of your game that can ruin the flow.
Obviously, this is all just advice, and you can run your game anyway you want to.
P.S. in your specific example, what was the point of rolling the dice? If it’s to decide Which of the PC’s knew the information, then you should make that decision as the GM. Deciding which of the PC’s know the info, especially if it’s some one unexpected like the barbarian, changes the info dump from exposition, into world building and character development. Intention is better than random.