031 Bards Are For Roleplaying

Bards, huh! What are they good for? Absolutely roleplaying. Bards are for roleplaying. We skip the crunch and talk about Bards, listener feedback and Die Roll!

Episode 31 Show Outline

Intro

Sponsored by DarkTheatre.net

Announcements

Gamehole Con has it’s exhibitor floor layout complete. Touts biggest exhibit hall second only to GenCon!

Random Encounter – emails, voice mails, social media from listeners

Kevin Lovecraft CommentsGood episode guys (finally!). I prefer playing and running ongoing campaigns. While a one-shot can have a good core idea/conceit/hook, I think that a campaign offers more fun to me as a player and more chances to develop my character or the chance to tell a more complex story when I’m the storyteller.

 

Roger B. from G+I’m all about campaigns. I think some of it is connected to being all about experience points (I posted a comment on your website for Ep. 20). Mostly, I’m all about character development. There is little development in a one-shot. If you run a one-shot a beginning level, you’re always playing novices. Your character’s not really good at anything and doesn’t get a chance to become good at anything. If you’re sick of that and you want to start at higher levels, you don’t know your character as well as if you had played them from beginning level.  I want a campaign. I want to learn about my character as my character is learning about himself.

 

Howdy gents,I really enjoyed Episode 30, if only because, for the first time, I found myself agreeing with both Brett and Sean. Brett I often agree with, but Sean?!? That’s just nuts. Anyway, I found that both of you gents had things to say that resonate with me. I think that, for me, campaign play is the big draw of gaming, but that I can really enjoy the freedom that playing or running in a one off (particularly at cons or games days) allows. After thinking about it for a while, I realized that my feelings on the matter run like this: I run campaigns because I like to build stuff, but I run one off games because I like to tear stuff down.

Thanks again for another great show,

Adam Muszkiewicz

 

Kristian Serrano writes…Thanks for the props, guys! Loved the Random Encounter convo.

Personally, I like the campaign approach, but I also appreciate the serial approach, especially for settings for which they feel right.

Another approach is a task force, mission-oriented, one-shot. Each session is a different short adventure. Great for when players are coming and going each session.

For longer story arcs without full campaigns, Dungeon Magazine was a great resource for that. My favorite, for example, was the City of Istivin series which I bookended with other Greyhawk-based adventures from the magazine’s 3e/v3.5 era.

 

Victor Wyatt from G+I am through the episode now and have a clearer bit of input.

On one hand I love my small format games that run from one to three sessions and then are done. Those things are great because I love switching up the flavor.

On the other hand I love the old-time D&D campaigns I played years ago. Some of it’s nostalgia but some is the desire to see the lives of the characters develop. Right now, since I have picked up D&D 5e and the Elemental Evil adventure, I am chomping at the bit to run it for all 15 levels.

Something you touched on with small form games versus campaign games too was that you get a different play style from people when they get together to play. With longer games players seem to play on the conservative side but one-shots push players to go all in with the awesome their characters do. You can see completely different interaction with the story from the same players when they know they only have so much time in that world than when they know they have to live with the consequences of their characters’ actions.

All in all, I like a little bit of everything.

Sponsor

Greyedout Productions. Buy a dicebag and use promo code GAMINGANDBS to receive 10% off your order.

Topic of Discussion

Misdirected Mark had their 150th episode and they had a Battle of the Bards! event.  Post that, they challenged G&BS to take on Bards.  So, let’s see what we can do..

Die Roll – 2-4 miscellaneous points of gaming or geekery we want to share with you.

Brett

  1. Everest Game Club’s Role Playing Extravaganza! – they’ve got an SJ Games rep coming to their next EverCon too!
  2. Youngest Son’s B-day – he asked to borrow Kerrunch! to teach his friends.
  3. The Duke – my new favorite board game – thanks be to the Canadian Gaming God for calling it to my attention.
  4. Finally getting to the DSR podcasts – liking what I’m hearing.

Sean

  1. Orr Group says 5e most played RPG, doesn’t hurt Pathfinder sales http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2517-D-D-Surges-Into-Lead-In-Orr-Group-Figures,
  2. Took cycle ride to Noble Knight Games in Janesville. Bought Night’s Black Agents.
  3. Daredevil on Netflix

Closing/outro

About the Author
The 'S' of Gaming and BS podcast. Besides producing and hosting the show, Sean enjoys long walks on the beach, running rpg's, and killing player...characters.