The Joy of One-Shots

I recently had word that a friend is returning to the area (ish), which raises the possibility of getting the band back together somewhat. Which is all great news.

That said, it remains my position that I just don't have the ability to commit to any sort of campaign play at the present time - the regular chunk of time turned over to gaming, on either a weeknight or at the weekend, is just not something I can commit.

But there is the possibility of getting together for an occasional one-shot game, potentially taking a chunk of time on one Saturday or Sunday afternoon for that purpose.

Which is no bad thing - we had a number of successful one-shots back in the day. They have the key advantage that you get different people at the table, you get to try out different systems and different characters, and they can be a lot of fun. Notable good times were a "Hunter: the Reckoning" game, a "Star Wars" mirror universe one-shot, Numenera, and Star Trek. (That last, in particular, is something I'd like to try again - and is something ideally suited for one-shots.)

They're not the same. But they're good in a different way.

And What About "Phandelver and Beyond"

At the outset of this year there was one book I was interested in: the revised and expanded Phandelver campaign. In truth, I think I was never likely to actually use this, since I've now run "Lost Mine" twice and that makes up the core of the adventure. But I was very interested to see what they did with it.

But if I'm now running my last ever campaign, does it make sense to spend the better part of £50 on a book I'm never going to use?

On the other hand, there have been other books I've skipped for one reason or another and then come to regret, and in some of those cases buying the book later proved to be an expensive venture. And it is, just about, possible I might come back to this one...

I'm not sure. But I think my answer, for now, is to wait and see - if I somehow find myself starting up a new game, or if it suddenly drops in price by about a third, I think I'll buy in. Otherwise, I'll leave it. For now.

Latest On the New Books

As time goes on, it looks more and more like the 2024 revision of the game is going to be a tightening up of the engine, but without any of the more invasive changes that had been proposed - 5e Essentials rather than 5.5e (and certainly not 6e!). All of which is to the good, I think, mostly because I hadn't like the sound of any of those bigger changes.

And yet, I find myself torn on the new books.

The major reason for this is that if I am indeed running my final campaign, there's no good reason to spend the money, and I'm out of shelf space anyway.

But on the other hand, this would be the first version of the game for which I don't have the key books, and if they are indeed an improvement...

Mostly, though, I'm lamenting the fact that they'll almost certainly never be released on PDF. If that were done, I'd buy them sight-unseen. Without that, I'm inclined not to bother.

(And yes, it does need to be PDF specifically. Other electronic formats, even those that are supposedly "better", are useless to me.)

A Decision Confirmed

We had yet another cancellation of the game this week, hot on the heels of a cancellation last week. It is, once again, proving increasingly difficult to get together.

Which once again confirms that my decision was the right one: this is the last campaign I'm going to run in the current environment. Which almost certainly means it is the final campaign I will run for a great many years - possibly ever.

The 35th anniversary of my first game has recently passed. Sadly, it looks like it's going out with a whimper.

Deep Lore

So, here's the premise for my Spelljammer adventure that I'm definitely not going to run:

The characters are each the most famous hero of their respective worlds - they are created as 15th level characters (and can be basically anyone or anything). The players are each encouraged to come up with their own legend, with the one caveat that they have absolutely no knowledge of one another.

Some time after their deaths, they find themselves gathered together in a dark and dismal temple, where they are approached by the local priest, who presents them with their not-at-all-railroaded quest: the priest's patron wants to know the secret hidden in "The Nested Sphere", and has provided a suitable Spelljammer vessel for their use.

As incentive to drive them, their patron has erased their legends from history. If they refuse to help, they will forever be forgotten. If they do as asked, their legends will be restored. Naturally, for legendary heroes the worst possible fate is to be forever forgotten.

The Nested Sphere is an unborn Crystal Sphere, and as such is protected by the Ban of the Unborn, which states that "deities are prohibited from influence, contact, or dealings with preincarnate souls in any  fashion whatsoever." As such, their patron can tell them nothing about it. But a broker on the Rock of Bral has something that might be of interest.

From there we go on a tour of the Spheres (this being a classic Spelljammer campaign, not the newfangled abomination). So off to a variety of worlds we go...

Eventually we head to The Spelljammer, and then off to the Nested Sphere, wherein lies a well-guarded library in which a hidden tome holds the secret by which a lesser divinity can ascend to the rank of Overgod. Naturally, Vecna would be most interested in this...

And then comes the showdown - face off against the God of Secrets and suffer being forgotten, or give over the tome, restore your legends... and doom the future?

"Isles of Dread" - a Lesson Learned

When setting up the "Isles of Dread" campaign, one of the things that I did was set up several key adventure areas, and then add several other small islands that didn't have fixed content - the idea being that as the characters travelled to one of these islands the content would be rolled randomly and then used.

Unfortunately, I've found that this doesn't really work - the randomly generated encounters aren't really interesting enough in their own right to justify their inclusion, and the random generator is largely transparent from the other side of the screen. Which means that from the players' perspective they're mostly seeing a number of fairly dull encounters playing out.

Bottom line: random generators like this are probably not a bad thing in published adventures, especially ones likely to be run more than once (like "Lost Mine of Phandelver"), but for a home campaign they're probably not ideal. (Except, of course, for a big book of random encounters - that has use for a time-starved DM. But don't write your own!)

About AI Art

In recent weeks, both DriveThru RGP and WotC have issued statements concerning the use of AI-generated art in their products. In both cases, they're taking a line against the use of such things.

Which is all fair enough - it's their prerogative to set their own policies as they see fit.

However, I do find myself wondering if it's at all worthwhile. The truth is that "AI" art is here to stay, and will only get better with time. Before too long we will reach a point where it is simply indistinguishable from anything that a human artist can generate. At which point unprincipled actors are likely simply to pass off the AI art as their own work, and nobody will be able to tell the difference.

I think this issue of AI art is really only a piece of the bigger issue of automation in general, which is likely to massively shake up the world of work over the next couple of decades, and which requires a cultural shift that moves way beyond RPGs themselves. Ultimately, I suspect we'll need to move to a paradigm where people create products because they want to do so, and not because they expect to be paid for them - because, simply put, it's likely the ability to get paid for them (and many other things) is likely to go away... along with the ability of people to pay for them in the first place.