The Buying Game, or "How I Learned to Love the Market Again"

The shopping trip, it happens in every TTRPG, whether it is a tiny town's general store, all the way up to high end magic shops in metropolitan cities, players are guaranteed to frequent such places.

But, you ask, how do I avoid the eye rolls and groans that come with extended trips of this type?  Let us be honest, sometimes those "short" shopping trips turn into full session pace breakers.  

The simply answer is, make shopping more exciting, and weave the store into the plot, or give the store a plot of its own.  This is exactly what The Flying Pincushion Games new product line "Mystical Marketplaces" looks to do.  It is all too easy for GM's (I have done this myself) to hand wave shops and buying to a mechanical and book keeping level, which is not all that fun for anyone involved.  

Mystical Marketplaces addresses this problem by providing vividly detailed shops and locations, run by interesting and three dimensional proprietors with their own stories and motivations. Add that to quests and task that are shop specific, and an easy to use barter and patronage system, and we go from a bland "get it done and over with" shopping trip to a multifaceted adventure opportunity that also happens to have the option to purchase gear, some of which is unique to the shop.  All of this adds up to a deeper immersion into the game world for the players, less work and more adventure hooks for GM's, and a more memorable game session for everyone involved.

Look for the first installment of Mystical Marketplaces, "The Brass Drake" to be up for sale from such well known RPG store sites as DriveThruRPG, Paizo.com, and PFSRD20.com in the near future.  Best of all, "The Brass Drake" is only the first of what will be a sizable catalog of unique, flavorful, time saving, and fun stores and shops for your PC's to explore.  Oh, and at a very reasonable price too!

Cheers!

Jeff Harris
The Flying Pincushin Games Co-Owner 
 

Behind the Scenes: TFPC and Friends

 By Richard Litzkow

What makes a kickstarter successful, is it the idea being pitched, the person or team behind the idea, or some combination of both?

I got to wondering about this as I watched the Potato Salad kickstarter reach 11 days left having raised $61k. It seemed remarkable that this kickstarter; created as a joke, could raise so much money. But other kickstarters like Non-Player Cards with much longer term use only just having reached 60% of it’s target goal.

I stumbled onto the Non-Player Cards kickstarter by accident while searching the RPG section of kickstarter. As a game master by day and developer for The Flying Pincushion by night i’m always on the hunt for tools that enhance my ability to provide immersive, detailed games for my players. This, of course, also helps inspire my writing. I’m used to using tables to find random personality traits, but a kickstarter that promised to bundle decks of cards into categories like Name, Profession, Personality, Traits and so on sounded fascinating. With one draw from each deck a unique NPC for any occasion can emerge ready for use in any fantasy setting.

But I was wary, i’ve backed RPG kickstarters before and for all the love poured into them by their creators, many fall to pieces when exposed to the reality of deadlines and logistics. I’ve backed indie RPG bundles by auteur developers that i’ve had to pay for postage twice for and still not received the full pledge, i’ve backed other games where i’ve worked with artists to have scenes drawn from my games - but never seen more than the finished pdf, there have been RPGs i’ve backed by veterans of the industry that due to bad luck have fallen through and ruined their creator’s lives. Kickstarter is harsh, the products that make it through do so on the strength of their creator’s planning and preparation.

The only way to find out whether the creators of the Non-Player Cards kickstarter had the wherewithal to see the project to completion was to look for transparency. So I sent Andreas Walters the project lead of Non-Player Cards a message and asked a few questions.

I wanted to know what sort of team he commanded, the sort of professional skills he was bringing to the table and what plans he had for logistics if the project saw fruition.

Andreas was kind enough to answer my questions; as it turns out he works by day in local government for the San Francisco Transportation Agency, specifically on accounts and planning. A job he explains that is one part cat herding to several parts logistics and systems maintenance.

But he stresses, that he is also a gamer, specifically a GM who loves D&D and still reminisces about 3.5. He explained that he prefers to run intricate games, heavy on plot and character with unexpected twists added liberally for good measure. The idea for a card based system to create quick NPCs came to friend and him whilst they were plotting out a new set of tables, and after much discussion and planning they decided that the idea was worth pitching to the public - Non-Player Cards.

He hopes that the project will, if it gets it’s funding, see the light of day and be available to order online, as well as be available to retailers down the track. But the funding goal is to establish the groundwork, create the product and manufacture it small scale before expanding it.

When the group did the budget for the kickstarter they investigated closely the process of printing and shipping as well as the associated costs. A professional skill, Andreas informs me, is key to his real life job.

This is frankly the sort of thing I want to hear from a kickstarter creator, it’s not enough that they have a love of their project, but that they have the business skills to plan ahead. It also doesn’t hurt to be willing to engage in discussion with members of the public who are on the fence about backing the project.

While only time will tell how the Non-Player Cards project turns out, they have my money and support. If you think the project is worth investigating I suggest looking it up here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/metalweavedesigns/non-player-cards-npc-a-card-based-npc-generator

The Fine Line: Point of Interest

By Scott Bingham

     Happy Wednesday and welcome back readers! This is the Fine Line where topics relating to the role of the Dungeon Master are reviewed and discussed, primarily the duties of a DM lying outside of the rules. Last week was a unique opportunity to go over the ideal player with our theme of The Hunger Games, the gamer that DM’s alike dream of.  In our last discussion on the Fine Line we went over the actions taken by the player behind Katniss Everdeen that were above all admirable and displayed her own depth of character.

               

     With this in mind and considering what we have talked about I know move to this week’s theme, Doctor Who. Now my taste in the various fictions and stories is eclectic and as a self-proclaimed member of the geek community I am a huge fan of the Doctor and his exploits. My favorites in particular are the Ninth and Tenth portrayed by Chris Eccleston and David Tennant respectively. For this piece we will focus on one of my most beloved of Tennant’s performances, Silence in the Library.

     The Doctor and his companion Donna respond to a plea for help found written on the slightly psychic paper. The Tardis carries them to the Library, an entire planet devoted to every book to ever be in existence. When I die and move on from this world I really hope my journey carries me to such a place. In any case, the Doctor very quickly realizes a major issue with the expanse of the Library and the planet itself. It’s empty.

     A quick scan performed by the Doctor reveals that the only humanoids upon the planet are himself and Donna. A broader search shows that there are a million million lifeforms on the planet and yet there is silence in the Library. As the Doctor and Donna begin their investigation a pair of messages are passed on to them from whoever it was that last occupied the Library.

Run. For god's sake run. Nowhere is safe. The library has sealed itself. We can't— Oh, they're here.

Count the shadows. For god's sake, remember. If you want to live, count the shadows.

     In the words of the Doctor, “So that’s why we’re here.”

     Before we progress further let us discuss the phenomenal character that is the Doctor. Though possessing average stats in Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution the Doctor more than makes up for it with his ungodly score in Intelligence and his more than above average stats in Wisdom and Charisma. He is a master of utilizing his strengths, avoiding combat almost entirely by using a quick tongue, a sharp wit, and uncanny cleverness to work his way around and through problems. The Doctor is in essence the sort of player I can only fantasize about.

     Now as the DM of such a being you face a daunting task. Yours is the role of the challenger, the means by which the incredible intellect is put to work and exercised. Your story must possess enough curiosity, enough mystery, and enough difficulty to maintain the interest of a vastly intelligent character such as the Doctor. Best of luck.

     What makes the Doctor such an incredible player and such an interesting character? It’s his ability to break the meta and to think outside of the box. Once again he has average stats in half of his ability scores and so he relies upon what he does have often solving problems in a manner most of us wouldn’t even think of. He is constantly making checks and asking questions to gather as much information as he can and the DM does a wonderful job of providing every bit of information sought after. Knowledge is power as they say and the Doctor is the master of it.

     Now back to the Silence in the Library. Right from the get-go the Doctor is told exactly what he needs to know in the two messages; there is something dangerous in the Library, count the shadows, and to run. All of that from two short messages. Throughout the entirety of the adventure the Doctor refers to this information and it saves his life and also aids him in discovering what really happened within the Library.

     A quick Knowledge check reveals the ‘villain’ in this particular investigation the Vashta Nerada. The knowledge that the Doctor possesses about such creatures is chilling.

The Doctor: Almost every species in the Universe has an irrational fear of the dark. But they're wrong. 'Cause it's not irrational. It's Vashta Nerada.

Donna: What's Vashta Nerada?

The Doctor: It's what's in the dark. It's what's always in the dark.

     With the arrival of an expedition of archeologists the Doctor’s task becomes that more daunting. Now he has more than just himself and Donna to protect from a vicious and unforgiving, unseen enemy. He quickly displays the manner in which the Vashta Nerada feed tossing a chicken wing through a patch of shadows. Instantly the meat is devoured leaving only the bone. The Vashta Nerada hunt by attaching themselves as an additional shadow effectively giving their next meal two shadows. However the Doctor is ever so confused as to how the Vashta Nerada came to be on the planet considering that they live primarily in forests hatching from spores found in the trees. Scary stuff. The warning to run now is even more prevalent than before.

     As the story continues onto part two, The Forest of the Dead, the Doctor is being chased by the Vashta Nerada. Fed up with his lack of information he whips around and confronts the empty suit of a recent meal, one of the archeologists, telling and even coaching the Vashta Nerada swarm within to communicate with him. An interesting attempt but it works and he speaks with the predator about how they came to be here.

             Vashta Nerada: We did not come here.

The Doctor: Well of course you did. 'Course you came here.

Vashta Nerada: We come from here.

The Doctor: From here?

Vashta Nerada: We hatched here.

The Doctor: But you hatch from trees— from spores in trees.

Vashta Nerada: These. Are. Our. Forests.

The Doctor: You're nowhere near a forest. Look around here.

Vashta Nerada: These are our forests.

The Doctor: You're not in a forest. You're in a library. There's are no trees in a— Library. Books. You came in the books.

     This is what makes the Doctor such a phenomenal character and the player behind him so amazing and fun to story tell with. At the beginning of the adventure the Doctor was only given tidbits of information. However as he continued to display his ability to ask questions and to think outside of the box his DM appropriately rewarded him with more information and knowledge concerning the mystery of the Library. This is what we can take from Silence in the Library and from Doctor Who in general.

     When our players get creative and show us that they are capable of breaking the mold and utilizing their own level of creativity we should reward them. This article stands as the polar opposite of Speak No Evil, my recent piece on The Evil Dead (2013) wherein the players didn’t ask hardly any questions or make any checks and simply didn’t play the game or become a part of the story. The Doctor however is an incredible character with such depth and his brings his own organic creative element to the story that one can’t help but shower him with his tool and means of solving the mystery; knowledge.

     We don’t solve the problem for our players. That’s up to them. The Doctor is the one who figures out how the Vashta Nerada came to be in the Library and on an even deeper level what happened to the people who had gone missing whilst on the planet. When our players ask the questions and play the game and break the meta we give them what they need to succeed. The rest is up to them.

Dungeons, Dragons, Soundscapes: Sound Effects as a GM Tool

By Kyle O'Hara

It's an oft-repeated theme on many gaming forums – where does sound fit in with my game? Typically the topic of conversation is more background music and less sound effects, but the general consensus seems to be “Use what suits your group best”. And that's true. Music and sound effects aren't for every game group out there. But for those who choose to use it, sound is a powerful tool for setting atmosphere, highlighting important moments, climactic battles... the limit is your imagination.

Sound design is a weird and wonderful mix of technical dry work and pure creativity, and music and sound can skyrocket your game's feeling to whole new levels. In movies, it's the sound and music that sets the tone more than the visual aspect of it. You know what I mean – you're watching a movie, and slowly the music takes on a more tense tone, getting louder, and louder and louder, more tense until you're ready to snap, then BANG! A monster jumps out, or whatever. It wasn't the character walking down the empty hall that had you on the edge of your seat, it was the tense music making your heart race.

Using sound in your game is no different. Use it to underlie your BBEG monologues, to emphasize the mounting tension as the orc army draws near with wardrums pounding in the distance. It can be as simple as a nice long mp3 of foresty sounds you found on the Internet as background sound, you hit play, maybe set it to repeat, and you're good to go back to focusing on the game. That's fine. It can get a lot more in-depth than that, though – the more direct control you're willing to exercise, the more detailed you can get with your sounds in-game.

This talk is all fine and good, but what I hear you saying is, “Kyle, how do we do this? Tell us how we can make sounds our next big GM tool!” Well, alright, if you insist.

There are multiple ways of getting sound effects and background music up and running for your game, and I will be covering many of them in this series. Today, I'll be showing you how to build them yourself using free software and sounds, my preferred method. Over the course of this series I'll cover various other methods and resources as well.

For starters, you can just grab things off the internet. There are numerous places that offer royalty-free sound effects you can use, such as freesound.org. You can find all manner of … well, anything there, download them, and use them. They're created and uploaded by other users, with quite a good search function.

So, you've got yourself all the awesome explosions and fire sound effects you want, and you want to stick them together. Here's where you need another program. There are all kinds of them – any professional Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) will do the trick, but there are free alternatives. The best one out there is Audacity, available at http://audacity.sourceforge.net for free. It does a lot of the basics of a DAW, and even supports AU plug-ins. For our purposes, though, it has pretty much everything you'll need to get rolling with sound for your game.

This week's theme here at the Flying Pincushion is Gilgamesh, so today we'll be putting together some sound effects for a forest scene such as when Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel through the forest to steal cedar trees. And we'll be using 100% free stuff to do it! I'll show you how to make this sound file:

 http://soundcloud.com/sonicdirgeproductions/

Step 1: Decide which sounds you need.

To begin with, we need to figure out what sounds belong in the scene we're trying to build. A forest scene needs birds, leaves rustling, a river off in the distance perhaps. Lots of atmosphere and background noise. You can record the sounds yourselves if you have the gear for that, of course, but for those that don't, head on over to www.freesound.org and find yourselves some sounds. You can search for specific sounds, but don't forget to try a general search for “forest” and see what comes up. As it happens, right near the top of the “forest” search, there's one called “Fryers Forest Dawn long version” which suits our purposes perfectly. Then search “river” and there's a file called Beek1.wav that's a nice high-quality recording of a river sound.

Step 2: Download the sounds and import them into Audacity

Okay. So, we've downloaded some sounds that we would like to put together. Open up Audacity, go to File>Import>Audio, and select the sounds – in our case, the forest and river sounds. When the prompt pops up, select “make a copy of the selected files”, which copies the files and edits the copies so the originals stay untouched. Now we have two tracks – the forest and the river sounds. You can just hit play and hear both tracks at the same time, but the river one is much shorter than the forest one.

Step 3: Fill the Gaps

We want the river to be a constant background noise that lasts the length of the whole thing. Fixing this problem is simple – double-click the river clip to select it, hit Cmd+C (Ctrl+C for Windows users) to copy it, click again somewhere after the end of the clip, hit Cmd/Ctrl+V to paste it. Now, at the top of the window you have the transport area (play, pause, fast forward, etc.) and to the right of that, a bank of six icons. These are your tools – you have the Selection tool active right now. Click the bottom middle icon (a line with an arrow at either end) to activate the Time Shift tool. Then click and drag the pasted clip to the left until it meets the end of the first clip. Then, click the darker line at the meeting point to fuse the clips together. Then repeat the process for the new, double-length clip you just made, and again until you've matched the length of the forest clip. If you've filled it up and the river clip is now longer, click on the river clip at the spot that the forest clip ends (the end of the forest clip will blink yellow to show that it's perfectly aligned), and hit Cmd/Ctrl+I to split the clip at that location, then double-click the extra bits you don't want and hit backspace. The bulk of the work is now done!

Step 4: Tinker with the Sound

Alright, we have our basic clip complete. But we wanted the river in the background, remember? We could just make the river quieter (the volume control is the slider with – and + on the base of the track, left side of the screen). That works just fine, if you want the river to sound like it's right nearby. If you want it in the distance, you will need to do a little more work. Double-click the whole river clip to select it, then in the top menu bar click Effect, and select Equalization. This opens an EQ tool that gives you control over the levels of any specific frequency in the clip. To make the river sound farther off, we need to sink off the higher frequencies. The easiest way to do this is to click the Graphic EQ button on the bottom left, and just pull down the sliders starting at the far right, all the way to the bottom. Click Preview to hear what it will sound like, and keep doing that until it's satisfactorily far-away-sounding. Then hit OK to apply the effect.

Step 5: Save the Sound

Save the session (File>Save Project). If you want to have this sound you've created as an mp3, use File>Export. It will default to .WAV, if you want it as an mp3 instead simply select that on the drop-down menu, and it will export the sound in that format. I recommend using .WAV though, as it is an uncompressed lossless format with much higher quality than mp3. Alternatively, you can just use Audacity itself to playback the sound when you need it. If you want it to loop until you say stop, select the entire clip by double-clicking and on the top menu, click Transport>Loop Play. It will keep looping the audio until you hit stop.

There we go! We're done. Your only limits in what you can create in this manner are the sound files you can find, and your own creativity in putting them together and editing them.