Epic Adventure

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On this episode of You Heard it Here Last, Mike and I talk about Chaosium's contest and the upcoming Fallout TV show.

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Downtime is that nebulous period between game sessions where the characters have an opportunity to pursue long term goals or simply handle a little organization, rest, and repair before the next big adventure.

Players can use the downtime by announcing what their character will be doing over the next couple of weeks. Anything from buying equipment, crafting magic items, fighting in the arena, building a castle, or getting sloppy drunk at the local inn is possible. The game master rolls some dice and tells the players the outcomes of their characters actions. Weeks go by in minutes.

Everyone ready to get back to the adventure?

Cool.

And back into the dungeon we go.

Over the years downtime has evolved to a full set of rules in D&D 5e. But that wasn’t always the case.

In Gary Gygax’s original rules for dungeon and dragons everything happened in real time. Including the time between games. If your group got together on Sunday afternoon and began exploring the dungeon, they had better come to a good stopping point before calling it a night because if a week of real time passes before the gang can get back together again then a week of game time passes in the campaign world.

Minute for minute, hour for hour, day for day.

Personally, I love that idea.

It’s often called persistent roleplaying and is most commonly found in Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games such as Everquest, Lord of the Rings Online, and Star Wars The Old Republic. But you can do the same thing with your table top games.

By utilizing concepts like play by post, emails, discord and other online tools the game doesn’t have to stop when the players call it a night. All of the traditional downtime activity can occur, but in a more fluid roleplaying sense. Instead of rolling a dice to see if the Paladin started his new church use discord to play out the relevant planning, conversations, and problems that arise during the week. When the players come back together for the game, they will have a rich history to share with each other, improving roleplaying all around.

Does this take work. Sure it does. The game master will have to be available to read the messages and respond in kind. The players will need to responsive to the questions and interaction created by the game master. But really you are only talking about an extra 20 minutes or so a day to have a persistent and ongoing world to adventure in. Instead of turning downtime into a series of random rolls we allow are characters to live and populate the adventure world we have created. This doesn’t eliminate the concept of downtime, on the contrary it elevates it to a whole new level.

Because everyone needs downtime.

As a matter of fact, Mike, Christina, and I need some Downtime ourselves. With the holiday season upon us it seems like a perfect opportunity for some downtime. We are going to take December off and level up.

In January we will be back with all new episodes for Season 2 of Epic Adventure.

And Mike, Christina, and I will be sporting new level 2 characters with a better THACO and maybe even a +1 quip here or there.

We look forward to seeing you in January.

Until then, Have an Epic Adventure.

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I can remember it like it was yesterday. October, 1976, Sunday night, 7pm.

I was already dressed for bed and I settled down in front of the TV.

“When you wish upon a star” played from the speakers and the opening credits of “The Wonderful World of Disney” played across the screen. This was a normal Sunday night for me and it is the reason I am a huge Kurt Russell fan to this day.

But this night of television was going to be very different.

This night was going to change me forever.

The music swelled and the screen was filled with stage curtains in blue, lights like waves splashed over the opening credits as the title card “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” played across the screen.

That movie started my love of Science Fiction. The next day I checked out the Jules Verne book from the library and when I finished that, I went back for more. The Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, Mysterious Island, and Around the World in Eighty Days just to name a few.

Since then, Science Fiction has been my go-to when I am reading, watching TV or films, and gaming.

The Science Fiction Genre has been described as the “Literature of Ideas” and it’s one of the most versatile and expansive genres in existence. From the fantasy landscapes of J.R,R, Tolkien, to the time travelling HG Wells, to the Ringworlds of Larry Niven and the depths of the human mind from Neil Stephenson, Sci-Fi can do it all.

On this episode Christina, Mike and I are going to talk about the Sci-Fi genre and how to bring it to life in your roleplaying games.

Christina, do you remember your first exposure to Sci-Fi?

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In this episode of Epic Adventure Steve talks to Mike and Christina about the development of the Radiance Adventure Engine.
Mike shares how The Shine Storytelling Engine morphed into Luminous and eventually Radiance. Christina gives us a breakdown of how the system works. And I talk about my play-testing experience.
Radiance is a new game from Oddfish Games, or should I say it's a new game tool. It allows you to solo roleplay any TTRPG system you can think of and, I believe it's the best new tool for game masters and players alike.
You can find more at the following links.
https://oddfishgames.com/
https://oddfishgames.com/products/the-radiance-adventure-engine-pre-order-wip
https://oddfishgames.com/products/shine-pre-order
https://oddfishgames.com/products/luminous-pre-order

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You were curious what this D&D thing was all about. You saw the shows, and heard a few podcasts, you even enjoyed the trailer for the new movie.

So, you gave it a shot, and liked it. Now after a few games your eyes have been opened to the wonderful world of tabletop Roleplaying. What’s next?

Don’t worry, we’ve got your back.

On this episode of Epic Adventure Christina and I are going to break down our favorite Roleplaying games that aren’t D&D and why we love them so much.

We are going to give you our three favorite games with a little background and description in case you are interested. They are not in any particular order, and we recommend checking them out, buying them, and using them to run Epic Adventures.

Christina, start us off with one of your favorite games.

Here are links to Christina’s Games

Apocalypse World: http://apocalypse-world.com/

Night Witches: https://bullypulpitgames.com/products/night-witches

Pasion De Las Pasiones: https://magpiegames.com/pages/pasion

Cortex Prime: https://www.cortexrpg.com/

Savage Worlds: https://peginc.com/savage-settings/savage-worlds/

Fate: https://fate-srd.com/

Here are links to Steve’s Games

GURPS: http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/

Call of Cthulhu: https://www.chaosium.com/call-of-cthulhu-rpg/

Feng Shui: https://www.atlas-games.com/fengshui/