Hey all…
It’s June. And it’s June 11th. Which is a bit later in the month than I like to do these update things. Which also suggests how things might be going.
Personal Crap
Let me get this out of the way first. And get it done with quickly. I am continuing to recover from the chaos of the past year of my life. Those of you who care already know what-all I’m talking about. Those of you don’t can just skip to the next session. I’m going through a rather tumultuous period right now. I was up for a while and had a frenzy of getting back on schedule and then decided that meant everything was going well and I could push extra hard on some other things. And then I took a bit of a downturn. Which is perfectly normally. Both physical and mental health recoveries are roller coaster rides. While they generally, hopefully, trend upward, there’s a lot of highs and lows, and even after things seem to have stabilized, there’s always setbacks. And I’ve taken some positive steps this months to continue my recovering. It’s personal. Just know that I continue to take active steps to improve and that I am going through a normal and healthy recovery process. Despite the setbacks.
Thank you all for the continued support and encouragement. And especially thank you to the super secret team of folks I’ve dubbed The Angry Games Board who continue to help me with accountability and encouragement. And thank you to the players in my various campaigns for your patience as I continue to struggle.
Content Schedule
While I’ve managed to keep my articles coming on a weekly basis instead of flinging out a whole bunch at the end of the month, I still have little schedule disturbances due to the aforementioned instability above. This week is another. This week’s Feature won’t be ready until Friday. There’s a couple of reasons. One of which I’ll get to below. Others are personal.
I haven’t quite decided which order to release what. These two things are definitely coming…
- True Campaign Managery: Clubhouse Rules (Esp. Scheduling, Attendance, and Lateness)
- True Scenario Designery: The Four Fundamentals of Game Design/Designing with a Purpose
The third Feature this month will be a one off. And I’m weighing two options, which means, if you work fast, you can have some input on which one comes out this month and which one comes out next month or possibly gets forgotten forever.
- True Open Worlds: Why trying to emulate open-world games in tabletop roleplaying games is a stupid-ass thing to do.
- Sportsmanship: Being afraid to offer gameplay advice, being offended by people’s gameplay advice, teamwork, courtesy, and other basic-ass stuff your players should have learned by playing dodgeball in elementary school but didn’t and now they’re fighting while you’re trying to run a game.
Got an opinion? Let me know. But comment quick. Because I’ll be making a choice in the next 24 to 48 hours.
The Angry Hacks Series
The Angry Hacks series has become a serious thorn in my side. Less because of the design work and more because of the presentation and publication issues. I’ve talked a bit about my vision for the series before so I won’t rehash it here. Suffice to say I want to put out publication-quality downloadable content, not just articles. And, while the writing, editing, and proofing has been more demanding, it’s the graphical design and layout issues that are becoming a massive hang up.
And so, I’ve made the decision to outsource half the stress. Last week, I approached a graphic designer to help me iron out that side of the project. That should break the block and it also puts a firm deadline on things for me. Basically, we’re working with a six-week lead time. That means the first Angry Hack will not arrive this month, but that it will be done before the end of July.
And once that hurdle is cleared, future Hacks can follow on a regular basis, either every other month or every month depending on the size of the Hack.
And I realize with One D&D’s release date fast approaching, I’m gonna have to figure out how that changes the whole Hack thing. And whether Wizards of the Coast will sue me over it.
June Mostly Monthly Live Chat
I will be hosting this month’s Mostly Monthly Live Chat on Wednesday, June 19 at 7:30 PM EDT. If you’re a supporter and want to propose topics or ask questions for the chat, there is a thread in The Angry Discord. Check the #live-chat-text-channel if you don’t see it.
Slapdash Updates
Last month, I started working more actively on Slapdash once again. I’ve been more active in #club-slapdash in The Angry Discord and I even updated the Club Slapdash Design Blog. One time. I have more updates forthcoming, but, as I noted above, my schedule still isn’t quite as stable as I wish it was. I do know the the next two Design Blog topics, if you want them…
- Resolving Tasks… and how that’s different from resolving actions or resolving skills.
- The Awesome Slapdash Open-Ended Approach to Afflictions, Conditions, Blessings, Curses, and Other Long Term Status Changes
My goal is to publish them on Friday, June 21 and Friday, June 28 respectively.
Wow, both of those are super helpful topics, and I hope you get around to doing both of them eventually, but if I had to choose, I say go with sportsmanship.
Here’s hoping for your continued recovery! Looking forward to all your future work.
My vote would be True Open Worlds.
For what it’s worth: sportsmanship sounds like the more interesting article 🙂
Thanks for the update! I’d really like to read that Open Worlds article
Personally really interested in the Sportsmanship article. I think it would be useful to read before I start my new campaign later this month. Thanks, Angry
I’m in favor of the sportsmanship article because I feel like we had an open world article like this a couple months ago?
However, if the open world article would not retread too much old ground, I’d be very haopy to read some discussion of that topic, too!
I wasn’t paying attention in dodgeball, so sportsmanship is my preference!
One vote for True Open Worlds
I vote for sportsmanship as well.
I am curious on how you would take the Open World article, I always thought that any good RPG is in essence “open world”. So I think it is probably something related to videogame concept that is the issue, or how some gms are viewing open world (therefore lots of clear definition for this article is probably required.
Said that, I have no idea what you plan to write on Sportmanship so I vote for that for starters. Sounds like there will be lots funny phrases and opportunities to look at stuff from angles I never did (which is the best thing about your articles).
I am always a big fan of open world content, even if it rehashes older ideas. I’ve re-read the open world articles multiple times for inspiration.
Sportsmanship sounds interesting. I don’t really have a problem at the current tables but that is because we did the “no asshats” down select a couple of years back. That means the current group is good but…
As always with life, they are starting to have other obligations that cut into game time. Since we like a group of 4 to 6 around the table (including the Referee/Gamemaster) it is looking like we need to start recruiting, again. Oh joy.
Our group has an average age of 30. I am the ancient one but I am balanced by a young whippersnapper who is barely in college. As we recruit more players, we need to ensure they play nice. That does not mean we forbid character fights to the death. It means we take turns, respect each other, refrain from offering too much and not enough advice and in general just remember everyone at the table is a friend.
So, Angry, tell us how to keep this camaraderie as we recruit new players.
true open worlds please
Thanks for the update! I’m more interested in the sportsmanship article.
A vote for true open worlds!
(and thanks for the update)
I’ll vote for Sportsmanship; the topic seems to have been cropping up for me lately
My vote is for sportsmanship
It’s easy to choose between the two. One of them is a statement from you, so although it would be fun to read the development, I don’t need to know more about it, you’ve already given the relevant information: “trying to emulate open-world games in tabletop roleplaying games is a stupid-ass thing”.
Regarding the other topic, we do need to read the article to take advantage of your advice on those situations. To learn to handle them…or to avoid them if we see ourselves portrayed in them.
But I’m not going to cast a vote, this is only an argument to try to convince you to choose the sportsmanship article.
Sorry for the bad translation. It’s Google’s fault.
I’d like to read the sportsmanship article. I’m also really looking forward to angry hacks, slapdash content, and being able to get out of work early enough to listen to the live chat!
I’m voting for open world. It’s practical and I enjoy you tearing things like that down. Sportsmanship is a stupid topic and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.
I’d like to read about open worlds -considered them quite a good idea until now…
I would be interested in the Open World article
+1 for Sportsmanship
Open World please
Sportsmanship. It’s coming up in my campaign now and seems more applicable to more games generally.
I’m more interested in the open worlds article; I’m sure that will contain useful advice about what to avoid, if nothing else. Hearing about player sportsmanship would be interesting, but I’m less clear how actionable the advice would be.
I vote Open Worlds.
Casting my vote for True Open World
Open worlds vote!
True open world!
To me, both options are good themes for both true game menagery and scenario designery.
But, true open worlds seens to me the one who will benefit more from the context of the other lessons about game design. So Sportsmanship looks more like a good standalone theme. Therefore, I think it would be the better for a one of for this month.
Hi Angry, I’m interested in True Open World because I remember an entire series of articles about managing a simple campaign which was centered around Open World concepts. I can grasp there is a problema with Open Worlds because I had some problems in my campaign which vanished after I moved away from Open Worlds. For a period the Open World thing felt amazing: the impression was as there is an entire world to Discovery, but in the long term it developed in a scenario where the player had too many possibilities open and never closed, and that caused some major problems.
I’d like to understand if you changed idea on thin topic of if I missed the point of the series about managing a simple campaign (which i really appreciated and I think is working well in my campaign, especially the part about exploration, mapping and Town Mode, but with some house rules on top of what DMG says).
My vote would be for True Open Worlds 🙂 for the third article
I vote for the sportsmanship article!
Put a wooden stake in the heart of Open Worlds please.
I’m here for sportsmanship, please.
Open World
(Vote) True Open Worlds
True Open Worlds, easy.
I’ll cast a vote for sportsmanship, for mostly the same reasons as Thomas, above.
I already tried to make an open world. It ended up with players floundering about aimlessly and not even bothering with plot hooks because they were by necessity open ended and not urgent.
So I stopped and built a megadungeon because that’s what I wanted to do anyways. I can’t read my player’s minds but they’ve kept showing up and I’m having a lot more fun this way.
So I’d love to read about how I’m wrong about sportmanship
Much love and support to you Angry, hope things work out well.
I lean towards Open Worlds, because I also agree a true open world is a stupid ass idea, but I strive to have my games include flexibility to pivot based on player choice/agency.