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Sunday got busy...
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 02:09:51
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 02:09:51
Balancing on-the-go! Planning on catching up here on the Geek tomorrow and fingers-crossed... hopefully I'll have the next Mythic Monday report for you tomorrow too!
See you tomorrow!
Happy Sunday and happy playing!
-Rachel
Thank you for reading my blog. If you liked it; then please click the green thumb [microbadge=23724] at the top of the page. If you really liked it; then please subscribe. And follow me across social media with my Linktree:
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See you tomorrow!
Happy Sunday and happy playing!
-Rachel
Thank you for reading my blog. If you liked it; then please click the green thumb [microbadge=23724] at the top of the page. If you really liked it; then please subscribe. And follow me across social media with my Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/rachelncarpenter
Reply: General Role-Playing:: Re: QOTD AUG 8: What tips can you share for making better Questions of the Day?
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 02:05:13
I try to make the QOTD post each morning before going to work. If I am running late, I have to squeeze it in at work. Having suggestions in the queue really helps grab one and post it quickly. I prioritize those questions that have lots of thumbs indicating from the group that it is a good question. When the queue runs out, or runs low, I have to come up with my own questions, which may be subject to having to come up with a good question in a hurry. I will always post a question -- I think I only missed one day in all this time -- but it might not always be a good one.
If you are providing suggested questions, take the advice from the comments above.
Here are a few other tips from me.
Edit your question for clarity. If I have to edit it, then it gets bumped to a day when I have time to edit it.
Thread title is only 200 characters long, 12 of those characters are for the QOTD tag and date. If your question is longer than 288 characters (including ? mark), this is needs to be edited for the thread title. Sometimes I can create a shorter version in the title, and have the OP include longer (or fuller) question. You can help with this.
The problem with open ended questions is that they are vague and can go any direction. Almost every time, someone will ask for context or a specific example. Another problem with broad scoped question is that there is only so many you can ask before you start repeating yourself.
The problem with a specific question is that it may be too narrow for many users to answer. But the specific question does allow one to focus on parts of the hobby that are often ignored (or at least overshadowed by the dominate RPG on the market). Specific questions help steer QOTD thread dominance away from D&D to other genres and games (to varying degrees of success).
Follow up questions help break a question down. It works well when there are two very different aspects of a topic (other than as a GM/as a player type Qs). Too many follow-up (almost never more than 3 in a series) does "beat a dead horse," especially when commenters get ahead of the question.
What I think is perfectly fine, and it has only been done occasionally, if for other users to ask the follow up in the thread, keeping the thread alive as an active discussion instead of an answer and go exercise. A few users engage answers in the thread well. It is something I could do better, and I've had a few guests host do well with that too. Speaking of which, I will be bring back the guest host signup again in 2027.
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 02:05:13
by pdzoch
I take all these comments to heart, and I do not take any of them personally because I know that was not the intent. Having run the QOTD for almost 9 years, I still stay open to improving QOTD experience. But even I have my less than perfect days.I try to make the QOTD post each morning before going to work. If I am running late, I have to squeeze it in at work. Having suggestions in the queue really helps grab one and post it quickly. I prioritize those questions that have lots of thumbs indicating from the group that it is a good question. When the queue runs out, or runs low, I have to come up with my own questions, which may be subject to having to come up with a good question in a hurry. I will always post a question -- I think I only missed one day in all this time -- but it might not always be a good one.
If you are providing suggested questions, take the advice from the comments above.
Here are a few other tips from me.
Edit your question for clarity. If I have to edit it, then it gets bumped to a day when I have time to edit it.
Thread title is only 200 characters long, 12 of those characters are for the QOTD tag and date. If your question is longer than 288 characters (including ? mark), this is needs to be edited for the thread title. Sometimes I can create a shorter version in the title, and have the OP include longer (or fuller) question. You can help with this.
The problem with open ended questions is that they are vague and can go any direction. Almost every time, someone will ask for context or a specific example. Another problem with broad scoped question is that there is only so many you can ask before you start repeating yourself.
The problem with a specific question is that it may be too narrow for many users to answer. But the specific question does allow one to focus on parts of the hobby that are often ignored (or at least overshadowed by the dominate RPG on the market). Specific questions help steer QOTD thread dominance away from D&D to other genres and games (to varying degrees of success).
Follow up questions help break a question down. It works well when there are two very different aspects of a topic (other than as a GM/as a player type Qs). Too many follow-up (almost never more than 3 in a series) does "beat a dead horse," especially when commenters get ahead of the question.
What I think is perfectly fine, and it has only been done occasionally, if for other users to ask the follow up in the thread, keeping the thread alive as an active discussion instead of an answer and go exercise. A few users engage answers in the thread well. It is something I could do better, and I've had a few guests host do well with that too. Speaking of which, I will be bring back the guest host signup again in 2027.
Reply: General Role-Playing:: Re: Subscription thread for 'How did your RPG session(s) go this week?'
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 02:00:25
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 02:00:25
GeekList: 10 August 2026: How did your RPG session(s) go this week?
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 02:00:08
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 02:00:08
by MonsterMike
A new GeekList has been posted 10 August 2026: How did your RPG session(s) go this week?
New comment on GeekList Strategicon Gateway 2026 No-Ship Math Trade (Sept. 5 Los Angeles)
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 01:57:58
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 01:57:58
Fwiw, OLWLG accommodates deletions. It's fine in the MT, just not the VFM
New comment on GeekList The Solo Games Chain of Generosity
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 01:53:17
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 01:53:17
by airzonk1
Anyone know what happened to Conflict #254 "Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island (2012) - offer #1518? - It seems to have been removed -- Perhaps Jeff is doing a refresh of the offer since there was no interest since the initial July 13th posting?
Reply: General Role-Playing:: Re: QOTD AUG 3: Did you go to GenCon this year? How was it?
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 01:46:23
Thursday: Horrible breakfast in the hotel for an absurd amount of money. My friend and I go to the special Green Ronin room in the Hyatt Hotel. He has only two people signed up for his game. We wait around, hoping more players will show up. The one dude shows up for my Cthulhu Awakens game and I explain to him that, sadly, I can't run it only for a single player. We decide to join my friend's Fantasy AGE game so he can at least run his. Since I helped him playtest it before the con, I mostly sit back and either break or kill things when asked to by the rest of the party.
Exhibit hall time. My friend and I rush around buying a few things. Chaosium is selling advance copies of the Boy King for Pendragon, so I buy one of those.
At 6, I meet another friend to play a Dolmenwood: Adventure and Peril in Fairytale Woods game. Dolmenwood is OSR-flavored D&D set in a world inspired by English fairy tales and Terry Gilliam. It's fun, we talk our way through most of the encounters, and finish early. I would play it again. The background material is way too immense for my tastes. It's an enormous hex crawl, with each hex lovingly detailed with all kinds of stuff. I prefer the blank spaces on the map, I guess, but the hex crawl folks seem to love it.
Friday: My friend and I find a new place for breakfast, the Lincoln Square Pancake House. Cheap, fast and good. Even though I allegedly had a full table for my 10:00 AM game of Cthulhu Awakens, only two people show up. Luckily, I can run with two, and the players proceed to pick the two characters least likely to solve the mystery of the adventure. Challenge accepted! The game goes well and we finish early.
That afternoon my friend and I play Sails of Glory, a minis game set during the Age of Napoleon. It's fun, but I'm crashing out and don't catch all the rules, while my opponent gets them mixed-up with Wings of Glory: WW1 Duel Pack, which involves biplanes and not ships. My friend obliterates his opponent and then sails over and kills mine.
That night, my friends and I play the second highlight of the con for me, a rpg called The Mountain Witch. As intended, the game is written to be played as a three-session mini-campaign, but we had to squeeze it all into a four-hour session. It has some interesting mechanics, which are too interesting to summarize here. The mission involves a group of ronin hiking Mt. Fuji to kill a witch up there who's been bedeviling the locals. However, there are hidden agendas, and the ronin don't exactly trust each other. Especially since we know that one of us is secretly working with the witch! (Although I was accused of being his servant, it was not me.) There's a lot of player narration, and other rules involving who gets to tell the story. It was fun, but due to certain elements of the mechanics, I'm not too sure how easily it would be to play online. In-person would be better.
Saturday: Finally, all five players for my 10:00AM Cthulhu Awakens game show up to play. This was an interesting session because they were very concerned about what might happen to their characters and I found it difficult to move the adventure along. But we reached the end with a few minutes to spare, and I think they enjoyed themselves. I gave them the opportunity to give their characters a post-session epilogue, and they were quite thoughtful and entertaining.
At 5PM, my friends and I went to play a demo game of the The One Ring (2nd Edition). If you haven't already heard, this was the exact time Indianapolis was threatened with a tornado, and several parts of the convention center flooded due to extreme rains. A voice on the PA told us every five minutes to move away from the windows. To this, add that everyone's phones were blowing up with tornado warnings the entire time. So, it was difficult to get much playing down for about 45 minutes or so.
I wish I could like the One Ring, the rules aren't that confusing but there are in-game homework things you have to do which slow things down too much, in my opinion.
That night I went to play "the bunny game," as my friends called it, and before you get excited, it was not Watership Down or a Furry LARP. It was a rpg published by Kobold Press called RiverBank, which is loosely based on the Wind in the Willows. I almost didn't play because of a stupid mix-up with my ticket, but I'm glad I did. This was the third highlight of the con for me. The game actually encourages the kind of craziness that I enjoy. However, as a humor game, the mechanics were surprisingly crunchy, and I let the GM do the heavy lifting there. For the record, I played an anxious hedgehog who liked to overcomplicate things. So basically myself.
Sunday: I decide to skip collecting my funds and unsold material from the auction store in order to have more time for last minute shopping. (The auction is supposed to mail me a check - if there are unsold books they're gone...) and then it's time to go home.
Final thoughts: The con keeps getting more and more crowded. 74,000 people! Thankfully, the only real crush was in the exhibitor hall and some of the convention center hallways. It was loud, as usual, and there were too many kids on my damn lawn. Aside from the Pendragon book, no other products jumped out at me as must-buys, but there were plenty of impulse buys to make up for that. None of us went to the special D&D-palooza in the Indianapolis Rep Theater, because you needed to buy special tickets and we weren't that interested in jumping though that hoop.
Now to plan for next year...
Posted: Mon, 10 Aug 01:46:23
by FreakyTiki
Wednesday: Arrive in the early afternoon. Head down to the auction store with some books I'm hoping to sell. Wait an extremely long time to reach the check-in desk. That night my friend runs an Outgunned Adventure game for us. Set during the mid-1930s, the game is fun, my first highlight of the con. One of my other friends channels Katherine Hepburn. The evening ends relatively early. Before bed, I discover that three people have returned their tickets for my Thursday morning game, leaving me with one player.Thursday: Horrible breakfast in the hotel for an absurd amount of money. My friend and I go to the special Green Ronin room in the Hyatt Hotel. He has only two people signed up for his game. We wait around, hoping more players will show up. The one dude shows up for my Cthulhu Awakens game and I explain to him that, sadly, I can't run it only for a single player. We decide to join my friend's Fantasy AGE game so he can at least run his. Since I helped him playtest it before the con, I mostly sit back and either break or kill things when asked to by the rest of the party.
Exhibit hall time. My friend and I rush around buying a few things. Chaosium is selling advance copies of the Boy King for Pendragon, so I buy one of those.
At 6, I meet another friend to play a Dolmenwood: Adventure and Peril in Fairytale Woods game. Dolmenwood is OSR-flavored D&D set in a world inspired by English fairy tales and Terry Gilliam. It's fun, we talk our way through most of the encounters, and finish early. I would play it again. The background material is way too immense for my tastes. It's an enormous hex crawl, with each hex lovingly detailed with all kinds of stuff. I prefer the blank spaces on the map, I guess, but the hex crawl folks seem to love it.
Friday: My friend and I find a new place for breakfast, the Lincoln Square Pancake House. Cheap, fast and good. Even though I allegedly had a full table for my 10:00 AM game of Cthulhu Awakens, only two people show up. Luckily, I can run with two, and the players proceed to pick the two characters least likely to solve the mystery of the adventure. Challenge accepted! The game goes well and we finish early.
That afternoon my friend and I play Sails of Glory, a minis game set during the Age of Napoleon. It's fun, but I'm crashing out and don't catch all the rules, while my opponent gets them mixed-up with Wings of Glory: WW1 Duel Pack, which involves biplanes and not ships. My friend obliterates his opponent and then sails over and kills mine.
That night, my friends and I play the second highlight of the con for me, a rpg called The Mountain Witch. As intended, the game is written to be played as a three-session mini-campaign, but we had to squeeze it all into a four-hour session. It has some interesting mechanics, which are too interesting to summarize here. The mission involves a group of ronin hiking Mt. Fuji to kill a witch up there who's been bedeviling the locals. However, there are hidden agendas, and the ronin don't exactly trust each other. Especially since we know that one of us is secretly working with the witch! (Although I was accused of being his servant, it was not me.) There's a lot of player narration, and other rules involving who gets to tell the story. It was fun, but due to certain elements of the mechanics, I'm not too sure how easily it would be to play online. In-person would be better.
Saturday: Finally, all five players for my 10:00AM Cthulhu Awakens game show up to play. This was an interesting session because they were very concerned about what might happen to their characters and I found it difficult to move the adventure along. But we reached the end with a few minutes to spare, and I think they enjoyed themselves. I gave them the opportunity to give their characters a post-session epilogue, and they were quite thoughtful and entertaining.
At 5PM, my friends and I went to play a demo game of the The One Ring (2nd Edition). If you haven't already heard, this was the exact time Indianapolis was threatened with a tornado, and several parts of the convention center flooded due to extreme rains. A voice on the PA told us every five minutes to move away from the windows. To this, add that everyone's phones were blowing up with tornado warnings the entire time. So, it was difficult to get much playing down for about 45 minutes or so.
I wish I could like the One Ring, the rules aren't that confusing but there are in-game homework things you have to do which slow things down too much, in my opinion.
That night I went to play "the bunny game," as my friends called it, and before you get excited, it was not Watership Down or a Furry LARP. It was a rpg published by Kobold Press called RiverBank, which is loosely based on the Wind in the Willows. I almost didn't play because of a stupid mix-up with my ticket, but I'm glad I did. This was the third highlight of the con for me. The game actually encourages the kind of craziness that I enjoy. However, as a humor game, the mechanics were surprisingly crunchy, and I let the GM do the heavy lifting there. For the record, I played an anxious hedgehog who liked to overcomplicate things. So basically myself.
Sunday: I decide to skip collecting my funds and unsold material from the auction store in order to have more time for last minute shopping. (The auction is supposed to mail me a check - if there are unsold books they're gone...) and then it's time to go home.
Final thoughts: The con keeps getting more and more crowded. 74,000 people! Thankfully, the only real crush was in the exhibitor hall and some of the convention center hallways. It was loud, as usual, and there were too many kids on my damn lawn. Aside from the Pendragon book, no other products jumped out at me as must-buys, but there were plenty of impulse buys to make up for that. None of us went to the special D&D-palooza in the Indianapolis Rep Theater, because you needed to buy special tickets and we weren't that interested in jumping though that hoop.
Now to plan for next year...
