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So the month of November is over, and the Blog Carnival has migrated to James Introcaso’s World Builder Blog. His subject is “Homebrew Holiday Gifts” and there have already been a couple of awesome posts, go check them out!

Last Time

A little short of a year ago, the last time Campaign Mastery hosted, the subject was Twists and in the round-up, I wrote:

Every time you propose a topic for [a blog carnival], you have to worry that it will not inspire others; that it may be too narrow, or too broad, or simply not resonate with your fellow bloggers. Until the entries actually start rolling in, you never really know how well your theme will actually be received.

In general, I found that “With A Twist” was a much harder topic than I was expecting it to be, and I think others discovered the same thing. at least to begin with. Once a necessary shift in mindset occurred, however, the floodgates opened; what was intended to be two entries from Campaign Mastery became three, then four, then five, until most of the month was spent poking into different aspects of the theme. At the same time, after a slightly slow start, submissions from other participants began to trickle in, gradually accumulating to a far more impressive total than I expected at the beginning.

This Time: The Lesson

This time around, the subject was “The Unexpected”, and entries were noticeably down on the usual. As is my way, I devoted some measure of gray matter to the question of why that unexpected result (oh, the irony) might have eventuated, and I’m reporting the results of my musings here as the introduction to the roundup, and because there’s a lesson or two for future hosts.

First, despite my listing a whole heap of articles possible under the heading, none of them seemed to resonate with most of the potential participants. I had forgotten the wise words quoted above, and saw only the excellence of the final result. So that was the first handicap that the carnival topic had to overcome.

Second, I entitled the announcement of the carnival “A Stack Of Surprises” because that was the name of the article that accompanied that announcement. And that seemed to cause confusion – some contributions even thought that was the theme for the month – an uncertainty that failed to crystallize thinking by other bloggers.

Third, that confusion meant that rather than mining a broader category that happened to overlap with the previous one, some people’s thinking will have been narrowed to be even more confined than “With A Twist” – and that in turn meant that their best ideas on the subject had already been written.

In summary: too difficult, too soon, too similar, too confusing, and – consequently – too narrow.

Ultimately, I think my biggest mistake was in trying to make the blog carnival conform to what I already intended to publish – which was the origin of all the other problems encountered. Railroading doesn’t work in games, and it seems that it doesn’t work in blog publishing, either!

Under the circumstances, I should be thankful that anyone found something to say… but despite the difficulty, there were more than just my contributions – all credit to my fellow bloggers!

And so, to the contributions…

Narrative Surprise

  • 6d6rpg: The Cult of the Traitor: Jaye Foster posits the notion that betrayal and treason might be part of a deeper conspiracy, caused by external manipulation. The consequence is that no-one can be guaranteed incorruptibly loyal. No-one. And that can be quite a nasty surprise to the players if it is unexpected!
  • World Builder Blog: Turn the Expected Un: Back in “with a twist”, James Introcaso wrote about building up a big-picture plot twist within a campaign (Twisty Turny), and for this blog James offers up a sequel of sorts to that article (and links to a whole heap of other posts at his blog that can be used to surprise players) containing a series of tips and tricks to yank the rug out from any player who thinks he knows what the GM has in mind.
  • Tales Of A GM: RPG Blog Carnival: Narrative Surprise: This is also a sequel to the article offered for “with a twist”, Reading Around the RPG Blog Carnival: Plot Twist Cards, in which Phil Nicholls reviewed Paizo’s Plot Twist cards, and how he intended to use them. In this carnival’s article, he contrasts what was (at the time) just theory with the actual results and impact that his game has experienced. If the GM doesn’t know what’s going to happen, how can the players possibly expect it?

Surprise Mechanics

  • Campaign Mastery: A Stack Of Surprises not only announced the Blog Carnival, it addressed a very technical and tricky question – should surprise bonuses stack? I started by looking at what happens in the real world and made some very interesting discoveries…

Portals

  • Campaign Mastery: The Unexpected Neighbor: Portals to Celestial Morphology 1/4: My major contribution to the blog carnival was taking a deep look at Portals, Gates, Rifts, and Teleports and how they could have radical effects on campaigns. In addition to each part offering 5 ideas for using these planar transportation links, each part opened with a mind-bending implication and a set of variables that GMs and players often take for granted. The theme for part one was ‘Unexpected Neighbors’ and consisted of:
    • Using portals to effectively reshape the cosmological topology;
    • Detailed discussion of the parameters that define Portals etc;
    • Ideas #1-4: Temporally-unstable Portals
      • Idea #1: Connecting to the Future
      • Idea #2: Connecting to the Past
      • Idea #3: Anarchic Time Connections (Closed Window)
      • Idea #4: Anarchic Time Connections (Wide-open)
    • Idea #5: The Neighbor Of My Neighbor (is closer than you think)
  • Campaign Mastery: Destination Incognita: Portals to Celestial Morphology Pt 2/4: The theme for part two was “unexpected destinations” and offered:
    • The capacity of portals to undermine any form of defense;
    • Idea #6: The World Is My Nexus (with alternative interpretations)
      • The “Stargate” Fantasy Campaign Premise
      • The Four Worlds Campaign Premise
    • Idea #7: Destinationally-unstable Portals
    • Idea #8: For Every Portal, There Is An Equal And Opposite Portal Opened
    • Idea #9: For Every Portal, There Is Another That Connects Two Random Planes At Random Points
    • Idea #10: The Wound In Reality
      • Bonus: An example of how I research game ideas
  • Campaign Mastery: The Shape Of Strange: Portals to Celestial Morphology Pt 3 of 4: Part three started to get into some of the stranger possibilities:
    • Using portals to effectively reshape the topology of the game world by connecting high with low;
    • Idea #11: Portals to the Afterlife
    • Idea #12: Transfigurations by Portals
    • Idea #13: Socio-Ethical Morphology (i.e. Alternate History) through Portal Networks
    • Idea #14: Portals can only connect to Variant planar topologies (i.e. Alternate Cosmologies)
    • Idea #15: Variable-Difficulty Portals
  • Campaign Mastery: Feel The Burn: Portals to Celestial Morphology Pt 4 of 4: The final part of the series dealt with Energy and Portals.
    • Explosive release of the energy holding a portal together;
    • Portals as Magical-energy vampires;
    • Idea #16: Gaining Energy In Transit
      • Balanced Energy Flows
      • Unbalanced Energy Flows
      • Light
      • Sound
      • Heat
      • Kinetic Energy
      • Potential Energy (Gravity?)
      • Disintegration
      • Electrical
      • Chemical
        • Combustion
        • Pressures
        • Polymerization
        • Enzymes
        • Potions
        • Potion Miscibility/The Human Body
      • Cold
      • Magical ‘Energy’
      • Spiritual ‘Energy’
      • Negative Energy
        • Bonus: House Rules for making Negative Energy losses harder to overcome
      • Life (Positive) Energy
    • Idea #17: Losing Energy In Transit
    • Idea #18: It’s Electrifying: Portals are a Planar battery
    • Ideas #19 & 20: Bad Is Good
      • Idea #19: Global
      • Idea #20: Local

Void Jump Shock

  • Arcane Game Lore: Void Travel Sickness – November RPG Blog Carnival: Tom Stephens didn’t originally intend this article to be part of the Blog Carnival even though he was inspired by my series on Portals (above), but from the start I felt that there was enough flexibility in the Carnival Theme for it to qualify. Although I think he was initially taken aback by that, once he got on board, Tom grabbed the ball and ran with it, even editing his original article to better fit.
  • Campaign Mastery: Blog Carnival: The Unexpected Reality: While I was approving the resulting pingback, I was musing about the relationship between the carnival theme and his article, and wrote this article about using the rules as a plot delivery system and using the plot as a rules delivery system, which absolutely justifies his article as part of the carnival.
  • Arcane Game Lore: Your Final Destination – Exiting a Void Jump – November Blog Carnival – part 2: The combination of his first article being included in the Carnival (which kept the subject at the front of his mind) and the second part of my portals series led Tom to follow up his first article on Void Jump Sickness/Shock with this article discussing the limits of unpredictability and Navigation in his Interstellar Jumps.
  • Arcane Game Lore: Designing Out Loud – Void Jumping: Finally, Tom rounds out his discussion of Void Travel with some more specifics and limitations on the process that ties the whole together. This article sneaks into the carnival at the last minute, because he was delayed in publishing it through end-of-semester projects. Day jobs get in the way for everyone from time-to-time, so I didn’t hold that against him :)

Wrapping Up

And so, the November Blog Carnival comes to a formal close. Some great articles, covering a wealth of genres from fantasy to sci-fi to superheroes, with a few side excursions possible along the way into places like the Cthulhu Mythos, and some definite lessons in not getting too creative – and not getting too locked-in – in your hosting duties along the way. Campaign Mastery is next scheduled to host the same time next year, so I’ll see you all then if not before!


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