The last panel talk...

[MADMANMIKE]

I mentioned that I have Asperger's Syndrome during the last Panel talk on Sunday. One of the hallmarks of Asperger's is that we often talk in circles. Because I was largely exhausted by then, I wasn't quite at 100% (more like 70%), so I lost my train of thought before I could tie the ends of the circle back together.

Later that night, I was talking with Hendrik and he didn't sound enthused about the direction I wanted to go with the following, so here's the explanation.

During the talk, I brought up one of the projects I'm trying to develop, the Tombs of Gersidi. Most of you know that this was the adventure in the back of Palladium Fantasy in the first edition (get it on .pdf today!). My goal is to update this awesome adventure by Erick Wujick to 2E, fleshing out the details the original adventure just hinted at. Along with that I plan to do a "twenty years later" adventure, so that anyone who played the original can get some more fun out of it in a new way.

Where I lost Hendrik was with my intention to bring back the random roll tables that were prolific in adventure sourcebooks through out the dawn of the RPG industry. As experienced gamers, we have a tendency to roll our eyes more than our dice at these types of tables, and until recently I've been at a loss as to why.

To many players, it represents "old school" gaming, and thus a step backwards in their gaming experience. I want to change that perspective. As someone who has rarely ever played because he's always been the GM, I can tell you from my perspective, random tables are a quick and easy way to avoid a lot of the work involved with planning an adventure. But the main reason I'd like to take it back to basics is because it will allow this book to become a good introduction to RPG's Palladium Style. People can discover (or rediscover) the fun of role-playing games with a book that makes it easy to get started. To that end I plan to include a set of pre-gen characters for the first adventure and step by step guidance for it.

We touched on that in the talk, and I was unable to get my thoughts straight and explain this; with RPG's only being a small niche market, anything we can do to grow the customer base is a good thing.

-Mike <8]

[Scott Gibbons]

Hey, that sounds great to me. Having only gotten into PFRPG in the past year or two, I'd love to see the random role tables.

[The Dark Elf]

That sounds good although i thought the adventure was too much a dungeon crawl for my liking.

I think you are right that it will a good way to introduce others because of this and this is only a good thing.

When we played my players died at the hand sof the dagger of assassination and the others fled. Pls modify this as its a party pooper.

[Soldier of Od]

I agree - random encounter tables are useful for some people, and they certainly do have their place. Adding them may help some GMs, and if people don't want to use them they don't have to. I rarely roll on these tables myself when I GM, but I often pick the encounter that I feel would be most interesting or appropriate to that stage of the adventure.

[Hendrik]

I mentioned that I have Asperger's Syndrome during the last Panel talk on Sunday. One of the hallmarks of Asperger's is that we often talk in circles. Because I was largely exhausted by then, I wasn't quite at 100% (more like 70%), so I lost my train of thought before I could tie the ends of the circle back together.

Later that night, I was talking with Hendrik and he didn't sound enthused about the direction I wanted to go with the following, so here's the explanation.

During the talk, I brought up one of the projects I'm trying to develop, the Tombs of Gersidi. Most of you know that this was the adventure in the back of Palladium Fantasy in the first edition (get it on .pdf today!). My goal is to update this awesome adventure by Erick Wujick to 2E, fleshing out the details the original adventure just hinted at. Along with that I plan to do a "twenty years later" adventure, so that anyone who played the original can get some more fun out of it in a new way.

Where I lost Hendrik was with my intention to bring back the random roll tables that were prolific in adventure sourcebooks through out the dawn of the RPG industry. As experienced gamers, we have a tendency to roll our eyes more than our dice at these types of tables, and until recently I've been at a loss as to why.

To many players, it represents "old school" gaming, and thus a step backwards in their gaming experience. I want to change that perspective. As someone who has rarely ever played because he's always been the GM, I can tell you from my perspective, random tables are a quick and easy way to avoid a lot of the work involved with planning an adventure. But the main reason I'd like to take it back to basics is because it will allow this book to become a good introduction to RPG's Palladium Style. People can discover (or rediscover) the fun of role-playing games with a book that makes it easy to get started. To that end I plan to include a set of pre-gen characters for the first adventure and step by step guidance for it.

We touched on that in the talk, and I was unable to get my thoughts straight and explain this; with RPG's only being a small niche market, anything we can do to grow the customer base is a good thing.

-Mike <8]

Dear Mike,

first off, I have enjoyed our conversation very much. I found you a great person to talk to and am very sorry we did not have time to talk more that night, or before, at that! While you might have been at 70%, I was at 50% at the highest on account of being really tired - I was afraid I would not make it "home", i.e. the hotel downtown, which is why I had to take my leave much earlier than I would have liked, and likely was a less than refreshing conversationalist.

That said, I was amazed to see the "family" pictures for the Gersidi and look forward to see further stages of your work, if I may, and the end result in any case! I think you will be doing that great adventure - if in its original rather simply done but containing lots of promise - a whole world of good, i.e. I am sure you will be making good on the great promise of that adventure. I liked your ideas which you so kindly shared with me, a lot. I think a wilderness setting, more background, etc. will be great additions to the tomb.

Regarding encounter tables:

Well, I do not mind encounter tables at all. As I (hope I) said, they are a good harvesting ground for ideas to see what might happen. I agree they can be good for stripling game masters at a loss to see what happens. Personally, I look at them to see what the author thinks might happen or is out and about in a given area but I never use them in-game. I always decide on the encounters and their strength before the game and let that never be governed by chance. I am not saying that would be a bad thing, I am just saying that I had negative experience to do the random thing (overpowered random encounters and all that).

On the other hand, the above paragraph was on classic encounter tables of the sort "01-22% 10 rats, 23-45% 1D1 trolls", etc. Conversely, the kind of encounter tables I actually love are those not bend on simple combat but to give you more, such as "01-11% a group of pilgrims on their way to the shrine of X in Y, 12-22% a group of bandits (or tax collectors), 23-33% a hermit (or gypsy) giving a prophecy (laying cards) to one or more members of the party, 34-44% a group of plague victims (zombies if you feel like it), maybe there is a sinister plot involved (necromancer, diabolist), maybe the victims infect one or more members of the party", etc. pp.

Kind regards
Hendrik