Growing Tales

I have been planning to write about my struggle with table-top role playing game mechanics. The theme troubled me when starting my first campaign of Changeling: the Dreaming. Writing about it now could help me smooth my process in future games, so I deciced to do so. Maybe this helps someone else, too. The Rules: Memorizing versus Processing The trouble with game mechanics is that you have to both remember and be able to apply them in varied situations. I think that is why I found it hard to jump from reading to running a game. For any starting Storyteller there is a lot of work ahead. The fact that CtD 20th anniversary book has over 400 pages of content, makes it hard to memorize. A little consolation is that other World of Darkness games use same dice rules. However, Changeling: the Dreaming also has some special mechanics, like gaining Banality and Nightmare,which affect characters' wellbeing. Examples of Processing Learning can be easier by using self-learning tactics. I usual...

So far being a storyteller has been one of the best new things I have tried after turning thirty! Certainly it beats the karaoke singing and most other ways to spend time. Love for Mythical Creatures I have played tabletop games over 15 years solely as a player. Jumping into the role of a storyteller was not easy. Before that I had only vague idea how to design and run a game. From outside it seemed people just wrote some notes, read a story and bought a rule book. What pushed me into trying this was my love for fairy tales. In 2016 I got my hands on the first edition of Changeling: The Dreaming, a tabletop RPG. It was love at first sight! Even though I had been familiar of the other World of Darkness games, this was a novelty for someone who started playing in the 2000s. In my youth I had read my fair share of local mythical creatures, mythologies (Greek & Finnish folk tales) and all the fantasy books our local library had in its shelves. My favourite characters in Finnish ...

Running a pen-and-paper role-playing campaign requires pretty magical organizing skills, I thought when starting my first campaign. Luckily the internet was full of different tools, and using a digital platform has saved me a lot of trouble. The exciting idea of making a story took its sweet time. I had no experience of running a long-term game. Also, creative process is something I hate to force into a form. The first story ideas started piling in writing and drawing blocks, to my phone's memo, on print papers... you know. As our monthly games started I needed to keep everything on-the-go. I decided to move my notes to free version of Trello , minimizing paper notes along the way. Some amount of paper is necessary in tabletop games, but the personal notes I have in digital form. Materials I have uploaded for a board to be used in a one-shot game. Main view including links to boards for places, characters and timeline. What I like about Trello now: I can see all s...