“Our people once were warriors. But unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit.”
– Once Were Warriors
Kia ora, mates. This installment of Warriors is about the original Kiwis: the Maori. You won’t be brassed off by this episode. We’re a couple of pakeha, but we give it heaps. This episode is a corker and chock-a-block with elements. Cheers, bros.
Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
(Tis death! Tis death! Tis life! Tis life!)
“There can be only one!”
-Connor MacLeod, Highlander
Which is probably why we cut our references to Highlander: no one likes solo adventures. What we didn’t cut were Wayne’s frequent references to Dungeons & Dragons, odd coming from such a “fan” of Dungeon World.
In this installment of Creature Features, we discuss playing and playing against deities. After we cut all of the blasphemy, we were left with Thor comics and D&D cosmology.
In a world with jumbo shrimp, deafening silences, and open secrets, we get that some people want realistic magic. In this episode, we discuss magic and realism. While we can’t say that you’ll be able to make the magic in your game realistic after listening to the episode, we can promise that you’ll be able to have it make sense.
“They hold it unlawful to talk of anything which it is unlawful to do. The most disgraceful thing in the world, they think, is to tell a lie.”
–On the Customs of the Persians, Herodotus
In this installment of Warriors, we honour the Persians by only speaking the truth about their elite soldiers, the Immortals. This means that they were probably called the “Companions” instead of the “Immortals,” and that they were regular men in purple and yellow robes instead of dual katana-wielding orc ninjas. Who knew Zach Snyder took some creative liberties with them?
Take two.
In this installment of GM Corner, we look at an important but often forgotten part of preparation: post session. This is the time to get feedback from players, assess how things went, and decide what to do next, which could include the important decision of whether or not to continue with the game.
We are without Wayne this week. What we lose in gaming insight by his absence, we gain in technical savvy (i.e., knowing that you have to press the record button to record).
GM: “You see four men carrying another man on a litter”
Player: “Ok, we go and talk to him.”
GM: “He’s 8 feet tall.”
Player: “Um, I draw my-“
GM: “Hold on. He’s on fire.”
Player: “Uh, we put him out?”
GM: “He doesn’t seem to mind being on fire.”
Much like a marriage, the key to any player-GM relationship is finding ways to keep things fresh. In this episode, we discuss how to choose and create interesting adversaries for your stories.
“I know I’m human. And if you were all these things, then you’d just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This thing doesn’t want to show itself; it wants to hide inside an imitation. It’ll fight if it has to, but it’s vulnerable out in the open. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it’s won.”
-MacReady, The Thing
Our month of horror has been reduced to a week, so we give you a plus-sized episode about imposters: doppelgangers, pod people, jumpers, things, etc. Wayne didn’t know that we were allowed to read or see anything for people over eighteen, so be prepared for his tour of the young adult section of the library. We also discuss John Wick’s article “Chess is not an RPG: The Illusion of Game Balance.”
