Something to Actually Write About

It's been a long time since I've posted on this blog. In that time, blogs have fallen out of favor and I seriously doubt anyone will even read this. I'm doing it as a bit of capstone inspired by reading an old post of mine.

First, a bit of catchup before I talk about what inspired this post...

While I've still been playing RPGs in my own personal groups, I've had nothing to say about them publicly. The social discourse had descended to a level that I found unbearable then, and it's only worsened as time as passed. 

Beyond that issue (would could on its own had been ignored), game design had stagnated around D&D and its offshoots with things like story game designs and reworks of other systems swimming around in the shadows mostly unnoticed. There just wasn't anything of interest.

That too has gotten worse, the last time I visited the local mega hobby store I was told that basically anything not D&D wasn't selling at all although there is a collector's market of some type.

All that is in a way to be expected. I've reached that age where I'm an artifact of an effectively dead civilization. One that few even remember and certainly given their own tunnel vision, no reason to mourn. That happens to every generation. If they are lucky like the WWII generation, they may be respected for a period before they too are forgotten and/or despised.

To paraphrase Tolkien, 'Death is the gift of God to man'. I find an odd comfort and hope in that. This is not only the reality of the world, it's how it should be.

On to what inspired this post and from what I can foresee is the last thing I have to say on the subject of RPGs...

In 2009 I made this post answering set of questions about the future of gaming from RPG Blog Carnival. That article's link to those questions is now dead and the domain appears to be for sale.

Looking over my answers, I wasn't too far off base and feel I can take a victory lap given how completely wrong most such predictions are. How D&D has done over the last decade and a half I leave to others. I haven't been paying attention.

The one area I want to update is the question on how technology will become more integrated in RPGs. I was right for the "near future" given in the questions, but it is here that things have change. And it was this subject that stuck me as the right one to be the last gaming post on this blog.

In 2012, Roll20 came online. Together with first Ventrilo (2002) and then Discord (2015), this changed my gaming world. I could play with old gaming companions from my High Schools days no matter where everyone was located. While I would like in-person gaming better, that isn't as much of a option as it used to be. Plus the lack of travel time along with pre-game and post-game setup and clean-up is so nice.

But other than that, while some things were automated- the games were still the games I used to play. Tokens had replaced figures, and PNG maps had replaced sand tables. The die and some mechanics were automated to our taste- but all that was but surface changes. The real change was the lack of game food and in-person contact.

A bigger change hit a to significant degree this year with useful AI. Depending upon how this technology develops- we could see the end of GMs and Game Designers except for dinosaurs who want to do things the old way. 

It's nowhere near that now, and may in fact never get there. Every technology has limits to its development (notice how Moore's Law isn't a law anymore?) and I doubt this will be an exception. But I have no idea what that that limit will be. That's a question for others only be answered properly by the future.

In its current state, it leaves a lot to be desired. 

It's understanding of game mechanics is nearly non-existent. Ask it to generate a character, and it will break all sorts of rules giving you an illusion of a result. But a shallow and inefficient one for anyone who knows the system.

What it is capable of is adventure ideas and to a surprising extent artwork. If one is willing to spend too much time fine-tuning your questions, it can do rather well. But it's still at the level IMO of generating a concept best left to a real GM to fill out.

It's best feature to me is the ability to generate names and ideas for character backgrounds and appearance, something I've never been good at. Now in seconds I can get as big of a list of suitable names as I want to pick and select though.

For now, it's a great time saver for a GM. Doing some low level work so he's free to do more important things. My sons use it all the time, I use it for artwork, names, and little else.

The promise for the future however is immense. Maybe it can over the next decade or two completely replace the GM, providing the game system and play style to match its users. Maybe one could have it house rule or create entire systems to taste.

And to take it even further, maybe it could translate all that into our personal video game replacing the gaming table and figures with full 3D graphics with coop play on the fly. Or even VR (although that technology also leaves much to improve on).

Maybe. Might even be likely. I'm not an expert in the field.

Would that be a good thing? I'd say no, the path of game design has been to reduce players to an ever more child like being with simple systems by-passing any requirements of balance and simulation. Having a computer do everything for you will just accelerate that. People would play these games, but they wouldn't *understand* these games.

But my opinion here means nothing. That's for the current generation and perhaps the next to deal with. 

Good luck, my last piece of advice is that reality will in time overtake everything. It seems overdue.

Age of Heroes 5.0.4 Released

 It's been a while, over five years in fact.

While I'm sure that Age of Heroes has been well and truly forgotten by now, my OCD prevents me from not listing this latest version: 5.0.4 is now available at Lulu here. 

This is the never ending effort to get what we played in reality into print, and correct a few things that time have shown wasn't as good an idea as I thought.

Pricing has sadly increased, such is life. The paper and printing quality are however improved.

Lulu had a new cover creation tool so there are differences there. The most striking is the cover being darker, not sure I like that. The tool doesn't reflect the actual printed color very well and as a result I got what I got. I didn't feel fixing just that was worth an entire new revision, so I left it. If anyone cares enough to hate it, let me know and 5.0.5 will change it back to something closer to the original.

So what's different about this edition? 

Unlike before, I didn't keep a running errata of the changes. And over these five years, I completely lost track.

So... in general. Some things were made clearer and easier to understand. More typos were corrected. I accepted some grammar fixes suggested by Word (and ignore others, my style may suck- but it's mine). 

And as normal for a new version, things were moved closer in some cases to how we actually play while a few loopholes where closed because things weren't fully detailed.

A few examples:

• The disconnect between how talent duration was defined and how it appeared in the spell description was fixed.
• Mounted Combat was clarified, and the mounts in the bestiary updated to match
• It was noted the Heroic Level qualification should take into account any CS bonuses from gear and the effect of magic.
• A number of the Bestiary entries were updated. Dragons for example

All in all, it's the same game, just cleaned up a bit. Previous errata likely give a good feel for the type of changes one can expect. 

If you have and older version and are intending to play it, I'd suggest getting this version to avoid some things that ended up not working or reading as they were intended.

Age of Heroes 5.0.3 Released

Short update.

I've revised the Age of Heroes core book to 5.0.3. All corrections/additions/changes are found in the 5.0.2 errata. The only difference in the book is that everything is in one place.

There are a number of little improvements and corrections, the most serious change was in the Leadership skill and how it interacts with held actions.

A bit more detail on the thought process behind that last might be order. As a general rule, I'm not a fan of social mechanics. I'm quite old school in my view that RPGs are primarily combat simulators within a framework that allows character growth and the use of supporting skills. Meanwhile the players are character simulators and the roleplaying of social skills is left up to them and the GM.

Leadership is on a bit of line between these two areas and left me undecided as to how to use it outside mass combat events (which aren't covered in the core rulebook). This update finally put a fork in it, providing a mechanical reason for having the skill in an adventuring group- but one that only really has impact if the players make good decisions in using it.

Gaming Superheroes: Age of Ultron, and What Not to Do.

I often play marvel inspired Superhero games. And Marvel Studios has been producing quality work for a while now (except for Agents of SHIELD which has been rather mixed IMO). So naturally off I went to see what ideas I could mine from their latest release.

And the result?

Well...

Spoilers.
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Basically the movie can be summed up as follows: The Avengers fail, JARVIS (an NPC) and the Vision (likely a GM PC) saves the day, most of our heroes go off to sulk, and we get a new Avengers Team. And there was much rejoicing? Well, tons of money were made.

Ran as a RPG, you'd have a player revolt against the railroading in general and all are asking why the new kid at the table (Vision) is built on four or five times their character points.

Meanwhile:

• The player for Betty Ross is wondering how Black Widow pulled a pod person switch on her.
• Ironman's players bemoans the fact that he failed every skill roll he attempted.
• Captain America's player is asking why Hawkeye stole his nearly trademarked "Dare to be Badass" speech (made to Wanda).
• Jean Grey's player asks why is Wanda using her character sheet. Did the dog eat Wanda's again?
• Quicksilver's player asks, "How did I die again?" (I'll cut the movie some slack here and note that the player should notice that his Hero System END hit zero at just the wrong time).

And so on. Only Hawkeye's player is happy. He got some quality role-playing in there.

Everyone is please with Red Reddington showing up to GM Ultron, but are disappointed that he and his army of Ultrons were about as dangerous as barking puppies. Death by the hundreds against even the weakest of our heroes does not a threatening villain make.

As RPG inspiration goes, this movie is likely the worst of the ones Marvel Studios have given us. Although still better than most of Fox and Sony's. In too many ways, it was a copy of the first Avenger's movie.

It serves better as an example for what not to do.

Or perhaps as an example of getting rid of old characters (and/or players) and starting a new group. Yes, it does work for that now doesn't it?

But seriously Wanda, get your own character sheet. Jean's coming to the next X-men game Friday...

Calling Out an Excellent Resource on Game Theory

I'd like to point out a wonderful resource: Check for Traps.

These are older articles from 2011 that somehow I missed and never heard about. I have now and the issues they cover are timeless. Well worth the time to read.

Most Often, RAW is Simply Right

I'm on record as holding the opinion that if one decides to use rules for something, then you stick to and use those rules. By rules here I mean the written game mechanics + written house rules that add/modify or remove specifics from those rules (created after careful and deep consideration of the effect). One makes character decisions as they wish and the GM will make rulings where no rules apply, but the rules are the rules where and whenever they apply binding to both the player and the GM.

If someone doesn't like the result, they should play a game where they do and even go completely without mechanical systems if their tastes are that extreme.

I recently witnessed an  great actual play example of why I hold this opinion. It came up in my son's online campaign where RAW was overruled in the middle of a combat. Let's review it here.


System Background

The system in use (Age of Heroes) is rather detailed using a hexgrid, minis (actually the D20 virtual desktop in this case) and terrain. A combatant's position is important under the rules in a number of ways. It is a High Pace of Decision system where tactical error or advantage can quickly decide outcomes, thus what a player does and where his is when doing it is of prime importance in determining the outcome.

Terrain is important in the design and in play. It's key characteristic is that terrain is a constraint upon movement and attacking and those constraints defines its role in combat resolution.

The important RAW in this example is that firing missile weapons into melee combat is dangerous.

It's assumed that during the 6 second combat round the player's true position on the hexgrid (while defined) is in truth vague and it's easy for movement during melee to result in the wrong target being stuck. The reason or this vagueness is simple, we can't manage things in real time at the table top- so we manage it based upon a tiny 'time slice' which is further abstracted due to the fact that everything moves in initiative order. What is actually on the map is a tiny bit of the all that movement and events that happened in those six seconds. But it's used as a model for the entire turn because its all we have.

But (and this is really important) dice cover many sins, and their random nature holds all the things we don't directly account for, including exact position.

Such are the limits and joys of a table top simulation.

Lastly, RAW states that in this case any missile fire into their melee well have a 40% change of striking the wrong target. The RAW provides no exception to this.



Actual Play Result

The PCs had reached the root cause of some ritual murders plaguing the kingdom and engaged the evil villains in battle. The most powerful foe was a summoned creature of great size taking up 2 hexes on the battle map. A true danger to the PCs.

One PC was engaged with the monster by a pillar within the room. Another at some distance took aim with his bow and pointed out that his ally (the PC engaged in melee with the monster) had full cover from the pillar (which would normally prevent line of sight and thus range fire that *directly* targeted him), but that the monster had 1 hex clearly in line of sight. Thus the player desired the GM to overrule the RAW concerning firing into melee and rule that the PC could not be hit, but the monster could.

The GM agreed. The analysis struck him as reasonable at the moment and he went with it. I imagine most modern GMs would, even those that are normally RAW players.

Why He Was Horribly Wrong

• The GM ignored the abstraction contained in the game design and made the incorrect assumption that the PC's and snake's position was locked and fixed for the entire combat round.

If that was true (or rather assumed true), the rule for firing into melee would never apply in melee and should be reserved only for Close Combat (i.e. characters wresting in the same hex) as melee combatants always occupy different hexes an most often have different lines of sight . This is clearly not the case in the rules, they say specific that they apply.

Further, if one still insists on considering the locations 'fixed', case the ability of the PC to defend himself would be heavily constrained by his lack of motion vs. his huge foe. Very heavy negatives should have been applied to the character's defenses, but neither the rules (which know that location is vague) nor the GM (who decided location was fixed) called for such. Thus the overruling of RAW was clearly strictly for the PC's benefit- not that of the reality of 'fixed location'. It was at best, half considered.

• The GM altered the purpose of Terrain in the design, which should act as a hindrance to attackers (i.e. providing the monster with cover) and instead turned it into an advantage to the attacker.

 

It Had Horrible Results

In addition to causing the systems abstraction and simulation elements to fail as noted above, it had a number of negative mechanical and campaign results.

• It overpowered Missile Weapons. 

The game design provides missile fire with a number of significant advantages in RAW. Beside the obvious issue of being able to attack at range, they are also harder for most creatures to defend against and have a impressive ability to one-shot most targets on a well rolled attack. One of the offsets to these advantages was the firing into melee constraint. That constraint was removed granting even more advantage to already powerful option.

• It underpowered Large Creatures

The genre the game was designed for sees large creatures as large threats and the system as a point of genre simulation provides them with a number of advantages towards this end. This ruling however overturned that concept, making them weak against missile fire (which was already a weak point for them).

• It resulted in a easy unearned player victory

The Combination of both the above factors led to a quick and easy defeat for what should have been by the RAW a difficult and dangerous encounter with no danger to PCs.

• It Set Precedent.

The players will now expect similar rulings in the future. This will go beyond the permanent increase in missile weapon power and reduction in the danger of large creatures. They will expect similar logic in the future to apply to other areas.

Further the GM will likely (consciously or not) reduce his use of terrain in future battles to make things more even against missile users. This will make future battlefields more boring.

• Unintended Outcomes

The game design never considered this ruling and thus makes no allowance for it. As a result combat will from this point on progress with a element unknown to the system, and thus highly likely to be unbalancing in its final effect.

Conclusion

One last thing to note. Overruling RAW is almost always for player benefit as most players will scream bloody murder if the GM suddenly defeats their character in violation of the rules. Even if they don't, most GM will shy away from rulings against the players in any case, as most are not playing to 'defeat' them.

When added to game designs already biased towards player victory (most rpgs are, otherwise long ran campaigns by RAW would be impossible if every combat had a significant chance of player failure), the end result is a even easier campaign where the players have cheated themselves out both the challenge and the simulation the system offered.

So given all the above, why is overruling RAW so common?

Because the typical GM and player never stops to think about it. Until I pointed out the above, everyone in the group (which including three players from my own campaigns) thought they were being clever and that it was cool. They weren't, and it was wasn't. The real battle they bypassed on the other hand could have been.


Update: How it should have been resolved:

It was pointed out to me that I needed add this, i.e. it would be nice to know what the correct resolution would have been.


Basically the sequence of events needed to be played as written, and the problem would have been resolved without any of the issues above.

In short:

1. Use the Firing into Melee rule as written and determine the true target of the attack. This is required as the first step in any case as the GM needs to know who's defense and situational modifiers to apply- the ones that apply to the PC and the Creature are different.
2. Then resolve the attack using the normal rules and sequence.

Everything would have worked out.

• The abstraction would have remained intact.
• The PC would have been protected by cover from the attack, but his abstracted location still affected the outcome (i.e. there was still a 40% chance he got in the way) and the balance of Missile Weapons and Large creatures would not be harmed.

A person unfamiliar with abstraction might ask how he could get in the way and yet be protected by the pillar. Answering that fully is likely a good subject for an article on abstraction, but let's be simple and just go with the most common reason this would happen:

The archer was aiming for center of mass as is normal for ranged fire, and missed with the arrow going left towards the PC. If not for the Pillar, he would have been in serious danger from the stray arrow.

And as side notes:

Could the attacking PC have aimed for a specific part of the creature by RAW? Yes, but he didn't. Could he have taken some action to reduce the chance of hitting his friend by RAW? Yes, but he didn't.

Each of those options would have modified either the resolution itself, or the explanation of what really happened under the system's abstraction.

For Most, System Doesn't Matter

This should be filed under the heading 'Duh', but sometimes such things are worth highlighting for a moment or two.


Over the years one of the things I keep hearing people say in various forums and blogs is that the game system doesn't matter. Back when I first heard that, it struck me as impossible given that the rules of a game are... well very important to the course of what happens in a game. So the question was why were people claiming such a thing?

It didn't take long to figure out the answer if the people involved ever described one of their sessions in any significant detail or if you happen to be watching. They flatly just didn't use the rules. And when you're not using them, of course they don't matter.

D&D AC, to hit rolls and HP points? Useless when a GM allows a PC to pop the head off a villain with a simple STR check. Rules for vehicle armor and damage? Forgotten when a GM simply allows the PC to fire a round through a grate or a vision slot to inflict immediate destruction.

And so it goes.

All these have one thing in common however, they always and I can't recall a single exception- make things *easier* for the players. Following the rules is difficult you see, and might get in the way of the player's goals. Just making stuff up on the other hand is call 'creative' , when in fact it's just a cheap and very likely a stupid way of avoiding any negative possiblities in a rpg.

All nice and well if self-serving and more than a bit childish, after all one of the measures of becoming an adult used to be learning to follow the rules, to show sportsmanship while doing so, and to earn your victories while admitting your losses. Used to be, those days seem gone and I find it unlikely they'll ever return.

This explains why such horrible rules as D&D (any version, any company) and the 40K rpgs sell. None of the buyers ever used the rules enough to figure out that they suck.

The only question that remains is why people who are very willing to ignore the rules and decide outcomes based upon the most flimsy of player excuses- buy and 'play' games with a significant amount of rules in the first place? There is no possible answer that doesn't reflect poorly upon the people in question.

Converting Only War

As I've noted before (here), we found FFG's Only War to be an very safe and easy game. It's also a very broken one mechanically making the common design error of stacking bonuses resulting in PCs shrugging off anything short of anti-vehicle weapons .

While the marketing for the game is the complete opposite (i.e. promising death around every corner and uphill battles), the reality plays to what I've decided is majority mindset in RPG circles today, easy and quick wins for the plays with lots of loot and other goodies although most won't admit to it (as a talked about here).

So my group is something of an oddity. They get bored real quick with that sort of game.

As a result I've been working on expanding Age of Heroes to cover sci-fi settings in general and 40K specifically. It's a fair amount of work to say the least, but we reached the point where the draft Science-Fantasy Expansion and the 40K campaign supplement can manage some adventures.

Being test games, I used encounters that would have been a cake walk for beginning characters in Only War. Even so, The resulting change in style of play was as expected day and night.

These first two sessions ended up being violent and dangerous battles that saw two characters nearly killed, others knocked out of the battle, and the destruction of the team's M41 multi-laser (getting a replacement is far from a certainty). The PCs only managed to edge out a victory in the second one due some very timely and important Orc weapon malfunctions. As hoped, the course of the battle was like something out of a Hollywood war movie.

Compared to the previous cake walks, this was far more satisfying.

I don't really expect the rate of character deaths to increase over anything but the long term. Age of Heroes has very decisive and bloody combats with a high rate of PC incapacitation and injury, but still keeps PC death unlikely to support long campaigns. Unlike most modern RPGs however, character deaths are possible and indeed become likely if unless the players keep their heads about themselves.

At this point I'm very happy with the result.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Was worried that this movie would throw itself aground by making seriously overt political statements and screwing up what was best about the first Captain America movie.

In the end, it turned out better than I expected and all in all I liked the movie more than not.


The characters were well done and in general true to themselves, the action scenes were great, and I was surprised that they didn't go with the Black Widow romance instead setting up a possible future connection with Sharon.

On the political side of things, I think they managed to walk a nice tightrope that allows viewers on the Left to blame Bush/Military thinking as the 'big picture Bad Idea" while the Right can point to Obama's Kill List and expanded Drone use (the makers of the film openly claimed the latter as their inspiration for what it's worth).  If one insists on being political at all, at least that's ideal method for a big tent pole summer movie.

However on both sides of that question they backed away from making it a strong link by making the US President and other government members and SHIELD agents the first targets of the Insight Weapons.  In short, they made it so big and so disconnected from loyal US citizens that they blow their underlying 'message'. So yes, better than expected although I think less than what the makers thought they were doing.

Other than that it's just a general and obvious warning that one can go too far on the Security-Freedom scale. In that line some of it (the scenes between Cap and Fury for the most part) come off a lame half-arguments that doesn't let anyone really address the issues. More walking the tight rope while pretending otherwise.

Still for my part, I could have done without any of it as none of it added to my enjoyment of the movie. On the bright side it was a passing moment easily ignored.

But there was a much more major part of the plot I didn't like...

Modern comics love giving readers neat characters and awesome toys, and then destroying them. And now the movies have followed in that path first with the Iron Man armors and in this movie with SHIELD. I like SHIELD, it's cool and fun- more so than the CIA (where Sharon ended up) or the FBI (who I assume are the guys arresting the Hydra senator). Now it's gone (at least for while, there's still a TV show named after it assuming it doesn't get canceled).

I also didn't care for the fact that they basically tossed all the heroes of the past under the failure bus (Peggy Carter and Howard Stark where the founders of SHIELD, and thus the ones who allowed it be corrupted from the beginning). There should be room for "Heroes of another Story" without them being torn down revealed to be fools or road kill. In fact this applies to the whole background of the movie, in which every evil and threat of the post-war period is due to the manipulation of a single comic book villain group instead of the evil that mankind does as a matter of course.

As to the grittier and darker take this movie represents, I do think there's room for stale beer in a comic book movie, as long as its contained. But in this case it was too far reaching, and cast the entire world in terms of failure. This was the Dark Age of comics with a Golden/Silver Age character guest starring.

And perhaps that's why I ended up liking the movie more than not, because I've come to view the world as entering its own Dark Age and would like an icon of what was great about the past to still exist. Still, wouldn't it be nice to have more than one of those?

Deadly Games- Now without Death

One of the common conflicts one sees in online RPG forums is that between posters who say that the PCs risk death in their games, and those who want to play their characters without worrying about losing them to random and often meaningless events. The former call the latter wimps and pound their chests about how hardcore they are.

Previously I personally didn't care much about either side, not because I didn't have a opinion- but because I play both ways depending upon the campaign's genre. I took them at their word and passed them by.

However I've noticed something about "Our Campaign is so Deadly" types that arose out of our Only War experience a bit back. On of the players in the online campaign made the statement "this game is so deadly...", but no one had died. How could he say that? Then a thread over on therpgsite referenced my posts about those campaigns and the same subject came up there and so I put the question to the 'deadly game' proponents there.

And guess what? None of these players of these so called 'deadly games' actually could give an example of a significant PC being killed.

The key word there is *significant*, as I did get examples of characters that hadn't been played long dying, 1st level guys in a D&D dungeon crawl, newly created 5th level D&D characters intended to introduce new players to the game, or a PC in a CoC that wasn't meant to last more than a few sessions anyway. Those were the examples I got. But of characters dying after years of play with real history behind them? None except for those I provided myself.

In short, these 'deadly' campaigns would kill the hamsters (i.e. short lived PCs that don't really have much player investment) but long lived ones were in practical terms as safe as the wimpiest 'PCs don't die unless they want to' campaign.

And to add an even weirder outcome, most of the people who started the thread making the claims of deadly campaigns- ran from the thread and repeated their clearly untrue claims in other threads. They were completely unwilling to face the fact that their threats of 'deadly campaign' had been proven empty by their own history. I must wonder if they are lying to themselves as much as they are lying to others.

So in the future dear reader, if you see one of those types- asked when was last time he had one of his long played PCs die. Or anyone else in the campaign. Odds are good that you're get a blank look, or find out that they don't do long-run campaigns at all.

New Blood, and Onward to the Next Campaign

Finished up our Only War campaign, and it's rather nice to be done with it. It was fun to stomp everything that comes along, but the joy of doing that quickly passes when its too easy. My son's online Only War campaign continues, there the Guard (having gotten a hold of the better weapons like auto-cannons and Meltas) can handily curb-stomp Chaos Space Marines due to how forgiving the game system is.

We have a new player which is always fun. The whole concept behind RPGs greatly intrigued her when she heard about it, so much so that she attempted to drive into whatever game she could last week including going to one of the local D&D gatherings (multiple groups in a local hobby store) because all those books for it looked... well wonderful.  She came away saying that if that had been her first experience, it would have been her last.

Afterwards I attempted to explain the state of game design and the hobby to her. Basically it comes down to the fact that today's players want to win, and win easily. If they can get loot while doing so- all the better. Both their games and their role-playing are centered on those goals, and that's the end of their needs and desires. Thus you have games like D&D and Only War. This makes up nearly the entire market now and I've given up any hope that it will change.


We've started our next campaign, which has the traditional (for us) title of X-babies, attempts to give it a real name always fail for some reason.

It's superheroes using 5th Edition Hero System, centering on a new class of Mutants at the re-imagined school for Gifted Youngsters (i.e. re-imagined because it's really quite different from the comics or movies- which we all loathe this days) . Intended to be a fun and care free campaign it's a great introduction to role-playing with a tactical focus during combat, with a huge amount of fun and silly role-playing (in and out of battles). This is a setting we often use for new players for just those reasons.

Our next game is tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it.

Only War is amazingly safe

For the last few months we've been playing in my Son's Only War campaign, and he in turn has been playing in an online Only War campaign (that's been going on for a bit longer). The setting was marketed as deadly and dangerous, and the fluff in the rulebook repeated that claim. So I was expecting at least a few dead PCs and mountains of Comrade corpses littering the battlefields.

In actual play however it's been one of the safest and easiest games we've ever played. In both ours and the online game there's not been one PC death, and only one Comrade has died (when I was guest GMing in our campaign).

There are a number of reasons for this, both mechanical and psychological.

From the mechanical PoV:

• The system has what is basically a D&D Style Hit Points (called wounds, typically 12 points or more). Until these are gone, your character if fully effective and 'safe'. This combined with the damage reduction provided by Toughness and Armor results in a very significant Buffer against common weapons. A well built and moderately equipment character can soak *a lot* of hits or even become all but immune to less than Heavy Weapons fire.

• The Logistics System allows characters to quickly attain high end armor and weapons further increasing their ability to suck up incoming damage while increasing their outgoing damage to levels opposing NPCs can't handle.

• The mechanics for teamwork and leadership are well done (i.e. they are suited to the genre and effective), however they amplify the above effects significantly. In any battle the PCs will defeat equally (and even better) skilled and equipped opponents due to the effect of these rules.

• If you do get into trouble, Fate Points will generally get you out of it.

Now naturally the GM is capable of throwing powerful enough foes at the characters to overwhelm them. However it's impressive just how much is required, We've seen players deal with dozens of foes outnumbering them 3 to one. How about heavily armored, conversion field protected, plasma gun armed robots of death with 60+ stats? Walked over. Three Killer Cans? Blasted into bits. Bloodletter? Tank? Shot to pieces. And this with characters who have just now reach 5K+ experience (something easily done after but 10 game sessions with these rules) and for most of the above had far less. I think the online game saw five players or so defeat a Chaos Marine and another time a Greater Demon (which just shouldn't be possible according to the setting).


This leads to the Psychological influences I mentioned. The amount of force needed to provide a serious threat is just too much for a GM to feel justified in using. For one thing, such opponents should be rare. And for another it just plain seems wrong to have your Guardsmen whacking hordes of foes more suited setting wise as Space Marine opponents.

In the end we're likely going to need to break through those Psychological influences and ramp up the opponents to levels that don't match the setting we thought the game was built for- just to feel that we're at risk.

Corporia

I was a bit surprised to get a press release for Corporia, a new kickstarter offering. I don't think I'm known as a fan of modern game design, but then again I do like urban fantasy style cyberpunk and this certainly fits.

So I looked it over,and it sparks some thought.

I *might* like the core setting concept. Most Urban Fantasy is a kitchen sink approach where anything and everything goes, but this one's focus on the "Once and Future King" elements of Camelot promises something less aimless than that. More over, there's a "fight the cyberpunk culture" vibe that is all but missing in that genre and I think it would be a welcomed addition (and mirrors my own re-imagined Shadowrun campagin).

Why did I include that "might" above? Well the most familiar version of Camelot is one strongly influenced by Christianity be it the Grail Quest itself or the whole "One God coming to replace the old gods" theme. But there are older far more pagan versions. And for me much depends upon which take if any the author took in for his setting.

I would have a interest in a strong Christian version, especially given the fact that Christianity is dying in the modern world. There's an appeal to the concept of its champions returning in a near future dystopia brought about by its absence.

But I doubt this is the case. Nothing seems to point in that direction and modern sensibilities being what they are I'd bet on a completely secular Camelot, or a pagan one.


On the system side of things...

Well, it looks like a typical example of a modern non-D&D based game, i.e. a low resolution trait + skill stat vs. target number thing. Very simple and uninteresting mechanics that aren't much of a game in and of themselves (and thus why should I waste any time using them?). A quick glance indicates that it also has a strong stat bias, something I've never liked in game design. A lot might have been missing in the preview certainly, but what was included wasn't impressive.

The lack of a Death Spiral is a good thing however. So there are much worse options out there.


Meanwhile the layout looks to be par with some of the better games out these days, but the photo art didn't go over well for me. Real people are just too real for fantasy, urban or otherwise. It might appeal to cosplayers, and of course such taste is personal.

One exception to that was the shower scene with the caption "Corporia what will the flux do to you" that appears in a small frame in the preview. Likely because it's a very light focus shot. Really nice that one.

In short, if you're one for light systems and urban fantasy check it out. This might suit and provide a alternative "light in the darkness" campaign in a gaming industry that mostly sees in shades of black these days.

The new Captain America trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLWsK1ZFunA

Some comments that may be off because things might not be in context, it is a trailer after all. That never stopped me. Currently, I'm not hopeful about this film.

 


- The exchange between Fury and Cap sounds a lot like the typical Hollywood attack on preemption, the War on Terror, and heck- even having a significant military with Cap taking the role of the liberal leftist. If it really pans out that way, it will wreck the franchise. Leftists don't go to a Captain America movie, so making it for them is a  very bad idea (unless like the comics you think marketing to less than 10,000 fans is a good idea).

- Checking out IMDB, too many characters. What is it about superhero movies that cause them to stuff too many villains into the same film? Winter Soldier, OK that is the name of the move and while I personally thought it a lame story I can see... Crossbones too? Why? And Batroc? Now we're just being... Machete? Good frickin grief, who in the heck even remembers him?

The same on the hero side to be honest. Sharon Carter and Nick Fury with some flashbacks to Peggy Carter and Howard Stark is to be expected. But do we really need the Falcon in this movie too? Maria Hill? Black Widow (talk about overlap with Sharon Carter). Hawkeye didn't make the cut, color me surprised.

Too much, most these characters will get shafted and made insignificant. There's enough here for two or three movies, maybe they should have waited for those movies. Doing it right each time might make the chances of more movies in the future a better bet.

We're due for the Marvel Avengers franchise to go south. They started with movies in the spirit of the originals, and their success has made them bold enough to further modernize the characters and the stories. That will end them. Sad, I was hoping things would last a bit longer before we started getting the likes of Spider-Man 3.

How Senseless Things Continue

Richard Bartle made an very interesting post* on his blog concerning the Trinity in MMORPG design, how it doesn't make any sense in any true context, including that of desired game design- but rather came about as an artifact of limits- first of the game, and then the players.

The table-top world suffers greatly from the same type of evolution (or rather it's lack). D&D style Hit Points were a quick fix for the problem of players not wanting their characters to die- and we've (both table-top and then MMORPGs) have stuck with a nonsensical game mechanic ever since to the point where people will tie themselves into logical knots trying to justify them.

I long for the day when people will be willing to wipe the slate clean and reboot the hobby. That it hasn't happen isn't due to a lack of people offering other options- it's from the inertia of an hobby whose mainstream is completely uninterested in trying different approaches.

For the more open minded, we likely lost our best chance at it when WotC released the OGL ensuring that the core market will always be D&D. Now instead of waiting for D&D to die (something it's almost done at least twice now) leaving an opening for something new- we have to wait for the entire hobby to die.

In the meantime, we'll have to be happy with our own personal groups and homegrown rules- for they couldn't care less about the wider hobby because they don't need them. In that way, we have a huge advantage over the MMORPG world whose player base is still strongly tie to what companies are willing to produce.



*hat-tip to Vedron  over on Vedron's Potion for calling this to my attention.

Only War- House Rules

My son is running a Only War campaign for us for a while, doing a good job at it too. It's sort of interesting in some ways to see how things change from one generation to the next, what we share and want we don't.

He's not as concerned as I about having perfect rules and he's willing to accept 'The Rule of Cool' to some extent, but he also doesn't buy into the rather sloppy approach to them that characterizes modern gaming either.

The result is a small set of House Rules for Only War that I've put up on my website here. They are still a work in progress, and some vehicles will likely be uploaded tonight.

May as well make them public for others to consider or ignore as they wish.

Design Zombies - Part II

We're continuing the series about game mechanics that failed when they were first developed, failed in every game they were used in thereafter, and fail in games designed today. But they are still used for mysterious reasons beyond the understanding of mortal man.

Today we take a quick look at the Game Breaking Stat. I'm going to focus on one type related to damage, but the concept applies beyond that single area.

Let's use FFG's Only War as our standard bearer. Want to create a character for this dark vision of future war where life is cheap and death is close? What's that you say? You want to be an nearly invincible titan on the battlefield?

Grab a character sheet, use point allocation and throw as many points as you can into Toughness. You'll hit 40 points easy and maybe even more depending upon home world and other factors. Now select the Stormtrooper as your archetype and get five points of armor free. Build the right type of regiment with the right aptitudes and using your starting experience add another 10 points to Toughness.

Out of the gate, nothing special and you're already immune to anything less than max damage from many common weapons. Make attaining Best Quality armor (much easier than it sounds with the system) and gain a another point of Armor. Work towards the Armor Monger Talent for yet another point of armor. Should only take a handful of adventures.

Gratz! You are now immune to nearly all the common weapons your foes should be using. Las Rifle fire will roll off you like rain water. I've watched characters wade through the mass fire of 20 NPCs in the open just to pick up a piece of dropped gear- because he could.

Of course the GM may respond with giving every opposing grunt Heavy Weapons, Sniper weapons or the like. Sucks to be you I guess, but it sucks for the setting and campaign more and it has to suffer the intense violence of mainstream weapons being worthless.

As a side note, the Toughness stat is far more effective than armor, because armor is subject to penetration by the more potent (and less common) weapons. Toughness isn't.

This one error in the overwhelming effect of a Stat dates all the way back to 1st edition Warhammer way back in 1986 where the invincible dwarf (due to toughness and armor) became a legend in gaming circles.

It also dates back to the original Star Wars RPG in 1987 where a common Wookie could make himself all but immune to the typical Imperial Blasters.Yep, you could get through armored doors with those things ('lock the door and hope they don't have blasters'), but couldn't take down a wookie with one. Oh well.

How and why this is still happening is beyond me. Give any gamer who understands mechanics five minutes with the rulebook and he'll find this hole immediately. But it seems that a game designer will never see the problem, even if it's been around for decades.

Design Zombies - Part I

No, not that type of zombie. Here I'm referencing game mechanics that failed when they were first developed, failed in every game they were used in thereafter, and fail in games designed today. But they are still used. It would be baffling if one didn't expect people to be stupid, but sadly they are and so I imagine we'll never outgrow bad game design.

So in this post (the first of a series) I want to take a quick look at Design Zombies.

First up, spending your XP in exchange for altering or changing in-game events. One simple example is classic Deadlands where you spend your hard earned chips for re-rolls or instant healing.

It’s a meta-game decision that pulls you out of character, and doesn’t in any way relate to anything ‘real’ to the character. Think about it, does James Bond put off raising his driving skill in order to keep Goldfinger from killing him? I never saw him consider that exchange in the movie or book. Perhaps I missed it.

I think this mechanic results from a game design that fails to represent the genre by providing too many non-genre results. To correct this the designer puts in a player controlled ‘override’ ability but doesn't want to give away 'freebies'. Thus he charges him the one currency the player always values (XP) to make sure it's not 'over-used'.

Alternatively, the designer loves to have his players make meta-game decisions (mistaking such things as a type of resource management), puts the mechanic in and then designs his game to *fail* at providing genre appropriate results so that the players must purchase them with XP.

Both reasons are terrible. The whole concept should be avoided like the plague it is and the designer should just design a good game that provides good results upfront.

But that would be hard I suppose. And why do hard when people will still buy easy?

Downtime

For any that happen across this site, it's worth noting that real life has asserted itself. At this time I don't foresee any more posts being made here. The future however is hard to see, so no long term promises. Now and then a miracle does come along. I've shutdown the Age of Heroes offering at Lulu, the errata for that will continue to exist here.

This is all for the best as I've come to realize that the style of design I embrace and its goals have all be disappeared from the hobby. This in fact may be its last grave marker as it goes on to join other elements of a dying culture. Such is history, good things last but a short time.

For any friends I've met along the way, thanks. It was worthwhile.

Genre Simulation RPGs

It's clear to me that in any practical sense I play and design RPGs rather differently than... well just about everybody. This is due to how I approach the subject and isn't that hard to define, but its still worth a post making it a bit detailing it a bit.

The concept arises out of three core beliefs.


- I think realism is a definable and achievable goal in game design. That puts me at odds with most people in the modern gaming scene who feel completely differently- often for the simple reason that they'd feel that admitting such a thing would lessen the games they play themselves (because they almost without exception have serious flaws with respect to realism).

- I think simulation of genre is desirable and also achievable by a mix of game mechanics and what could be called meta-mechanics (more commonly called play style). This puts me at odds with everyone who identifies as Simulationist be it Threefold, GNS, or the more individual definitions I've encountered online.

- I believe this combination allows one to create (or recreate) their own fantasy or sci-fi epics, basically on par with modern film and literature themes, plots, and events (perhaps more a sad comment of the state of modern film and literature than a comment about how great the gaming style is)- and thus serves many of the more common 'story' goals people have expressed in the past.

In total it is in short a middle of the road style that uses sophisticated and rather complex rules to reach a perfect mix of realism, genre and story without stressing one to the point that the others break. This style was born in the 70s and remained common in the 80s although most attempts at game design for it was a failure (mostly of scaling).

It has however nearly completely faded from the scene over the last couple of decades for reasons that are IMO mostly cultural and irreversible. But I still design and play according to it, and have settled on the label 'Genre Simulation RPG' to describe it.