I, Master

By Alberto Catellani

I, Master. A Harrowing collection of Tales born of Experience in the Roleplaying Genre.

This isn't a book or a novel as much as it isn't a manual guide on how to become a perfect roleplayer. This is a collection of events that happened to me, real and raw, throughout my Roleplaying Career.

The good and the bad are bundled together, giving a semi-coherent form to many of them, and then renouncing the coherence to just formulate more on what happened, why it happened, and for what dreadful reason I allowed it to keep on happening until I wisened up.

We have tales that range from the tragic to the comic and sometimes hang around the fine line between the two.

We have obvious suggestions, and we also have unorthodox ones.

It's a fun, light read.

Nothing's as bad as it seems, but nothing's as good as it should be either.

Ain't that life, in the end?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alberto Catellani
• Release date: Jan 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463118405

Alberto Catellani

Alberto Catellani was born on the 9 of March from the country that brought forth the greatest of inventions: the Road. We are talking of Italy, and he was born on a dark and stormy night at 3 in the morning. From a bright and early age, he wanted to write and once he found his grandfather's old typing machine, write he did. What he wrote back then is best left forgotten to the annals of time. Still, he keeps writing on. Known on the Internet as Shadenight123, and outside of it as someone with fifteen years plus of experience as a Dungeon Master capable of actually finishing the campaigns he starts, he has enjoyed a Classical Schooling, moved on to the beer-filled lands of Germany, and is currently attempting a Master level degree with, hopefully, a Ph.D afterwards. And in the meantime, he keeps on writing. Writing brings happiness, to himself and to those who enjoy his books and that, more than anything, is what truly makes him willing to write more and more. If you work at something you enjoy doing, after all, it will be as if you haven't been working at all.

Book preview

Dedication

To those I played with,

To those I laughed with,

To those I cried with,

And to those I made laugh and cry,

Roll for the new Year of Twenty-Twenty.

And pray to your Gods it’s a high roll.

,

Preface

Write what you love , and you will enjoy it. Write what sells, and perhaps you’ll get enough to buy a smoothie. Write something witty, and you’ll get people laughing. Write something sad, and some people are just going to cry.

Write following prose and correct sentence structure, and you’ll be read. Write about heavily breathing, Nordic limericks and you’re probably writing porn.

Write from experience, and you might just gain a level up.

This book isn’t fiction in the strict sense that while there are most definitely some stories into it, it’s truly not about that. This isn’t even a guide, a self-help manual designed to transform the reader into some Messiah of Roleplaying Games, and it’s not made for Dummies either.

If there are any good ideas within these upcoming pages, you are free to use them for your own tabletop gaming sessions. If there are any excellent, incredible ideas that would net millions, I’ll gladly take a 25% share of them.

Hoping to hold your attention for the pages to come, enjoy what could easily be renamed, and rebranded, as ‘A Nerd’s bitching moments on how things around the table went during roleplaying sessions’ or also ‘I have seen things you would not believe, and they are all horrifying’, or even ‘the elder Gods would have been more merciful than this’.

When necessary, individuals have been anonymized, and sometimes things have been slightly altered to actually make them appear less horrible than they were in reality.

Let it never be said that I have not strived to entertain you, and to ensure you are not terrified out of your wits from the magical world of Roleplaying. Which is indeed a great place to make lasting friendships, meet new people and enjoy a rich, and interesting new world more often than not...

...but which also has a dark side, which needs understanding and acknowledging in order to steer clear from it.

So, without further chit-chatting, I hope you’ll enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed reminiscing through the darkest corners of my mind for the events that happened, the stories that were played, and the morals that could be learned from such events!

-Alberto Catellani

Table of Contents

Dedication

Preface

Table of Contents

Starting Up – The Fundamental Rules

Players: Gotta Catalog Them All

The Party That Never Existed

Masters: A Higher Calling Would Have Been Easier.

Setting The Set. Worldbuilding Lazily but Innovatively.

Breaking Down A Campaign: Looking Back On Failure

Breaking Down a Campaign: Looking Back on Successes

Random Tales That Didn’t Make The Cut

Checklists for the Checklists’ Gods

Starting Up – The Fundamental Rules

There are countless Roleplaying games out there. In recent years even more have popped up, fighting the concepts and rules of the past ones to create new and incredible ways of having fun.

Whether it is in exploring dusty dungeons, facing dragons, flying across the skies with super-powers or flipping a card to avoid death by zombie-horde, the methods of playing are as many as there are stars in the sky, or perhaps even more.

At its core, however, all Roleplaying games share one main common aspect. Perhaps they share more than one, but the first is, after all, the most important.

They must be fun.

It is a tall order. What is fun for the spider isn’t fun for the fly.

Swinging swords can be as enticing as hacking into the mainframe of a secret corporation, and people who enjoy bloodthirst can sometimes join up with those who prefer to dress up as sexy vampires, but sometimes they cannot.

We must start with fun as a key concept, however, for if something isn’t fun, then what’s the point?

There are countless books about Roleplaying as escapism, as a reality-fugue, as a form of rebellion against the system, as the tool of Satan and while there are countless experts delivering their own data-backed or gut-instinct-backed ideology about it, we must never forget that context is king, and reality varies.

That’s the problematic aspect of it. Roleplaying is varied. Just because someone enjoys cleaving in half people as an orc doesn’t mean they are not a professional paramedic saving lives, or a lawyer fighting against abuse. There is stress release mixed into it, perhaps; or perhaps it’s just the way the brain of some people ticks and tocks away the dullness of the time we have left on this Earth of ours.

Having fun can be accomplished in different ways, and in different forms. In my experience, there are mainly three big ways of playing a Roleplaying game; the Train, the Ship and the Abstract Painting.

Some enjoy dice, strict rules, and formatted adventures where everything is neatly on rails, and they have challenges to overcome which are meticulously planned for the fairest of experiences.

It is a train ride where everything is flat and predictable, but the scenery can be as beautiful as the painter manages to paint it. It is easy to be a train conductor, for you can only go forward or backwards and pursue your destination through train stations that, while charming, do not give onto the vast world beyond them.

It is relaxing for the train conductor but might be boring for the most adventurous and intrepid, who would truly love to explore the mountain peaks they only glance from the windows of their ride.

Then there are the captains of a turbulent sea, leading their motley crew on an adventure that is as vast as the horizon itself, and can be as shallow, or deep, as the waters allow it. Being a lake captain is no different than being a sea captain, since the crew seldom delves into the depths of the underwater lake most of the time.

The waves can be tall or small, ripples spread on the surface of the liquid as they create an exciting adventure where the safety of the ship’s railing can sometimes creak and rattle, and maybe break in certain points to allow for some heroics with ropes and quick-thinking.

Finally, we have the level of chaos only found in abstract paintings done while under the effects of powerful hallucinogens. Unblemished, chaotic and formless spaceships travel across the vast expanse of the painting where up and down merge and if there is a captain, he’s riding the ship just as much as the ship’s riding him.

If everyone is having fun, then who are we to judge which method is the best, and which is the worst?

However, make no mistake. There is one rule above all, one rule that must be obeyed, regardless of events, circumstances, or happenings. It is the fundamental Rule. The One Rule to Bind the players, and in the Darkness of a musty cellar chain them.

It can be a breezy attic with a half-open window and a leaky ceiling.

Ir even a refitted storeroom in a garage.

The One Rule stands above and beyond everything else.

Roleplaying is a social compact. It is a pact made between people to have fun together.

There. This is the main, and only true rule that can never be taken away.

Of course, people may argue what is roleplaying, what is the definition of social, what does ‘compact’ mean, what’s a pact, what are people -seriously, the academic world is strange- and what having fun and ‘together’ means.

What if someone’s alone playing a Masterless Roleplaying book in his kitchen? Is that not having fun doing roleplaying? The definition is a lie! I demand my money back!

That’s true, arguably. At the same time, if you’re playing alone, you’re your own best friend and worst enemy. And that’s two people you’re playing with.

Are there more rules? Without a doubt. They also depend on the situation. Social cues and graces are something we all assume people know of, only to be surprised when they apparently fail to be common norms.

Washing Oneself 101 is a class many fail to participate in, whether they are into Roleplaying or not, for example. Devouring Fridges 101 is a more advanced class, but even that may surprise some people, who could not fathom why their food budget drastically increased once a week.

This brings us to the second Rule. It’s an important Rule, but a lot of people will likely complain about it. It’s inevitable. You cannot please everyone.

Communication is key to success. If you do not like something, say so.

Annoyingly, people are cowards.

The burly, muscled barbarian doesn’t like the political intrigues of the noble aristocracy in the city. He would rather smash heads. The proud noble bard is instead enjoying himself immensely, popping into ballrooms and diverting the attention of the rich folks so the thief may steal from them with no one none the wiser.

Ten minutes of such actions can, and should, be tolerated. Everyone should have fun; the Roleplaying experience isn’t a curve where excitement and enjoyment rise towards the top without ups and downs.