Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Session Prep - detailed review

Looking for the perfect gift for the Games Master in your life? Want to bring some holiday cheer to your gaming table? Looking to convince your DM to round up that last 100 XP so you can level before the New Year? Never Unprepared is the perfect gift for the guy or gal behind the screen this holiday season. 

Here's a detailed review of Never Unprepared I wrote up a few months ago in September and I stand by everything I said then.

 

Disclaimer:
I've been sitting on this review for quite some time. I finished reading the pdf of Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep well over a month ago now. The thing is that I really wanted to put all of the great advice in there into practice and see the effect it had on my games before writing this up. As is usual things didn't go as planned. Shifting schedules, changing groups and lots of other mundane boring things got in the way. I'm still working on it though, I think the book has some valuable advice and I really want to give it a real try using all of the steps. Just the way that's going it's going to be a while. So this review is written while adopting the Never Unprepared methodology is a work in progress for me.

Review:
Never Unprepared is a 131 page PDF or Softcover book published by Engine Publishing and written by Phil Vecchione. Game preparation is a topic you do not see covered very often at all, maybe on forums or blogs but rarely in published products. This is the most detailed look at the subject I've ever seen. In addition it's written by a true professional. Phil is a Project Manager and deals with time management and organization for a living. It's very interesting to me, with a background in quality, leen and problem solving to see these tools applied to gaming.

The book starts with a forward from Sean Patrick Fannon, an introduction and a couple pages on how to use the book. It then dives into prep head first with the largest portion of the book: Understanding Prep. This is followed up by a Prep Toolbox and a section on Evolving Your Style. The books wraps up with a conclusion, references and index and biography. It's the three middle chapters that we really care about: Understanding Prep, Prep Toolbox and Evolving your style and I will take a quick look at each.

Understanding Prep is the "Guide" part of this book. Phil puts forward a very structured method of game preparation based on tested project management techniques. After a lot of talk about theory we get right into a working methodology that involves five stages. With Phil's method, proper effective game prep starts with Brainstorming. Here we see the usual Blue Sky, accept every idea and don't throw anything out style of idea generation. The most interesting part of this to me was that selection, is the next step and not part of Brainstorming at all. During selection you riffle through all of your brainstorming ideas and pick the on that will be best for your game. During conceptualization you flesh this idea out. Here's where most of the work that people think of when you say Game Prep happens. This 'work' continues in Documentation when you make all the physical notes, maps, artwork for your upcoming game. Last is a step I've never even really considered before and one that Phil, thankfully, goes into in some detail: Review. Here we are presented with a concept where we go over all of our prepared material, not just to read it over and put some of it to memory but to edit it. The breakthrough concept here though is to go through it as three different types of editors. We first look for spelling, grammar and structure as a Proofreader. Once proofed we review again as the Director making sure the story works and flows and makes sense with the overall campaign. Lastly we play through our notes ourselves as the play-tester. This part of the book really struck me as novel and a bit of a 'head-slap' moment.

I think the one of the most valuable part of the Understanding Prep section of the book is that Phil presents an open method that should be used by any type of gamesmaster. It's not a codified set of hard rules that you have to follow step by step. It's an outline of a methodology. GMs who are used to running with 5 bullet points on an index card can get just as much use out of this method as the GM who brings a full three ring binder full of notes to each session.

Prep Toolbox
This section talks about the tools you can use to facilitate the steps in the Understanding Prep section. This one was a bit of an eye opener for me as well. I never really considered how much easier it would be to prep with a nice pen and an organized binder to keep all my notes in. Where I'm not searching for a scrap of paper to make notes on and even worse trying to find that scrap minutes before the game starts. This section looks at these kinds of things. How do you take notes, where, how do you organize them. What I really liked in here was how modern the suggestions are. Lots of digital tools are suggested and it's excellent to read a book like this and find a new use for Dropbox. Phil actually discusses paper vs. electronic at length. Just like the last chapter, there's nothing pedantic here. The book puts forth arguments for both sides and fully understands that everyone is going to have their own preference.

The Toolbox section of the book is also the most philosophical. Chapter 9: Mastering Your Creative Cycle looks at your non-physical toolbox, your mind. Here Phil gives you a method to figure out when you are your most creative and how to use that energy. what is fascinating here is that the answer isn't just "prep when you are most creative". The method described suggests mapping your creative energy and then once you have that fit various preparations tasks (as outlined in the Understanding Prep section) into different highs and lows. When writing NPC descriptions do that at a high creative time. Lunch time at work, your juices are low but you have some time, well that's the perfect time to do something logical and mechanical and stat out those NPC.

Evolving Your Style
This section of the book takes a look at how to take all of the previous information and personalize it. Phil has you look at your strenghts and weaknesses as a GM and then gives you a method of documentation that will help bolster these weaknesses and emphasize the strengths. Again the paper vs. digital debate is brought up and the book really helps you hone in on what you really need and what you can skip over.

From here the book takes a realistic approach. There is discussion on what to do when you don't have enough time to put into effect all of the methodology presented in the book, called the Prep-Lite Approach. This is very detailed and has specific suggestion for what happens when you under prep in each area and how to compensate. A section on prep in the real world continues with suggestions and a lot of excellent reactionary measures you can take when things don't go as planned.

Design
Never Unprepared is a nice looking book. Evocative cover and lots of well placed well drawn black and while art. The index is a nice touch and something I wouldn't expect in a book like this. I personally read a PDF copy and my favourite part was the fact the book was well hyperlinked. The links did not only include material in the book but also external links to many of the tools discussed. I'm always impressed when a digital copy of a book actually offers me more functionality than just a scan of the dead tree product.

How has it worked for me
Here's what I'm sure everyone is interested in. How has this book helped me with my own personal games. Well so far it has all been positive, though I've yet to really do more than scratch the surface. I think the first and most important thing this book does, more important than any individual step is get you thinking about game prep and how you do it. Even if you never use a single step in the book, just sitting there and thinking about how you prep while reading the book is invaluable. As noted by Phil is's something we just don't normally talk or think about, it's just something we all do our own way. Analysing how I prep and thinking about how to make it better has helped me significantly.

The first thing I did after reading the book and being inspired to improve my method and find enjoyment in the act of prepping was to look at the tools I use. The first thing I noticed is that I do brainstorming for my games all the time, at random times. At work, while driving, while waiting in line, in the shower etc. The one thing I never did though was document any of this. This I realize meant that many times good ideas are lost. So my first task was to find some way to document my brainstorming and then selection task. So I crowdsourced. I went on g+ looking for suggestions. For now I've settled on evernote on my iPod. I'm still not 100% happy with it and that will probably change up.

Next I went and bought a new binder/organizer for my two current games. Something with dividers, a built in calculator, note pad, 3 rings, file folder all in one. No more will I be writing note on loose scraps of paper only to not be able to find them before the game. This has worked great. I've run 4 session since having made the binder and I've yet to spend the first half hour of the game scrambling trying to find my stuff.

As far as the rest of the methodology and system. I have to admit I haven't done much with it. At least not yet. I've taken the brainstorming and selection information to heart. I find that I'm now doing a lot better at picking where I want my games to go. The players seem to be enjoying the new direction and drive quite a bit. Now I'm not sitting down to the table asking 'so what did you guys want to do next, I can't remember' I'm sitting down saying 'so now that you've poisoned the food supply, you noted you were going to return to town, when you get there...." In addition to this, I've not formally sat down and done any of the review steps one by one but I have a mind for these things now and I find that while working on conceptualization I am a lot more aware of making logic errors in my story. I realize the importance of permanence in the game world and avoiding doing having an "oh that place was supposed to be 2 days away... right.... sorry, yeah it's a 2 day trip" moment. I want to improve my documentation and really want to find the time to sit down and make custom templates to use during my documentation phase but I just haven't found the time, and that's my main problem. Time.

I really enjoyed the section on mapping your free time and figuring out your creativity schedule. The problem is that it only seems to work for people who have a regular schedule in their non gaming life. It's great for people who work 9-5 and eat dinner around 6 every night. It's not so great for people like me, who's work schedule next week is - 7-3 Monday, 3-11 Tues-Thurs, 9-5 Friday, 7-11 on Saturday. I don't find out what my work week will be until Thursday the week before and it's always changing. Often 3-4 different shifts in a 7 day period. Due to this my free time becomes "When I can find it" and my Creative Cycle is pretty much irrelevant. So this section of the book while interesting I've found pretty much impossible to put into use for myself. Maybe at some point I should write a book: Chaotic Preparation: The Complete Guide to Game Preparation for Shift Workers.

So overall I was very impressed by the book. It had an immediate impact on my game preparation and an immediate positive impact on my next gaming session. While I've found it hard to implement everything in the book, the small steps I have taken have all showed noticeable reward. Based on this I've decided to continue trying to adapt more and more of Phil Vecchione's preparation methodology. Heck maybe some day I'll even figure out that lunch time on Midnights is the best time for me to draw maps. I strongly suggest this to anyone who ever plans to run an RPG. Even if you can't use anything in the book, the act of reading through it and questioning yourself along they way is well worth it. I can almost guarantee you are going to get a lot more than this out of the book though.

D&D Encounters: The War of Everlasting Darkness - Session 3 and 4

Due to an unexpected schedule change I had to cancel one session of Encounters. So this week I ended up trying to squeeze two official sessions, 3 and 4 into one night. Sadly it didn't quite work out. When I arrived at the store I found I only had two players. So we killed fifteen minutes hoping at least one of the other regulars showed up. While killing time I overheard a young couple talking to the store owner about 4e D&D. It seems they had only recently gotten into the game and were trying to figure out what books would be most useful for their new campaign. I pounced. Withing about 15 more minutes I now had two more players. This is one of the things I love about public play.

So while grabbing some old Pre-Gen characters from past seasons of encounters and doing a quick upgrade to bring them up to 3rd level, our tardy Vampire player showed up. So now I had a group of five and I was ready to go. Sadly this was an hour into our planned playtime.

Session 3:

This session bumped the timeline a bit. I had one of the players re-cap last session and then I broke out the map and covered all of what had gone before, mostly for the sake of the two new players but also to refresh everyone's memories of key thing they may have forgotten. Basically some funky magic was making the world dark, this was Drow caused, the Drow have allied with the local orcs and war was choking the land in battle. The goal this session was to get to Mithral Hall, a Dwarven steadfast and meet with the king, passing on news that the Orcs who have allied themselves with the Drow were acting against the King of the Many Arrow Tribe.

The unused map. I really thought we would have a fight here.

When the group came upon Mithral Hall they found it under siege. After watching the Orc movements for a while the Dwarf in the group suggested that such fortifications always had secret entrances and that Mithral Hall should be no exception. I ran this as an impromptu skill challenge since the group decided to skip past the obvious hook of a big war horn that was controlling troop movements. There was much planning, sneaking, bursts of running and guard avoiding to be had before an entrance was found. The entrance led the group to The Maze.

The Maze was a rather well written skill challenge in which each character had to do something to help the group progress each hour. Success or failure determined how long the group was 'lost' in the maze as well as serving to reduce some resources. I took this as an opportunity to play with the rules mainly for the sake of the players who didn't have much 4e experience.  At first I just let people riff off each other and my rather vague descriptions not noting that any type of system was governing this. I let whoever wanted to try something do it and kept track of successes. I then presented the group with obstacles they failed to watch for (which happened to be "watching for enemies" so we had a quick fight vs. some Orc Minions. Now that the group had a feel for what was going on, I told them the actual mechanics of the challenge and let them decide who would do what. So the group split the tasks up, the Rogue Searched for Traps, the Fighter fought through obstacles, the Dwarf Cleric navigated, the Dragonborn watched for enemies. The vampire was left with "other" in which he came up with a pretty cool use for Arcana. For the last section of The Maze I twisted things around on the players. This time I let each of them narrate an obstacle that the group faced and how they planned to get past it and let them determine their own rolls to make. This proved fun and entertaining though it was obvious some of the players were not used to such narrative control. I like pushing people out of their gaming comfort zone though and I think this was a great experience for those players. Now the Maze should have gone on for at least one more round (probably two due to a few failed rolls) but I was short on time so I moved on.

After the maze we got to play out our first big 4th edition battle, on a grid with miniatures and full rules.  Up until this point we've done most combats either Theater of the Mind or very loosely on a grid. In addition most foes were there as minor obstacles meant to be taken out quickly. Here we had a big fight with baddies not going down in one hit. It proved to be very interesting and quite a bit of fun. We had markers out (I use a bunch of different Litko tokens to keep track of things like who's bloodied, and area of effect boundaries , we had miniatures, I even brought my invisible character tokens. People were pulled, there were opportunity attacks, flanking. All the stuff that makes Fourth edition a great tactical skirmish game. It was a good fight. The cleric ended up having to use all of his healing (see he's sometimes good at Cleric things Sean) two characters ended up bloodied and the Dragonborn had a real brush with death.

After the big fight, I did a quick wrap up. I would have loved to get into more roleplaying with the Dwarven King but we were already running out of time to fit in session 4, so I just passed on the needed info, gave the characters thanks and passed out a bit of treasure.  Then the group got a very odd letter from a very odd friend they hadn't yet met. This was a great moment and I enjoyed role playing the words of Axelcrantz

Session 4:

At this point we had less than an hour left before the store closed so I tried to run though things quickly while still hitting all the important beats. Three months game time had gone by since the last episode and I really wanted to do a "so what did your character do for the last three months" round table but we just didn't have time. We jumped right into the plot instead. Which had the characters at another Dwarven Fortress all the way on the other side of the map looking to talk to another Dwarven King (what's with all the meetings with Kings this season)? There was some roleplay, the group met the excentric Axelcrantz in person, there was more hilarious roleplay, the group met the King. Lots of roleplaying and poorly rolled Diplomacy and Bluff checks later the group found their way to a Haunted section of the Underdark looking for an old fortress that they needed to re-take from Duergar.

Along the way the group spent far too much time checking out some bones they had found that seemed to be from a dissolved dwarf. Not sure what I could have done differently but they just didn't want to give up and wanted to roll for every skill on their sheet to figure this out. Eventually I said something to the extent of "so you miss a minor clue, maybe you will figure it out later" to get things moving.

Dungeon Tile layout made up for one of the encounters.

There was an amusing bluff moment when the group pretended to be a patrol returning late, that quickly broke into a fight. This was another fun 4e fight for which I actually broke out the Dungeon tiles. Now I didn't expect the group to attack the Dark Dwarves and really neither did the published adventure, but hey, that's how things go some time. Thankfully I had this map prepared for a later encounter to it all worked out. So after a couple of rounds of combat the Duergar gave up. They were already demoralized and a group of adventurers busting in was just too much for them. After some questioning the group found out that the Duergar believed they were being haunted by a ghost, a ghost that had killed most of their band leaving just a pile of sticky gooey bones.

After ridding the rest of the fortress of dark Dwarves the group explored for a bit. Some clues were found but no sign of the wand they were here to find. There was the breaking of a hidden compartment in a desk and the brilliant plan to recover the item they broke inside it. Then there was the searching. Which ended with the Vampire shoving his hands into a Mimic who happened to be hiding as the tattered rug on the first floor. So that's what had been eating the Duergar and leaving sticky bones all over the place.

Fight time. Quick fight time. Store was closing in 8 minutes. This meant tossing the full 4e rules out the window. It was only one monster anyway so that wasn't an issue. This was a quick fight by necessity. Thinking back I probably should have ended the session on the cliffhanger of the Vampire getting stuck since I already knew I wasn't going to fit in everything needed for the session anyway. Oh well, what should have been a dramatic fight against a monster twice their level was a quick beat and bash. We still had fun.

Now were were completely out of time. The store was closed and we needed to get out, so I called it a night. As it stands the group still hasn't quite completed encounter number 4, but we got very close. I tossed the map and mini down for the final encounter as a sort of foreshadowing for next week. I spent a few moments inviting our two new players to join us next week or any future week, asked everyone to please have a level five version of their characters ready for next week and called it a night.

Overall we had good session, though it started an hour later than I had hoped. I tried my best to fit everything into our two hour window but it just wasn't meant to be. This I think is a good indication for how much more meat there is in each chapter this season of Encounters. I remember playing past seasons where we were done in half an hour. I also have to admit that I'm still amazed by how much we did get done. We ended up with only two hours to play and just read everything we were able to get done.

Looking forward to next week.

D&D Encounters: The War of Everlasting Darkness - Session 2

I just got home from session two of Dungeons & Dragons Encounters. The same four players from session one returned for this one so I must be doing something right.

We started a bit early and made sure everyone had leveled up. No one is using a character builder this time around and I've got to say it now feel odd leveling a D&D 4e character without it. It's also odd to level up after every session. This whole highlight reel thing is taking a bit to get used to but it's playing out very well.

This week we join the heroes just weeks after they witnessed the release of the everlasting darkness. You can check out my first session report for details if you wish. During that session the group heard about a pending Orc attack on Winter Edge and this session the group rushed to get there before the orcs.

The group found Winter edge a city in chaos. The inhabitants were all very well and good scared and creeped out by the blackened sky. The sound of orc trumpets in the distance didn't help at all. The group met with Goodwife Winnestorm (Goody Winn) who calmed the people down and came up with a plan. She would evacuate the village. Leading them to Quaervarr at the player suggestion they would hold up there and potentially fall back to Silverymoon if necessary.  Meantime the party would head north to the Orc lands, to Dark Arrow keep and negotiate with the Orc King determining why they have broken a long standing and documented truce. To aid in the negotiation the group would work with Half Orc, Rhupp who shared the royal blood.

There was a rather amusing scene where a half-elf girl tried to gift the groups Paladin with a woodden doll. The vampire in the group recognized it as a magic item that could cast a Sunlight spell and convinced the group that the item was cursed.

Then the first of the Orc raiders arrived as the villagers started their evacuation. The fight was quick and bloody and gridless, and got the adventure moving at a good pace.  The long journey to Dark Arrow Keep was mostly glossed over except for some building tension of orc patrols and roleplaying with Rhupp. Arriving at the keep I got to play dramatic and have Rhupp get laced with arrows and the group captured and brought before the king. The thief rocked this part having already faded from the group and hanging back in the shadows.

So now there was tons of roleplay as the Orc King boasted in front of the assembled tribes and the group tried to convince him that allying with the Drow was not the answer. There were lots of bad rolls, lots of bad rolls things weren't going well. So the thief decided it was time for action. Picking out one of the Orcs that seemed to be sowing sedition in the group, an enemy of the King, an assassination attempt was made. Unfortunately for the group she underestimated the toughness of an orc tribe leader. The attempt failed and sparked a grand orc brawl. One of the largest of all time. The group woke up two days later battered and bruised.

Allies of the Orc King, wishing for peace, or at least no alliance with the Drow worked to find a loophole in order to sway more tribes but still keep the King in good standing. Their plan was to appeal to the Shaman of Gruumsh and try to arrange a test of might in the Pit.  The group agreed and the stage was set, for a pit battle. Between the groups champion, the Elven Thief (I'm still surprised it wasn't the Paladin). A rather fun climax ensued with the Elf batting a well trained Guard Drake while the rest of the group helped from the crowd, trying to hide their efforts. Hilarity happened when the Dragonborn Paladin rolled consecutive 1s while trying to mimic drake commands. The Cleric after doing some healing got caught interfering was tossed in the pit along with two orc challengers. The Vampire also found himself tossed it but not before probably saving the Elf with a distracting gaze on the drake. Overall really fun fight that was a bit of a nail biter for a couple of turns. This was also our first time fully using the 4e grid rules, which took a bit to get used to for the players unfamiliar with the system.

The players were victorious in The Pit, which allowed the shaman to declare them as Gruumsh watched and worth listening too. Multiple Orc tribes now backed the King and his aversion to the Drow Alliance. The group had completed their quest.  But we weren't quite done yet. After a feast they were warned of a potential assassination attempt as well as the location of the Orc armies next target: Mithral Hall. Disguised as Orcs the group fled Arrow Keep, violently at first (taking out the first patrol of Orcs they found) and then stealthily at the very exit.

Overall this was another great session. Again I'm surprised by how much we are able to get done. This session ran about an hour and a half and we had plenty of roleplaying along side multiple combats, including one rather long climatic Pit battle. This, so far, is the best season of Encounters to date.

D&D Encounters: The War of Everlasting Darkness - Session 1

Great session of Dungeons and Dragons Encounters this morning.

Had four players show up. One of which had never played an RPG before and one who hadn't played D&D since AD&D.

Got a ton done. Characters met up in a hunting lodge where they overheard rumors of ghost sightings in the town. After calming down the locals somewhat and getting some leads they decided to wait for the ghost to appear and follow it. Rumors were that it was travelling from the town to the ruins of Methergist every night.

The rumors appeared to be true as they followed the ghostly paladin through the woods. The group took a side track when the overheard voices in the woods. Investigating they found orcs from two rival tribes meeting with a Drow emissary. After stealthily listening in to hear about an impending attack on a nearby town they group ambushed the orcs. As the drow disappeared into the darkness the orcs were quickly dispatched and the group hurried to catch up to the ghost.

Arriving at the ruins of Methergist the party found that a rival group was already here. Figuring them to be tomb robbers the party ambushed the group. The fight was quick with two human hirelings taken out quickly and the more capable looking Dwarf and Elf taken hostage. After a lot of rather amusing roleplay it was decided the Dwarf and Elf would join the group in exploring the ruins for a 25% cut of any treasure found.

The ruins proved to be a small dungeon. Traps were found, the rival party was abused and left the dungeon (players tried to use them as hirelings from AD&D and use them as meat shields and trap finders and they would have none of it, aka some more good roleplay moments). A statue was found, the Tears of Helm were found, some Infernal Braziers were extinguished and the group banished an Imp by guessing what it was and what it's name was.

Then a rift opened in the ground and webs of darkness shot into the sky. The adventure ended with the group staring upwards as first the moon was blotted out then all the starts. The War of Eternal Darkness has begun.

The most impressive part to me was the fact we did all of this in 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons in about an hour and a half. That's unprecedented for Encounters. Their goal to try out the feel and some of the rules for D&D Next seems to be really paying off.

I got a sneak peak at Unframed The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters

I have to assume that +Martin Ralya from +Engine Publishing liked my review of Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep. Or maybe it was my more recent review of Odyssey: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Campaign Management. Heck, maybe he's just still happy I made him Geek of the Week back at RPGgeek.com a few years ago.

Whatever it was, I'm glad I did it. That's because, soon after announcing that Engine Publishing had a new book, Martin contacted me and offered me a chance to review a pre-release copy of it. This new book is Unframed The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters. (I don't know what it is with Engine and the really, really long titles, from now on, I'm just going to call it Unframed. Cool? Good).

I, of course, jumped at a chance to check out this soon to be released book. I really enjoyed Engine Publishing's previous Game Master 'self help books'. Both have actually changed the way I prep, plan and run my games. As expected, Unframed did not disappoint.

So what is Unframed?

Unframed is a 113 page anthology of essays by 23 of the best and brightest writers in the RPG industry. The list of authors is like a 'who's who' of modern gaming and includes some of my favourite authors. What's also very cool is that it includes a ton for great people that I interact with on a regular basis on Google Plus.

Each of the individual articles is rather short, with almost all of them only lasting only 4-5 pages. I realize this sounds a bit too short but these authors manage to pack a lot of punch in a short space. Due to the brevity of the articles I found Unframed to be great 'break reading.' I would finish up something I was working on and need a short break. I would pick up my tablet, read one essay, then move on to whatever it was I had to do next. I also found it worked well for another kind of break: it's a great bathroom reader. :)

What are these 23 essays about?

This page only lists half of the essays.

Well, as it says on the cover: they are all about the art of improvisation. You would think that there wouldn't be all that much to say, or that what there is to be said wouldn't require 23 different people to talk about it. I do have to say that is somewhat true. There is quite a bit of repetition in the book on a few key concepts. You are going to be reading about Offers a lot. Blocking comes up almost as often. And I'm pretty sure I could hit "yes and...." with a THAC0 of 20, it's in there so often. That said, each essay is very different.

Each of the different authors came to using improvisation in their games in a different way. Some in very different ways. Due to this each has a very different perspective on it. There are even sections of the book that contradict other sections. I think this is a strength though and not a weakness. Just like the authors of these essays, most of us came from different places. For example I started GMing with TSR Marvel Super Heroes and moved on to games like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and I still find dungeon crawls odd and hard to run as I never really had that D&D Background. 

What can I actually learn from Unframed?

Each essay in Unframed takes a good look at one or more aspects of Improvisation and talks directly about how to use this to be a better Game Master. Some of these talk a lot about theatrical improvisation and walk you through all the terms and tropes before telling you how to apply them to your games. Others talk about how many hours the author wasted on session prep and what got them to start running and prepping their games in a different way. What's great to read is that they always get into the why. 

Some of the articles are very specific, like +Kenneth Hite's essay: Improvisation in Horror Games. Others are much more broad like +Filamena Young's essay: Gaming Like an Actor. Some of the essays are filled with tips and tricks, like Names, Voices and Stereotypes by +Wolfgang Baur. Others offer you new methods to try in your games like +Vincent Baker's Coherence and Contradictions. I loved that Vincent used Michael Moorcock for inspiration but I'm not sure I'm ready for his listless system.

But improv is for hippy story games!

A sample of the start of an essay.

I have to admit that a few years ago, the title of this section is something you might have heard coming out of my mouth. I'm an old school gamer. Maybe I didn't grow up with D&D but I did grow up with the GM sitting behind the screen, presenting a story to the players in a mostly adversarial way. That GM would have spent hours and hours preparing for the game and would cringe if ever things went off the track. I've been there, and well to be honest, I've still got one foot in that mentality. 

I'm still not 100% comfortable with all of the concepts suggested in Unframed. Improvisation is something I want to try more of though. What this book did is show me that there are lots of other GMs in the same boat. I found that Scott Martin's essay: Scaffolding to Support Improv really hit close to home for me. Especially his discussion about trying different game systems. I think he's inspired me to pick up a copy of Fiasco and give it a try.

There was one thing missing...

One of the things I really liked in the last Engine Publishing book, Odyssey, was the ongoing story that tied the whole book together. Even though you had a couple different authors sharing their advice there was the story of Gemma's game group and their new campaign that tied everything together. I wish there was something like this in Unframed.

What I would have really liked to have read is a tale of one Games Master, someone like me, still stuck in the old ways but willing to try the new ones, and how each of the articles affected them. How their games changed. What worked for them and what didn't. Something to tie everything together.

Overall thoughts.

Unframed The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters is a rather interesting book. It does something that I think every good RPG advice book should do: makes you think. I couldn't help but think about my own games and my own gaming style as I read through each of the 23 short essays. I wondered  how each of these amazing authors experiences and advice would apply to my games. 

While a bit short (it's shorter than any of the other Engine books so far), there is a lot of information pumped in there. There really isn't much artwork and I think I would have liked a full page spread or two. What I really would have liked through is one ongoing thread that tied all of the articles together in some way. Either a piece of fiction or even better a real life story of how these techniques changed one author's games. What is nice though, is that without this thread, each article stands on it's own. Actually you could read the whole thing out of order without really changing the tone or effect.

I'm an old school gamer. I've been a Game Master for many, many, years now. This is something new. Sometimes new stuff scares me, just like it sometimes scares everyone else. Unframed made me think about this. It made me question my old ways and offered many reasons why the new ways may just be better for me (I can't help but think of that Ikea Lamp Ad). I can't help but think that there are other GMs out there that feel the same way. That alone makes me think that this is a book well worth checking out.

If you are interested in checking Unframed out, the pre-order goes live today!

Just head on over to: http://www.enginepublishing.com/unframed-the-art-of-improvisation-for-game-masters 

If you are a fantasy gaming geek you should really check out Standard Action

Like the title says, if you dig fantasy gaming and aren't already caught up on Standard Action you really should be. Standard Action is a live action fantasy RPG web series that started back in 2011 (actually the teaser episode was out in 2010). Unlike another rather popular RPG gaming series, The Guild this one is based on Pen and Paper RPGs instead of MMORPGs.

The series first introduces and then follows the adventures of a pretty typical adventuring party. There's the Elf Barbarian Edda played by +Joanna Gaskell, who is also the creative mind behind the project. Along with Edda we have Fernando the Half-Halfling Bard, Martin the Druid ("I'm not a healer") with his badger familiar and Gwenevere (don't call her Wendy) the Sorcerer. A myriad of other characters, villains and NPCs are added through the series with some guest appearances as well.

Overall I found the series to be very well produced. A step above most web series I've seen. This isn't just a filmed amateur LARP here but rather a real production. The costuming is great, the effects are decent and best of all the story is engaging and often time hilarious.

You can check out the series here, this is Episode 0 the teaser released in 2010 (which atually fits in at episode 6.5):

The Gamerati himself, +Ed Healy  recently hooked me up with Joanna and I was able to ask her a few questions about the series:

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So how the heck did you get involved in a live action fantasy RPG web series?

Well, I wrote the scripts just for a lark, really - character studies with their roots in gaming humour. We never really thought we'd be able to make the show - fantasy is just too expensive! But we met Edwin (Fernando the Bard) on the set of a feature film we were making back in 2010, and we found out that not only was he a great actor, he was also a gamer, and he made costumes! So I showed him the scripts, and we were pretty much off to the races. We shot the teaser for Episode 1, and with that online we started to draw in a bunch more talented people who saw and were interested in Standard Action, and pretty soon we were holding auditions and scouting locations!

I have to assume the cast are gamers, am I right? If so what's your gaming history?

Actually - Edwin and I are gamers; we play and DM our own games, and have played D&D, as well as a variety of other roleplaying games - Pathfinder, Cthulhu, Shadowrun - for a very long time. But our other cast members - Tara and Daniel - are not gamers! Tara is a Star Trek: TNG geek, and Daniel dabbled in some Magic: the Gathering, but they are nerds of a different kind, for sure.

Watching Standard Action I can't help be reminded of The Guild. Was The Guild an inspiration for your series? What other inspirations did you have?

The Guild was certainly inspiring in that it was groundbreaking in the web world. I would say that it was one of the very first truly successful webseries, and it made the rest of us out here with great ideas believe that we might just be able to pull it off. I'm very grateful to Felicia Day and her team for that. :) However, my and Rob's real inspiration in the webseries world was "The Show" with Ze Frank, which was the first webseries we ever watched. It was incredibly fan-interactive, incredibly funny, and very intelligent, and it had a huge following.

In terms of my writing, I draw a lot of my inspiration from British comedy, such as The Mighty Bouche, Discworld, Red Dwarf and Monty Python. I love the slightly tongue-in-cheek, quirky, intelligently weird humour, that never underestimates the intelligence of the audience.

I can't help but wonder if some of the content is based on actual play at the table?

The humour for sure comes from the gaming table, but it's more the feel that's translated than the actual events. Some of the D&D gaming rules just lend themselves to great comedy when they're applied in weird situations, so I would often just take those quirks to their natural conclusions, and see what happened. We tried very hard to make our series accessible, though. You don't have to be a gamer to get the humour - we made sure to make it funny for anyone who's a fan of quirky comedy or comedy-fantasy. If you're a gamer, you'll just catch on to those extra jokes. And some of our "easter eggs" and extra jokes aren't for tabletop gamers - we have stuff in the show for Star Wars fans, Tolkein addicts, Browncoats, Trekkies, MMORPG'ers, video gamers, or even fans of great cult movies like Space Balls or The Princess Bride.

I see you are kickstarting a new season, two questions regarding this:
1) How is it you managed to produce such a professional looking series up to this point?

Our first season was entirely self-funded - so basically out of my own pocket, as the producer. For second season we ran an IndieGoGo fundraiser, which is similar to Kickstarter. That got us about half of our funds, and then the other half I supplied.

2) What led you to kickstarter to continue it?

Our hope for Season 3 is to have it almost completely fan-funded - I'm running out of spare cash. :) The reason we chose Kickstarter over IndieGoGo for this season is because of the visibility - Kickstarter is becoming so well known, and we decided to try to tap into the high-profile nature of the site. The functionality is also a lot nicer than IndieGoGo; it's easier to interact with your backers, and easier for your backers to manage their contributions.

What's your plan for the future of Standard Action, will you be doing another kickstarter for each future season?

The third season will wrap up many of the elements of this particular story arc. After that... I'm not sure. We may, if the support is there, continue into a Season 4, or we may branch off into a spinoff series. We also have plans for an Edda Backstory feature film, so there's that. It would be ideal for us to find another way to fund what we do, at least partially. I'm exploring options for corporate partnerships, and we're expanding our library of merchandise. Crowdsource fundraising is amazing, but I would love to not have to go back to the fans and ask for our entire budget every time we want to make something. Having a bit of income from another source would be ideal, and we're working on that.

So I see you are offering a card game as one of the backer rewards can you tell me a bit about the game?

For sure! But it's actually easier for you to watch this video that I just made. It'll give you the basics, ;)

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So there you have it geeks and gamers. Everything I wanted to know about Standard Action. The series really is great and you really should check it out. As mentioned in the interview Joanna and her crew are currently looking for funds to support season 3. This is going on right now on kickstarter and the project has already hit it's goal. If you've checked out the series and enjoyed it, why not jump over there now and help them hit some stretch goals.

The WGR presents Level Up! Level 2! an RPG event on April 19th

The Windsor Gaming Resource embarks on a new season of its RPG events with LEVEL UP! Level 2

April 19th the WGR will be hosting a day long RPG experience. The great folks at The Green Bean Windsor Star News Cafe have offered us some great gaming space from 12pm until 11pm. That's a whole lotta gaming!

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying from last year.

We will be following the same format as the 2013 Level Up! event. There will be two different sittings. an early sitting starting at 12 noon and a late sitting at 6pm. Each will have a variety of RPG games you can choose to play in. Each individual session should run between 4-5 hours. Doing the math you can see that there will be a 1 hour gap between sittings to give our GMs a break and give time for everyone to grab some food.

Right now the games that will be featured at this event include: Agents of Oblivion, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, All for One, Accursed, Pathfinder and Star Wars: Edge of the Empire.

We will be taking sign ups for the each individual game. The number of slots will vary by game and details of this will be found on the facebook event page. Unless otherwise stated by the GMs in question no experience with the particular game is needed.

Iron Kingdoms from 2013

We had such a great time of it last year, we want to make it even better this time! If you know people that aren’t part of the WGR and are into RPGs, TELL THEM ABOUT THIS! The more folks know about it, the more diverse the group and the more games get played!!

This is an awesome opportunity for non-roleplaying game players to experience this wonderful gaming hobby. It's also the perfect chance for RPG fans to try out a new system.

Facebook Event Page for Level Up! Level 2 - https://www.facebook.com/events/1470464569838730/

The Green Bean Windsor Star Cafe is located at:

300 Ouellette Ave - 3rd Floor

Windsor ON N9A 7B4

The D&D White Box is back in a big way

Just announced a few minutes ago on their websites, Wizards of the Coast will be releasing a premium edition of the Original Dungeon & Dragons White Box. Not only do you get the original little books but it includes all of the later released supplements. In addition it's presented in a beautiful wood box and includes some pretty cool looking dice.

From the WotC site:

Original Dungeons & Dragons RPG

Original Edition Premium Reprint

Wizards RPG Team

A premium, deluxe edition of the Original D&D "White Box"!
The original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set was published by TSR, Inc. in 1974 and was the very first roleplaying game, introducing concepts that have persisted throughout later editions. It included three small rules booklets in a white box.
This deluxe, premium reprint of the original "White Box" features new packaging and includes the following seven booklets:

• Volume 1: Men & Magic
• Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure
• Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures
• Supplement I: Greyhawk
• Supplement II: Blackmoor
• Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry
• Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes

Each booklet features new cover art but is otherwise a faithful reproduction of the original, including original interior art.

Item Details
Item Code: 45390000
Release Date: November 19, 2013
Format: D&D Boxed Game
Price: $149.99; C$172.00
ISBN: 978-0-7869-6465-9 

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/45390000