Wall Stormers #90

 Its been a hard long year, the fields have not grown any better than before, and the guilds keep voting to send out more kids to their deaths. My first born lost his life out there, and yet it didn't stop my second born from going out. Yet, he returned, returned with enough iron to make a new ploughshare and more.

The Guilds divided up the loot, as parent we were afforded new stone and new wood for our house, and indeed an upgrade to my plough. We're thankful for that, but I look at the neighbours, who've lost their children and I wonder. Maybe I should have gone out instead of my firstborn. I won't let my 2nd born out again, in the excitement he got married and are now with child. 

I have the muscles of a farmer, so why not. 

The Start of Summer

Its not the 9th year, sending kids out to clear the walls. Lets be fair, its always a volunteers job. the survivors return not just rich, but also proud, looked upon by the others as someone who matters.

Yet not all missions go as planned. Last year, some kids let loose an abomination. Something described as a body of bodies, all glued together, yet it could come apart if needed. 20 feet high, multiple heads and arms. sick, twisted. Worse, it was at Merchants gate, usually the safer of the gates, but sadly the harder to defend, due to the overhanding customs gate house.

So, the three who discovered it, and seven more of their kin, the ones who survived, but not found enough to retire, plus some new kids, and 12 guard, were sent out to clean it all up.

The Guards reported back, something else was out there.

The Zombies were tougher than usual, there were stranger ones, and then the beast appeared. The fight was furious, and fast, as the priests summoned the word of Ignatious Flageston Mortantius Fury, and burned the ground, escaping back into the gate as the street was lit with holy fire. Several heroes were scorched, many infected by the blood and are now in hospital being treated. But, word has it, the abomination was purged.  

Once returned, some of our adventurers, not happy that they'd returned empty handed, snuck out into the city the next morning, grabbed a few items from a building (decorative iron chairs) and managed to improve their standing at the adventurers guild.

What is a Dungeon Crawler

 If you are unaware, I'm heavily involved in Dungeon Crawl Board games, and in an effort for a comprehensive list of what one is vs what one isn't, I've amalgamated this list.

Dungeon Crawlers

Top Down, in Order of Importance, These are the items that I classify as needed in a Dungeon Crawler, and a small blub about each. I will start off with a few critical points. 

I prefer Story over Stats. I would like players to choose items that match the idea of their character, rather than the 'best' item to defeat the monsters. Wiggle room permitting, a player might have a choice between a Greatsword and a Two Handed Axe, and their Barbarian is wondering what's going to chop harder. But if the same barbarian has a choice between a Greatsword that will do 7dps, and a wand of fire, that even after modifiers, does 9dps, that's too far. 
How Far is Too Far. There is often a line, between a Dungeon Crawler and a RolePlay Game. Its a grey area, sometimes I see RPGs that try to simplify things too much/quickly, and you lose the depth of an RPG, and they really should just be a Pen & Paper DC. More often, I see a DC adding in the kitchen sink, and ending up with a bloated RPG with too many tokens, too many miniatures, and too many rules to look up. Worse, if the players have to read all the rules, and act like a GM, without a GM.  

A Party of Characters/Heroes

While Solo Play is ok, I'm not ok with the idea of a dungeon that's "designed" for a single Hero. Dungeons are designed, by Evil Overlords to be impenetrable, dangerous places, where armies have failed to defeat them. A Good solo player should work for it, that said, to be honest, I'd love to see a set of quests which the townsfolk warn them are too dangerous for 1-2 heroes, and point out some crypt missions that might suit them better, so they can improve their abilities before going into dangerous places.

Character Customization

There is a middle ground, Not being able to make any choices at all, doesn't feel like your character is progressing, often pre-chosen upgrades come along with increasing enemy levels, so you never feel like you are getting anywhere. Vice Versa, full open choice, can lead to making poor choices, ones that hamper the game for everyone, its less likely in a DC than in RPG, but I do see it creep in.

Exploration of unrevealed areas

If I know, the whole layout of the Dungeon in Advance, its because I found a map in a previous location, not because the game gets me to set it all out on the table. A good DC should have some rules about placing rooms after opening doors, or setting out structures as the story progresses, especially if the game, rightly, makes it clear I should retreat and return in the future (with better preparation). 

Scenario / Mission Scope

The Idea that the players are 'crawling', at some slower pace, because its dangerous, as the core 2/3rds+ of the game. This can be split up, allowing an average pace for the town->dungeon-> travel, faster pace 'in' town, to get supplied, and the location itself being the round by round speed. Any more than 1/3rd time spent in the 'setup/packup' phase doesn't make me feel like I'm Dungeon Crawling, instead I'm RPGing.. (see above & below)

Character Progression

If we're creating a Boss Battler, Level up after the boss is defeated. But if its a Dungeon Crawl, there needs to be the ability for players to progress mid dungeon, it doesn't HAVE to be structured that way, but it feels great when it happens. One way is to have the the macGuffin be specifically an upgrade for 1 character, "Lets go into the Forests of Alderrell, and retrieve the Bow of Swiftness for our Halfling Archer." Alternating between story progress and upgrade quests is a way for RPGs to progress, why not do the same for DCs, Heroquest did it.

Scenario Goal

Which Ties in with Scenarios having specific goals. This one is important to differentiate between an open ended PRG and a story specific DC. The DC is a boiled down, quicker, faster, focused RPG. The quest is straight forward. Players know what the quest is, so they can buy specific weapons and equipment. They know why they are going, where they are going and what they expect. THEN a surprise twist is more impactful.  

Campaign Story

A little less important (to me) is the overarching campaign. I don't mean, at al, I mean, The Scenarios goals should be following a path that makes sense, but I don't need to know the names of all the NPCs that may be affected by the plot. Include a 1 paragraph TLDR at the beginning to read out to players, and hand the 1 page backstory to the person who likes to know the extra details.

Miniatures vs Standees vs Tokens & game boards.

I don't think a good DC needs miniatures, but it most certainly makes a good DC a great DC, unfortunately it also makes a poor DC into a half-decent DC, for the purposes of Kickstarting / Buying at Discount. Mostly, because I can use those minis in other DCs or RPGs. That said, it needs 'something' otherwise, theatre of the mind is purely RPG territory. Also If I'm drawing layouts on paper, for the minis/tokens to sit on? Again, RPG land. The very nature of a DC is the board, the tokens and some other parts make a DC 'exist' as a board game.

Combat; Enemies to kill/overcome

What Crawler would be complete without the reason your crawling. Monsters, While a single monster type would be the bare bones minimum (Adv Heroquest, 3 forms of Skaven) A Variety to make the game replayable, and introduce varied levels of difficulty make it even better.

Traps, Hidden objects/items/enemies, Discoverable loot.

I think of these more as, interesting quirks. Not every Dungeon is set up as a death trap for heroes. Some might be the homes of creatures, and unlikely to use Traps, easily forgotten, deadly to the inhabitants, while Crypts, expecting to be looted, would be covered with all manner of ways to dispatch intruders. Loot is likely to be hidden in secret compartments, but regular weapons should more likely be found in the hands of the guards, AND should be acquirable by players.

Other Aspects of DCs that others like: In Order of, Yes these are nice to have vs oh no, please don't.

Focusing the game on Heroic Individuals

This.. hmm, maybe it just me, but every peasant, with hard work, and the right contacts, should be able to train and become a hero. The idea that an Individual must be destined to be a Hero isn't my cup of tea. I like character progression, and I like the idea of the poor no-body, becoming the winner. BUT maybe the idea of this one, is that the game should be focused on that hero, and not side-line them for sub-quests.  

Unique Skills

Yes, a DC is supposed to be boiling things down to simplify choice, but setting aside specific skills starts to approach the line in the sand. Ok, sure, this character has trained to fight with a staff for years, and has some cool maneuvers, Why is it that no other character 'can' choose to train in the staff too? I get that the rules to allow more cross-class abilities would make things difficult, so I can sit on the fence for this. It breaks my heart when RPGs even attempt to do this, So I'll allow it for DCs only.  

Class Specific Loot

Again, a little on the nose, but maybe that's my GM/RPG Designer coming through. A sword is a sword. and the idea that a mage, cannot pick up a sword, at all, for any reason, is dumb. Yes a DC is supposed to simplify things, but this is the line in the sand, and given a choice, I want players to be 'able' to choose the sword, and wield it, (poorly) in rare circumstances, to save the day, because the rest of the party is down, the bad guy is immune to magic, and the silver sword is the only weapon that will kill him. Maybe that's just for RPGs. Because this usually doesn't need any extra rules, why its enforced I don't know. 

Tiered/Scaled Loot.

Worse still, the game actively only 'hands out' items because of the level of the group. No. Seriously No. The Dungeon is designed way in advance of the players, If my group of level 7 heroes want to slum it, and go wipe out a Goblin warren, they should not be finding a few dozen magic swords. No. The opposite side of this, it should be a small, but interesting chance that a more powerful item can be found in an average Dungeon, that 'sets' the players apart from an average heroic party. Maybe finding a Wand of Firebolt in the first dungeon, was the reason this party has succeeded where no other could. 

Scaled Monsters.

To Take things to their ultimate Doom, a Dungeon that, no matter what level YOU are, the difficulty is set to 'slightly below hard'? NOOoo. Its boring, its repetitive, it loses all meaning, now your just rolling dice for the sake of an activity with friends. Also, games are about learning too, and once you've learnt the singular tactic of taking out the dungeon, every experience after will be a pointless task of repetition. 

Dishonorable Mentions

Space vs Fantasy

While you might consider a sci-fi concept, still a Dungeon Crawler, I posit that there are certain aspects of what makes a sci-fi.. feel sci-fi. The majority of which will destroy the vibe of a 'Dungeon' and 'Crawl'. 

I Played XCOM as a kid, its certainly got a LOT of the 'dungeon crawl' feelings of the above, yet the key sci-fi things, shooting lasers down corridors, remote access to locations from a terminal, radar pings to find enemies, the focus far more on pre-preparedness, as the statistical likelyhood that any weapons you find are geared for human hands is nigh on impossible.  It all leads/lends itself more to a tactical game.
You almost need to have some military training, to structure HOW you'll enter the location, scout ahead, burst through a door guns blazing, against those green blips on screen. You might secure some tech to take back to base, but forget using any of it now. You only have what you brought in. Sci-fi doesn't feel sci fi without those elements, and Dungeon doesn't feel Dungeon *with* those elements, Can you imagine a crack team of Soldiers, bursting into the Dungeons of the Necromancer.. it's be comical.

Sure, I'd love to see that, and it might be a great and fun game. but, just don't call it a Dungeon Crawl. 

i.e. I don't like my Dungeon Crawlers to feel like a tactical game, which ties back to story vs Tactics. I prefer players to choose weapons and armour because of theme, not strategy, or at least theme first, strategy second. So a Space Marine Battle, even in corridors of a space hulk, is too far gone for me to count them.  

Health, and Death... again...

 So, The Human body, as I understand it, does not 'die' as instantly as we think it does

How Does Actual Death change the rules

On a cellular level, most of the body lives on for hours and even days after 'death'. This means many, many things for roleplay. 

Firstly, lets look at Health. 

When the human body takes an amount of damage too much for the consciousness to handle, the body shuts down the consciousness. This might not reboot the system, and we refer to that as a coma.

For the longest time, I used 'fate' and 'luck' to be this factor. The body takes damage beyond the 'death' score, and the player determines, ok. I'll spend a fate. If the party manages to best the monster, they revive their friends from their unconscious state, and begin the healing process. preferably in a nice warm tavern.

BUT if the whole party is 'killed' they all 'wake' in a witches home, or a wizards tower, or some place 'nearby' enough that makes enough logical sense that someone had rescued them, possibly including the party members themselves that were 'less' damaged.

The GM has a nice 'out' for the group, it often introduces a NPC for the players to rely on in the future, as they obviously owe a boon/debt to, and can introduce new plot hooks, or provide higher level access to information or goods.

But beyond that, we also allow for death to actually occur, and yet be rolled back. If the players can retrieve their friends body, and get to a healer within a few hours to days, they might still be brought back. The consciousness is shut down by the body, and once healing applied, is re-awoken by the spell casters or priests.

IF and only IF we have gone past the point of no return, do we now need actual resurrection spells.

This adds the benefit, plot wise, that our players are not 100% lost to us, and plot paths can continue beyond death. provided the resurrection is made cheap enough by plot economics. 

That's the TL;DR of my notes on death. 

When Sterotypes hurt your Game

Something I've strived for in a lot of my games is an attention to detail. You always see posts, articles and stories about how the designers added so much background, and the user barely notices, but overall the game/movie does better for it. I never expected it to backfire so badly as my last roleplay session.

When your players stereotypes clash with each other

  I started a 4 week stand alone session about Pirates, Sailors and their dealings with a strange phenomenon called magic.

  The Session started with quicker than normal character creation, we even had to skip formalized equipment and their stats (though proved humourous) so we could get started and into the basic plot quickly enough.

The basics were thus: There are two sides, Arabian Pirates, who come from a land which has outlawed magic in all forms. Consequently the majority of the pirates are actually magic users. And the European Sailors, having had their entire city wiped out by undead magic users because their race managed to invent gunpowder (magic users everywhere have banned the invention) those politics aside, the players know that they consider their 'guns' to be anti-magician guns.

  Throw in a Knights Inquisitor, whose sole reason for infiltrating the pirate ship is to root and rat out the mages to be beheaded at the next port.

  So we have two sides, with conflicting inner struggles. I expected some emotional and political conflict, as did the players.. but we didn't expect what did happen.

Arabian Indians & German Gunners

Some of my players like to put on voices.. the 'Europeans' jumped for German, and for some strange reason, the Arabians decided to be Indian (some jumping from Scottish to Iroquois mid sentence) alot of funny moments for a later blog.

  What happened was a misunderstanding of ranking.

  Some of my players are older gentlemen, they have families, kids, wives who expect their husbands home by 10pm, and the rest, Uni students, not so serious, just having fun with it all.

  The Serious players, want to get to the game, get it happening and enjoy themselves, while the younger players have yet to learn that sense of urgency and self control.. so already different tensions started in, players not respecting the game, monty python quotes, etc etc

  The Pirate 3rd Mate & the Ships cook were instructed to take this group of sailors and pirates of equivalent by slightly lower rank out to inspect the island, look for fresh water and food. The Cook can of course identify plants & poisonous varieties, and the 3rd mate bossed people around, to get stuff done..

  But The Pirate player, had previously played a D&D adventure on the high seas, and the campaign had extremely poor understanding of life aboard a ship, crew, rules, emotions and the like. Far worse than the stereotypes of the movies. The players had been press-ganged into ship slavery, whipped, beaten, half rationed, disease & seasickness, it was a brutal campaign (I never played, I just got this players impression)

Now, does that Officer look like he's going to run him through?

  Also, in games prior to 2000, I used to run many of my campaigns with a strict iron fist. Players who would encounter guards and give them flack, would likely end up in prison for unruly behavior or beaten up and left in the gutter. Players learned that they might be the heroes of the story, but they are certainly not given free reign to do as they please.

The Skirmish

So, this player, felt that his 3rd mate, was in charge, and should/would deserve the respect of his position, to the point of almost bashing the back of the head of the German gunner who was giving him a little flack, at which point, the gunner drew his flintlock pistol and told him to back off.

  This set off the 3rd mate, insisting that the rest of the crew, imprison the two germans in a discovered stone room, til he could summon up someone of higher rank to have them flogged. The germans went in the room, but not so much as punishment, but instead creating a nice walled barrier against the feral mate, so they would obviously only have to guard the one entrance with flintlocks. Strategically, a good move.

  I, at this point, honestly thought the player was playing his pirate like this on purpose.. to create angst, or disrupt the possible inquisitor from discovering that he was actually a mage.

  It turned out, he honestly thought that pirates were blood thirsty bastards who would sooner run in a scurvey prisoner than take lip. While 6 of the 9 players had other ideas.

 The Key point had been pointed out earlier in the hand out text, which I'll quote:

A Ship of European style, A Galleon, 14 Guns (Extremely rare), but a crew of only 50 (The Galleon needed 75 to operate at full ability, but sleeps 150) Lost a Battle to a Pirate known as Twin Blades McCrowly and his crew of 40 pirates. The Pirates has (rightly) never encountered guns, and thought the booms were a storm coming over the bow, while 8 of them were killed on the opening attack, the remaining 32 managed to kill the captain of the galleon and 15 crew so effectively, their scrimshaw blademanship was so deadly, the remaining crew gave in (it was fairly obvious these warriors were so deadly, they would slaughter the crew and burn the ship)

The Master Gunner, knowing that the future of his culture was at stake, pleaded with the pirate captain, to take them on as crew. McCrowly took a look at the 8 dead, holes blown through them, and looked back at the massive hole blown in the side of his own ship and realised. He had now gained some of the most powerful “magic” that existed.. but it was not actually magic, somehow, this would be perceived as “evil” and the Knights Inquisitors might be pissed, but since it was not magic, their anti-magics would not work..

So, the Crew of the Galleon was given a choice, Join the Pirates, Plunder the Seas and if they want to get off at the next safe port, they may do so, AFTER they train the replacement crew member how to operate the guns & cannons.

The Ship has been anchored off the coast of a small, uncharted island, The Captain has ordered you lot, to go investigate, gather water, see if supplies exist and buried treasure (he adds with a laugh).

Beautiful Tropical Island, filled with Deadly Creatures, Crazy Terrain and Wild-men, must be Australia.

  So, you can see The Galleon Crew are on 'probation', to prove their worth, and become pirates, as equal ranking to the rest.
  For myself, I've always thought that the idea of a Pirate Captain, treating his crew like scum, would eventually result in mutiny. The concept that any higher ranking sailor on the sea, trying to act all big and tough, better be chummy with 80% of the crew, and only try that kind of thing with the least well liked persons on the ship.. that said.. close quarters, no where to go, I don't like the odds of anyone being less than amicable on a ship, but idiots will be idiots, and that's why the quartermaster exists.
  
  Returning to the situation, 'the 3rd mate thinks he's top sh*t', not because the player wants the character to be played that way, but thinks that this is how higher ranked pirates are supposed to act. The Pirate Stereotype has 'forced his hand' so to speak.
  No one else agreed with him, and began to belittle the player( in and out of game) because he was playing an a**hole. The Player didn't want to be boxed in, Some of the Pirates were siding with the Germans, which the Player insisted was against the spirit of the game.
  So suddenly we're all raised voices and getting angsty about whats going on.. I blame myself, not providing enough material to the player about how pirates should be played.. because quite frankly when you have a group, it is, sorta, the responsibility of the GM to set a scenario that the group has a reason to bond & team up against the GM.

  We had to pull the session to an end, so I could write up several pages based on historical data to show the more truer version of history and why the stereotypes would destroy the ability on pirates being pirates.. but it really got me thinking..

How many sessions of roleplay are disrupted by this kind of clash, players playing the 'classic trope' which ultimately ruins everyones fun?

A world is like a child, nurtured, until you let it free

Its Been a big thing for me the last few years, setting up multiple games mastered situations, and seems that recently started to become the next big thing.. I've been asking around and getting some interesting feedback.. so heres my 2 cents

A world is like a child, nurtured, until you let it free

I, like many GMs, built my own world. I based it off Terry Pratchetts Discworld, I even called it 'The Coyn' I wrote the physics of the world, the Laylines, built a few game mods for Civ so I could determine the larger extent of who lives where. but the more I developed it, the more I found one factor eating into my thoughts..

I'll never be able to finish this.

In what seems like a completely unrelated theme.. I ran a game where my cousin played an assassin whom had infiltrated the group, learnt what he could and then assassinated two of the other players before escaping with half of the last major treasure. While it wasn't very pleasant, and no-one trusted my cousins characters again, its still something talked about to this day.

Back on topic

I think I let my cousin try his hand at gamesmastering my world first, but it was also his first GMing so it was good and bad, but later I met other GMs while travelling<link missing> and we dicussed my world, and how I would love others to GM my game. I met some nice guys in germany who wrote to me 3 months later, asking if I would send them links to the documents. back then, there was no google doc.. so I wrote a few extensive emails (which I have no copies of) and they wrote back about their game..

Wow!

It was so different to hear about how these people were travelling to cities, I had invented, shopping in markets that my own players had travelled. It was such an exhilarating experience.

My Next roleplay session, I included their characters as NPCs that 'passed through' and the players were 100x more interested in who these other heroes were, than just any old NPC.. they felt more 'real'.

So for a while I added far more detail to my NPCs, little things that might later crop up in conversation, felt more alive to the players.. did the barkeep have a family? was the old beggar who recently died, anyone of importance? maybe it mattered, maybe it didn't but if someone asked the right question, it was no longer "Oh um, lets see.. ok.." and I make it up.. now, now I had a lot of prepared information.. Was my first introduction to good Gamesmastering.

but still that thought lingered.. those other players, they created something, that made it easier for me to use, made my play more 'alive'. So I started to experiment.

I was teaching English in Russia at the time, and running a small group of RP for some students. its a great way to practice, rather than the boring lessons of language, you engaged in conversation and quickly had to phrase things to be understood. I needed a BBG that was more interesting than just me.. mostly I think my clever students were second guessing me, they could 'sense' what it was that was going to happen at each step, because they'd gotten to know me (was I so predictable?) so I contacted my cousin again.. hey cuz!, can you drag out your old 'evil' character and play the bad guy?

Once a week I would write to him, tell him what he had discovered through his henchmen, contacts, cronies and crystal ball, he would tell me what he would do with that information.. and in the next gaming session, the heroes would sometimes face off against the next set of guards or monsters sent their way.. but as often as not, they'd hit a quiet patch, and realise that the BBG had lost their trail. Taking advantage of it, they set up some ambushes or false trails and it became its own kind of game.. players vs player.

Then I got a second group. They also were on the trail of the BBG.. but none of them knew that there were 3 sides.. My cousin, would learn of a group of heroes killing off his henchmen in the town of Orcust. so nearby in Ruthergos, he's have some spies, and then a rider to send to a local squad, who'd hopefully hold them off until his Ogres would arrive on scene. but group #2 had no intention of going towards the BBG's base.. because they'd heard rumours of some battle of the BBG forces to the east.. where 2 weeks ago, the first group had recently dispatched a large group of forces. group #2 was chasing group #1s tail, thinking it was BBG, while he, was expecting group #1 to come towards him and instead found his forces chasing group #2, and group #1, hearing the rumours of BBG forces amassing in two groups.. coming from behind, were fleeing to what they felt was a safe enough distance so they could dispatch of the BBG forces, guerilla style.

When group #1 and Group #2 got close.. I arranged for them to be physically at the same location for one larger session, and once established that it was possible. each groups cliffhanger was the arrival of the other group at the same locale. they BOTH thought they were going in for the semi-final confrontation with the BBG's number 1 force of evil heroes!

At the opening of the session, people arriving at my office, some of them though the others were students hanging on from classes, still chatting to their teacher.. others knew of each other, but not that they all gamed. I asked everyone to sit down different sides of the room, and it dawned on them, I quickly interjected with "SO, here you are heroes, facing off against each other.. what do you do?"

The room was aghast with Russian language.. too fast for me to keep up.. I quickly calmed them, chastised them for breaking language in the 'class' and they continued in English.. until they remembered to roleplay.

The Paladins of the same order (no less) started in on each other "how dare you wear the colours of honour.." "me? how dare YOU, I am a Paladin of the holy.. " What? how can you work for BBG and be a holy" "I DONT WORK FOR HIM!"

It was a fantastic moment. they soon discovered that they were indeed working on the same side, that they should work together, until they heard cackling...

The fire burst into purple flames and there was the EVIL BBG speaking to the heroes! (I turned on the TV screen that my computer was plugged into, SKYPED back to Australia for my cousin.)

AHAHAHAHA, he laughed, you fools.. your concentrated 'good' within my realm has allowed me to find you.. and now you will die!!!

a Large army of Black Orcs, Trolls, Ogres, witches and a hellspawn broke through the forest, and attacked the party. we lost 1 hero and everyone was so heavily wounded, they had to retreat. They went seperate ways to ensure the BBG would not, could not find them again.. but now, they began to leave notes in taverns for each other.

But what next?

After that session ended.. I knew I was onto something. I could not be the only person to have tried this, maybe there are other GMs who have done the same.. so I got onto some forums, and found some GMs who agreed to give it a go. 

This blog is getting long enough, so I'll leave off the stories for another day, but the basics was, we ran a new campaign, new players for me, but the others formed a group in Moscow, using the same world, the same system, their GM collaborated via email & occasional meetings, My cousin began a game in Adelaide, and my friends in San Fran started theirs, I had three other GMs that started around the same time, same world, same places.. different groups.

While we didn't get as heavily into the same plot, there were enough goings on that affected each other, that made the world more enjoyable for all of us.. I had GMs saying that they felt they were playing too now.. not just 'running' the game.. because each week new things would crop up between teams.. 

Simple things like, leaving notes for each other if they came to the same town weeks later, dispatching major enemies, which allowed other groups of lower levels to mop up the lower level monsters, One guy sold his magic sword to a blacksmith, who on-sold it to the next group, who traded it to a third group, who met the first and he noticed his old sword -"where did you get that? that's my old sword!" he asked..

Multiple groups playing the same region, was by far the best roleplay I've ever had.

Sure there are logistics. If you don't roleplay any given week, you'd characters have to have 'time out' resting in a tavern somewhere, or laying low, so the time-line doesn't get too messy.. some GMs ran catch up sessions, some did quick missions.. I think the San Fran GM had his players go fishing for two weeks.

But now new things were coming in.. we had 7 GMs, 7 sets of NPCs.. when one GM invented an NPC for a tavern, he had to write it all down, because if any other group came in here, it needed to match. After that session, some of the GMs felt it was too much..

So we broke into two types.. Contributors, and Participants.

Contributor GMs would record things, write notes, leave them in a google doc, that we could read up on, and use, if our players were going to the same region later. Participants would 'use' the docs, but not leave a trail as it were.. the players would have the experience of being in a living world, but not be leaving their own mark on it. (although, I got to hear their stories, and integrated some of it into my own players world, added those 'rumours' to the mill)

I've run two more multi-gamesmastered events.. I ran a seminar on doing the same again when I returned to Australia.. I've been busy with studies for the last 2 years, but am emerging in June, and am hoping to start all over again.. but this time, armed with an interactive database for the Contributors.. because at the end of the day, half of the Participant GMs were eager, but didn't have the tools to record the main points, and forgot the rest.

So, maybe.. with a few hundred other GMs, I might finish my world..