I said in my “About Me” that this blog is for Tinker’s Pack Studio. Which leads to the inevitable question, what is Tinker’s Pack Studio? That’s easy, but first a little back-story.
I’ve been gaming for about thirty years now. I started playing Basic Dungeons and Dragons when I was ten years old, and I’ve never looked back. If its an RPG, I’ve played it, ran it or at least read the core books for it. I’m not bragging, far from it. I just have a love of role-playing games and I love finding the good parts of a game, whether fluff, crunch or bits of both.
That last part is important, because in thirty years of gaming I have never found a role-playing system or product that was perfect right out of the box. I have tweaked every system I have ever ran; borrowing from other systems, ignoring some rules and making up others on the fly. That may make it sound like I’ve played a lot of crappy games, but I’m here to tell you it isn’t so. Even iconic systems like D&D, GURPS, White Wolf and Cthulhu have felt the touch of my meddlesome ways. And you know what, that’s okay. I think that GMs should take every opportunity to change up their game to suit their needs and desires. After all, once the dust settles it is all about having a good time, and if changing or ignoring a few things helps with that, who does it hurt?
And that idea was what pushed me to finally start work on my own game world, The Shattered Kingdoms. Now, a lot of people will tell you that having your so-new-it-squeaks game design company start it’s life with yet another game world would be business suicide. And the it would be hard to argue with them. There are a lot of game worlds out there to choose from. Granted my math might be a bit fast and loose, but I’m betting if you gamed every night, and played one session in every game world available, you could play out the year and then some before you ended up repeating yourself. So why start with yet another game world?
Because (and here is something else every game-world designer tells you) The Shattered Kingdoms is different. If we accept that every game setting gets tweaked by the GM to one extent or another, it made sense to me to create a game-world specifically designed to be tweaked. That, I believe, is going to be TSK’s biggest advantage over other settings. Not only does it allow modification by the GM, but it out-right encourages it. You can use existing Kingdoms or make your own; you can play at the average tech level of the setting (roughly equivalent to Europe circa 1890) but there are very good reasons why your Kingdom might be more or less advanced; you can have as much or as little about Fractures and Bridges and The Between as you like (What are those? Tell you later…). In short, the world will support whatever level of campaign tweaking you want to do, from none on up.
Besides The Shattered Kingdoms, Tinker’s Pack will also bring you other useful little trinkets for your gaming delight, whether Player or Game Master. Like the items found in a real tinker’s pack, our creations are going to be small and intriguing, things you didn’t know you needed until you saw them. And portable as well; most everything we offer, including The Shattered Kingdoms will be game-system neutral so you can add the rules from whatever system you are currently using (there’s that tweak-ability again!).
We are aiming to have our very first Shattered Kingdoms product available in the next few months. It will be useful, interesting and free; useful and interesting because, hey, why would you want it if it wasn’t, and free because I believe in what we are doing. Enough that I think you’ll come back and support us by picking up the other products down the road.
And there will be other products, my friend. Because a Tinker’s Pack is never empty…
Does this seem familiar?
You all roll for initiative, and Frank (aka Blundar the Barbarian) gets to go first. He boldly rushes into action!…by going over every tactical possibility in the situation, trying to choose the perfect action. Meanwhile, Janice (aka Firewindthe Magnificient) is trying to figure out what spell to cast on her turn by asking the GM to describe every spell she has, again. Knowing it will be a while before their turns come up, Rob (Brother Barnabas) and Susan (Findle Lightfingers) are preparing for their turns…by playing a few songs on Rock Band. The GM dies a little inside and the night is off to its usual start.
Look, time is precious, gaming time doubly so. With all the other time commitments in your life, it just makes sense to make the most of what little time you have for gaming. That doesn’t mean you have to turn your sessions into heavily regimented affairs devoid of any fun. But there are some simple things you and your players can do to help your GM give you the best night of gaming she can. Here are three of them:
1) Pay Attention – Pretty straight forward, right? If you aren’t paying attention to what your GM and fellow players are saying and doing, how will you know what to do when its your turn? If you are focused on the table and the game, when it comes around to you there won’t be any time wasted asking about where the monsters are, what Firewind just did etc. You can jump right in to your heroics. Try making notes when you GM is telling you things about the situation or story-line. Not only will it keep you focused but you may find that information useful later (see point 3).
Make it easier to pay attention by removing distractions. In my game we turn off the TV and put on some gaming music at low volume. Everyone turns off their cell phone ringers and, because a few of my players use laptops to game, we have agreed to no web-surfing during play. Everything about our game time is focused on playing, and with good reason; we generally only have 3-3.5 hours of game time each week because of our schedules. We can’t afford distractions!
2) Don’t Over Analyze – Yes, you have put a lot of time into your character. And yes, of course you want to see you character grow and advance and have many adventures. And I’m certainly not saying you have to rush blindly and stupidly into every situation the GM throws your way. At the same time, though, don’t over-think things. You are never going to find the perfect solution to an encounter, and really why would you want to? Think of all the stories you tell about past gaming glories. How many of those are about encounters that you reacted to perfectly, neatly wrapping things up in a few turns? Right, and how many are about encounters that went completely sideways on the party, and yet you managed to keep it together and win through in the end? Its simple, perfect is boring. And we don’t play these games to be boring.
When the encounter starts, take a look at the situation and then choose a good action. What is a good action? A good action is one that fits your character, doesn’t purposefully mess-up the plans of you fellow players, and is fun. Most important, don’t take a lot of time. It sounds short, but in my group I use a 30-second timer behind the GM screen. After the player clarifies a few things I say, “Okay, thirty seconds, what are you doing?”. I had to use it a lot in the beginning, but now my players are a lot less hesitant. And I’ve noticed that they are more willing to take risks and try out different ideas. (And yes, to be fair I use it when it is the monsters’ turn as well.) Try to keep yourself to 30 seconds and see what new and exciting things you find your character doing.
3) You Don’t Have to Know Everything, But You Should Know Your Thing – Probably the number one time waster at any game is looking up rules. The player running the sorcerer doesn’t know what her spells do, the fighter doesn’t know the effects of charging the cleric has to look up turning again…these will all eat into your playing time. Not to mention it is a little annoying when a player doesn’t know some of the basic rules of the character class he or she has been running for months, sometimes years.
That isn’t to say you have to become a Master Gamer and memorize every rule and errata. But you should be familiar with any of the special rules that may apply to your character. And even then you don’t have to memorize them, as long as you can reference them easily and quickly. That could be as simple as buying some page tabs and marking the appropriate pages in your rulebooks. It could mean making spell and/or special ability reference cards for easy reference during play (something D&D 4th Edition has built right into the game). And yes, it can also mean taking a little time outside the game to memorize the special rules that apply to you. And if you still have to look something up, try to do it before it gets to your turn. Then you’ll be able to jump right in with your heroic plan of attack.
Do you have any other tips for speeding up game play? Leave a comment below!
