Whitehall ParaIndustries

Moral Confusion- Like RPGs, Like MMORPGs

2012-01-16T13:28:00.003-06:00

I've spent the last few days playing Star Wars: The Old Republic (TOR). I'm about half way to the level cap. So far- fun game play, does a good job making your character look heroic (at least compared to other RPGs), and the 'all voice interaction' pulls you into storie lines many would likely pass over if they were given in the tradition text.

But like too many modern RPG gamers, the developers of TOR are in need of a moral compass. Here's some of the stuff I've ran into playing a Jedi Knight on the 'good' side after visiting but three worlds...

You get Light Side (i.e. good guy points, determined and awarded based upon decisions you make in the game's conversation trees) for the following:

Aiding uniformedsoldiers of the republic in an clear act of desertion. Things are bad you see, and well... things are bad you see. As for the civilians these guys were supposed to be guarding, wish them good luck, hope they die before being eaten alive.
Thief from a corporation. They sent an entire research team, paid for all the equipment and manpower for a multiple year project- and you basically decide that they don't deserve a return on their money (or even breakeven) because 'medicine should be for everyone' and they would... what? Charge a market price thus giving them a excellent reason to get it out on the market to be brought? Instead the Jedi will deal with it, as if they have time given that the best they can do is send one guy out to deal with the worst things in ages (i.e. you)... good luck with that.
Love is bad, leads to the Dark Side you know. Lucas had a real miss of a divorce he wrote Love == Evil into the setting for the prequels as some sort of payback.
Thief of Government Supplies. Seems that the Republic doesn't have enough medical supplies to deal with their own injuries and the civilian population as well. Rather than working out a sharing plan, or pulling Jedi strings to get more aid sent, or just paying for the supplies yourself- you steal from the military and give all of it to the civilians because there are kids involved. I wonder how many soldiers sent to defend those same civilians died? I wound how many more kids die because their wasn't enough troops to defend them?
Assist a Jedi AI to train evil force wielders who freaking eat people... because some day they'll learn better if the AI keeps working at it. Might take uncounted years, but the AI will live long enough (yes, it say this in the game). Meanwhile all those people getting eaten? Tough Luck. But you were tasty.

Now you can disgree with some of the above (sometimes it doesn't make a different in the story however). But you'll get Dark Side points for doing so.

Often the game is basically a Left-Wing nut case day dream. With sometimes veiled (sometimes not) shots against:

Israel, just share the land stupid and it wil all work out.
The military, when they're not running refugees through mine fields for kicks- they're skimming supplies to live high on the hog (remember, this is the Republic I'm talking about) and ignoring the basics of COIN operations (i.e. help your friendly civilians).
Corporations (making money is evil and heartless)

Sometimes it doesn't think there are good guys. The Government is corrupt in almost every dealing you have with it. And that's the good guys again... one almost thinks the Empire is better- at least they're honest about their evil.

Sometimes it's just confused. The monsters are thinking creatures is a constant theme so far, "all we need do is talk to them... old, go kill 40 of them for the following rewards.."

Such a nice game (game play and visuals). Such a lack of ethical and moral sense. And such a hate on for the Republic.

Lang's Rules and Age of Heroes

2012-01-06T10:20:00.000-06:00

Last time I mentioned that Rob Lang was running a series of articles with suggestions (let's call them Rules, because it's easy to argue about rules than it is suggestions) for writing your own RPG. Very worthwhile articles they are.

I thought it would be fun to compare the development of my own Age of Heroes game with what's there. It will go a long ways to explaining why I expect to sell a dozen copies and those who follow Rob's Rules will sell... well more. Rob is free to comment on whatever I say here...

His first article was a Prologue defining his intent, Not many rules here, in fact only one. If you've played an RPG you're ready to design one. I'm hitting 100% so far, Age of Heroes was started after a number of years of gaming.

Chapter 1: Inspiration

Age of Heroes is doing well through this chapter. It was a design intended to more faithfully recreate various source fantasy works (all listed in its appendices) more faithfully than any of RPG while providing niche protection, combat style balance, generation campaigns and providing highly tactical play while doing so...

Oh wait. That isn't true. That's what it ended up being.

The truth is that it was basically a house rule replacement combat system, followed by a house rule replacement magic system, followed by a house rule character generation system, followed by...

In short it grew on its own and suddenly (one remembered day) became a its own game (IT LIVES!). There was no planing for the game as *whole* until perhaps a decade later.

However each individual section did in fact follow much of what's in the Chapter 1 article, but with a very narrow focus. It has however never been pitched, and I don't think it's possible to describe it in five words.

Result: Age of Heroes mix success

Chapter2: Research is better.

A huge amount of research was done with respect to the original source materials. And I was very familiar with basically *all* the games of the era for the simple reason that there wasn't that many. Some sections of the rules were based upon the real world, and that required its own research.

However at the time research was much harder, some things assumed weren't really true. Thus the game includes armor types that are more 'what's expected in an RPG' than 'Real'. But I'm giving that a pass since it's a fantasy game created in a era of more difficult research restraints

Result: Age of Heroes flawless victory

Chapter 3: Writing and Style

Now we're completely off the rails. In part because I'm a terrible writer, and in part because it was a the piecemeal design I spoke about above.

I almost did none of this 'right'. I have extensive Design Notes in the appendix. My pose sucks.The thing is a freaking textbook (if only a 262 page textbook). Optional Rules are just presented, it's explained why you'd want to use them (and why you wouldn't). I've lost track of the number of Rob's Rules I've broken here.

I did keep copies of basically everything written, there are examples- but not enough.

Most people who see it scream, drop the book and flee rapidly.

But my groups and I still love it. So goal achieved. Everyone else can just jump off some bridge somewhere.

Result: Age of Heroes utter failure

Chapter 4: Setting

Did this completely wrong too. The game doesn't include any setting. The bestiary is a good place for hints as to what it's aimed at (as are the Designer Notes), but the system is made to be a generic fantasy RPG, and intented to be paired with a campaign supplement.

Basically the same approach as GURPS and HERO. The problem here is that such an approach doesn't work now days. People don't want generic rules, they can't deal with them. They want setting first.

Result: Age of Heroes utter failure

So that means that of the 4 chapters I'm batting 50% + 100% + 0% + 0% or a total of 37.5%

Not bad for baseball, rather rotten here I think.

Rob of course is still writing the series, and I'll keep pace to find out my final score.

Happy New Year

2012-01-03T09:28:00.001-06:00

It's now 2012, and while the more curmudgeonly of us would like it to be last year of the world (the 2012 stuff is the most fun of all the doomsdays I've lived through in a number of ways)- somehow I doubt that we'll be let off that easy.

That being the case, here's what I see coming for the new year that's worth noting...

Writing Your Own RPG

Rob Lang is doing a wonderful series about writing your own RPG. He started last year, but will finish it this one. Rather good stuff. Maybe someone will fly with it and do a good game- instead of just more of the same that we're being flooded with of late.

Age of Heroes Update

Age of Heroes 5.0 is moving along in play test. It was pointed out that I missed a couple of Hero Abilities in this version (likely the result of a bad cut and paste attempt). Putting those back in caused me to add a dozen new ones and up the page count to 262.

Oddly enough due to space limits, I still have one left over and am trying to decide what to do with it.

It's just about the only 'meta-game' ability I put in the game, i.e. one that doesn't so much expand a character's in-game abilities as it simulates more of a 'plot altering' ability. That actually makes me want to leave it out, but it has some fans in my gaming circle.

Either way, I'm not willing to give it's own page just to include it, so it will have to come with some other stuff. Perhaps I could add a section on meta-game abilities, toss in some advice about them, and label it optional...

I want some more play testing, but it's still on target for a final draft in March. I'll offer it on Lulu in print form for a while and let people know about on this blog.

I imagine that I'll finish the Claymore campaign Supplement for Age of Heroes at about the same time. Since it has tons of art and concepts that I have no license for, it really won't be going anywhere and is basically only for personal use. Pity in a way, it's rather cool even if I have to say so myself.

Next up for me is the Magic Expansion and a Modern Expansion. I doubt either will be finished in the coming year however.

HERO System

Yeah, it's dead. Killed by the failure of 6th edition. So I repeat my hope that someone buys it and does cool things with it.

Other Stuff

Frankly, I don't see much in the RPG industry that interests me. Not interested in a 5th edition of D&D, the OSR leaves me cold, couldn't care less about all the FATE based systems.

The past few years has taught me that that the hobby is very zombie like, decaying and not a fresh idea in sight. Maybe 2012 will change that. Maybe it won't.

Merry Christmas to All

2011-12-21T08:46:00.000-06:00

I offer a fond Merry Christmas to any readers out there (not a happy holidays, if you're offended- you're likely not a reader of this blog anyway). This is likely my last blog post until the new year.

I have a number of game related activities planned for my vacation from work this year. My son and his girlfriend will be visiting and we'll get in at least one (and likely more) Tomorrow's War battles. It's a fantastic game and will make a wonderful last minute gift for any wargamer one has forgotten about.

In our case, we'll be making up our own armies using all the 40K miniatures that my son bought over the years. For the first time ever he'll be able to use those Imperial Guard figures to represent something more than a semi-soviet style mob of cannon fodder. The whole character of the game will different.

System does matter, when you're actually playing it.

There is little doubt that we will be doing something on the RPG scene, but it's sort of a secondary concern this year. Likely Superhero or Shadowrun (using HERO System) or maybe something in Claymore (using Age of Heroes). I'm going to see what they're interested in this week and start making plans.

I hope everyone has a great time, see you in 2012.

An Example of Lost Morality

2011-12-19T10:52:00.000-06:00

Up for an example of muddle thinking, moral relativism, and inability to make a decent comparison if one's life depended upon it?

Here you go.

A terrorist could ask for no better ally and future victim. They'll side with them as long as they're alive and die without a whimper when it's their turn in the Terrorist target circle.

For my part, I'll point people towards the excellent Force on Force series of games from Ambush Alley Games. It doesn't have the cards that our muddled witch friend dislikes so much, but it's perhaps the best wargame I've encountered since the turn of the century.

And I'll certainly make up some cards for it. Some might even be terrorist witches, after all Paco Garcia Jaen can't seem to tell the difference.

Play Test Update

2011-12-16T12:21:00.001-06:00

The play test for the version 5.0 core rules of Age of Heroes continues. Some more typos corrected, interesting what people miss.

From a true rules perception, the only significant change requested was to the mounted combat rules. That sort of cascaded through the rulebook touching two of sections as well to keep things consistent.

Otherwise it's been typos, one request that I swap a bit of art, copying a table in one part of the rules to another and adding a modifier mentioned in the text to a table. All easy stuff.

I imagine this will continue for another couple months just to make sure it's the best it can be.

A Dustup over the State of the Hobby

2011-12-09T09:03:00.001-06:00

It seems that Joseph over at Greyhawk Grognard has gone ballistic over a new blog written by someone going by the handle of fugaros that is taking wild swings at the RPG Industry as a whole and the OSR specifically.

Joseph comes off more poorly than he should with the sadly typical ad hominem attacks. I wish people realized how much weaker such things make them appear. Fugaros on the other hand is of the RPGPundit school of blogging, i.e. foul language and insults are more common than logic and good writing. In fact, Fugaros is similar enough to Pundit that I wonder if he's a sock puppet or just a student of his.

From where I sit, it's not worth the word count spent so far.

Joseph is right, people are free to do what they want and they answer to only two masters- the Market and their own desires. If they don't care about the former, they're free to do the latter in any way they wish. But that being the case, others may comment on their activities however they want, and it's not worth covering yourself in mud when someone like Fugaros does comment.

Fugaros on the other hand does have good points. The Market is fragmented, and the OSR is stagnant, unimaginative and so badly designed that the OSR actually claims it to be a feature in order to justify it.

Neither conditions are good for the Industry or for the quality of gaming as a whole. But there is little point in being a jerk about it. From what I can tell that's the hobby's natural state. Very few quality games were ever produced and when they were, the Market ignored them for lowest common denominator products.

When the hobby was large enough (early 80s), it could turn out some quality work for those able to make use of it. Take the automobile market as an example. Most will be buying boring and plain cars and trucks, but the Market is big enough to support high quality niche products for those with the money, skill, and need to make use of them.

RPGs aren't big enough for the automobile model. So all you got is the basics these days, and if you despair of that- you can design your own (and be the only one playing it given or take a handful)

Fugaros goes off the rails by thinking he can change this natural state. He can't. No one can. Rather than attacking the OSR guys, or any of the gaming companies- he should be spending his time working on his own stuff.

Yes, I know the OSR stuff is deadly dull, yes I want to see good games too. But one can't change the world, only your own little part of it. Take it from me (as someone who's spent too much time online in the past), doing your stuff is a lot more fun and more a worthwhile way to spend one's time

The Fading of HERO

2011-11-29T10:26:00.001-06:00

Anyone who's followed this blog or my writings elsewhere know that I've always been a fan of Champions and the HERO System. IMO, the best published game system ever.

Most are also likely aware that I was of the opinion that sixth edition was a mistake. A trip down a rabbit hole to fix things only Steve Long (and his personal fan base- as opposed to fans of the game) thought needed fixing. Combined with the the lost of map and mini support, horrid art, and an ugly layout- the final result was far from appealing.

Looks like I wasn't the only one with a negative opinion.

Nov 28th saw the following appear on their Hero Games website (There seems to be no direct link to the article, so I'll repeat their announcement here):

__________________________
Hero Games has been around for 30 years with ups and downs. The economy's been pretty rough lately, as has the gaming market. With declining sales and fewer releases, Hero has reached the point where it's no longer possible to maintain a full time staff of three, so it's scaling back.

Darren and Steve will be departing December 2nd, with our thanks for a decade of hard work that gave us 108 books, and best wishes for their future endeavors, which may include producing new books under a Hero System license. We'll keep you posted on that.

Jason will remain to continue shipping books and handling day-to-day matters. Existing books will continue to be available for purchase, and the company will continue in business, just a bit more slowly. The online store remains open. Steve will continue to answer rules questions on the Hero boards as "the guy who wrote the rulebook."

We're looking into doing a Kickstarter to print Book of the Empress, since it's complete and ready to go.

For the near future Hero would appreciate your kind thoughts and your patience. Transition periods of this sort take time, and Jason has a lot of work cut out for him, so the support of our fans is much appreciated.

Jason Walters
General Manager
__________________________

In a way they so deserved this.

Long was both the best and worst thing that ever happened to HERO. He was a fine editor and a work horse that personally put the game back on the map after the original owners gave up on it. Fifth Edition had some problems due to small changes he made, but on the whole was wonderful. It won awards and fans. It became a significant player in the hobby.

Success breeds hubris, and Steve Long bred it well. He grew to feel that it was *his* ideas that made the game a success instead of the game making him one. He thought he could change whatever he liked and he'd only go on to greater glory. He thought he could focus on rule changes, not settings or adventures.

Now we see the result. HERO is barely alive, it's future dim indeed.

I don't believe it had to be this way.

Will luck someone else will take over the reins in the near future.

Someone who will return the design to the map and mini focus it had in 5th edition and before.
Someone who will clear away the ugly art and layout
Someone who will drop the cardboard settings that have plague HERO from the start
Someone who will create the background and supplements that actually take advantage of HERO's ability to create the best published RPG experience I've ever seen

There's not much luck in the world. But HERO has my best wishes to find it. Without Long involved, there may be a chance it does just that. Success often breeds failure, but failure also often breeds success.

My Experience with Lulu

2011-11-10T13:34:00.001-06:00

As I've commented on before, I ordered and received my hardback copy of my home grown rules. The book is nice, and it was a pure joy to be able to browse through it checking rule questions and doing other look ups during last weekend's game.

Binders holding hundreds of pages of rules are a thing of the pass for use now, although they remain for characters and are still useful for individual spell lists used by said characters.

I'd recommend anyone with significant homegrown rules to put them in a bound rulebook like this. Even so, I do have some comments on the process and not all are completely positive.

The paper/binding combinations are odd. For example, you can get letter sized with soft covers but not in hardback. I'm sure Lulu has reasons for this, but it is a pain. Even worse is the limits on their abilities to offer your book through places like Amazon- the selection of format options there is quite limited.

I used Word 2010 to produce the final PDF for printing. To do so I had to use a compatibility setting that prevented me from using some of the better formatting features (boarders and picture formatting). It pays as a result to verify what you're doing ahead of time by checking the PDF result. If one is willing to shell out the cash for the full version of Acrobat, perhaps this issue can be avoided.

The production and shipping time is... notable. It took me the full two weeks to get my copy (and half that time for the one I sent to KC- but I used my 'proof' discount for that one). Needless to say, that was a impatient two weeks. But considering it was a custom order, it doesn't really upset me. It's just something to be aware of.

Shipping costs are steep. I paid $10 for FedEx ground shipping that took a week. The only cheaper option was US Postal, without tracking. I'm so used to free shipping from Amazon that I was rather taken back by this. A person would be wise to keep the shipping cost in mind when making their plans.

The full process was very easy. Basically you download a word template so you get the margins and other settings correct, write your rules, add art if desired (I used a ton of Public Domain stuff) and save as a PDF (their online help held the correct settings for use). There after you upload the PDF, and create a cover using the online tools. You're done.

I've read online that some have better experiences with other companies than Lulu. But I can't really speak to that (having no experience with them). Lulu did what I needed and did it to an acceptable level. Perhaps in the future I'll try another company and see how they compare.

Unconnected to Lulu, I should note that over the years I've had a number of problems with Word (but still, little desire to change software). Basically it would lose it formatting at the oddest times. This time it was Word 2010 and it was far more stable and effective than in the past. However I found the indexing feature completely unusable. It would automatically throw on fully editing symbol display and when I switched it back off- the formatting would be whacked. So no index, not that I'll miss it all that much.

Unreasonable Goals: Single Combat in RPGs

2011-11-08T09:28:00.003-06:00

I remember the days when game designers were looking for really good kick-backside single combat systems. The one vs. one duel, the first attempt noticed I noticed was En_Garde! back in 1975, a game about duellists.

It wasn't very successful at meeting it goals. No one has been.

There are a number of problems that stand in the way. The most important one is the requirement is to come up with a system that involves the player to the same (or greater) degree as all the complexities of group combat- and do so in a why the presents meaningful choices that aren't effectively random (historical most attempts in this area present the player with random choices).

I consider this problem to be unresolvable, for if it was actually solved- the game becomes too complex to play with groups. An group play is really what the rpg is all about.

My own game (Age of Heroes) like many works acceptably with one-on-one combats in that it resolves them. But group battles are far more interesting tactically. They are also much safer, a single PC can easily be undone by a short series of bad rolls or decisions- groups spread these around and allow allies to aid stricken players.

A result that nicely mirrors the needs of table top gaming if you ask me.

Why does D&D hold the Market

2011-11-03T10:11:00.004-05:00

And by D&D, I mean all its favors- OSR, 3.x and its copies, and now to a lesser extent the 4th edition version. Add together these make up most of the game sales and nearly all the online discussion one sees on forums and blogs (unless they are dedicated specifically to something else).

It's a difficult question, likely with a number of different answers. It would be fun to actually dig into it in a solid investigative fashion and determine what those answers are. But I don't have the time, money or contacts. And I doubt anyone else does (that would be willing to do so, and then willing to release the information). But that doesn't mean we can't make a good guess.

We know from previous WotC information that it isn't driven by play style as such. So that can be dismissed.

Other possible answers:

Market Penetration

D&D was the first to market, made the biggest splash, and from there on has the largest production budget and the largest amount of supporting materials on the gaming shelves (or in online catalogs).

The power of this simple fact cannot be underestimated. The same basic factors resulted in VHS winning over Beta, Windows over MAC, etc. The examples are nearly endless. You don't have to offer the best product, just the widest selection for use with your product.

Appeals to our Worst Nature

D&D combat is meant to be predictive, safe and lengthy (something clear in the writings and statements of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, such as this one to pick one example). So safe adventure with controlled danger that the player can still pat themselves on the back for. That's a easy draw, nice reward for little risk.

Add to this simple greed. The very act of leveling, and the fact that D&D offers a lot of levels to level through. The endless search for money and magic items. MMORPGs based their entire business model upon these things, but D&D was the first to offer it.

We see this in passing statements by D&D GMs and Players, such as Jeff Rients' comment here:

"The abstract concept of treasure appeals directly to the players, by tickling their normal greedy impulses. This goes back to my thinking that D&D is about providing an acceptable venue for expressing one's less civilized urges. I.e. if a scenario doesn't invoke at least one of the Seven Deadly Sins, you may need to rework the premise. Greed is one of the easiest ones to work with in D&D thanks to all the gold pieces lying about the dungeons."

We see these concepts often expressed in reviews of non-D&D products, where any that offer dangerous combat are seen as 'unheroic' for some reason or those without treasure and extreme ranges for advancement are said to be boring or incomplete.

Return to Childhood

This is most telling in the OSR movement, but really works with version of D&D. It's all still going home, it's fun to go back and do those things you enjoyed as a kid. Even if you've actually forgotten what you did, or have covered it up with the rose glasses of middle age.

It's safe, it avoids the disappointment and effort of dealing unknown game designs. And it carries with the advantages of the above two points as well. What's not to like?

All the above have resulted in stagnation in the larger hobby. It feeds upon itself in a nearly endless loop,

- D&D has the largest supporting material meaning it has more players, and the OGL allows even more material which in turn attracts even more players.

- Old timers returning to old games means new players are likely to get introduced to the hobby with these old games, meaning that no one ever looks for something different or better.

- And appeals to greed and reward without cost? That almost goes without saying. Such things never end, they only ask for more.

And thus here we are. And here the hobby is likely to stay. It wouldn't be changed by a better product. It would take a change in the moral character of gamers themselves, but IMO the influence is working the other direction.

There will be other games, but they will have little hold or influence. On the bright side, if this hobby should die (be it from more sophisticated MMORPGs or other means), it would likely be a good thing.

The Age of Heroes Proof Copy Is Here

2011-10-31T06:07:00.002-05:00

Just a bit more than 31 years after I first wrote down the core combat rules, I finally have a hardbound copy of the Age of Heroes rules.

We're considering this a playtest copy, a final shakedown of the rules to spot any last typos, remaining page layouts I can do better on, and one last pass to make the written rules match what we actually play.

This last point is more difficult than one might think. About a week after I put in the order I caught one rule concerning Huge Creatures and their parries that was missing- and a rather key one it was at that. It's far from easy to capture what's become second nature to us over the years. It's like writing an book on how to walk or breathe.

Oh well. That's what this copy is for. On the other hand it's close enough that I could stop here, once I put up what will hopefully be a short errata webpage. Others however want an even more perfect copy, and want it posted to Lulu for sale.

Using Lulu for the first time was quite the experience.

The book looks quite good and more professional than I am. The only compliant I've gotten so far is that the color of the cover is bland (that suits a playtest copy IMO) and they want it changed for the final version.

Lulu's printing and shipping times vary greatly. One copy I sent to KC arrived within a week, while my own took twice as long to reach me. The price was acceptable for a 260 page hardback, at least for me.

I wonder how the binding will hold up, only time will tell. If anyone has experience in such things, I'd be interesting in hearing it.

From here we'll spend the next couple of months doing playtest and final proof readings with my group, and with the much larger one in KC.

October 2011 Random Thoughts

2011-10-17T10:11:00.001-05:00

Noticed this little coming product, basically a mini-supplement for a Black Witch. It sparked off a few thoughts...

A class per supplement, at $5. I wonder how that will work as a business model. More expensive per class than the traditional supplement idea
Looks like all he's doing is evil classes. Not all that useful to me even if I was running some flavor of D&D
Does D&D have a official non-evil witch version this days?

Little questions in passing.
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Meanwhile the proof reading is done, the order is in for a proof and play test copy of Age of Heroes. One going to KC and one to me. Should be about a week or so. Exciting times.
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Speaking of Age of Heroes, put together a little six page GM screen for version 5.0. Using it with this wonderful Customizable GM Screen. Expensive but worth it.
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Are GameScience dice really more random? They certainly are ugly and more expensive. I bought one set to try them out. Right off the bat, the 5 sided dice is worthless, as is the 3 sided one. But I have use for the d14.
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I must finish the Claymore Supplement before we finish our Claymore campaign. It will be a nice race.

Book Review: The New Death and Others

2011-10-11T05:54:00.001-05:00

I don’t often review books although I’ve mentioned some thatI like, mostly to point out inspirational sources for gaming. But I don’tconsider it a strong suit of mine, what with lacking any formal training in thesubject and no talent of my own. So a book review by me isn’t really worth allthat much.

So it was quite the bit of surprised to be asked to review TheNew Death and Others by its author James Hutchings. But having writtenarticles and the like, I can understand the desire for reviews and comments. Itdoesn’t even matter if the reviewer likes it, the feedback is worthwhile andboth drive interest to the author. It’snot easy to write a book, and doing so- no matter how badly, is to my mindsomething to respect.

Besided, maybe I'd get a idea or two for my games.

So it was in that mindset that I agreed, and promptlyreceived (free I might add) the book formatted for the Kindle. I love my Kindle.

The New Death and Others is available for the Kindle orfrom Smashwords. Itconsists of a series of fantasy related short stories with some poems scatteredthrough the book. The Kindle versiondidn’t come with a page count, but it isn’t long- I was able to read it throughin about four hours containing some significant breaks.

And now to the review, let’s start off with somethingpositive… well… there’s… I sort of like the stories with cats.

Sigh, I want and can do better than that (if only by a bit).So let’s give it a go and I’ll put what I’ll hope is some constructivesuggestions at the bottom.

First off, I don’t think I’m the type of reader this book isaimed at. A number of the stories areleft-wing politics at their worst, with a number of shots at Afghanistan, freeenterprise, religion, etc. These are done with all the subtlety of an internetflame war due to the short length of the stories and the writing style. For someone like me, things like that make ithard to judge the rest of the work. For a reader on the Left, it may be moreenjoyable.

Stepping back from that, I think the collection suffers froma number of other problems.

The first is that there is no unifying theme to the works.There are the outright political comments, some fable like myths, some areintended to be pure parody, and others are just a pun fest. The strongest repeating thread (besides thepolitics) is a common fantasy city used as a backdrop in the fable style stories.And Death, the author likes Death.

There are only two reasons to read a collection of shortstories: because their common subject, theme, or setting appeals to you; orbecause you know and like the author’s writings. The New Death and Others doesn’t provide the former, and JamesHutchings doesn’t have a body of work to provide the latter.

As to the individual stories…

The short story format is demanding as it gives little roomfor development of character and that in turn means that you have pull the readerin quickly in order to invest him in what you’re trying to say. Not easy, and so IMO the short story can beshort- but it can’t be too short.

Most of these are too short. Some are little more than the plot idea withbasically nothing else. This is most felt in the fable like stories, some ofwhich I almost liked. But the shifts were too sudden, the pace too quick, theending too pat.

Many of the stories indicate to me that the author is tryingto mirror one of two styles. The HP Lovecraft descriptive near verse or theTwilight Zone style twist ending. I love both, but the former should be kept toan occasional appearance instead of battering the reader every sentence. And thelatter needs to be built up to. It’s ok to twist the ending, even if it’s apredictable twist- IF we care about the characters being twisted. Here, wedon’t.

He may also be going for Grimm Fairy tales style, a bunch ofshort ‘fables’ lumped together. But that can’t really work because the authorisn’t the Brothers Grimm. He hasn’t had generations of parents making his taleslive for children- he has to make do on his own and he’s not aiming this atchildren (I hope). That takes more work.

A good example is How the Isle of Cats Got Its Name. I like cats; I like mystical cats even more.I should have loved this story. But we didn’t get to know any of the cats. Andwe didn’t get to know the villain Abi-simti.
We know she wants to learn all the magic there is, and aftera bit we find out that she’s willing to do anything to do so. But we never findout why. Magic is a tool (especially to gamers, but it’s also the case in thegenre), and what we’re being asked to take as the primary mover of a story is alady who in practical terms wants the complete set of Craftsman Wrenches.Somehow that’s supposed to result in evil interesting enough to make a fable of.

A longer version of this story with a better goal for thevillain (even the classic ‘quest for immortality through magic’), together withcats with real personalities that one would root for, would have worked much better.

Lastly, this book was a downer. Except for the cats, the world of thesestories is a dark place with only tears for company. Some people like that, soI won’t fault it other than to say it’s not my taste and thus may have coloredsome of my comments above.

Suggestions for the author:

Characters- makethem more alive. I can’t write as well as you do, so I can’t make suggestionsas to how to do this. But do it.

Patience- youhave good ideas. Take time to build up to them. The trip is always worth morethan the destination.

Subtlety- you canget away with being political, if the reader doesn’t notice. The best works areoften those that both sides end up thinking reflects their views.

Theme or Setting-pick one or both, and use it for all the stories in your next attempt.

Oh, almost forgot. Did get any ideas for my games? Not really, I already knew I wanted to do something with cats and this did reinforce that.

I also picked up a good Sherlock Holmes pun for the next time I want my players to throw dice at me.

_____________________________

Note: I was hoping I'd find more that I'd like. I'm quite straight forward on game theory and other subjects and normally not shy about tearing into something. But tastes in fiction are very subjective.

I was inclined as a result to not post this review and offered to let James off the hook for it. But his word was to go ahead. Rather impressive. Here's hoping he keeps at it and that his writing skills grow. It's a field that one can only learn by doing, taking the lumps along the way. I couldn't do it.

Well Then, What Next?

2011-10-09T18:55:00.000-05:00

I'm still on a bit of high after finishing Age of Heroes. Just completed the appendices that include designer notes, and a short overview of the history of RPGs and where AoH fits in. So nothing left to do but await the proof readers.

Dang slow proof readers. But we love them.

So I'm sitting here trying to decide what to do next. I think I read a book first, yet another Urban Fantasy novel looking for something as good as the Dresden Files. It will likely be horrid, so far only the October Daye books have been worth any effort at all (mix lot those, but good enough).

After that I'll likely finish up the Claymore Campaign Supplement. It's rather far along.

And then... beats me. There's not like there's a demand for this sort of stuff. But I'll likely work on the Magic Expansion next. Or maybe the Firearms Expansion. It will likely be driven by what we're playing after we finish our current Claymore campaign.

And It's Done...

2011-10-06T06:20:00.002-05:00

Finished the play test draft of Age of Heroes last night. The wonderful wife did her proof reading, I created the PDF and sent it off to my other two proof readers.

But I'm counting it as effectively complete, the first time ever that *all* the core rules have been assembled in one place and formatted for prestentation and use. Previously there was a spiral bound copy of the very most imporant core rules. Nice but about half the size.

It ended up a bit longer than planned, 242 Pages with 116,030 words. Nearly all of it rules although a bit of our settings got in the Bestiary with the creature descriptions.

From here I'll let my two remainingg proof readers point out any lasting typos they can find (knowing they'll never find them all of course) and then order a couple of bound copies for final playtest. I'll give it a few months mostly to make sure I didn't screw up something mechanically as there is some new stuff (in detail, not in concept) in there before I call it really really done, remove the playtest stamp, add the designer notes and handout hardcopies to the players in our groups.

Interesting feeling to be here, even with something I don't intend to market. Likely due to my never imagining that I'd write anything that would result in a bound hardcover. When I was born, it was just something out of the realm of possiblity for the typical person, and is only reasonable now due to Print on Demand.

Just a Few Pages More

2011-10-04T09:21:00.000-05:00

Still working on Age of Heroes, and it's looking like I'll finish the proof and play test draft this week and send it off to Lulu.It's currently at 230 pages with only five more creatures to write up (and a few paragraphs in the intro).

Exciting times, well at least for my gaming groups. It only took 31 years, although before print on demand there was almost no reason do it.

Infinity: An Example of a Bad Die Mechanic

2011-09-22T11:18:00.004-05:00

One of my kids was into Warhammer 40K. He's realized now just how bad of a game it really is, and we've been looking for a replacement.

In this search, he came across a game called Infinity and I decided to take a look at it. It's not a very good game, and there's a lot to take apart as a result. In fact, I consider 40K better than it. It's not a RPG and so I won't delve too deep into it. But it so happens to have a rather brain dead stupid core die mechanic that I've seen in RPGs before. And that deserves a comment.

Basically the system resolves things with each player making a opposed d20 roll. Whoever rolls higher but still under his skill rating wins. So a skill of 14 with range weapons might fire at a defender with a skill of 12, whoever rolls higher wins, as long as the first guy doesn't roll a 15+ and the second roll a 13+.

There's some other minor details, but they don't significantly modify my core point that this system manages to meet the Two S Rule: Simple and Stupid.

Just consider it for a moment. In a game you don't want things missing most of the time, that's not fun for most players. But if you're using dice, you don't want to hit all the time either.

So what does that mean for the range of possible skill numbers? That's right, it's very narrow. I would expect them to range from... oh 12 up to about 16. And sure enough, that's where most of the units in the game fall (you can look at a number of them online at the link above). There's some exceptions (especially for cannon fodder type units), but most of the standard units fall right into that line.

To make that narrow range even worse, the game uses a linear die d20 die roll.

The end result is to make unit skill of minor importance, i.e. it's very difficult to move far away from a coin flip in your chances unless you really pile the modifiers on.

Makes for a very limited game, basically only those settings where everyone is roughly equal. That hardly seems the point of games like this but then I'm not a member in good standing with the modern wargame crowd. Maybe they dig pointless differences.

Combined with other issues, we quickly discarded it as a option.

Vortex however is looking interesting...

Can WotC and D&D go home again?

2011-09-21T13:47:00.001-05:00

To their credit, it appears that WotC is willing to act after losing the top selling RPG, they've hired back Monte Cook to do future R&D. And that seems to imply that the future is the past, and that we'll see a 5th edition that is far closer to 3rd than to 4th.

Not that bad of move considering that 4th Edition is effectively a failure. But will it work? Yes, 4th edition was a poor design, likely driven by concepts taken from the worse of the last decade's online game theorists. But it only existed because WotC gave D&D's core IP away to people like Pathfinder. It was in effect a Hail Mary pass to create a new replacement IP, hurled with the hope that the marketing and brand loyalty would turn the tide.

That failed. Will going old school suceeed?

Like anything in the market, hard to say. The brand loyalty is lost and it is now the other guy's club to beat WotC with.

Marketing they may still have- deep pockets and the return of a well regarded by many (not me BTW, but hey- its D&D. No one could make that a good game IMO) designer. They'll certainly be able to create a lot of noise, and get a lot of people to try a 5th edition if that's where they're heading.

But the old saying is that you can never go home. And the simple truth is that they don't really control the old IP, and thus will in the end need to fight tooth and nail for every sale against an successful company who can offer want is effectively the same product.

If they go this path, they will at best split the D&D style market between them, better a half pie than any, unless the two half pies aren't enough to live on... and that may be the plan. Let Pathfinder die of hunger while living off the fat of the parent company, then everything flows back to WotC.

Can that work? In this age of Print on Demand and low cost market entry? And what about the fact that WotC still wouldn't control the IP and the problems that causes?

I wouldn't go this path. I'll give 5:3 odds WotC won't either in the long run.More likely we'll see WotC try the 4th edition Hail Mary again with a different enough system that's it's different. Maybe a almost good one this time.

But will that even work? I doubt it.

Maybe they'll do a change up. A 5th edition to kill pathfinder, followed by a 6th to stake out new ground. That's a long shot that already failed once.

Either way they go, they have a chance. An uphill against the wind chance. They need to be hit by lightning, but that's business in today's world. So let's give them a cheer for making the attempt.

An Example Age of Heroes Creature

2011-09-18T16:07:00.000-05:00

I've made a number of comments about working on my Bestiary, and this post is for Roequard who asked to see what one of the write-ups look like.

So here it is. It's a draft of the Goblin Chieftain, a not uncommon foe in our campaigns by any means. I converted it to PDF and from there to PNG so it's a bit blurry, hasn't had its final edit (I just completed this draft today), and is likely rather cryptic given all the game speak specific to Age of Heroes in it.

I picked it due to a lack of references to special rules and abilities, well beyond the morale effects anyway.

Looking at this I notice that I use a lot of white space, which certainly increases my page count. This for example takes up an entire page and most entries take up a half page.

On the other hand I think it results in a clean appearance so I'm sticking with it.

Up to My Elbows in Creatures

2011-09-17T12:23:00.000-05:00

Been busy, putting most of my free time into working on the Bestiary section of the rules. So not much time for posting on the blog.

I had originally intended for that section to be short and sweet. maybe a dozen pages. As usual I couldn't keep it from growing beyond that. It's currently up to 25 pages, and I'm about half done I think.

The goal is to provide a good overview of what's possible in the system, while breathing some life into the various creatues so that enounters are more than just a stack of hit points to be degrades as is all too common in the gaming world. I hope to make each entry a springboard and inspiration for entitre adventures. Likely didn't succeed, but what the heck. Worth the try.

Age of Heroes Status

2011-09-08T09:07:00.001-05:00

Work continues on getting my homegrown rules into a form that I can use for Lulu.

I'm basically in the last section of the rules proper with 191 pages complete. This last part is the Bestiary, a short selection of sample creatures and people. It's going well, and even with my limited time I think I'll finish it up well before the end of the month.

I suppose I should admit that the last section isn't really the last section. Rather it's the last section of rules. There be a pages talking about what goes into a campaign setting. But that's just a couple of paragraphs so who cares.

Also after the rules are done, I have plans for appendices that will have a few items in it including some extensive designer notes. But that's for later. I'll order my first hard copy before the end of the month without the appendices. It will be used for final play test and one more proof reading.

The Shattered Hobby

2011-09-06T20:47:00.001-05:00

Came across this blog post on Roll for Initiative today bemoaning the current state of the RPG world.

Have to say that I agree more than disagree. Too many games, often with very similar systems- none of which are really supported.

And thus there's little reason to buy into them. I already own such systems as BRP, HERO, and so on. And I can adapt them as easily to a setting as any designer, and do so to my own taste and not theirs.

And even better- I can continue to make adventures and expansions for them. Something the game companies no longer do.

As a result, to catch one's interest a RPG publisher would have to offer something new- but they don't. Instead they give us Fudge yet again or maybe yet another version of D20. And we yawn. And we keep our money.

The disagree part?

Small things. I think the OGL made much of the fragmented market possible and removed the entire OSR crowd from the hobby along the way.

I also think the Edition wars matter, be they for D&D or HERO System. Someone sticking with a edition abandoned by its publisher no longer needs anything from the publisher. The result is a publisher who has lost not only one of their best customers, but one of their best salesman as a result.

I doubt the hobby will recover, until it near dies. Shouldn't be long now.

Magic Items are Campaign Defining

2011-08-23T10:53:00.000-05:00

Continuing to work on my homegrown rules in my spare time. Currently I'm well into the magic item section.

Basically the intent is to give examples of how some things are done in the game system, and provide a spark for imagination. The latter isn't really all that important considering that the system isn't intended for beginners, but for my own groups.

The nature of a campaign defines what sort of magic items are suited to it. A historical dark ages game without magic would reject any items while a 'magic paves the city streets' setting would require them by the hundreds.

My campaigns tends to be rather magic poor. Most characters can expect to get a minor item or two if they live long enough. Only a few will obtain an item of true power. And to be honest the core rules are written more for this sort of campaign than any other.

Despite that, it's important to give enough examples to cover a good range of possibilities. It's interesting however that the list of example items will likely be longer than the entire list of magic items that players have actually earned in my campaigns.

What the Rules Leave Out is as Important as What is Written In

2011-08-19T09:52:00.001-05:00

I've long consider that (i.e. the title above) one of the key insights in RPGs, and sadly a rare one to encounter. At least with any understanding.

The rules of a a game can be 100% concerned with combat and loot. And that tells you nothing about the campaign using those rules. The total time spent gaming might be 90% role-playing out political infighting with not a single die ever rolled or rulebook opened, with 10% of it spent actually in combat that results from someone losing politically.

All that a missing rule means is that the designer may will expect you to handle it on your own- not that it must be ignored. I attempted to cover this in my Layers of Design article back in 2002.

What brings it up today is that I get to look at the same subject from a slight different point of view. That of a game designer trying to fit a set of core rules into a single 200 page book. Layers of Design looked at the sum total of all the rules, not just core rules or a single supplement.

Page limits impose a completely different reason for leaving stuff out. There's not room to put it in.

So instead of more than a dozen or so types of magic we use in our campaigns, there will only be five in the core rulebook. Just a handful of sample monsters instead of hundreds. Nothing about the campaigns we play. Nothing on mass combat. All those will have to wait for expansions, or just remain in the disjointed notes form they are now because I'm horrid at writing and really would rather just avoid it.

Some stuff isn't missing completely, but has been simplified. In place of pages of equipment lists and details is an abstract encumbrance and gear section taking up a couple of pages. It works, but leaves some gaps by its nature.

All of the man-to-man combat however is present. All the character generation except some missing classes.

After all this, I think in the end should someone unconnected to our campaigns read the resulting core rules (unlikely I know) in the end they'll end up not really know anything about our campaigns.

Verisimilitude is a Lie

2011-08-17T14:54:00.000-05:00

It is quite the fashion in today's gaming world to dismiss realism in game design as an impossible and undesired goal. Rather common wisdom claims that the real goal is verisimilitude, as if that's something different.

Let us consult the online Merriam-Webster definitions.

Verisimilitude means: having the appearance of truth : probable as the first definition. The second definition is simple: depicting realism (as in art or literature).

That second definition is highly interesting. We're after all talking about game design. Not much of an art IMO, but like art a created image.

Let's look at realism. First definition references the mindset, we're talking game design so that doesn't work. The second a philosophy, again- doesn't apply. The third and last seems to apply: "the theory or practice of fidelity in art and literature to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization."

Ah, that one applies. And oddly enough it means exactly the same as Verisimilitude when applied to the same subject. Exactly enough that Merriam-Webster uses realism to define Verisimilitude.

Looks like we can lump the crowd screaming about "Verisimilitude Not Realism" into the same group as the discredit Forge Theorists. People who make up words and change common meanings of existing ones to suit their goals.

In short, people who can't make a good point and resort to two-bit words in order to give them the illusion of credibility.

Free Markets don't work in RPGs

2011-08-15T07:39:00.000-05:00

As I was working a printable copy of my homegrown rules, I can across an old issue with the Artificer skill (i.e. the one that could under the right conditions make magic items).

In real life, I'm far more Hayek than I am Keynes (rather sneaky way of sharing two really cool videos that). I love free markets.

In the real world, I don't own a Seawolf Class submarine to cruise around the world for a simple reason. I can't afford it. Heck, I can't afford a simple sail boat. Well, I could but I have more important things to do with the money and I'd never get a good return on what a sail boat would cost.

Real limits those. And limits is what the free market is all about.

This doesn't work so well in RPGs. There reality is inversed, and players expect to to chase impossible pipe dreams. Destroy the dark lord, save the princess, and along the way gain a flaming sword and a mountain of loot. That sort of stuff.

Thus balancing a RPG based upon rarity is basically a fool's game. You're going to allow players to create magic items but control it by requiring rare materials? Won't work, you just made it more desirable and thus the players will bend all their will to getting it. Soon you're be drowning in magic items.

If you block them (i.e. keep rare stuff rare), nine times out of ten the reaction won't be to thank you for the game balance. It will be to find a better game that allows players a shot at reaching their goals.

I overstate that some of course.

Rarity works fine depending upon what we're talking about. One princess, one Excalibur, that sort of thing. It goes without saying that someone will get the princess and someone will get Excalibur (likely the same guy, success breeds success but one never knows. A jerk with Excaliber may still in the eyes of the princess be a jerk).

Good players will let you get away with that sort of thing.

But in general I'd suggest to avoid rarity as a method of game balance with anything that would have a 'market' price. That is, it just costs a bunch. Never works.

And with anything, if you don't want to the players to have something, don't put it in the game. If you do put it in the game, make it plain by what it is that it won't work for the players (Excalibur? Dude you're not the rightful King of all the Britons, it stays in the stone where it belongs).

It will save you trouble down the road.

I tell myself that gamers aren't worse than the common man...

2011-08-13T11:22:00.004-05:00

...and from what I can tell, that's true. They're not. They just happen to be a group of people that I tend to have more contact with and so they seem worse.

Self-centered, entitled, thoughtless, clueless of their limits and immoral both in their fantasies and in their online actions. Children basically, in a modern world where Extended Adolescence defines the new common man. The impact is everywhere and is of course increasing.

In the 70s gamers were a small crowd playing complex historical wargames
By the 80s the wargames with their values of history and simulation had been replaced by complex table top fantasy RPGs
By the 90s the assault on complex RPGs was well under way. Amber, FUDGE and the like.
The 00 saw the rise of the Forge GNS movements, not only were the games mechanically simply in the extreme- they by design could only contain one campaign idea.

Same in video games. I played complex flight sims in the 80s and mystery games. Today we have Angry Birds.

Today the gamers say that the games of the early 80s are impossible to play. Too complex. No matter that people played them and did quite well. They remind me of people who claim mankind couldn't have built the Great Pyramids. Small minds thinking small thoughts. Of course they'd have to play small games.

The moral side of the hobby has decayed as well. It always had it's underbelly. But it was either by today's standards almost innocent (D&D's succubus artwork) or known to be a niche stupidity.

In the age of moral relativism, things can't be that simple. From Little Fears to FATAL to poison'd to LotFP we have the progress of fifth and increasing acceptance. Now days even the mainstream of online gaming is willing to accept artwork of women being torn apart from their sexual organs out as long as they think the game design displaying it is... what? A cool rewrite of original D&D?

That's how low we sell our morality. We don't even require a new game, just a fluffed up version of an old one.

What set off this, my latest rant on the subject? An experiment of a sort. I wanted to see if the OSR crowd was any different.

So I decided to respond to a recent post (together with this older one on the same site) that was something of a bugbear for me, the idea that a modern gamer can take history and remake it in their own image. Not a genre (like say Westerns), but history.

A timely concern, given today's efforts to rewrite history. Even Texas is considering removing the Alamo from being taught in school. Too offensive you know.

I wondered what response a call for respect of history, and the people who were part of it would receive from the OSR crowd. I got the same one I would have expected from the gaming world as a whole.

Self-centered, clueless, and lacking in any respect for others. They felt the dead were owed nothing.

I asked them if they were dead, would they feel that they would be owed something? What if what we considered horrid deeds today were accepted in the future? Would they then be accepting of future gamers labeling them with those deeds because it made them more acceptable to that future?

I got no answer, only claims that I was vile for asking the question. They hold their values dear, but they won't even accept the question asking if those standards should be applied to themselves.

In over 100 posts, there was not one person besides me willing to claim that people deserve the respect of truth after their death. Not one. We may as well get rid of the graveyards now, and let the vermin eat well. For that is now what we are.

Self-centered, entitled, thoughtless, clueless of their limits and immoral both in their fantasies and in their online actions.

Extended Adolescence indeed.

Home Grown Rules Update

2011-08-10T10:08:00.000-05:00

Things are going well with my attempt to get Age of Heroes into a printable form. I've recover from LuLu format changes, the first 152 or so pages have been proof-read twice by different people (which will only reduce the errors by 80% or so, but perfection isn't the goal).

Another 20 pages need to be proof read but are otherwise complete.

Just need to take a deep breath and push through the last of it. Getting a bit weary and I've been distracted by visiting friends and family.

We are our Fantasies

2011-07-27T08:06:00.001-05:00

Looking back over the hobby started in the 70s is difficult in many ways. So much loss of potential. So much decay. Not that it ever was ideal, but foolishly we thought it could be- at least for us.

I (like so many others) snorted at the overblown worries of BADD, claims of satanism in D&D, and worries about kids dying in tunnels. And with good reason. They were overblown, founded on basically no facts, and they ignore the simple truth that games (like so much else) are tools. Games don't corrupt people, people corrupt people.

We didn't consider that corrupt people would produce corrupted games. And if those were accepted, the very nature of what defined corruption would be lost. In time, nothing would be off limits.

Archimedes said, "If you give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world". Games are excellent levers. Still, the world is a big place. Games are small things, and only one of many influences. It's impossible to say how large or how small their influence is, and I claim no outstanding significance for my little hobby.

But I do think it's something of a mirror. Where we stood. Where we now stand.

As recently as the turn of the 21st century, games such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess, or Courtesans would have been viewed as the filth they are with but the rare trollish defender. Now they are effectively accepted (online at least) as just another RPG. Slowly, things get worse year by year. And the moral corruption predicted by 70s turns out to be in too many ways correct, wrong only in the details.

Assisting in this was a major change in RPG design itself. Originally RPGs were an outgrowth of wargaming. And simulation of reality was a major goal of wargaming itself. For a while, RPGs continued in that path with many designs seeking a more complete and accurate simulation.

This changed with the move towards story focused games. With the move, games no longer worried about being a simulation of reality- but instead a vehicle to unleash the imagination of the player. To give them free reign, and the ability to wander where they will. As unconstrained as possible.

Freedom from even moderately complex games is freedom from learning. Freedom to create whatever story is desired is a surrender to hedonism. These games were meant to give the player more power. And power corrupts.

Lines have moved. And once moved, they become the new line to cross. Decay seeks ever more decay. I have a simple test for any doubtful reader. Come back in ten years and see if you can tell me that things are better, or if items like LotFP now look rather old fashion and innocent in comparison.

I greatly doubt games caused any of this. But they reflect it, and they certainly didn't stand in the way of it.

We are our Fantasies. They are what we seek to become.

Look in the mirror, are you proud of where you are going? Is that where you want your children to end up as well?

And sadly, I expect many of you will answer 'yes' for the simple reason you know not what you do.

Captain America was a Solid Movie

2011-07-25T07:10:00.000-05:00

Went with friend over the weekend to see the latest Marvel movie. Completely enjoyed it.

Despite some waffling on the part of the people behind the movie (who for some perverse reason refused to openly embraced the American values of their title character), things still turned out very well indeed.

Indeed in a bit of irony, their attempt to downplay patriotism really only highlighted it. Having been raised by a member of the Greatest Generation, I'm familar with some of their traits. Understatement, deeds instead of words, and doing the right thing flowed naturally while lofty speeches were left to generals and Politicians.

At times they claimed that they were making a movie not about an American, but about a good man. They forgot to mention that he was a good man because of his American values. This may have been intentional, so as to not damage their future in the very left wing Hollywood. If so, good job. If that wasn't the case and they really were attempting to remove America from Captain America, one can only be amused at their failure.

On other matters, they used the World War III German 'future weapons' look very effectively. Chris Evans was perfect in the role, and I never once saw the human torch. Hayley Atwell was amazing as Peggy Carter, and was one of the few superhero romances I've believed in while watching a film.

I give it a strong thumbs up.

Too Little Time, Too Much Work

2011-07-20T10:05:00.000-05:00

Been very busy of late, and what free time I have has been going into finishing up Age of Heroes for printing and working on the Claymore Campaign Supplement.

On the core rules front- my wonderful editors (my wife and an old friend) are just about caught up with me on their proof reading. Massive pain that and I doubt it will ever be 100%. But it should be good enough for us to use without it being instantly too painful to continue.

Lots of work, and I'm really not very good at this. It's why it's taken so long to do it. But if I don't do it now, it may never get done. So it's time for doing.

Currently at 142 pages in the proof-reading. About another 30 already written pages to go. Need to finish up two more sections.

Currently on the magic item creation part. This should be short as I don't intend this to be a major part of the game. For one thing, it really won't allow the creation of permanent items. Few things can more quicky ruin a setting than unrestricted creation of magic items. Cost and rarity of materials are no real control of this problem.

On the Claymore front, all the key rules are in place, and we play-tested it a little this last weekend. Went quite well with mid-level characters. This weekend we'll see how it does with high level ones.

Quite happy with the write ups of the primary monster from the series and one of the series characters. I'd post them but since no one has the rules it's rather pointless to.

Talking about the weather...

2011-07-07T14:26:00.000-05:00

Currently typing up the rules for weather. Something that most games never concern themselves with although there was a time that they did (some favor of Rolemaster was the last time I think I encountered it myself- maybe their Middle Earth supplements).

It's a impossible subject. Way too many influences to make a short *and* good simulation of the subject. So like most of this section of the rules I'm going for an example and favor. It should work fine. Robust enough that it can easily be expanded if needed, and solid enough that it can work for a whole region of the world.

Based it all on Kansas City, because it is the center of the universe and all.

Age of Heroes: and on to the boring stuff....

2011-07-06T09:17:00.001-05:00

With only a couple of minor details, I've finished the layout and updates for the main rules for Age of Heroes. That is character generation, combat and the magic section. Those must make up 99% of typical rule use.

The remainder is what I've always thought of as the boring stuff. Travel time, determining when characters naturally die, herbal lists, travel times, sample bestiary, doing the layout for the character generation example, etc.

It will be a bit of hump to get over, but it's going well so far.

The Endless Search for a Game System

2011-06-30T10:01:00.001-05:00

Saw this article over on the the RPG Blog II. I respond there, but thought I'd put my reaction with just a bit of expansion here as well.

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I agree and disagree.

I agree in that once you find a system that matches your needs- just stay with it.

I agree in that if you don't find a system that matches yours needs- create your own, in whole or as house ruled modification. Then just stay with it.

A different system is only required if the needs change. Most often some changes in your existing choice can meet those new needs just fine. I haven't changed game systems in 30 years save for version updates.

I disagree however that this is possible for most people. That's because they keep picking poor systems, but they never realize it. Dissatisfaction builds, and off they going looking for a new game.

Wasn't as bad as I feared

2011-06-26T14:08:00.000-05:00

Only took me the weekend to redo the layout after Lulu changed their paper size and requirements. Went from 138 pages to 155 due to the change. Oh joy.

At least now I'm back to doing new stuff. Got the disease rules in. Progress once more.

And a Good Swift Kick in the Backside from Lulu

2011-06-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

Well, this is something of a disaster.

Was trucking along and doing rather well on getting my homegrown rules together and the layout done so I can order myself a bound copy. Decided to review all my various options, candy store like you know...

...seems the template I download so long ago for letter sized books is out of date. Changed margins and all, and not in a good way. They want larger ones now. Worse, you can't get letter-size in hardback anymore (could one ever? maybe I didn't read it right back in the day). Nope, you're stuck with something smaller overall.

So the whole layout is blown. Have to redo it all. A number of the tables will have to be rebuilt with few columns. Sets me back about a month I think. Just about on the edge of giving up on it, thinking it's no longer worth the effort. Never really was truth be told, hell of a time sink just to avoid using binders.

It's really all my fault. I should have finished this back when I started it.

Sigh.

Are we too whipped to call a shovel a shovel?

2011-06-23T09:50:00.000-05:00

Sigh.

The phrase used to be 'call a spade a spade', back when spade meant a type of shovel and before we were trained to be hypersensitive to... well everything. The old days weren't perfect, but today is if anything heading towards something worse.

This here is a case in point. This is a typical example of someone who can't bring himself to label the art in Lamentations of the Flame Princess the vile and disgusting trash that it is. Instead he has to celebrate the pushing of boundaries. The publishing of a horrid and repulsive thing in our hobby is seen as a chance to display not one's moral and artistic standards- but how open minded one is.

So here we are. A world where we basically remove an old and harmless saying from usage due to fears of racism, but we celebrate graphic art showing a woman being ripped apart from her vagina out...

Gives a whole new layer to the phrase "you've come a long way baby" doesn't it?

And I find that there are days when I hate this hobby, or rather what is becoming the face of it.

The Good and Bad of Published Settings

2011-06-20T19:55:00.000-05:00

Did a lot of work on the rules for the new campaign over the last week. Things are starting to come together and we even rolled up characters Sunday. We'll likely be able to start play this weekend, although the work on the rules will continue in order to make the materials at least approaching complete.

While doing this, and the research that goes into it, I encountered some old friends. The advantages and disadvantages of using settings created by other people.

One big advantage is that it's easier to hook people by showing them the source material. With that comes understanding of what the feel of the campaign is going to be.

The big disadvantage is that you don't own that material, and the people who do will without exception screw it up badly.

Using the Claymore anime as the background for this campaign has proved that disadvantage once more. I was able to bypass some rather uncomfortable things in the anime and ignored some stupid things (the sidekick) easily enough. Keep all the really good stuff and was ready to go.

Then in my research I came across the Manga. Not nearly as easy to ignore some of the stuff in that. Oh it has good parts too. But I can see why plans to do a second anime season based on it were dropped.

That brings be back to another advantage of basing campaigns on published material. You can change things and do them better.

This Week I"m Enjoying Working on My Rules

2011-06-14T13:48:00.000-05:00

More prep work is going into our new campaign than I've done in a long time. This is due to our selecting Age of Heroes (a home grown set of rules) for it. Much of that is clean up, as I insisted that I get our notes and draft rules into shape so I can toss it up on something like Lulu and get myself a hardback copy of the (core) rules. I'm done with binders, it's time to have a real book.

The other part is doing the campaign supplement. Age of Heroes is a game first, but still a rather strong simulation second. It was originally created for Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Prydain style gaming. That's a long way from Claymore. So it needs significant rule additions to manage that.

What has been gratifying is the fact that no rule additions have been needed. Back when I did a test for using these rules for Star Wars, I found that they were far more adaptable than I would have given them credit for. Right now I'm trying to work out the core mechanical concept for the setting- Yoki.

So far things are going well, and everyone is looking forward to the first play test of the supplement. Currently it looks like we can do the first of those this weekend.

Are MMORPGs going the way of PnP?

2011-06-13T10:14:00.001-05:00

I've been looking to replace the MMORPG I've been playing for the last four years or so. Typical reasons, the game is moving away from the play style it started with. The people in charge move on, new goals appear and core concepts change. It's the way of things, when it happens in Pen and Paper you just don't buy the new edition and keep playing. But that isn't possible with an MMORPG, so you find a new game.

MMORPG game design (and PnP too for that matter) has effectively been stagnant for years now. Modified D&D style combat with rare (and rather unsuccessful) exception. And that looks to continue. The online world never experienced the explosion of different approaches that was attempted in the 80s. And given the costs of development and marketing for even a small attempt- likely never will.

But while the core game play remains very familar, they are playing with stuff around the edges.

I've been watching three games in development with an eye towards one of them being my next waste of time: Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, and The Secret World. All these talk about radical changes in game play- they lie. The new stuff from that point of view is little but minor changes or additions.

What is new is the focus on Story. The first two promise individual and personal storylines. Frankly, I think that's a lie too. It's really just a choice between whatever handful of character arcs *they* allow us. In the case of the Old Republic, it's even worst than that- as your storyline choices may not even be yours when in a group, but instead is owned by a random member of your party.

But still, this is quite new for the MMORPG scene. The Secret World doesn't promise an individual storyline, but does promise mysteries and investigation arcs into the storyline of the world and your place in it. Not individual, but still a major feature of the setting.

After more than a decade of playing D&D, it seems the MMORPG world is now ready to try World of Darkness. Let's hope they do a better job than White Wolf did.

The Second Issue of the International Journal of Roleplaying

2011-06-01T16:30:00.000-05:00

Well, I almost thought I wouldn't see it, after all it's been over two years since the first issue. But here we have it. This is something of a theory blog, so of course this is of interest.

The International Journal of Roleplaying is... might be best just to reference their website. My understanding was that it is a place to collect RPG theory and thought with a bit of peer review and the like. Not as exclusive to academia as some journals, but more than just a blog like... oh... this place.

Besides, I was at one point invited to write something for this Journal. Heaven knows what, I'm just a hobbyist with a few thoughts about game design. Not an academic with a ton of letters after my name (well, there are letters there if I wanted to show them- but I don't consider them impressive or related to game design).

So I downloaded the 71 page PDF to see what they had. Here are the titles of the included articles:

Defining Role-Playing Games as Language-Games
Playing House in a World of Night: Discursive Trajectories of Masculinity in a Tabletop Role-Playing Game
Immersion as a Prerequisite of the Didactical Potential of Role-Playing
Stereotypes and Individual Differences in Role-playing Games
Sadomasochist Role-Playing as Live-Action Role-Playing: A Trait-Descriptive Analysis

I don't quite know what to say.

On one hand, some of this (after stripping away the fancy language) is the type of stuff you see all the time online in RPG forums. Heck, they even note those same forums as references. It's just, well fancied up and made more colorful.

On the other, I don't recall ever trying to do a Trait-Descriptive Analysis of Sadomasochist Role-Playing: be it live or dead. Although now that someone has, I do wish a bit more for the release of death.

I'm sure those are all interesting subjects, to the authors and likely others. Eye opening to some even. So I'm really not calling their usefulness or relevance into question here. Nor even the IJoR itself, it is after all the sum of what articles were submitted. They have a rather open policy if anyone thinks they can do better- they are invited to try.

No, what I find interesting here is that these were the articles submitted and approved. And I wonder what it tells us of the hobby as a whole. Or maybe not the hobby really, but rather how the hobby is seen in the type of circle that would write for and publish the journal.

I don't think I like the picture.

Visiting my FLGS because I needed to be depressed

2011-05-31T11:35:00.000-05:00

The gaming stores in my area have fallen on hard times. Most have gone out of business. Unless you count the Game Workshop stores, only one remains open.That one was the crown jewel of the metroplex for over a decade. Large selection of in print and out of print items including some of the small press stuff now and then.

At one time I could walk in the door and pick up the full line of Deadlands, Shadowrun, or HERO offerings to say nothing of the tons of D&D stuff they had.

Now, many shelves are bare. The stock is looking old and worn. Much of the inventory looks to be in a "sell and don't replace state'. Except it doesn't seem to be selling. As to my favorite game, HERO? Some worn copies of 5th edition stuff (nothing core) is on the shelves. Nothing new.

They did have some of the latest Shadowrun stuff, and I picked up a hardback supplement of that with some minis to do my part in supporting them. They also had a good amount of WoD and D&D and of course what is now basically out print collector or treasure hunting items that is threatening to exceed the currently in print stocking.

It's easy to try and extend the local conditions to the whole world, and I'll avoid that. Also the reasons for things being what they are may be completely unrelated to the hobby itself (like the transfer of sales to online sources instead of hobby stores). I'd have to quiz the owner for details, and he's a rather nice upbeat guy. Asking why he's looking on the thin edge of going out of business wasn't something I wanted to beat him down with.

But whatever the cause, it's still a bummer.

Picking a New Campaign: Part V- Picking the System

2011-05-27T09:37:00.000-05:00

As far as I'm concerned, selecting a system is easy because there are not many good ones. After wasting far too much time on various offerings, I've settle on just two: HERO System and my homegrown rules labeled Age of Heroes. HERO works for superheroes, sci-fi and basically everything using guns. Age of Heroes works best in pure fantasy settings where swords and spells settle things.

Normally picking between these two is easy. No so given the Claymore inspired setting for this new campaign.

On one hand, the abilities of the title characters reach superhero like levels as the series progresses (I'd describe one of the characters- Teresa as Captain America using a sword with the speed of Quicksilver). This plays to the strengths of HERO System.

On the other hand, the title of the show is Claymore. Sword fights are big deal in it. And Age of Heroes does sword fights much better.

One could focus on either, and by doing so push the other aspects into the background. A different choice indeed.

In the end we decided that the sword battles should have the focus. This will make the campaign less over the top and even more gritty. The special abilities will be on the order of human enhancement rather than superhero capabilities. This one choice means that it won't be the same as the anime, but that was in the one of the starting goals.

Currently I'm cleaning up the core rules (Age of Heroes as always been more a collection of notes than a finished work) and then will do the campaign supplement containing setting specific rules. We should be ready to start playing in a month or so.

Someone Nailed the Limits of Inclusion

2011-05-26T09:12:00.002-05:00

I seldom do 'me too' posts, but an article by the Angry DM caught my eye.

He's basically saying He doesn't give a flip about inclusion with respect to his gaming group. He picks his friends and you don't have a right to be among them.

I couldn't agree more. I can however take it perhaps further.

I think most victim groups are (if not originally self created) self maintained in today's world. Inclusion is a problem only because such people refuse to be individuals and insist on being a group instead. And without fail, those groups are ugly and selfish artificial creations. They are in effect not asking me to treat them as they deserve- they are demanding that I treat them according to the idealized state that they claim is owed to their group.

I will treat any individual acting as an individual with the amount of respect they earn. Self identified social victims need not apply. If you define yourself as something less than human, I (for reasons completely different than yours) will agree.

Picking a New Campaign: Part IV- The Borrowed Bits

2011-05-20T11:41:00.000-05:00

I've spent some time covering the approach to how we select and start a new campaign. The last article explained how and why I borrow entire concepts from other works. So, that brings us to what I've borrowed for the next campaign.

In general, I don't care that much for anime. One would think I'd like it as it tends towards sci-fi and fantasy and I love good sci-fi and fantasy. But common elements of anime style and story-telling cause me no end of problems. The focus on the child hero, the interruption of a serious storyline with over the top cartoon 'reaction shots', silly power ups, and the worst- illogical and stupid story lines. I used to think that the story lines only seemed dumb to me due to cultural differences (not that this would make me like them any better), but I have since given that idea up for what is almost certainly the truth. They are simply bad stories, like much of the stuff we produce here in the states.

So it's a bit of a surprise that the core borrowed item for the new campaign is from an anime show. It's called Claymore and was something I happened across on a boring day spent browsing Netflix. The show is not without its very anime faults. The swords are too big (too thick actually, the length is fine), the sidekick is HORRID, it includes some torture scenes that are rather hard to watch, and sometimes the bridge between superhero like abilities and the gritty storyline itself threatens to fall apart.

But the background is interesting, nearly all the characters are well developed and appealing. And the underlying themes are eternal and very western in culture for anime. I really like those themes. I nearly fell in love with the show, and am able to overlook its faults.

This review is a good even-handed one although I think the Dragon-Ball Z comment was a undeserved cheap shot (the meaning and result of the two seemingly similar animated bits are vastly different), and I thought the ending was a perfect highlight of the core themes for all that came before. (and mostly because the manga the show is based on still hasn't ended itself ).

Now I had to fit this into my Middle Earth inspired time line somehow, and that means deciding where. The early ages of Middle Earth didn't seem right, the tone of the series didn't match. It certainly wouldn't be set in the future- those are very space opera settings and this is very much fantasy world tech.

So it needs to be set after the Third Age Middle, but not the future. A world that is at best falling into the trap that "the ends justify any means" (as an aside, people leave out the word 'any' in that phrase- and it loses any real meaning when that's done).

It took me a bit, but then the idea of using the Book of Genesis and setting this pre-flood just might be idea. That period is nearly undefined and what is stated offers interesting launching points for extending and expanding the setting. So the first chapters of Genesis is the second borrowed item.

The last piece comes from Shadowrun and by extension Earth Dawn. These had a interesting thing in common with Middle Earth- the idea that there was a previous forgotten age of magic. Switching that age to that of Middle Earth provided the background I needed to include my Shadowrun campaign in the meta-time line some years back. Now that concept would expand this new setting.

According to Shadowrun, the previous magical age was brought down by an outside force (this concept also exists in Tolkien's works btw), and that people only survived it by hiding in concealed sanctuaries. After the primary danger passed (i.e. the greater powers of the invaders left as the magic level decreased), they opened the sanctuaries and reclaimed the world that eventually became today's.

In time line terms, lost of the original magical ages of Middle Earth would have occurred at the end of the Fourth Age. The opening of the hidden sanctuaries would have been the beginning of the Fifth Age, and the flood of Genesis would washed away nearly any memory of the previous ages.

Thus this new campaign would be after the opening of the sanctuaries, and the rebuilding of what be city states thereafter. The most powerful of the invaders who destroyed the world would be gone, but lesser creatures still presenting great dangers would remain to be dealt with. One of these new city states turn to the Claymore concept to deal with those very dangers.

This mirrors the Claymore setting of very different cities with wilderness and wasteland between them. And allows for the 'war' between Claymore and Yoma (as the monsters are called) explaining where both came from.

It also allows the addition of city states that took a different path from the Claymore one. Perhaps one that put it faith in an order of Paladins, or another preserved wizards. The result of such different approaches meeting and interacting would interesting.

So the core idea is set. The next thing is selecting a rule set for it.

Picking a New Campaign: Part III- Borrowing the Good Stuff

2011-05-17T14:05:00.000-05:00

I am something of a setting thief. Most people are, if they admit it or not.

Running a traditional fantasy world but with your own names for the people and places? You stole that from the masters of such, basically Tolkien but you could toss Howard in there if you want. Or some of the more modern authors- you know, those guys who pick pocketed it from Tolkien before you did.

Running a non-traditional fantasy world, in order to avoid anything that hints of Tolkien? You stole that. From Tolkien. After all, what you're doing is reversing or avoiding what he did- not very original if you think about it. Oh, and a bunch of people beat you to that too.

The truth of the matter is that there isn't really anything original, i.e. a concept that hasn't been done yet. And if there is, it is all but certain (I'll leave in a non-zero lightning bolt chance in there) that it wouldn't be worth doing. For our culture, there are certain concepts that speak to us, and we are well spoken to indeed.

Perhaps if we undergo a massive cultural change, it will bring with it new stuff. Unlikely IMO, because such change is likely to do nothing be return us to previous cultures and their non-original concepts. But it new stuff has happened before, perhaps it will again.

Now the bells and whistles will change. And the old ideas can be done *better* and more suited to certain people or groups just as they can done worse. Forbidden Planet is sci-fi, even if it's also a redo of Shakespeare's Tempest. I like the former and am rather uncaring about the latter, because sci-fi offers me personally a better view on the same underlying concepts.

Because of this reality, I'm rather open in my borrowing. I don't hide it. If I chose to run a Captain America clone in Superhero campaign, I'll run Captain America thank you. I'll just run him *right*, i.e. how I think the character should be- and the comic companies and their every changing writers and takes on the character be damned.

My first and central RPG campaign was based in Middle Earth, and I use same setting as a base for ever other campaign I run. Why? Because it matched my values, offered the type of adventures I desired, and sparked my imagination.

But my campaigns are not copies of the "Lord of the Rings". Never done that period actually. After all, Tolkien detailed that place and time quite well. Rather I've done games set in other periods. What was things like in the middle of the Third Age instead of its end? What about the First? What about the Sixth? Yes, the Sixth- it was part of his overall history you know.

So I borrow, and then extend and expand.

If Middle Earth was lost history, if Eru created the world and the Third Age is lost to time- what changes would that make in a future Age borrowed in part from- oh Shadowrun? It would change everything. Creating that is original enough for me.

Or to pick something I haven't done (yet), what would a Warhammer 40K setting be if everything they believed about history was wrong, but the history of Middle was correct? How do you get from one to the other, and what does options does it open up or close off compared to traditional 40k?

For me, this is in part of a way of saving really cool ideas, ruined by where the original writers took them. The stupid wimpy ending the Shadow War in B5? I can do that better. The fatalism of 40K? I can replace that with a tale of light surviving even the greatest darkness and human failings. Those horrid Star Wars sequels? Anyone could better.

In a nutshell, I borrow concepts, names, background- whatever I want. Then I change it how I want and come up with something mine. Something that for me is better than the original. Much like the old wargaming hobby often sought to develop better ways of fighting historical battles.

In a very real way, this is the core of how I play and part of the why as well.

Picking a New Campaign: Part II- What's Important

2011-05-04T14:27:00.001-05:00

As covered in my last blog, we were picking from a number of possible campaign settings:

Ages of Middle Earth
Nephilim (pre-flood earth)
Hidden World (19th century up to the modern era)
Shadowrun
Year 1 (our re-imagination of silver age Marvel)
Morrow Project (cross off list as we just did)
Outreach (early sci-fi interstellar expansion)
Federation (original show star trek like setting)
Tri-Galaxy (wild sci-fi)

To end things before it begin we attempt to find out if we had any real consensus on what it should be. No such luck of course. After spinning our wheels a bit, we took a slightly different tack- define what was important to see in the next campaign and narrow things down to match.

It turned out to be a somewhat interesting list, both in what it was and in if actually influenced what we chose.

An overarching storyline like we had in the Morrow Project campaign, i.e. a planned end.

This was rather easy in any of the settings truth be told. It's really little more than defining a goal and the basic idea of what would be in the way. So, really no impact.

More niche for the characters.

This one took me a little by surprise. One of the players wanted a change from Morrow Project which featured an all military group using national weapons to a group of PCs with radically different backgrounds and 'weapons'. Now the Morrow Project campaign did have solid niches and roles for the characters (I doubt I could enjoy a game without them), so this call for even more niche, more to have those niches be more front and center.

This removed a number of possibilities. Outreach, Federation, and Tri-Galaxy were all intended to focus primarily on what were in effect military characters, armed with military arms. Something we just did.

Sure we could focus on a different aspect of the setting, but at this time there was little appeal to that. Do these were removed.

The more we consider this, it seem that in general it was the concept of production firearms and their like that was really the core of the objection. Colonel Colt made all men equal it seems :)

This dropped us back to the two fantasy periods where sword and sorcery were the rule of the day. Ages of Middle Earth or Nephilim.

A player's background will have influence

One of players has a degree in theology. The concept of linking pre-flood Biblical accounts to Middle Earth was something of draw. Roughly on par with my interesting in modern military history and weapons causing me to often be drawn to more modern settings.

This perhaps was the turning point that removed the Ages of Middle Earth from the running.

In the end, campaign choices are made by a small subset of the players

In over thirty years of gaming, I don't think I've ever seen a group where a majority of the players felt strongly about what they're playing. I don't mean they're uninterested, just that they are open to a wide range of options.

That was the case here. Everyone was involved in making the decision, and everyone pointed out advantages and disadvantages. But nearly everyone would have been happy with any of the choices before us. So the final selection came down mostly to the just one of the players.

Next, I'll spend some time detailing the new setting.

Picking a New Campaign: Part I

2011-04-28T15:35:00.000-05:00

The first order of business after completing a rpg campaign, is to pick the next campaign. And that's what we set out to do after the final game in our two year Morrow Project run. We spent a number of hours on it, and it will take more than one post to cover the process we ended up using.

First, a bit of background. Way back in the 80s right after we moved out of dungeon crawls for nothing more than dungeon crawls- we went straight to a concept of a meta-time line. A single time line that contained all the settings we wanted somewhere in it starting at the beginning of everything and end up with... well the end of everything.

It was a nice bit of luck that my first choice in a setting was Middle Earth, as it turned out J.R.R.T was fond of the same idea in a way. Middle Earth was *this* earth, but from a forgotten era. It made it very easy to build things out from there using J.R.R.T timeline for nearly all of the world's prehistory, only the extension into the fair future needed to be done. The basics of that was completed years ago as well (stealing inspiration from any number of sources along the way).

So it was to that meta-timeline that we turn our attention. We quickly identified a few broad areas and options. In order from earliest to latest:

Ages of Middle Earth
Nephilim (pre-flood earth)
Hidden World (19th century up to the modern era)
Shadowrun
Year 1 (our re-imagination of silver age Marvel)
Morrow Project (cross off list as we just did)
Outreach (early sci-fi interstellar expansion)
Federation (original show star trek like setting)
Tri-Galaxy (wild sci-fi)

Each of those cover huge ground, but they served as a guide to general concepts and feel. I think it's interesting that I left out most of human history (it's in the timeline, but not considered for campaigns). I just haven't found anything in there before the 19 century that sounds interesting to me. Odd, consider that includes the Age of Sail...

In any case, this was our starting point.

The Morrow Project Campaign is a Wrap

2011-04-25T09:45:00.000-05:00

We finished the Morrow Project Campaign this weekend. It ran a month short of 2 years in real life and about half a year in game.

The world was saved, for the lost of one PC (Sgt Preston Walker). He died buying time for his teammates to escape, taking the master villain of the epic with him by setting off the mini-nuke self-destruct in an old project CDC/research base that had been taken off by said villain

Also missing in action was the team scientist NPC, Doctor Winston. He too may have been buying time for the team to escape an earlier event (a collapsing tower, who's fall was brought about by an overloaded dimensional portal). Or maybe he saw a technical pretty and just had to investigate it and lost track of the fact that everything was falling apart around him. Those left, will never know. But history will likely selected the heroic end.

The backup to Prime Base was located, and the Project is coming fully online. There are untold adventures left in that world. But the characters have done their primary job, and the players are moving on to a different setting in the meta-time that runs from Middle Earth of the past to the far future.

All in all, very successful and everyone had a great time.

This was the first campaign that I've done that had a planned end point. Previously I've always been more of a sandbox player and where there have certainly been arcs, the campaigns themselves were never planned to end. There is a certain joy in completing something. I see advantages to both approaches if done right.

As to what's up next? We spent a couple of hours determining just that last night. I'll be talking about it some here as I iron out the details.

State of the Game

2011-04-15T11:03:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since the last blog post. Lots of things going in life both real and not. I still owe the last part of the Synapse review and I'll be getting to it. One of the problems there besides the time pressure is that I've already ready covered the 'special' parts of the design- all that is left is the boring stuff and the wrap up.

In RPG news, we're closing in on the end of our Morrow Project Campaign after about two years. This one had an actual envisioned end when it first started. Getting there took longer than expected, but it's been a fun trip. The ending will (unless the players screw up in the home stretch) be more of a beginning, with the world waking up from darkness and the start of the rebuilding. There are years of adventure yet in that campaign, but we've covered what we set out to to do and those stories will have to await a different day.

Mechanically HERO System performed wonderful in general. Why only in general? A bit in I converted everything to 6th edition to see if I could get used to it. The final answer is no. The core rulebook no longer supports hex maps and the overhead of using what is in effect now point-to-point yardstick mini rules (like the old micro armor games) is too high. Plus it's just a ugly over-colored book. In return, it basically gives us nothing good as an offset except a nice version of Power Pool that I can easily retrofit to older versions. I'll be going back to 5th edition after this.

Just starting to look at what campaign to launch into after this. So many options, we have decades of great times ahead for my group.

In the wider (i.e. Industry and online) RPG world, life is boring from where I sit.

The industry has settled on what has to be the most depressing possible outcome. Hacked together modifications of old boring rules tossed into a setting that has one or two books and then nothing. Looking here at stuff like Dresden Files, the various 40K RPGs, and basically everything outside of D&D. D&D meanwhile has... fragmented into old school versions, new school 4th Edition versions, 3.5 versions, and really who can make sense of what they are calling Essentials? The brand is nearly worthless as far as knowing what you're getting.

HERO System meanwhile is in a major rut. They've released their rules in 6th edition, which has to be the most pointless edition ever. Now they're off redoing all their setting books, which was always pointless. I suppose someone uses them, I never did.

For the first time ever, I'm starting to think the RPG industry as such is done for. At least until it's rediscovered. Not convinced mind you, but starting to be. Groups like my own will continue of course as well the small time companies who do it just because. But I don't know who much longer WotC and the handful of other major names will continue to plug along- and not sure there's any value in their doing so.

The Upcoming Captain America Movie

2011-02-10T14:15:00.000-06:00

I use a lot of inspiration for my rpg campaigns. Books, Movies, TV shows. I use them all, if I'm rather picky about just what ones I use. And I tend to approach them with a "I like these ideas, but I want to do them myself without the mistakes and railroading".

This is the background for my Year 1 Superhero campaign which is based on Marvel Comics- but isn't Marvel Comics. We get to start over and do the characters right without the bad stories, worst writers, and consistent characters. What a thought.

With that in mind, I'm awaiting the upcoming Captain America movie. It may give me cool ideas that I can play off of.

A lot of people seem to be slamming the movie sight unseen.

I think some of it is driven by expectation (i.e. anything from Hollywood must hate America) instead of any real facts on the ground. Yet another part is driven by how Marvel itself has treated the character in the comics- in a real way, he (with rare exception) hasn't been what Captain America should be since the 70s (if then).

Indeed, the closest they've come to the original is perhaps the version in the Ultimate run of books. I think Marvel viewed it as a chance to show how much of a dinosaur the character was- but it was a huge hit with the fans. When they went to do Ultimate Avengers- they split the difference and produced what I thought was perhaps the best version of Capt ever done up to this day.

I think (at this point) that some of the slams against the movie are unjustified.

The costume is very similar to the Ultimate series I referenced above. More practical with muted colors and web gear. They are however using the modern shield in its full bright red, white and blue. I don't understand any of the whining on this point. Complaining about the costume strikes me as someone looking for problems and then making them up when none jump right out at them.

The director comments referenced by Big Hollywood in the link above are more troubling. But again, not something I have a problem with by itself. Capt doesn’t' have to go around making speeches about how good America is- he just has to go around doing good and heroic things while wearing the colors of his country. Deeds, not words work fine.

Now they can do a bunch to make the movie horrid. Marvel itself has ruined the character, and it wouldn't be hard to see them doing that in the Movie. Just look at the first Hulk movie for an example.

But I'm still in the wait and see mode. Hoping for the best.

Much of Fear is Found in the Unexpected

2011-01-27T14:06:00.000-06:00

I was considering the nature of 'Horror' gaming, my own success with it (I've had players refuse to continue campaigns because they were in their words too frightening), the games of other successful GMs that I've played in, and the common advice given about them.

I've always found that common advice... stale and far less than useful. Why? Because that common advice is... well common. It's a known value and thus expected. As a 'horror' campaign progresses, it only becomes even more common and more expected. Thus they become more boring. And at least for me, fear is wrapped up in the unknown and not the known.

Let me give a example from my gaming experience.

I'm on record in many Internet exchanges as being a fan of tactical RPG gaming that include detailed battles. Indeed I've described my RPG campaigns as a individual war games linked by setting, story and role-play to provide meaning to the battles, and a method to explore their outcomes afterward.

A rather rare style these days, and given how different it is from dungeon crawls and such- likely it was always a rare style. As a result of this style, I use board and minis. Few things are normally hidden from my players.Unless I've switched to a Horror style event.

Then the maps and minis may disappear, leaving the players only with their impressions of my words. Or they may remain, but with highly constrained views, expanding only foot by foot and perception check by perception check. My rule of dice rolls always be in the open is suspended, and many of them now become hidden. While I normally never require rolls for typical actions (jump the fence on run, sure- spend 3" of your move please), suddenly I'm calling for agility checks for the same action.

For the players the world as they have known it, has in actual fact changed. Things they could count on, are now fuzzy and unknown. And there is something out there hunting them in the darkness.

It's a small thing. And added to other small things (different way of describing things, perhaps playing by candle light, etc) the result can be as intense as watching the best horror movie. I've had the most gung ho power gamer crawling away from any chance of battle hoping to reach that patch of light under the street lamp. Praying that someone, anyone, would arrive to help him.

For my style of gaming, at the end things switch back. Information is learned, understanding of the threat dawns. A course of action decided. Like the movie Predator, what begins as Horror typically ends up as Action. The map returns, things are resolved and the Hero is left standing (or not as the case may be).

I think it's the unexpected in this that impacts the players. Both during the 'Horror' part of the game, and then when that becomes expected- the switch back to the tactical 'heroic' style. Both styles are enhanced because they are at such contrast. If I normally used a simple non-tactical, map-less and fuzzy rule set, all that impact would be lost.

I don't run these types of games often. Indeed doing so would undermine their effectiveness. It's best to have an adventure go off like a sky rocket, then play a series of snap caps. At least for me.

It's enough to make me cynical

2011-01-20T14:42:00.000-06:00

I was on a reading binge, and finished five books in the last week or so. Of these four were fiction. For any interested those four are: Origin, Breach, Beneath the Dark Ice, and Defiance. All were bad. I would have bet money that they weren't good upfront, but was hoping to steal an idea or two for gaming. In the end, I had almost nothing except for one concept from Defiance. I've lost a few hours from my life that I won't get back. Sigh.

To be honest, the Potboiler has been with us forever. But things seem a bit worse now. Self-Publishing has come to normal fiction as much as RPGs, and you can get stuff on the Kindle that no publisher would touch. I've now learned to watch out for these, although to be honest they aren't that much worse than the published stuff. But they are worse.

Here's my hints to any writers out there. It applies to GM's too as they are often in the same business. Making something rather common interesting to those reading or playing in it.

Interesting characters that hook the reader, that are believable, and that we can root for are key to anything. They can make the most redundant and unimpressive plots sparkle. Their absence will sink anything no matter how creative or otherwise well done.
Have those characters actually matter to the outcome unless your work is the darkest of horror. And really, this days the darkest of horror is so freakin' common that it should be avoided as the pointless exercise it is.

In one way, GMs should have a much easier time than writers. The players should take care of most of the first requirement although it helps to have a good NPC here and there. And really the second point is up to the players as well.

However the very control given to players is why GMs can run into trouble. Because they have to allow the players to achieve both items. Note- allow and is not the same as give. That balance is the most difficult thing in gaming. Here's hoping you find it.

Don't look now, but reality has changed...

2011-01-14T10:04:00.003-06:00

…at least for some people who weren't all that strongly connected to it in the first place.

Oddly enough, I'm unchanged due to how the dates break- much like I was born and have remained emotionally 40 my entire life. The freakin' universe must alter itself to match me, not the other way around. If I ever get bored and decide to die, I imagine the resulting destruction of existence may cause you (the readers) problems. I suppose some would say that I should offer some sort of apology in advance, but really… it will be for the better.

In the meantime this means I don't have to ditch the Pisces dust collector I have on my book shelf (the wife and I got a matched set of birth sign… statues I guess you could call them… back in the day. Sort like birthstones. Yes, it was a new couple thing). However it is now clear why hers was shortly destroyed by an act of the cosmos (i.e. knocked off the shelf by a cat, broke into a million pieces) while my remains intact to this day. She's now a Virgo and not a Libra and the error was being corrected before it could gather decades of dust and unbalance the world.

How does any of this relate to RPGs? Well, given that Astrology is bunk- it doesn't. But it does parallel it in a way. For believers it's a world shift every bit as important as say the arrival of D&D 4th edition. I leave the proof to others, but I can't help but think the Astrology blogs and boards must look a lot like the RPGs one not that long ago with huge flame wars over the change and large groups of people holding fast to the old versions. I wonder what their OSR movement would look like...

Heck, I had the same issues when 6th Edition of HERO System comes out. Those with home grown systems experience the same thing when they make updates to the rules.

It seems fantasy systems, no matter their source and purpose are all similar in a way. Subject to being undone by the mere passage of time.

How the mighty have fallen- R. Dancey

2010-12-16T19:46:00.005-06:00

The old saying about a broken clock being right twice a day finally worked for therpgsite, a forum that normally has very little of interest. But this week produced something of a gem, if by gem one is interested in how someone who once ran the hobby's flagship could go so wrong.

In this thread, Dancey repeats a contention he made some time back after leaving WotC. That RPGs as we know them are dead. MMORPGs are taking over, they have vast growth and are improving constantly. In contrast RPGs are a shrinking market.

At its core, there's nothing new here. Dancey see's sales figures and new technology and much like many before him thinks that grants him insights that never occurred to others. Like those who said TV would replace books... oh wait, books are still around and sell well enough to have made Amazon into a Internet power house. Well, maybe its cars and horses. That one did take a common item and reduce it to a niche (if a niche that people still spend a good amount of money on). But this isn't really the point I want to make.

The point is the rather strange justification he gives for believing this. He takes the WotC study on Gamer Segmentation and tries to mold it into matching his opinion. You see he thinks that two of the five player types are the ones leaving RPGs for MMORPGs because in his mind, it makes sense. He feels the goals of those two groups (Power Gamers and Character Actors) are better met by MMORPGs, and thus this is the major drive for the drop in the RPG market.

He's said this same thing before, but what makes this thread more interesting than before is a slip he makes on post #49.

The MMO was too embryonic for us to study it in 1999. I wish I had the money to repeat the survey today though...

In this one throw away comment Dancey admits something critical. He has no data that actually indicates this true. He's just making it up, much like anyone else online who is gazing into their crystal ball and telling us the future of the hobby.

Except that in so doing, he's asking us to change that hobby into something completely different. One that is based upon GNS and Story-Gaming offerings that don't support the missing player types at all.

In doing this, he runs counter to two very important findings from in the original study. From the link speaking of the Study:

In other words, even the players who enjoy a "Tactical Focus" still want to be challenged to use Strategic Thinking; likewise, even the Combat Focus player wants a Strong Character and Exciting Story.

And

We also found no additional segmentation based on what games people identified as their "favorite"; in other words, there are just as many Power Gamers as there are Storytellers who like Vampire, and just as many Thinkers as Character Acters who like D&D.

Both of these indicate that not only is Dancey acting without data, he's acting against what data he originally collected. Bad business, and worst science.

Why is he doing this? Beats me, I'm not a mind reader. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's more ego driven than anything. D&D is shrinking, MMORPGs are growing- and it would be cool to be the man who explains why and offers a vision for the future. If he's right, he's golden. If he fails, well he's no more forgotten than he is now is he?

But if he's making wild unfounded guesses, I can play the game too. I'd put money that a repeat of the study done today would produce the same results (if fewer gamers).

Why then the drop in the RPG market and the growth in MMORPGs? Here's my wild guess

The OGL weakened the primary RPG brand making it one of many.
The OGL to a significant extent prevented the original owner from driving new versions or its future (as old versions remain supported)
The 4th edition of D&D was poor design
Most RPGs are poor design
MMORPGs are quick and easy, and quick and easy wins out over a hobby hit by the above four factors
There would be a natural migration to MMORPGs from those who previously played RPGs due to common factors. These include the fact that RPG gamers have always consider the overhead high, many have lost their groups, etc. Switching to a MMORPG is just easier than dealing with those issues.
Just like more kids watch TV and movies than read books, more kids will be playing MMORPGs than RPGs. This should be expected.

None of this means RPGs will disappear completely, although it's possible that they may reach wargame levels of 'almost disappeared'. Or they may not. We still have books after all.

IMO, it will continue as a smaller hobby even unto the days of holodecks. Sort of like books (even if they're all on a Kindle).

So who's right? Me or Dancey?

The only way to tell is for the hobby to go whole hog for Dancey's suggestions. If it dies, then we know he was wrong.

Oh wait, Dancey's accounted for even this. He suggests that by 2020 (only ten years) MMORPGs will reach the point where they able to meet all RPG goals. So in the time it would take for his theory to kill gaming, it will have died anyway. So he can't be proven wrong if his idea is accepted.

In the end he's not offering a new vision or path- just something that can make him a few bucks before the whole things dies. And if it doesn't die, well he'll still make a few bucks on the side if enough people buy into his predictions.

How cute.

An outcome in the Swine Wars?

2010-11-03T17:53:00.005-05:00

Zach has a post up about the Forge of all things, something that hasn't really been on the radar for a while. It seems that the site is revamping maybe shutting down. It's rather hard to tell as plain English was never in wide use by Edwards and it certainly isn't making an appearance now.

About all I could tell from Zach's link was that Edwards claims victory in his battle (whatever that was) and... ...some forum reorg ....plus an implied statement that it's not going to be around much longer. But those type of claims should always be taken with a grain of salt and believed only when the site actually disappears or stops updating.

There's been some blogging wasted on this non-event (including this post of course). For example this one, that says RPGPundit immediately claimed victory for himself. I swear, one of those two just has to be a sock puppet for the other or maybe they're twins split at birth.

But it does raise a briefly interesting question- who did win in Pundit's "Swine Wars"? In a small completely unimportant way, that can be answered no matter if the Forge is shutting down or not.

RPGPundit was the self-declared defender of traditional gaming, which for most of his rant time online meant D20, Ryan Dancey, and WotC. For him to win, those elements would have to be standing tall and Forge ideas must remain unnoticed. Let's see how that went shall we:

WotC replaced D20 with 4th Edition D&D
WotC replaced Dancey
4th Edition D&D was penned by Mearls
Mearls openly stated that he agreed with at least some of the GNS Model
4th Edition D&D seems to show that GNS influenced design
Dancey publically declared traditional gaming dead, and called GNS influenced 'story-gaming' the future of rpgs.

It doesn't look like RPGPundit's side did all that well did it? His game of choice corrupted, his industry hero flipping to the other side. Indeed, that Pundit's side looks more like Vichy France in 1942 than the US in 1945 to me.

If this be victory, defeat must be a real bitch.

Edward's crowing is a little better founded- but far from roses. Sure he can point to the above points, but he gets no real credit for it. Mearls isn't exactly singing his praises and didn't use anything like the full model. Meanwhile Dancey is no longer even a player in the table-top rpg world. Various people took parts of his ideas and ran with them- but the parts they took were only those he stole from rec.game.frp.advocacy in the first place. Now even most of those who praise parts (and only parts) of GNS, mock the man who wanted to own RPG Theory.

Finally burning out (which is everyone's right, indeed- everyone's future) , and basicially forgotten- Edwards is ready to slowly phase out his last connection to the rpg world. Like the UK after WWII, his empire is gone and his time as a overshadowing presence even on his own board a thing of the past.

If this be victory, defeat must be a real bitch.

It's almost difficult for me to decide which of the two which I pity more. Almost difficult because I'm not going to waste the effort- neither is worth the time. They are what they made themselves to be, which is smaller than they could have been.

In the end, they are nothing more than something to waste a blog entry on. For God only knows, it's difficult some days to come up with a subject.

Review- Synapse: Part III, Controlling the Player

2010-09-22T12:58:00.001-05:00

Continuing the review of Synapse (Part I and II), the next section of rules I want to talk about is what I consider the most interesting.

There are found in Chapters 3 (Culture), 4 (Life Experience), and 5 (Personality) that in total create the values for the character's Motivations. There are 22 Motivations, each in the end to be rated from 1 to 10. These include things like Revenge- a person who wants paid back for wrongs done him, to Nurturance (I don't think that's a real word)- the drive to take care of others.

How are these used? Let's quote an example from the rules on page 111.

For example, lets assume the Hero whose motivations are listed below has come across one of her long-time rivals, who is hanging off the edge of a cliff on a rope. A quick glance at the major motivations of this character reveals two motivations that are strong and would apply to this situation; Nurturance and Revenge. Abasement and Achievement are strong motivations for this character, but it does not relate to the actual situation so they are ignored here. The motivational setup for this Hero indicates that she would want to help them (Nurturance) more than she would want to punish them for past misdeeds (Revenge). Therefore, all things being equal, the character should want to help her rival get back up to safety.

What we have here is a another in a long list of mechanics called Personality Mechanics, i.e. mechanics that determine the decision making of characters instead of players. D&D alignment is a version of this, although the form was greatly expanded in games like Pendragon.

The most common reasons for systems like this are:

The designer and/or GM thinks that the players are playing their characters wrong- and they turn to mechanics to 'improve' role-play or to enforce conventions of the genre. Judging from a number of posts on the designer's game blog, this is a major goal for him.
The players who are so boring that they can't role-play an interesting character on their own- so they need a crutch. Something to remind them that- hey, there's suppose to be a person here...

Both are rather sad reasons. And in the end both are doomed to failure except at the most shallow level. But those reaching for systems like this tend to only think in shallow terms, so it fits and in its own way even works. For the designer/GM they enforce 'correct' play, and for the player it removes the burden of role-play which was something they likely didn't want to do in the first place.

With that in mind, the method in Synapse isn't bad at all, given what such rules are attempting to do. Here the complex creation system that so dragged down the skill system (take culture, life experience, plus extra points and get your totals for each Motivation) is almost welcomed. After all, if you can't role-play your character you may at least have some detail to determining what he's going to be.

It does suffer from the same 'this impacts you in the way the game says it does'. For example you could take a life experience of Sexual Abuse which drops your Sensuality by 6 points and adds +2 to Rejection. I don't think one would need to think very hard about how such an experience may in fact reverse those types of modifiers. But much the same can be said about any mechanic of this type.

Synapse offers two methods for overriding the mechanic.

One is for the player to present an argument for the decision that the GM agrees with (this is still meeting item #1 above for having these rules in the first place, and so is all to the good in allowing the GM to control the role-playing of his players).

The other is something called a Motivation Boost, which is a die roll against Eccentricity that costs the character mental stress upfront and risks perhaps undesired changes in your Motivations. Oh wait, they would only be undesired if you were actually role-playing instead of just using the mechanics.

All in all, this section of the rules aren't bad for what they are. Better than most in fact.

Lastly for this part of the review let's look briefly at the section on Morality. The pitch for the game says it goes far beyond good and evil, and then it says on page 108 that it's too complex of a subject and that only very general guide lines are going to be offered.

Those guidelines come out some PC book about moral systems that makes the most general comments possible. For example: people react to things as either person, animal or object. There's even a chart for it. Yes, it's a boring as it sounds. Like a freakin' text book by a bad author.

More importantly, why is this section even here? Shouldn't the Motivations handle all this in normal play?

Review- Synapse: Part II, Skills

2010-09-20T10:40:00.002-05:00

It's been a bit since the last update. Life is busy and all.

Let's pick up with the part of the review of Synapse. The Part I was about my first impressions and what goals the game appeared to be aiming it. IMO, it failed on both accounts (I wasn't impressed, and the goals seemed both unobtainable and frankly not desirable). But first impressions can be wrong, and sometimes worthwhile things are found even in attempts at the most foolish goals. So let's play around with the mechanics some. Here' we're focus on skills, often the core of any system.

Character generation takes up pages 16 through 172 and is broken into eight sections: Brain Chemistry (I swear, this one section header by itself will cause most people to trashcan the book right there), Biology, Culture, Life Experience, Personality, Connections, Skills and Possessions.

The concept is to... 'naturally' grow your character in a fashion that he is the sum of... all they things modern lay psychology says he's the sum of.

I'm afraid the rules weren't well written with important information all over the place. For example you don't know what effect your Attributes (from the Brain Chemistry section) has until you reach 'Making a Skill Roll' on page 174. Just for reference, here we find that the game becomes Shadowrun 4th Edition and you roll a number of dice equal to the ruling Attribute (1 to 8, 3 is average) plus an extra dice if you have the linked talent then plus 0 to 4 dice for your training. Rolling a 5 or 6 grants a level of success. So a 'average' guy would have an attribute (natural talent as I'd call it) of 3 and if trained to the level of 'trained' +2 dice for a total of 5 dice for the typical skill test.

It's at this point that the wheels of the primary game goal come off depending upon the viewpoint of user. Do you personally think that success in an activity is more governed by natural talent or by training? Does this reflect a better view of how characters exist and interact with the world?

If you think training is more important than natural talent, the core design of the system disagrees. I'm afraid I fall into this camp, believing that natural talent only determines the upper limit of what training can provide. To put this into perspective- my version of this system would say that the attribute governs a skill cap. Thus training would provide all 5 dice if the attribute allowed it.

Another problem, do you believe that there is only a single way of thinking that can get you results in any specific area? For example the game says that Lock-picking is solely based upon Spatial and is modified by the Dexterity talent. Do you agree? I don't. Because I don't think someone excellent at lock picking is automatically as good at unarmed combat. Synapse however says this is the case. Further I think a person could pick locks by using Cognition, i.e. determining by analysis how the lock works and thus how it could be defeated.

The final result of all this is that Synapse suffers from the same simulation problem that all games do. Real life is very complex and game systems must be very simple. By attempting to define things like Brain Chemistry and the resulting building blocks thereof that in the end create skill- Synapse is highlighting that disconnect between reality and games instead of concealing it. The result can be disrupting to anyone who thinks differently on any number of matters than the game designer himself.

Thus by it's very design, Synapse is aiming for a very small target- people who think the mind works like the designer says it does.

One last comment on this part of the rules.

Synapse is designed to give you an end result that is common in RPGS: A Skill Roll. It does this by showing all (according to the game) the building blocks of what makes up a skill.

The typical RPG just gives you a Skill Roll (using any number of methods). And lets the player define what aspects of his character was the building blocks for that result.

Which do you think offers the most diversity in character design? Which method would you like to create characters in?

Review- Synapse: Part I, First Impressions

2010-08-30T14:47:00.001-05:00

Greg Christopher has released a free public beta of his game Synapse, something he's been working on for quite some time.

Greg has in the past left me an impression that he is at his core... a game design new ager for the lack of a better term. Someone out to change the hobby with lofty dreams and 'new' ideas. Perhaps the natural result of a culture that wants to define everyone as special and talented- even if they aren't. However that is all first impressions and first impressions can be unfair. Besides, I recall baiting Greg before (I believe the subject was 'designing for women') and he responded calmly- that is worth points and respect. Few on the net are capable of an adult reaction to criticism.

So maybe Synapse is something special. Greg has earned the right in my mind to taken seriously, so let's do exactly that over the next few posts. I'll take Synapse apart and see if it does break any ground, and if it does- was that ground worth breaking?

First up- first impressions. The type of stuff that runs through your mind when you first open a gaming book on the shelf at the store and browse the book. Would I buy it or not?

Synapse is a 281 page PDF, with art that isn't outstanding art but good enough.

It opens with a all too typical section about "What is a RPG?". Nearly everyone that buys an RPG never reads that section. Frankly they're boring for the simple reason that the typical gamer already knows what an RPG is to them, and come hell or high water that's exactly what any game they pick up well be.

But it can be an interesting insight into the mind of the designer and here the 'intro' section takes up pages 4-15. Here's the first sentence:

"A roleplaying game (RPG) is played by a group of typically four to six people, usually around a table. The goal of the game is to tell an interesting, collaborative story and to have fun doing it. To tell the story, you use your imagination. There are no winners or losers because the game is about cooperation."

As is typical for RPG books, it's horrid. For one thing it tells me to use my imagination to reach the goal ( defined as 'collaborative story'), so right off the bat it's telling me I don't need this game- I could succeed without it using my own ability to create. Yes, nitpicking that, but it's there along with defining for ME what MY goal in a RPG MUST be and that part of it put me in a cranky enough mood to do nitpicking.

To be honest, most games screw up this section, so it's nothing new. But still disappointing. Often these sections have nothing to do with the actual rules and are pure boilerplate to increase the page count. So we'll see.

The most interesting section in the intro is on page 12. I always like understanding why the game was made in the first place. There are hundreds of games out there, with nothing really to set them apart other than perhaps setting which is always the least effective influence IME. So having something to tell me what is special about a game is very useful indeed.

What does Synapse have to say here?

"Synapse is a roleplaying game system where your character is conceptualized as a brain, not an entire person.... By contrast, in Synapse, all your attributes are mental. Your physical self is more like equipment than a part of your character."

So... that.. means... well... nothing. You could say the same about any game really. It's all in how you want to look at it. So my first reaction is that this is a way of pointing out a difference that really makes no difference. I sure it makes sense to the author, but I could have used something a bit more descriptive. Nothing that immediately follows makes it more clear- instead it mostly insults gamers and other games.

"The process exists this way because traditional RPG games are, when you examine them carefully, not as much about telling a story as much as they are about killing things and taking their stuff."

Massive turn off. My campaigns have not been *about* killing things and taking their stuff for decades. Nor is Synapse above this sort of thing as back on page 9 we read:

"Maybe your character is breaking up the thieves den because she wants to get her hands on some of the loot."

Hypocrisy, thou name is Synapse. Here the designer makes a mistake I seldom see outside of the likes of the Forge. Belief in the concept that a rpg campaign is defined solely by the rule set. This has never been true, and never will be true. RPG campaigns are defined by the players and how they choose to use the ruleset.

OK, enough with poor definitions and foolish claims. What appears to be the real goal of the design is stated on page 13:

"The character creation process is matched to the actual growth and development of real human beings in the real world."

A bit more reading and it seems clear that beyond the hyperbole, the actual goals of the system are roughly as follows:

Define the mental side of characters in more detail using something like the Theory of Multiple Intelligences (it maps poorly to this model and I reference it only in that the concept seems similar).
Refine this with a total 'lifepath' concept that generates your character in a method similar to the real world human development.
Resolved character changes caused by play in a method similar to real world development.

And that's basically it. As stated Synapse isn't a RPG as much as it's a character development engine. It's gaming for psych majors. Note, there's nothing here on those intro pages that indicate any means towards creating great stories- which is well and good since the author said I'd have to do that myself with my imagination.

So, here are the first impressions:

The game takes itself too seriously
It insults gamers, basically saying they are sociopaths who aren't role-playing or creating actual stories.
It proclaims itself the one true way of.. not creating stories... but of creating brains.
It's founded on a concept that I consider impossible for a playable game (modeling human development as opposed to a gaming character's development), or even if it were possible it would be undesirable (as nearly all humans are boring in what they develop into).
It claims an end result for such modeling (great role-playing, great stories, etc) that are both unlikely and even contrary to the other.

Here I would put the game back on the shelf and walk out of the store (unless said store had different, more interesting new products to look at).

Next we'll see if Synapse achieves any of these goals, if it's the game the designer described, and if there's anything useful in it at all.

Is really that hard to replace an almost 50 year old rifle?

2010-08-25T13:18:00.001-05:00

One of things I keep up with is firearms, both out of interest and the use they see in my games. A lot of research goes into weapons for my games so that people selecting them have reasons behind their choice related to real world.

Sometimes the news is (while not unexpected) silly. In that line, it seems that yet another attempt to replace the M16 is on the edge of failure. I've nearly lost count of how many time they've attempted to find a replacement, just off the top of my head there was the ACR, the OCIW, and XM8 and now this one and it was only targeting a small percentage of the total weapons. Currently just about every firearm maker offers a improved M16 in one form or another.

So what's going on here? Has firearm tech really stalled to the point that there's nothing better? Is it actually politics and penny-pinching being hidden by spin? Are people stupid?

Well, that last always applies of course. After all, people still stick with D&D and that's a worse performing platform than the M16 ever was. This is true even if the goal is playing rpgs instead of killing people.

But here I think it's mostly a case that the technology just hasn't moved very far in the last hundred years. I'll still take a M1911 over any 'modern' pistol and for many cases I'd take weapons from WWII over those deployed today. About the only real improvement has been in weight, and that seems to have hit its limit.

In any case, I think any replacement project is doomed as long as they insist on the replacement being chambered in .223. You can add bells and whistles all you want, but no amount of improvement around the edges is going to impress anyone if you're still using a poor ammo choice. After all, rifles are built around the bullet. And it's far pass time for them to revisit that first choice if they want an improvement for the future.

Note: Currently (and somewhat in line with my thoughts), SOCOM is still going to buy the 7.62mm version of the rifle.

Central PCs in Campaigns

2010-08-19T10:24:00.000-05:00

Came across a blog post that I mostly liked today. It presents the idea that a RPG campaign doesn't have to be peer focused thing- but can mirror classic source material. Things like Doc Savage perhaps, with one main character and the supporting casts.

I liked the blog article because it's really something of a match to how I always run my campaigns. Sort of a match, because I don't agree with everything there.

For example, I think most who have dug into Middle Earth consider Sam and not Frodo the main character of Lord of the Rings. Or one could say that no single character is, instead claiming that it is a collection of individual stories that make up the history of the War of the Ring and that Frodo and Sam only got the most screen time because they were closest to the Ring. In much the same way, one could claim that Luke wasn't the main character in Story Wars- that taken as a whole it's Vader. But all that is nitpicking as certainly there are story arcs that feature a main character with a supporting cast.

The major point that I disagree with is that in order to recreate this the GM and players must actually work at it- i.e. put story concerns first. And that just isn't true.

IME it's very common for one player to for whatever reason stand out at a gaming table. And they become the focus for the story as much as say Sam (or Frodo depending upon your POV I guess) in Lord of the Rings did.

Sometimes it's because that player is the best at the table. More often IME it's because the other players are very interested in that one character themselves for some reason. I've seen players twice decide to have their characters die to save specific characters that they themselves decided were the most important in the campaign, not with respect to story- but purely as a element of their character.

GMs react to this, and storylines start to revolve around these characters. This doesn't mean that the spotlight is always on them, any more than it's always on a single character in Lord of Rings or Star Wars. In a large and long running campaign there is room for everyone to shine somewhere.

So I think these types of campaigns can grow naturally without effort in a gaming group that avoids trust issues. Indeed, I think a campaign of equals is actually difficult to enforce as a playing style, and if attempted likely the cause of any number of harms along the way.

Game Prep- is it All That Big of a Deal?

2010-08-17T14:39:00.000-05:00

One of the responses I received on my last blog entry was the claim that one of the things that doom 'heavy' systems for older and/or more busy gamers is the game prep they require.

Now, I'm a older more busy gamer with limited time. And somehow this isn't a issue for me. Why would that be?

Perhaps I'm smarter, faster, better looking and frankly more than a step above the common gamer at everything. But while that is likely true, I don't consider it the primary reason. Rather I think the primary reason is the same as always- anyone who doesn't really know their game system will suffer horrid inefficiencies both in running them and preparing to run them. Those who do know their chosen game systems well, won't.

I suppose first we need to define game prep.

Back at the dawn of the hobby it was extensive mapped dungeon complexes or other adventuring areas with backgrounds on dozens or more of NPCs- friend and foe. Call it World/Setting Creation and doing that sort of thing is certainly a major time sink...

...except that it would be time sink no matter what the game system if what you want is a completely mapped world with backgrounds on all the NPCs. Very few of the popular heavy systems (HERO, GURPS, D&D 4E) do this sort of thing for you- at least with the core books that make up said heavy system. World creation is world creation and if you want to skip it, you can skip it no matter what game rules you're using. If you do it, you do it again no matter the system.

There's the creation of adventures of course. This may take time although a pure sandbox skips this step completely. However once again, few of the common heavy rule systems offer more than advice in this area. A campaign against the dark elves of New York remains a campaign against the dark elves of New York if it's done in HERO or in FATE.

So three major components of game preparation- Setting and Background, detail maps, and adventure creation aren't really impacted by game systems. And that's nearly everything except actually playing.

The one detail left is the mechanical NPC write-up. Determining game stats and abilities for those NPCs (or things in some cases) that require them. Certainly this must take up a huge amount of time for heavy systems?

Not for those who understand their system.

Let's take an example from my own campaign, from a session ran a couple of weeks ago. I want many consider a highly complex game system- HERO for this campaign. I knew that the players would (after choosing a certain path) come across a high tech security android assigned the task of guarding the area the players were seeking access into. I didn't want this to be a stand up fight, so...

1. The android would attack after or during an encounter with mutant ruin rats.
2. It would be neat of the android looked like a corpse, it would appear that a dead man just stood up and started to kill them.
3. Hmm, dead looking android. I could steal much of the design from Terminator there.

HERO is very detailed when you're interested in adding up all the points and balancing the creation to a budget. But points aren't game balance no matter what anyone says. What matters in this encounter is it's weapon, it's OCV and DCV, BODY and defenses. I've ran this system for years and decided upon those values in less than a minute. I tossed in some enhance senses and skills that might be important (PER, combat levels, etc) for another maybe another minute of thought. Nothing needed to hit paper, nothing needed to be pointed out.

Same process with the ruin rats (already done some time back, so I already had these).And I was ready to go.

Prep Time: About 20 minutes in total split up through the week thinking about what adventure I was going to run Sunday. The result was tightly fought and close battle that had the desire effect (i.e. scaring the players) and then some.

I can rather easily run such things off the top of my head with no prep- because I understand the system and its game balance. Later I spent about three hours actually writing up the T-800 just to have a copy of it because I enjoy that sort of thing. And it makes it easier for players who don't have a firm grasp of the rules if they should want to run something. But that's above and beyond just running the game.

Add in published write ups for NPCs/creatures (HERO has lots, although I don't care for their construction methods they can still be a base for something)- and really, I don't have any prep time.

I can do these before I've been running HERO since it was first published in the 80s. The editions are close enough that any work I've done before can be applied to something done today. I have a huge resource at my call.

And that wouldn't be possible if I was changing game systems every few months like most bloggers seem to do.

So if prep time is a problem for you- it's your own fault. Caused either by your own non-mechanical related demands, or a failure to stick with something long enough to know it well enough. You're just wanting to pass the blame to the game system.

What about people new to the hobby who don't have decades of experience to make this possible? It's called work, you get out what you put in. If you don't have time to learn a heavy system, then you don't have the time. You have to do what you have to do.

But don't claim it isn't possible for others. Your limits do not define mine- or the hobby itself for that matter.

Is the future Lite?

2010-08-12T09:55:00.000-05:00

Zachary is one of my daily reads, mostly because he's rather level headed for this hobby (it's certainly not because we like the same games). With this post however I was rather puzzled.

With D&D 4E at the top of the sales charts, and games like Shadowrun, HERO System, Dark Heresy and GURPS still highly represented on the game shelves- what sort of cool-aid has Zachary gotten into? The assertion that the gaming world is going Lite seems rather baseless from everything I see.

But Zachary isn't dumb, so what's going? Has Gencon really shifted towards Lite rules, are most of the events running things like FUDGE or FATE (i.e.... FUDGE + a house rule or two)? Or has he fallen into the trap of self-selecting data? He's going lite and thus hangs out with others going lite and therefore thinks everyone is going lite?

He likes reading this blog and perhaps will answer for himself. It should be interesting.

As I've said before, predicting the future of the hobby is difficult at best because it is a such a small hobby and thus subject to shifts from rather small sources. But I will go out on a rope and say one thing- if the future is Lite, the hobby will shrink to an even further degree of insignificance. When even the most basic MMORPG can provide a more detailed environment for gaming, when even the most inexperience gamer can match the published designs on first try, when gaming books ofter nothing but the endless repeating of the same lame advice and fluff- people who actually are interesting in playing an rpg will go elsewhere.

From an industry point of view- if the future is Lite, the future is DEAD.

Oh and one other comment about 'resolution lag'.

It doesn't exist for people who know their game system inside and out. I run the most complex systems in the hobby- and have the same limits on my time as Zachary. The difference is that I am still running the games I've been running for decades, I know them very well indeed. If however you're always chasing the latest thing- well you won't know it well and that brings 'resolution lag'.

So time is a problem- the solution isn't going with something so easy that time doesn't matter (because the game isn't taking any time, i.e. it's not doing anything). Rather the solution is focus and knowledge of what it is that you're doing in the first place.

Review: HERO System Advanced Player's Guide 6th Edition

2010-08-11T11:00:00.001-05:00

I was for some reason actually expecting new optional and advance rules with this product, I should have known better. As I've mentioned before, Long is basically a cut and paste writer who will reprint material whenever given the chance. This book is no exception.

Most of the book (again with the ugly cover from hell- could these possibly be worse?) consists of sections yanked from 5th edition books- be it genre books, ultimate books, or whatever.

There are basically three types of 'rules' contained within.

First is those that should have been in the core books. For example, piercing from Dark Champions? It's in here. Applying Limits on Advantages? It's in here. And so on. A significant amount is just going into more details on what are IMO mainstream rules. One could say that they are in this book because they are 'advanced'- but that doesn't explain why for some powers he goes into detail in the core book but others are withheld until this. Unless while he cuts and pastes- he's really not that good at it (like after removing COM from the game, he still left in modifiers to COM under the Disabling Wound section...). So maybe he just forgot.

Second are those rules that are more genre or specific item focused. Things like salvaging gear and items from the 5th edition Post-Apocalyptic HERO book (lots from that book actually). Stuff from Ultimate Brick 5th edition. And so on.

The third and smallest type of item is actual 'new' rules or methods. I think I've seen all them at one time or another but generally they aren't very interesting so I don't recall just where I ran across them. Nothing that I'd use (movement by segment instead of phases for example, other ways of using SPD, etc).

One is on their own with the rules contained within. They often cover the same ground (for example options to make AP offset a fixed amount of defense are but pages away from the cleaner Piercing rules- which offset a fixed amount of defense) or even conflict.

Some do part of the job and then fall flat when you go to apply it throughout the game. For example there's a welcomed 'Heroic' STR chart that has an improved progression (i.e. slower)- but it wasn't carried over into any of the other related subjects- like Growth, Density Increase or the defenses of the environment (doors, walls, etc.). I guess that would take more than cut and paste editing.

In any event, it doesn't live up to its billing. Nothing here strikes me as 'advanced', very little if anything is new, and it doesn't really take the game in new directions unless gutting the SPD and segmented systems core to HERO is your idea of a new direction.

However I still like the book, because it means that there's almost no reason (unless you want what I consider rather basic and obvious genre advice + lame versions of those settings) to buy any future genre/setting books. All the rules have been pulled into this one- just select what you need and go forth.

So if you're into HERO 6th- buy this book and avoid any future ones. Or if you for some strange reason like those genre/setting books- don't buy this one and wait until your favorite(s) comes out. I'm sure Long will cut and paste whatever he thinks it needs from the Advanced book.

I'd rather be a good bad gamer than an elite one

2010-07-30T08:32:00.000-05:00

Anyone who's followed me online know the degree of disgust I hold for Forge style designers, i.e. those out to make the next big thing or change the hobby. Those who think of gaming as ART, the endless (and I hold destructive) search for GREAT things in rpgs.

Gaming isn't the only thing where this type of split occurs, indeed one may say that it afflicts any human activity. There are always those seeking great meaning, intelligence and art in ways that most people just don't concern themselves with- and thus in the end they will by any real measure fail.

Consider this article by George Orwell on Good Bad Books as an example of this. Here's what I consider the key statement:

"The existence of good bad literature — the fact that one can be amused or excited or even moved by a book that one's intellect simply refuses to take seriously — is a reminder that art is not the same thing as cerebration. I imagine that by any test that could be devised, Carlyle would be found to be a more intelligent man than Trollope. Yet Trollope has remained readable and Carlyle has not: with all his cleverness he had not even the wit to write in plain straightforward English."

Yes, I'd rather be a good bad DM, player and designer than in the end an overblown and in the end forgotten and useless artist- no matter how much the critical elite may look down upon the former and exalt the latter.

When I Use Random Character Generation

2010-07-13T08:47:00.001-05:00

Zachary is singing the praises of random character generation over on his blog. I thought he was giving that up (the blogging, not the singing. I think Zachary must spend all his time signing about one thing or the other) or at least significantly cutting back. Hasn't happened, at least not to any degree I've noticed. But then again it's a classic to try and pull away from the waste of time that online interactions are only to fail. Sort of like trying to quit smoking, but without most of the health problems at least.

Where was I? Oh yes, random character generation. Personally I don't really like the method.

Or rather, I don't like it for one type of campaign and do for another.

I use random generation for long term campaigns where one would see family lines and multiple generations of characters. Mine are half-sand box and half epic fantasy arc (I've only done this in one setting), and given that players will over the life of the campaign run multiple characters (some of which are children of previous PCs)- a certain amount of random generation of stats and the like makes sense. You just don't always get what you want from the kids (vast understatement that, on the other hand you sometimes get more).

More common these days are concept campaigns because that's what my players are interested in. The one team of runners for Shadowrun. The one Morrow Project team that will either save or lose the future. The re-imagining of the Marvel Universe. And so on.

Concept Campaigns (which last a handful of years in real time for us) really demand concept characters- and thus full control over their creation.

So, partially random for sand box and designed for concept. This split in campaign types explains in a large degree why I use two rpg systems instead of one. It's not the only reason, but a it's a very significant one.

HERO System 6th: A question of skill

2010-07-12T10:58:00.000-05:00

So I'm playing around with recreating some 5th edition characters in 6th just to see, and came across this jewel...

OCV and DCV were completely detached from DEX in 6th, a fact that neither greatly upsets nor to any degree excites me of and by itself. You start off with a default of 3 in each and buy them up at the cost of 5 points each.

With that in mind, an Overall Combat level costs 10 points (btw, this is not the 5th edition Overall which costs 10 points as that now costs 12). So for 10 points I can get a plus 1 OCV or DCV for any attack... meanwhile for 10 points I could a buy +1 OCV and +1 DCV.

But you say, that Overall applies to mental combat which OCV and DCV doesn't- nope. Seems 6th edition changed that rule and now all mental combat levels must be specifically bought and the standard Overall Combat Level does not apply.

Sort of makes Overall Combat Levels a poor buy unless you're in campaign with one cap for OCV/DCV characteristics and a different one for skill levels. But I had thought Long's entire reason for 6th was to make the points more balanced- not to make you buy stuff because of campaign caps...

Now the one thing the skill level will do is allow you to increase damage (using multiple skill levels) instead of OCV/DCV. So all is not lost- except I hate those rules and have long removed them from my campaigns. Not that they would have much effect even if I allowed them due to how expensive they are (in terms of lost OCV/DCV), at least for how I run my campaigns where I design the balance such that it's important to not be hit.

Default HERO is more like D&D in that respect (easy hits, each less dangerous), and so likely makes far more use of the ability to use skill levels to increase damage.

On such fine points does game design turn.

Review: HERO System Martial Arts 6th Edition

2010-07-09T10:49:00.000-05:00

In the past various incarnations of the HERO System Martial Artist supplement (Ninja Hero, Ultimate Martial Artist) have always been the most useful book outside the main one.

That trend certain continues with the 6th Edition version Hero System Martial Arts.

Like those before, it presents the game system's mechanical versions of most of the major martial arts styles in the world, together with suggestions for fictional styles and abilities. On top of this are rules for making up your own styles.

There is little to dislike, expect perhaps for the genre advice which is as normal for HERO boring in its presentation and only useful to someone who has no knowledge of the movies or books that drive such settings.

Compared to 5th Edition, the various real world styles have seen some revision and additions. And of course the martial powers sections are built using the 6th edition renaming conventions. In general however, there is little here that wasn't in previous editions.

Even given that, if one is going to invest in the 6th edition books they should buy this one as well. Nearly usable in any setting, I've always consider it 'core' and a must have. Easily the best treatment of martial arts (with properly built characters) ever presented in a published rpg.

Review: HERO System Ultimate Base

2010-07-09T09:09:00.001-05:00

The Ultimate Base is one of the latest supplements for HERO System and one of the first (if not the first) for 6th edition.

It shows all the typical Long styling- heavy cut and paste from other books (Ultimate Vehicle in this case) and very little value add.

He did make the attempt, there's a whole section on medieval castles and floor plans for a number of bases. There's even a section on how to in effect create 'Kingdoms' as characters and the play thereof. This is better than average for HERO Games as maybe as much as half the book isn't cut and pasted from elsewhere.

But half is and the half that wasn't just isn't interesting. So close, but a miss. The floor plans are boring, but usable for those who don't have the time to do better. There isn't anything here that really connects, coming across as something the author had to complete more than something he was interested in.

The cover actually reflects this. It shows the HERO Games' ripoff of Marvel's Helicarrier. Only one problem- it doesn't appear in the game book. That's because it can't appear- the rules inside quickly note that such a thing isn't a base but a vehicle.

Opps.

Growing the Hobby?

2010-07-06T14:57:00.000-05:00

One of the blogs I follow is hosting the RPG Blog Carnival, with the subject of 'Growing the Hobby'. A timely subject when one hears of falling sales and hard times. People have been predicting doom for a while now, with even the former head of D&D claiming that the end of PnP RPG era is approaching.

Maybe they're right. Maybe they're not. Time will tell. I know I'll be playing them for a good while longer because nothing else does what they do for me.

Back to original question. Reduced to its basics, 'Growing the Hobby' means gaining new RPG players. While regaining older lapsed players add numbers to the current pool, its not new ground and does little for the long term. So, yes new players...

Not really a subject I care about much. Not when phrased that way.

Now I have introduced many new players to the hobby, but never considered it as anything beyond growing my own group. In fact, I'm rather certain it didn't grow the 'hobby' because I doubt they'll ever play in a campaign outside the ones we do ourselves.

Yes, we're that good. And yes, the play style we have is going out of fashion when viewed with respect to the hobby as a whole (if the current games being produced actually reflect that hobby). So much so on that last point that I really don't care of the 'hobby' dies, because it hasn't been supporting me for a while now anyway.

If I had a larger ego, I'd claim at this point that if the industry made games I'd like to use, the hobby would grow on its own. Beh, maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn't. I couldn't say either way.

I can say that all anyone who isn't one of the big gaming companies (and maybe that's only WotC, and maybe this is beyond even them) can do is grow one's own group. Anything more is wishful thinking. And the hobby's wishful thinking has brought us to where we currently are...

...given that track record, it may be best to work on those things we actually have our hands on.

HERO System 6 Edition Review Part II

2010-06-30T09:35:00.002-05:00

I likely should have mentioned this in yesterday's review but it was a bit long to include there. So I'll go back and add an link.

HERO System was always a very detailed and map focused game system. The game spoke in terms of 'inches' and 'hexes'. The entire rule set was written around the use of the hex map with powers defined to match. The environment and breaking things rules made the entire map something to interact with.

Like any game one could alter it and play it without the map, but at that point you're paying points not for defined abilities (movement, area of effects, range limits, reduced by range, indirect, etc) but for abstracted 'somethings' that one could only hope the GM took into account. If one really wanted to do this, they should switch 1" of running costs 2 points for things like "Perk- Fast Runner I" for x points. But whatever, that mindset seldom is worried about consistency.

I've never encountered anyone in real life that was in the least tempted to do that, much like I've never seen a D&D group in real life do it either. But it's all the rage online and Long himself claimed that's how he played (thus perhaps explaining why he seems so tunnel-visioned with minor updates to character creation rules and nothing else- for him that's the entire game it seems).

In contrast with WotC who in their new edition embraced it, HERO Sixth did away with the map, inches and hexes providing the most minor of 'if you're using these" hints in their place.

Well sort of did away with. Really he just converted everything to meters. Which just makes the book clumsy to use. If you want to use the old HERO scale of 1 hex = 2 meters you're having to make constant conversions as you play. It's unnecessary, and really addresses nothing.

If I was actually going to switch to 6th, I'd likely deal with this at the character sheet level- making all the conversions there as I use a Excel spreadsheet of my own. But it makes HERO Designer clumsy along with any of the published books, so those the value of those resources are reduced.

Oddly enough, this combined with the unnecessary expense of replacing my 5th edition books caused me to pass on any purchases from HERO Games in the future. They were already borderline with mostly dull supplements, and this kicked the can over the edge.

The owners of HERO Games have recently brought controlling interest in the Indie Press Revolution, so perhaps they'll overextend themselves and one day end up selling HERO System to someone who actually understands and plays it as more than a character generator.

Well, one can hope can't they?

HERO System 6 Edition Review

2010-06-28T14:43:00.003-05:00

Managed over the last couple of weeks to look over copies of the two core 6th edition books.

Things aren't as bad as they could have been I suppose. Most of the rules are intact (it takes all of one page to list the changes, and most of these really aren't except in name). When you do find a change, they are more of the type you'd except in a 5.5 edition instead of a 6.0 with one exception.

That one significant change is the removal of figured based secondary characteristics (replaced with a flat base) together with characteristic repricing. This was a long sought goal of Mr. Long, but frankly it's neither exciting nor interesting. We end up with more point inflation and without doubt it will alter things (slightly negatively) for those who build to defined point budgets. For gamers like myself who build to concept, it's just points and points don't matter.

The planned change to Kill Attacks? You know, the 1d3 for stun multiple instead of of 1d6-1? It's really just a suggestion- the books says you can do it either way. And Hit Locations (what I've always used anyway) still use the old numbers in any case.

Otherwise it's small differences. There are a couple of good ones. Power Pool purchase has been streamlined with a nice simple method that hearkens back to older editions of the game. The Area of Affect advantage has been reduced slightly in cost. And so on.

But by far most of the changes are just the replacing of names. So Energy Blast is now just Blast. Force Wall has become Barrier. And so on.

Long is a well known master of the school of cut and paste publishing- to this he now has added the power of Find & Replace. The world is stunned and God help us if he ever finds the more advanced options in Word.

The goal here seemed to be making the rules more general, i.e. to not bias the reader as to the various purposes individual mechanics could be applied to. But it bleeds the soul out of the game and makes a ruleset that was already dry even more barren. I recall reading the original Champions rulebook and being flooded with ideas of where to take it. Force Fields! Armor! Those labels spoke to someone attempting to model a world. Resistant Protection? Chirping crickets. If 6th was the first edition of the game I had encountered, it would have likely been the last.

Visually the books are horrid. Someone thought orange on blue was a good color combo for the cover. I don't think I have ever encountered something as ugly. The whole book is in color (keeping up with the latest fad) and it hurts.

From the blue headers to the artwork (much of it taken from Champions Online) I just don't like the look of the book. Color is often good, but in this case it gives a comic book feel to everything. Fine for a comic book based game, but not the best choice for a system that is suppose to cover various other genres. There black and white (or less stark coloring) would have been nice.

Also Champions Online for whatever reason has once again changed the look of the Champions setting and background. As but one example, why Defender looks like a dude in tights and a open face helmet instead of an Iron Man ripoff is beyond me- but the change is frankly stupid.

Looking at their releases in the line, it looks to be a reply of 5th edition. So yet once again, I think HERO System will lack their Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, i.e. no setting that really takes flight with the rules and becomes a name in the mind of their players. That would have been something worth a 6th edition.

In the end, this is a workable set of rules just like HERO has always been. But very little has been gained with this release except cash flow to Long's pocket. If you have 5th edition, save your money and house rule in a couple of the changes (like Power Pools). If on the other hand you don't have a copy in good repair, well this is better than nothing.

Part II of this review

Suppressive Fire and HERO System- Solutions

2010-06-15T12:25:00.000-05:00

Previously we reviewed how HERO System handled Suppressive Fire in the core rules and foundd it somewhat wanting.So we turn to house rules in order to achieve our goal.

Here I see two possible (and simple) options.

Define 'movement' into a hex declared for the Suppressive Fire maneuver to be the taking of any action not just actual movement (i.e. making an attack). This at least subjects the person to the choice of accepting an attack in exchange for doing much of anything. Along with this we'd have to overturn the restriction on requiring auto-fire for Suppressive Fire..
Rather than modifying the Suppressive Fire rule, modify the Presence attack rules by providing more bonus dice to the attack, likely linked to the number of rounds fired. This would have to count as an action instead of the normal zero phase Presence Attack perhaps also requiring the attacker to hit the target hex (DCV 3) or target's cover (typically DCV 0). Additionally the negative modifier for repeating an presence attack would have to reduced or removed for Suppressive Fire. Spreading or Firing into multiple hexes would allow the attacker to cover more than one target.

Both of these have their advantages and disadvantages.

The first eats up a ton of ammo (making it unlikely it would commonly be used), and to make it work we would have to scale the OCV modifier with the ammo expended (i.e. say a single shot takes -3, two takes -2, 3-5 takes -1, 7-10 takes -0, etc). On the plus side it allows freedom of player choice and allows Suppressive Fire to be dangerous.

The second actually represents the genre use of Suppressive Fire better and is much lighter on ammo (as you only need to fire on your phase and not each segment between them). The roll for the Presence attack replaces any damage roll, or standard effect can be used to avoid any die roll at all. The downside is that Suppressive Fire is never really dangerous in itself.

I'll be presenting these two options to my players and we'll see what people think.

Suppressive Fire and HERO System

2010-06-09T10:49:00.002-05:00

Yesterday's post on Suppressive Fire drew some good comments. I didn't respond because much of my response is continue in this article.

Within the HERO core rules (5th edition) there are three methods of handling suppressive fire. Let's example each and see if they achieve what we desire (and if they do, what is the downside of using them).

Method 1: "My character aborts to a Dodge"

Like many systems, HERO has rules for dodges and blocks, basically you exchange your attack action for an decreased chance of being hit or for an attempt to actively roll to 'block' an attack. Dive for Cover is another such action often used to leap out of way of an attack.

Given that one is exchanging offensive action (and at least some movement) for these options (with their defensive benefits), one can say that they represent the player declaring his character 'suppressed'.

There are a few problems with depending upon this approach however.

First players typically only opt for these when the threat is serious (i.e. excellent chance of being hit and seriously damaged by the hit). Suppressive fire often doesn't have a serious change of hitting- it's more of psychological affect that damages someone as a side effect. Second, it doesn't reflect the genre and real world convention of firing in the general direction of a foe in order to 'keep their heads down' as opposed to trying to hit them directly.

So this rule by itself doesn't really do what we want although it certainly covers part of the concept.

Method 2: The Suppressive Fire Maneuver.

Hero System includes a combat maneuver called Suppressive Fire, so we have to consider it. When reading it however we find that it doesn't really do what we want.

The actual effect is sort of an area denial action. You hose down an area spending lots of ammo and anyone entering it is automatically attacked (at slightly less than normal hit chances).

That's sort of cool. But very limited. For example against a single target it's no different than holding an action and then firing at him (at a reduced chance unlike holding an action). It doesn't make him take cover or do anything other than let you shoot at him (once per your phase). It really only becomes interesting when you're trying to deny an area to multiple people.

The requirement for auto-fire is also a bit of a drawback. Movies have characters with revolvers providing covering fire and this doesn't help any in modeling that.

So once again, we have a bit of what we want, but not all of it.

Method 3: Presence Attack

HERO has a attack method call Presence Attacks. These are basically an attempt to so impress someone that they lose actions and/or just give up (or give you information, open the door, etc.). Bonus dices are gained from violent action, so this sounds almost exactly like what we are looking for.

The base rule is that you roll a number of dice based upon your PRE and modify that number as the result of various conditions. So from memory, a PRE of 15 (a good solid value for 'street level' campaigns) gives 3 dice, -1 dice for in combat already, +2 for very violent action (shoot a firearm at someone isn't the most violent thing possible, but it's violent), +1 for display a 'power' (i.e. the firearm).

So 5d6, on average 17.5 points. Which isn't enough to make the typical man in the street lose even a half-phase action. It does let the attacker go first but that has very little practical impact. Worse, each additional attack Presence Attack of the same type suffers a -1 dice modifier and will quickly not even case that much effect.

Sigh.

A good roll (say all 4s or better) does work- it will make the target lose a half phase and in my campaigns that's their 1/2 phase combat action by default. But that's an above average roll, and would work only at the beginning of the battle.

Plus there are some odd effects here, Presence Attacks don't have to be related to the target, but can impress everyone. So by shooting in Joe's direction and rolling good- I can suppress Pete who was sneaking up behind me...

So Presence Attacks don't do exactly what we want either. So out of the box, HERO can't do want we want.

Next, we turn to house rules....

Suppressive Fire

2010-06-08T08:14:00.000-05:00

This is something of a old subject, not just for HERO but for RPGs in general. It came up this weekend during our game session as something desired by a character at one point, but we moved on without really examining it. So I thought it would be worth a couple of blog posts.

Suppressive Fire is important in real world and genre firefights, i.e. shooting to keep someone's head down rather than directly kill them (even if such fire may manage to do just that).

Few games take it into account, and for good reasons. It may be something of a game breaker providing a huge advantage to whichever side has greater numbers. For example, if the game mechanic simply applies a modifier for someone declaring Suppressive Fire (up to preventing their 'target' from returning fire), it's easy to see how the more numerous side can suppress 'one for one' and then take complete tactical advantage with their remaining people.

It's not that easy in the real world, Suppressive Fire doesn't just have to be used- it must be effectively used and different targets of such fire may react differently. Numbers don't tell the whole story, individual troop quality and morale is often far more important.

Also from a game design PoV, it's generally counter-productive to remove player action from the game. All these factors must be weighed before selecting a mechanic.

Next post I'll cover the different ways Suppressive Fire can be represent in HERO System.

Farewell to RPG Blog II

2010-06-03T08:13:00.000-05:00

It seems Zachary is hanging up his blog. A pity as it was one of my must stop places online, and there aren't many of those. But rpgs are a hobby, and in a hobby a person must go where they must go or the whole thing will suffer.

So best wishes to Zach for whatever he does next although he really doesn't need them. After all, one defines one's own success in this hobby.

Building Big and Daring

2010-05-18T14:25:00.000-05:00

Green Float is an idea that cries out for inclusion in my Shadowrun campaign. 3000 foot tower, floating on the ocean. A great view and an exotic place for raging gun battles and spell slingin'.

What's not to like?

Other than the fact that it's a death trap just waiting to drown everyone on it. But small details shouldn't get in the way.

The Ego of Gamers

2010-05-17T09:14:00.000-05:00

Stuff like this is just so common. It isn't enough to have a nice hobby with a great return on entertainment time vs. investment. Some people just are not happy unless they are creating unfounded MEANING in it as well.

We have the RPG as Art type, and even worse we have the RPG as the hope of mankind type.

What BS.

Oh, I'll grant that the ability to spin reality is a powerful influence. Sadly that is core of politics and PR although calling it 'story' is nothing more than making the term 'story' meaningless as a useful word. But to leap from there and decide that just because one plays RPGs that world is yours for the remaking... is just stupid.

Let's pass over the small matter that real public influencing skills are not what is being used at the gaming table. Let's pass over the fact that no matter the spin, in the end reality will catch up with you (although if you're like Stalin or Mao, you get to pass that off to the poor bastards who are alive after your gone).

Let's just take a passing look at any collection of gamers out there. They hate each other guts. One says one thing, ten others will leap and and say the reverse. The only thing they'd do in the real world even given all of Rob's foolish assumptions is add to the noise. And they'd add a LOT to the noise.

Just what we don't need. Gamers wouldn't save the world, they'd doom it.

Iron Man 2

2010-05-11T08:57:00.000-05:00

Went and saw the latest Iron Man movie last night. It was a good time, and once again I was able to walk out thinking that I didn't need to update any of the character sheets for my HERO System based re-imagined Marvel campaign. I suppose Widow's sheet could use a couple of new toys (electro-mines and some flash bangs) to make it a total match.

Even the climatic end battle with its 'new and unexpected and never to be repeated use of repulsers) is covered by the Teamwork and Pushing rules + special effects.

I"m a little different than most I think in that I like the first movie in a series better than the following ones (Spiderman I better than Spiderman II. This is even more the case with movies I was mixed on (Fantastic Four) or disliked (X-Men).

Talking with one of my friends, he suggests that it's more interesting to see a comic book hero come to life on the big screen. Once that's happen you're left with only two options.

Just another adventure. These can be quite fun, just like this last move. But they're aren't 'magical' anymore.
A major change in the character's course that ruins what the character was about in the first place. These are awful (Spiderman III went in this direction, we'll see if they recover from it).

Comics themselves have the same choice, with one difference. Comics depend a bit more on the imagination of the reader instead of special effects. And that imagination allows it to carry on longer without appearing stale.

That first option isn't as bad as one might think, as most highly successful TV shows follow it to the letter. Really, once you've seen one Law & Order or House- you've seen them all. Only the details are different.

Option 2 however is the beginning of the end. List hope that we don't see that soon with this latest run of comic movies, for they have been quite good.

Deconstructionism Equals The Boring Approach

2010-05-07T14:57:00.000-05:00

Deconstructionism has been an increasing fad for western culture since I was born at the beginning of the space age.

The method is simple, find a traditional thought (any thought, it doesn't matter) and wreck it. Make it into something completely different. When someone creates something new and presents it as new, it may have its place in the world. But when they insist on it replacing the original (i.e. keeping the same name while calling the original invalid for whatever reason), it's basically nothing more than an act of hatred driven by personal ego.

Case in point, this post here at Motor City Gamewerks.

Now nothing is stopping Jason from creating a new fantasy race, called Hippie Runts (to coin a name) that are short polish speaking, forest dwelling, wood crafting folks without breads and a taste for malts for his fantasy campaign.

But creating something new wasn't the point. Instead Jason had to rage against the traditional view of dwarves because he lacks the imagination to do something new. Instead he is driven to undermine the work of others to feed his own needs.

And that is so common, and yes- now days it's also boring.

My Primary Requirement for Game Mechanics

2010-05-03T14:37:00.000-05:00

I have a rather consistent approach to deciding if a given game system may or may not be interesting. I skip the entire character generation and setting sections if possible stopping only long enough to determine the type of numbers I'll need to actually play the game (average stat, average skill rating, whatever).

Then I go over the whatever are the core rules (typically combat) that would be most important in play. I then plug in those 'average' values and see if the game is interesting to play.

No Setting. No real characters. No role-playing. Just the game mechanics themselves. The question is, is the underlying game fun just by itself. In short, is this a rpg that is built upon an interesting game system. Or is it a rpg that is built upon a boring game system.

That one test tells me if the game has any legs. Or if my attraction is based upon the marketing and fluff packaged around the design- things sure to fade the longer I use it.

Using the Rules as Written

2010-04-30T13:33:00.001-05:00

Spend enough time online and you'll see this subject come up now and then. I came across it most recently over at the RPG Blog II today.

My own view on this subject is very straight forward. After selecting a set of rules, and then modifying them to meet the group's needs- there is never a good reason to not play them as written. The very act of needing for whatever reason to alter them on the fly is proof that you've selected the wrong rules to begin with, or failed to modify them to suit your needs. In other words, you don't know what you're doing.

Perhaps I need to rephrase that last, while it's true that you may not know what you're doing (or at the very least failed to do it well)- it is perhaps even more likely that you're not willing to admit what you're doing. You say you want to play D&D, and perhaps most of the time you're happy with that- except when it doesn't agree with you and then you in effect cheat to get what you want.

Yes, cheat. That's when someone breaks the rules of a game to suit a desire of their own. Even if it's by agreement. A golfer who shaves strokes off his score with no more than a laugh from his buddies is still cheating. The difference between the golfer who does this and most gamers however is that the golfer is typically at least honest with his pals who heckle him for it but accept it.

Gamers just lie to themselves, saying it's a normal and accepted part of the hobby. And then get mad if someone like me calls them on it. They aren't man enough to admit what they're doing, to others and perhaps even to themselves.

The behavior is very childlike really. It's that greedy part of ourselves that demands things go our way. It's someone losing a bet who then refuses to pay up instead begging for 'the best two out of three'. It speaks ill of the person doing it, and it speaks ill of the hobby that it is commonly accepted.

What's interesting about this is that there are game systems that include mechanics that in practical terms give you anything you want. Don't like those, you can add subsystems to any game to achieve the same goal. Thus a person has to select a system that doesn't (and then refuse to modify it) in order to have the option to cheat. Which tells me that to these people- the act of cheating is more important to them then the playing of the game itself.

Or they can take the golfer's approach, and just admit that they cheat and laugh off the heckling they get for it. It has the advantage of at least being honest.

Common RPG Questions

2010-04-30T09:25:00.004-05:00

Since I've started this blog, I've written number of series that drove rather deeply into specific subjects and in a way I consider those to be the highlights of this blog.

There are however a number of common questions that I see raised again and again. The answers for these are typically rather short and I've been debating how to approach them as a body of work. So far I've just done one-off posts. This then is an attempt to take advance of the tools a blog offers.

This will be a parent post that I'll link to on the right together with those to the more in-depth series. I'll update this entry with links to future posts that address common and basic questions about RPG design and usage I often see. Further I'll toss a label on it of Common RPG Questions so that feature can be directly used.

It will at least be useful to me, and we'll see how it goes. I'll add in few links to pass articles to kick it off

Complexity

Using the Rules as Written

At last, a good answer to my opinion on FATE

2010-04-28T17:15:00.000-05:00

My reaction to the Dresden Files RPG and the FATE system produced a fair amount of nearly unintelligible nerd rage as the comments for those posts show. Which I always find amusing, mostly because so many of the comments are just plain stupid. And I think stupid people are at fault for many of the world's problems, so it gives the world an good excuse for being so screwed up. There is a 'correctness' to it all in a sad way.

And I'll be honest, part of the reason I post some of my opinions is in order to see if there is anyone out there with any sense holding a opposing opinion. Most of the time the answer is a resounding no. Typically all I get is hateful bile and ad hominem attacks, which was certainly the case this time around.

Well almost the case this time around. Someone did surprise me. Rainswept at Romance Monsoon had this reply to my charge of "Why people blow their hard earned money on works that a monkey could do in his spare time is beyond me."

And it's a good reply. It still indicates a approach to RPGs that I don't agree with, but it indicates a person that at least begins to understand theirs and is willing to present it without going bonkers and acting like a fool.

So well done Rainswept. I must give you your point, and since you're likely not interested in a dust up- I'll spare you my answering one.

Judging FATE

2010-04-27T10:04:00.002-05:00

This is an answer to Wyatt in a comment from my previous post about the Dresden Files RPG. He asked what I didn't like about FATE.

FATE is at its core FUDGE. And FUDGE at its core is just a resolution system.

By that, I mean a method of rolling dice to see if an attempt at something is successful or not. The difference between that and an true RPG system in my mind is the difference between playing a game of chess, and rolling a couple of dice to see if you're declared the winner of a game of chess.

FATE adds some not uncommon chrome to the core FUDGE Mechanic. Fate points that when expended add to the roll (hence the system name I imagine). Also some other small details like Aspects which strikes me as a bit of concept theft (not a bad thing) from RISUS, those can be called upon to generate Fate points and/or provide other modifiers in various ways.

The result is a very bare bones systems. Characters sheets that wouldn't fill and index card and very little to actually do from a game play point of view. Sure you can decide to shoot someone, but the game is too course to handle the tactical details of that except as non-rule connected descriptive fluff. Sure you have a character, but one with a very limited number of mechanically defined handles for the player to hold.

Which is why the authors claim that FATE (to quote their website):

"focuses on telling stories and balancing characters based on story significance, rather than points and cool powers. It's the system of choice for GMs who are looking for rules that get out of the way of the story, but still provide enough structure to get the job done."

I'd phrase that differently: FATE is a terrible game system, only useful to add a degree of randomness to whatever story you or or players happen to be railroading.

Now to be fair, if actually playing a game isn't the goal- FATE is a rather fine simple resolution system with enough chrome to almost invoke the favor of the setting. It's better than most that attempt the same thing.

But it's FUDGE, its simple. You don't need to spend money on the game books to use it. I wouldn't send Evil Hat Productions a dime even if I liked the ideas behind their designs. Do it yourself because to a large degree that's what the (free to anyone) FUDGE system demands anyway.

Why people blow their hard earned money on works that a monkey could do in his spare time is beyond me. Unless it's their parents money and they need to fill the bookshelves in the basement...

The Dresden Files

2010-04-26T09:56:00.005-05:00

I will have to admit to something of a guilty pleasure. I really like the Dresden file books and just finished up the latest entry in the series, Changes. The whole Film Noir meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer approach appeals to me. Also at 12 books, it's the longest running series I've encountered that hasn't jumped the shark. Most don't get past the second book.

In general I find urban fantasy rather unbearable, for example anything by Kim Harrison or Kat Richardson is just bad. Not that Butcher is a great writer. There are parts of the books that cause me to cringe (yes I know it's noir, but every girl having the hots for the main character just screams author wish fulfillment). But when he's on, he's on. He does with rare exception the best version of Paladins I've seen in fantasy and the same for his fey.

There's a Dresden Files RPG that one can now pre-order.

Sadly this game won't live up to its source material. The Fate system is horrid, the art work being used doesn't fit. I have no reason to buy the game. It will be yet another failed rpg license that will be off the shelves (if it even makes it there) and effectively forgotten about in a handful of years. The Internet keeps games like these in something of an undead status after their life span reaches the end because overhead is so low- but they are still by any rational matter dead.

Maybe if they did adventures, those might be of interest. But they won't. The whole point of the setting is for things to be very tailored and personal to the characters, and that doesn't lend itself to pre-written adventures. Besides, this is a game company who's claim to fame is Spirit of the Century and that line currently consists of all of two books. These are not productive people, and highly productive people are needed for success.

Dresden it seems is doomed to failed cross-overs, but it the TV show or an RPG. Oh well, that's life.

It is tempting for me to kick off a Dresden style campaign on my own (using HERO System 5th edition). It fits well in my already existing time line. Only the other hand, I'm think I should just enjoy the books. I have other campaigns to run and I can fit Harry and his like into my Year One Marvel setting as a cameo appearance easily enough. A little Harry goes a long way.

Edit: Follow-up to this post here

Living with Canon

2010-04-22T06:59:00.003-05:00

Over on the RPG Blog II, Zachary is weary of canon fiends wrecking his fun with 're-imagined' settings. A problem that I've heard about online before, but never really encountered in my campaigns.

Given that I run Middle Earth, I suppose the odds should have been good that I'd encounter players like that. But no. The closest I've gotten is people online who attempt to claim (foolishly I may add) that humans were incapable of magic in Middle Earth.

But then again, I picked a time and place in Middle Earth long before the War of the Ring in a 'blank' spot of the timeline- the middle of the Third Age around a millenium and a half previous. So I suppose I've dodge the worst of it by that one single fact.

For my other 'based upon X' setttings, I'm always clear up front that they are 're-imagined' versions. Be it Year One in my Marvel based superhero campaign or Shadowrun.

I've been doing this for decades, but the new Battlestar Galactica helped make it an easily understood choice even if it was a horrid show. If Starbuck can suddenly become a woman, there's not much point in whining about the incorrect number of bathrooms on deck 15.

Still, none of that will help if you have players who insist on playing in the 'real' version of the setting however they define 'real'. IME no two people will be able to agree on just what is 'real', so the desire is stillborn no matter what. In such a case one can only make it clear that the setting is re-imagined, and that you're not willing to run a 'real' version. If they can't live with that, then they have a decision to make- accept it or find a different campaign.

Curmudgeons often have soft spots

2010-04-21T06:26:00.007-05:00

Apologies up front for a non-game related post. I don't do that here, but today is an exception. Some people say blogging is often good for expressing grief. I guess I'll see.

Online (and off) I'm an admitted curmudgeon, looking at the downside of most things and dismissive of wide-eyed claims of... well just about all wide-eyed claims. And rightfully so, just ask me.

Curmudgeons however often have soft spots. Mine- for my wife, my religion, and my country (if not those in charge of it). And animals. I'm real softie (but not PETA crazy) for animals, especially Maine Coon cats.

A few weeks back I mentioned that the wife was getting me a pair of kittens for my 50th birthday. I want you to meet Winston, the Maine Coon in the picture. Just a bit shy of 3 months in age.

He lived with us for 10 days. In that time he was a perfect paragon of what a Maine Coon should be. Playing in water, following us from room to room, naturally fitting into the house and becoming part of every activity. If I spent any time at the computer for example, he'd find his way up to the monitor where he'd watch with interest or go to sleep until I stepped away. Every. Single. Time.

He cost a pretty penny, but more than paid for himself when he noticed a bit of water leaking from a flooded cabinet. The installers for our new dishwasher had dislodged the drain from the garbage disposal. The resulting flood upon draining the sink wasn't really noticable from outside it. But he caught it instantly saving us hundreds in damages.

Three days before his 3 month birthday, he developed a fever. Two days later his breathing was labored despite treatment. On his birthday, he joined his sister Truman who was suppose to come home with us as well and who had died the previous week from the same illness.

It's called Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP). And is currently my personal symbol of evil in the world. Basically it was just bad luck, a lightning strike. Winston's care both before we picked him up and after was excellent. No one is at a fault. The breeder may well have cried as much as we, and has promised a replacement kitten. In time, I'll likely take her up on that. And I have a new charity.

According to Matthew 10:29, God takes account of every fallen sparrow. Certainly he must take note of every little kitten.

Sorry for the downer post. I'll make it up for everyone later. Promise.

The A-Team RPG

2010-04-15T09:10:00.004-05:00

So there's going to be a A-Team movie. Don't know if it will be any good, but a wise man would bet against it. The trailer however made me laugh.

Used to watch that show back in the day, it was fun and predictable. Odd how those two concepts go together in TV (and likely in RPGs as well). It was also silly with likely thousands of rounds fired and I can't remember them ever hitting a single person. They were hell on vehicles and the landscape however.

One night our gaming group decided to play a one-shot A-Team game instead of our normal campaign.

So I turned to my workhorse game- HERO System. Ran it straight with the following house rules:

Kill Attacks (and deadly normal attacks) would not harm a living creature. Instead their effect was replaced with a Presence Attacks. Weapons were given dice bonuses to these depending upon how impressive they were. These Presence Attacks only applied against valid targets of the original physical attack.
Any A-Team kit-bashed weapons got more Presence Attack bonus dice than any normal weapon. Only one allowed per adventure.
Anyone who loses a full phase from a Presence Attack counts as 'defeated', i.e. they either give up or flee from such a display of impressive firepower.
Any character could make a free dive for cover from any vehicle, exploding building, etc. This was always successful- but if invoked 'defeated' the character as in item 3.

With those four simple changes, we went on to have a perfect A-Team adventure. It could have been scripted from the actual show. Was a ton of fun. But it wasn't the stuff of a full length campaign for us and we only did it once.

Now days people at the Forge and elsewhere would attempt to create an completely new game system to do something like that. And it would almost certainly suck in comparison.

SETI, The Joy of Wishful Thinking

2010-04-13T09:34:00.003-05:00

Sc-fi fans in general are big believers in ET. They pull out the Drake Equation (forgeting that the equation has little to plug into it besides made up numbers) and dream of little grey men with rather odd probing habits.

It's an attractive idea (not the probing part), and when I was young and wishful I spent some time researching the fringe areas of science. The foolishness I found there made me a skeptic of such things forever after. Oh some of them would be cool if true, but coolness doesn't make them real.

Even when they are chased after by people who should know better.

SETI being the example currently on my mind. I hold a degree in Electronic Engineering Technology (stone age stuff, early 80s), and the whole idea seemed iffy to me back when it started. The reasons are nicely summed up in this article. In short, the reason they haven't detected anything likely has nothing to do with the question of something being out there not- it was just a stupid idea fueled by wishful thinking. The physics and reality of the problem indicates that failure is nearly certain.

The neat things about stupid ideas however is that they can be really fun in game campaigns.

Greg Bear for example wrote a book with the idea that the reason SETI didn't detect anything was because ET learned it was best to be quiet- or you could end up dead. From a rpg point of view, that's a cool idea even if the book itself was rather dull.

Marvel comics ran with a very similar idea, although it started much better than it ended. A common problem especially in comics which in this day and age is basically a dying medium.

I've used quite a number of silly fringe ideas in my campaigns, because campaigns aren't made to be serious. Nothing wrong with that.

Unless people start believing them for real. The millions of dollars SETI have spent indicates to me that too many people let fantasy bleed over into reality.

So what fringe ideas have my readers used in their games?

I can be Achilles

2010-04-08T10:43:00.004-05:00

Came across this post at one the blogs I normally read, Zack is fun even if he plays silly games.

My first thought was "this is why the OSR doesn't inspire me". Such limits on what you can do. A well designed heroic adventure game should allow for both Odysseus and Achilles. Old School to me means the search for a better game than D&D.

My second thought was, you can certainly play Achilles in those old games. As long as the party leader was Odysseus.

My third thought was, both those guys were screwed in the end. Given that, I'd rather be killed by a random arrow in a battle than by my own son*...

*In one version of the story

Who to design for?

2010-03-31T14:22:00.002-05:00

As sort of an outgrowth of last week's postings, I was reminded how many people are off designing new rpgs. Print on Demand, word processing, PDFs, etc have all made it possible for just about anyone to toss their two cents on to the growing pile of rpgs.

And there are a lot of them.

And almost all of them will fail.

That is they will never reach a wide market nor attract much in the way of significant attention. That's a given. I could go out on a limb (a very strong one IMO) and say that they *all* will fail. This is true even of internet 'famous' games like... oh let's pick FUDGE or Dogs in the Vineyards.

There are three ways I can see to avoid this fate, the first is to have D&D to die off creating an opening for a new rpg of note. The second is to dumb down the meaning of success to the point where just getting it into print counts as a win.

I'm not a big fan of the second, and while I'd like to see the first- it won't happen. D&D may slack off (as it did with 2nd edition), but someone will buy it up and it will retake the market leaving whoever took that opening looking like yesterday's news (White Wolf anyone?).

Oh, the third way...

You could be the next Mearls and basically pull a bait and switch with the 5th edition of D&D and slide your game into its place. You have to keep some of the terms, and you likely won't have a free hand. And you may kick off a new OSR, but hey. It works. That game you're working on now, a stepping stone to pad your resume for that big shot at taking the helm of D&D.

Myself, I'd rather skip all the above.

Independent game design shouldn't be an effort to make the next big thing. It shouldn't be Greg over at the Synapse Design Blog firing the fans and designing for women (just to pick on one guy as an example).

Independant game design should be for the designer's own group. A labor of love, to meet their needs. Not that of the market, not that of the theorists. A very personal goal for a handful of people you know very well.

There you will find success, and it will be success that matters.

Also I'm certain of one thing, if there is a 'next big thing'- it will come from a designer like that. The rest, well you can just tell the rest have no soul. They're too busy looking pass it.

Designing for Women- It may not work like you think

2010-03-27T10:04:00.003-05:00

There's been a bit of back on forth on the subject of females and gaming this last week as a number of blogs tackled it from various directions.

One of the more interesting posts I came across is this one from Greg at the Synapse Design Blog. The reason it's interesting is that it's based upon some work in differences in how males and females approach games and for me that's just plain an interesting subject.

And besides, the author didn't come across as the typical crusading "this hobby treats girls badly and needs to change!" fanatic in his blog, but as someone a bit more reasonable- i.e. a designer who wants to match a design to a need.

So, Greg is going to run with this. Naturally my first thought is "is that a valid thing to do?"

That question raised two others. Let's look at them.

1. Is the core idea (i.e. Carol Gilligan's assertions) valid?

Oddly enought the Psyhology Today link didn't source its references other than dropping some names. Searching online I came up with this article about Carol Gilligan's work.

That short overview I linked above certainly has it's issues. How does "Women... consider hurting another immoral at all costs" fit in with real world behavior that includes what I'd call massive psych-warfare intended to reduce its target to emotional mush. Watching groups of girls at High School will quickly reveal that there are other motives that most certainly include 'hurting another'. Nor does my gaming experience with females indicate avoiding inflecting injury as a high level goal, they tend to be if anything even more dangerous than the male players IMO.

I think those granted the title 'feminist' often carry a mindset with too much baggage to be completely honest. Negitives tend to be downplayed to say the least.

Now that overview may have simplified things too much. And like all such things, individuals are always individuals and thus rules are made to broken. I'm not going to dig deeper into it unless I have a reason or time. But color me doubtful on the details while agreeing that there are (from ten thousand feet) differences.

However for the sake of debate, let's accept that the differences are those noted by Greg as reason for his direction in design. Everything starts as a leap of faith, and he has chosen this one as his.

2. Plan Meet Need, does this direction in game design make sense?

Here was my first thought on reading Greg's post: So, boys like rules and obey them while girls play socially and will adjust or ignore the rules to meet social goals...

...and Greg's response is to design a game with lots of social and interaction rules...

...that boys will follow and girls will adjust or ignore.

So in design, Greg is thinking like a boy and designing like a boy to meet his view of the needs of girls who will do basically what they want anyway.

Now that's rather harsh, but it's how it came across to me. And it's what my own experience indicates.

Still, I'm rather interested in what the result will be, maybe Greg has hit on something and it is possible to design to the female mindset. I'm all for letting him try. There's something to be learned either way.

Stop treating girls like they're weak

2010-03-25T07:00:00.005-05:00

It looks to be the week for finding foolish bloggers. First we had gaming will save the world and now we have this over at Fame & Fortune.

The assumption in all this is the girls are weak. Oh that's not he said, but it's certainly what he implied. That from a market PoV they have no impact on product sales and thus the only thing being made is various 'objectification' products that only service a small part of the total market.

I call BS, on both claims.

The author of the post had no trouble presenting four popular counter examples (including one of my favorite fantasy characters) to the Buffy/Xena ones from his linked presentation. Nor did he have trouble finding an example of a woman who's into D&D while wearing plunging neckline fantasy costumes- thus nicely wreaking both sides of that point.

Further, this statement: "Offending a third of your audience to provide just about half with cheap thrills is poor design" is foolish in the extreme. Ford didn't outsell GM this year by avoiding offending people who think trucks and SUV are wrecking the planet- they did it by selling trucks and SUVs to people who wanted them.

Sales is about niches far more often than not. Niches always offend some, and appeal to others. That's life, get use to it.

If girls are an important part of this hobby (they certainly have been in my gaming life), and if they want a different type of product that what is being produced- they can make it themselves or buy it from someone who does. They don't need us to do it for them. And it's insult to women to suggest that we need to.

I'm sorry, but gaming won't save the world.

2010-03-23T19:09:00.006-05:00

Came across this over at Game in the Brain. Seems a game designer thinks games are so wonderful that they will solve the world's problems.

Read that last again.

Someone who does X thinks X is the solution of all our problems and some others that also do X can't help themselves but agree. Doesn't that trip anyone's suspicion meter out of the box? You were issued one of those useful devices weren't you?

It would seem that one thing lots of gaming certainly does is make people naive.

Now they may have a point if all the world's problems can be resolved with easy pat answers and strats off the internet.

Or maybe life is more complex than that.

Or maybe... just maybe, teaching people that anything they think is a problem is problem that they can and should resolve is itself something of a problem. It may lead to such things like.. oh I don't know... perhaps something like faking data because the problem just *has* to be real and it just *must* be solved.

One other interesting thing about the McGonials of the world. They will quickly jump on the idea that games teach wonderful things, but I'm rather certain that they would immediately oppose the idea that they teach anything negative. So in their view Grand Theft Auto won't make little Johnny into a whore using, murdering car thief- it will however make him into a genius.

I think it's far more likely it will do neither, at least to the extent proponents would claim. There may be a case that it will (like any activity) affect certain types of thinking and/or attitude to small degrees. But such effects are likely be a mixed bag of negatives and positives.

Unless of course one does an activity too much. Like say increase a gaming generation's gaming time by a factor of seven. Then you get people dying at their game cafe.

But maybe culling the herd of people stupid enough to think gaming will save the world is the best way... of saving the world.

A day for Quotes

2010-03-22T08:57:00.004-05:00

It's a downer of a day due to political developments that foreshadow a depressing future.

Rather than write about that, I thought I'd list some quotes that served me as inspiration when building the background for another depressing future- that from my Shadowrun Campaign, a setting which in my timeline leads to the near destruction of the world and the post-apocalyptic Morrow Project Campaign.

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"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.", Abraham Lincoln.

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“It is ever so with the things that men begin: there is a frost in Spring or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.”, Gimli from Lord of the Rings.

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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.", perhaps George Santayana.

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"Wealthy Republics do not last long. Wealthy Republics that try their hand at governing subjects soon cease to be wealthy republics. Often they cease to be either.", Jerry Pournelle*

*paraphrase slightly as the orignal quote ended with "neither" rather than "either" and seems to be in context a typo.

_______________________
"For it is the doom of men that they forget.", Merlin from the move Excalibur.

Passing Comment- Death: Style vs. System

2010-03-11T15:30:00.004-06:00

Came across this blog post and thought I'd give a quick comment here. Quick because life is busy and I have to plan and arrange for kittens that will arrive in five weeks...

The basic point that Carl is attempting to make is that system is very important in deciding if the characters live or not. The debate is with Faustusnotes who claims that play style is more important.

My comment, Faustusnotes is correct. Carl is wrong.

All the crunching of systems numbers means nothing in the comparisons Carl attempts, for the simple reason that for such crunching to be decisive- the play style must be held constant.

However Faustusnotes' entire point is that play styles aren't constant.

Carl point thusly fail to even address the question put before him, and are instead misdirection (intended or not).

Carl can claim that a given play style may require more... let's call it bias... to produce given level of deaths. But no more.

How people choose to the play the game is always more important than the game.

Random Thoughts- Cats & Sci-fi Settings

2010-03-09T18:10:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since my last blog entry, things have been busy.

Worse, my wife tempted me with Maine Coon kittens (just before she jets off to Paris for a week's business trip). This about a year after we lost our cat of 17 years. These days there are websites such evil wives can use, they have 'kitten cams'. Most unfair.

And this has pushed out thoughts of RPGs for a bit. In the contest of Maine Coon kitten vs. RPG, the kittens win.

For those not in the know, Maine Coons aren't just cats. They're rather different and special cats, sometimes called dog-cats or the man's cat. They are large (males can reach 25 lbs), playful their entire lives and can be trained to the leash or taught to fetch if desired. They still maintain the cat's independent air, but are highly people-centric while doing so. If you've never known one, you'd find them quite the surprise.

I use them as a model for a fey breed in my fantasy games where they are something like advisors to a familyof white witches down through the generations. Because they are that cool.

Switching gears...

I've never much cared for most Sci-fi settings. Star Wars leaves me cold with its endless cycle of Jedi falling to the darkside and almost destroying everything. Star Trek was ruined for me over the years (as my last series of articles likely shows). Ringworld just didn't give me a reason to care. And so on.

On the RPG side things are even worse. Traveller bored me with it's nobles and empires (I'd rather play fantasy, with its nobles and empires) and low tech jump drive ships. The background of 40K bored me even more, with no good guys there's nothing to fight for- your era of endless war is thus pointless. Faded Suns, yawn.

I had thought that I'd be left with a re-imagined original show Star Trek as my only option.

Then I found the Federation of the Hub series by James H. Schmitz.

Think Space Opera. Think high end Psi Abilities. Think a series where things just happen without explaining everything in huge detail (thus leaving many mysteries for GM and players to fill in).

Think of a Federation that appears to be a true Federation, i.e. individual worlds can govern as they like- but may be better said to be a tyrannical librarian government. And yes, that is possible and it's oh so cool as an adventuring setting.

Just pure fun, and a mindset that I love for sci-fi campaigns. After Morrow Project runs its course, I think I know the next place we'll visit.

Schmitz wrote most of his works during the 60s and 70s, at the time his name will just about as well known as Heinlein or Asimov. But he was mostly a short story author whose works were published in the magazines like Analog. And thus he was almost forgotten as the era of the huge novel came to be.

The whole Federation of the Hub story can be had in four books. I seriously recommend them.

Telzey Amberdon
TNT: Telzey Amberdon & Trigger Argee Together
Trigger & Friends
The Hub: Dangerous Territory

The last contains the short novel The Demon Breed, which is perhaps my favorite written sci-fi story of all time.

The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Conclusion

2010-02-24T10:05:00.009-06:00

Ok, I've sent some time reviewing the past and how today's Enterprise is but a pale shadow of the original.

The question now is why did it turn out the way it did?

Not the easiest of questions, and I believe it would be difficult to answer even if I did in-depth interviews with every decision maker behind every product. Frankly, I've talked with enough designers and writers to know that often they don't understand why they do things. I doubt this area is any different. But trends can be spotted and those can telling. Given that I'm not a mind reader, I may wrong- but that's not going to prevent me from trying.

There are two areas here, the first is Game and the other TV/Movies. I feel that the nature of each drove the nerfing of the Enterprise with only a little overlap.

Gaming:

Ablative game design is frankly the market driver. It's the core (with HP) behind D&D and similar games as well as all the most successful MMORPGs.

It's easy for the designer, and easy to grasp for the player. Being easy, it has the deceptive appearance of being easy to balance. They are very popular indeed.

I don't like Ablative systems, and I've written about that before. The simple truth is that few things in life or even in TV/movies are really ablative. Once selected, simulation suffers. Further, once selected it very difficult to keep anything exceptional- it's now just a number of hit points (or boxes in Star Fleet Battles) to be reduced.

Lastly, once a type of game starts down the ablative path- it almost always dooms any following games. WotC hasn't tried to replace HP in D&D, it's an expected element of that genre. Who would risk something different when it has been prove ablative works?

The Hobby's need for expansions in order to maintain sales drives expansion of setting and technology.

There is a strong pressure to keep a game line selling, and that's difficult to do if your first book out the door defines 'the best of the best'. What sexy reason does the buyer have to get the lastest expansion? It has to have new stuff, and sooner or later that new stuff is going to break the old.

The desires of designers to 'fix' the original.

Designers often think they have wonderful ideas. They may not be part of the original, but dang it they are so wonderful they have to be in there anyway. The designers of Star Fleet Battles loved historical navy simulations- and names and concepts from historical navy simulations found their way into a Star Trek game.

TV/Movies:

First and debatably the most important influence- Star Wars.

The impact of Star Wars was huge and has altered the public's view of what sci-fi should look like ever since. Star Trek avoided the fighters for a while, but in the end gave in (at least in part) during the run of DS9.

However Star Wars' version of hyperlight is now the default image for FTL travel. It's blasters now the default of 'ray guns'. The makers of TV and movies love default images, and have a difficult time breaking away from them. In short, the original Enterprise was too... original.

I feel that this influence drove a lot of the changes we've seen. From how warp drive and phasers now work to the numbers of shuttles carried.

Cultural Change.

The original was a product of the 60s, when American Exceptionalism (while under attack) was still the norm. The Enterprise and crew was the United States written into the future: bold, individual, powerful. When on a equal footing- it would crush its Klingon (Elaan of Troyius, Errand of Mercy) or Romulan (Balance of Terror) foe.

Dramatic tension was added to its battles by other means like sabotage (Elaan of Troyius), unknown foes (Balance of Terror), or outside influences (The Tholian Web).

TNG and later were created when Hollywood (and sadly much of America itself) had decided that traditional America was flawed and without value. Socialism replaced the original's Capitalism. Force wasn't the heroic defense of virtue any more- but the resort of those who have failed to understand what they were doing. Kirk claimed to be a soldier, in TNG Star Fleet was no longer a military arm.

The Captain of the Enterprise was French, and the model of the Federation became the EU.

With such a mind shift, there was no place for a powerful 'best of the best' Enterprise. It could no longer be exceptional. Thus any one-one-one battle with the Klingons or Romulans was now at best a toss up.

In a way it made for easy writing, just about everything was a threat. And the only path to victory was either technobabble, or by talking out the differences.

So IMO that's the current state of affairs.

We won't see anything like the original Enterprise with the current mindset in Hollywood, or the current state of the art in game design. And so, we left with memories of the good old days.

I did love those old days*.

Part: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII

*Like all memories, these are somewhat selective. To be honest, many TOS episodes were less than stellar. Really, Spock's Brian anyone?