An Example of Lost Morality

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.

An outcome in the Swine Wars?

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.

Is the future Lite?

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.

The Ego of Gamers

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.

Deconstructionism Equals The Boring Approach

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.

Stop treating girls like they're weak

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.

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.

Passing Comment- Death: Style vs. System

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.

Thoughts on OSR and Agile game design

I love browsing blogs, although I bet some bloggers wish I didn't. Found this article today on Troll and Flame and I must comment.

The basic idea is an old one, debated back and forth I'm sure since the first days of the hobby. I saw it in endless detail first back on rec.games.frp.advocacy in the 90s, and in my own groups since the release of original D&D.

r.g.f.a called it design in play vs design at start. But who really cares at this point.

My point is that for many players, Mr. Harman is completely right. And for at least as many, he's completely wrong.

His OSR 'Agile' method would never have produced JRRT's Lord of the Rings. That was immense detail of setting before the first words of the Ring novels were ever set to page. Instead it would produce something less than the latest Dragonlance novel which at least has some consistent background to be had. An even better comparison would be between LotR and Improv night.

Yes, one may not use 95% of the developed background- but the 5% you do is consistent, and ties in with a much greater whole. The result is immense depth, and bodies of work like Middle Earth can project that depth upon the reader. The same is true of rpg campaigns.

Further such vast amount of detail impacts how the GM runs their campaign. It makes them consistent with the world and the in-game characters, and not the moment to moment desires of themselves or their players which is a hallmark IME of 'agile' campaigns.

More pointedly, I disagree with using software design concepts (a field that I'm well versed in myself) in campaign or game design. Software is very direct, highly specific and highly literal. Those factors keep reusability low.

World backgrounds, history, and people in contrast are not. They are diffused, generalized, and often subject to individual viewpoint.

It would thus be no surprise that tools for software would produce shallow results when applied as a control method for something as wide ranging as fantasy world simulation.

Not everyone is capable of the work involved in creating a complete fantasy world, and not eveyone can is capable of handling a detailed ruleset in play. Others must change their character and world at whim in order to enjoy themselves.

That's fine, but I wish they'd realize that their limits or methods don't apply to everyone.

Oh, one more thing. I'm getting real tired of the OSR label. Their 'Old School' has nothing to do with the 1970 gaming scene as I live it. Or any scene other than the Internet for that matter.

Can you really claim to be The Resource for D&D...

...when you've never seen a PC killed in a game before?

That was the first question that came to mind when I ran across this post at the poorly subtitled "The D&D Resource Blog for DMs & Players". A more fitting subtitle would be 'a wrong-headed newbie's best guess at how things should be done'.

Maybe to be fair, I should note that they have more than one writer on that blog. The others might be better.

Other than that, the article is about one of the first conflicts new DMs encounter when first taking up the hobby. Is one manly and thus goes with the truth of the game world? Or is one a wimp that alters that reality at whim to overturn the errors of their players?

Ameron is a wimp, willing to trade anything for 'fun'. A rather good definition of hedonism if one thinks about it, and a very short-sighted approach to just about anything.

I would have done the same as the DM who was running the game with but a couple of exceptions.

First, I wouldn't have told them a thing about the number or nature of the encounters ahead. That's knowledge they should have.

And second, the player who lost his character could run (within limits) some of the NPCs they encounter later in the game. Like some of the people they were trying to save. Sure, those may not be exciting as his former PC...

...but they're alive. And the player did get his character killed afterall.

And finally, by enforcing the reality of the game world- it remains alive too.

People should title their posts better...

Browsing RPG bloggers can be interesting sometimes. More often it just causes one to roll their eyes.

Like this post on Justin Achilli's blog. One would think that something titled "Realism Stinks, or What's It's all About" would have something to say about realism.

But it doesn't, or rather only says it stinks in passing. The article is really just What's It's All About, and in that respect it just trots out the rather old adage that a writer doesn't put a gun in scene 1 that isn't used someplace later.

Even here the article goes off the rails.

Why? Well, that may work for books and movies, with their very limited focus. RPGs however tend to more open in what they allow. In that line, vampires interacting with the modern world may well learn how to take advantage of the toys of the modern world. And that may include hacking computers and tricking the Army into launching an Apache Gunship attack on a rival clan.

Justin's failure here is very typical of online Theory writers- too much theory, not enough experience with how people actually play rpgs. Instead of wide open vistas, they offer limited little windows that one must squeeze through.

Oh, and they whine about realism in passing without saying anything.

In favor of Luddism

Well, not really since Luddism is a concept that I'm not really invoking- but I'll be called a Luddite for what I'm about to say anyway.

I hate pod casts, streaming video, and the like exploding upon rpg/greek scene. Yes, I'm looking at you RPG Circus and other similar things. This despite that fact that I find Zachary's blog interesting and fun.

Blogs are easy to quote, the writen word easy to scan. I can read much faster than someone can talk. They can be quickly referenced, and pages searched for a tidbit in but seconds.

In contrast, Pod Casts are slow and I feel like I'm wasting more time than what they are worth. The makers of them have moved too much of their thoughts to this unsearchable and thus in the end forgettable format.

Pod casts are fine for those people (like talk radio or TV personalities) who's primary method of communication is vocal. I wouldn't expect them to step outside their skill set and actually *write*.

But gaming geeks should stick to the written word. These are PnP games- keep to the format.

The Tyranny of Hit Points

I've always considered that D&D style Hit Points to be one of the most of the depressing things in the RPG world.

Gygax himself was open about why they were there. He stated that they served the purpose of making the game predictable such that the players would know if they could win, and slowed things down so that if they weren't- they could retreat. In one article from the old days of the Dragon (I believe it was), he even stated that Saving Throws were originally incorrectly done with their 'Save or Die' nature- that they should be altered to fixed damage amounts to uphold this single goal.

Hit Points serve this goal well, and that usage is why they are found in the most popular RPGs table top or computer. Because the lowest common element in players is that they like to win, and HP systems are easy to win in. Find the right pattern, use it, repeat and victory is yours with small margin of error.

And this in turn makes things easy for the GMs the world over. Adventures are easy to make and manage. MMORPGs easy to design and balance.

But they are so terrible for any other use. And perhaps worse is the hoops that people leap to to justify them in other terms.

To use one example, I'll often see people claim that they represent your classic lengthy sword fight (think of The Dread Pirate Roberts against Inigo Montoya). Well, yes- you have a long fight with a winner and a loser (any system could do that by starting the battle and going out to dinner before resolving it). But I didn't read or see them hacking chunks out of each other- which is what 'roll to hit, roll to damage' indicates. I saw them striking and parrying/dodging blows until someone was disarmed.

And what about those fights where someone dies before the first D&D round can even finish? These are even more common in the source material, and not just for minion level foes which didn't even exist in D&D until recently.

"But", claim the HP people, "D&D includes that- it's just all abstract."

Sure, if one is good with an abstraction system that does Y and then afterwards claims that it did X. Do people get on an America Airlines Flight to go to New York and call it acceptable when they end up in LA? Order a steak and then are good when given a hamburger for their $25?

One possible suggestion is to just rename Hit Points and call them what they are- either Fatigue or perhap Battle Advantage. Stop rolling to damage, and instead roll to Press the attack. Add an 'actual damage' table to anyone taken below 1 HP to represent the final outcome of the battle. Then at least things are clear, and the only remaining objection is that so much of the source material (i.e. any quick kill) either can't be done or must overturn the core combat system (such as extreme critical hit systems).

Such a mess.

There are other options, and I've used them for decades. Age of Heroes uses a strike/defense system combined with a damage system that typically will drop a foe in a single blow. One's ability to hit and defend (and length of combat) is thus very dependent upon the relative skill of the combatants.

And what is interesting about this is that over the decades nearly any player I've encountered likes that better than D&D style Hit Points. New Players, old players, D&D haters and D&D (originally) fans. The couple of exceptions almost prove the rule.

Most recently we did two tests with different players comparing Star Wars SAGA with a Star Wars modified version of Age of Heroes. One group was basically new to rpgs and tested blind, the other was my own experienced gaming group.

No one in either group liked the SAGA approach (done first in the blind test, second in the experienced group). Or rather, the blind novice group liked it until they tried the other option. After that they completely rejected the SAGA approach as boring, in their view AoH seemed much more exciting and modelled the movies so much better.

But my experience seems to be the exception.

While other games have attempted a different approach, they either failed or at best are 'also rans'. Some (like HERO System) can be played in different manners, are instead typically used in the D&D style. Others use the D&D style, but attempt to hide it (Dark Heresy).

It may be due to D&D's ownership of the market. It may be due to players who want simple HP systems because the other options are too uncontrolled for them. Or it may be due to the system design failures of the early non-HP game systems (like Rune Quest) giving other non-HP designs a bad name. Or it may be that non-HP systems require too much of their GMs.

Whatever the cause...

...it's just depressing.

When is geeky too much geeky?

RPG Gamers are by nature a geeky bunch. Well except for those story first lite mechanics guys who are IMO anti-geek replacing cool tactical game mechanics and consistent game settings with ego building excercises, but I digress.

I certainly have earned the title of geek, after all you're find me calculating the recoil impulse for a H&K 416 chambered in the .50 Beowulf in order to use that number to determine a game stat. It's hard to get more geeky than that.

This is more geeky than that.

Now it wouldn't be more geeky if it was being done in reference to an on-going rpg campaign. There it speaks to how the campaign should progress and in what direction. Thus it would just be normal geek-dom, at least for our hobby. But when applied to a movie that was never intended (and never will) make sense beyond being a space opera fantasy, you've gone beyond geeky to just plain rabid fan super geek-dom.

And that is just embarrassing for everybody.

More Good and Evil Confusion

And people wonder why I have such a low opinion of many online bloggers/message forum members.

Here's one reason.

Alex seems to want to ditch worrying about the concept of Good and Evil completely, and just get on with the game.

Ok, Alex. Whatever floats your boat.

Except...

You go on to list Hecate as a Goddess of Evil Magic. In your own list. Which you than claim is muddled and meaningless. Maybe she shouldn't be on the list then?

And to say "I’m keeping the definition of good and evil muddied on purpose. All the powerful people in my worlds have strong Machiavellian tendencies. It’s all about power, and keeping it."

Italics mine.

Hey Alex, here's a clue. The pursuit of power for power's sake is one of the definitions of Evil. You've just in effect said that rather than worrying about Good and Evil, you've just decided to make everyone Evil.

That is a solution I guess, but it wasn't the one you were claiming.

In fact I'll go one step further, anyone saying they are ignoring questions of Good and Evil is lying (perhaps even to themselves). They've sided with Evil with such a statement out of the gate.

Villains should be Villainous

We live in morally confused times, so I really shouldn't be surprised that it's very common to see people expressing the morally confused idea that killing Orcs is murder.

I commented on one such occurrence recently here, where Zzarchov from Unofficial Games goes on a crusade declaring that killing villains is murder. One doesn't have to try in order to find more examples, even Jeff Rients gets into the act with a new blog entry tossing out "orc-murdering" while defining all characters as bastards.

Jeff's entry is likely something of a parody, but it serves to illustrate just how common this mindset is. It seems one born out of modern Moral Relativism (which states that no one is evil, just different) and Kindergarten rules ("Don't hit, that's always wrong").

Thus orcs aren't evil, they're different but equal to you. And killing (i.e. hitting) is always wrong. The perfect combination of abrogating one's moral responsiblity while replacing it with a mindset suited to a five year old.

Taking this viewpoint to rpgs is silly in the extreme of course. For one thing, the recommended age for rpgs is higher than five.

For another, it's typically done by the exact same people who claim that rpgs don't reflect (or affect) their real views or real life (thus they can steal from other players, rape various characters for fun and otherwise run evil characters etc), but for some reason still want to define rational and moral acts in rpgs as 'murder' and attempt to act against them either in 'moral' rants or game mechanic driven punishment. Interesting mix of thoughts there isn't it?

The following shouldn't be neccessary for anyone who has a basic grounding in morality, but here goes:

1. Villians by definition are evil. They are not just a simple law abiding folk blocking the desires of your characters. They are someone who is presenting a clear and present (or near future) danger to life, limb & property of innocent people.

2. In the fiction upon which most rpgs are founded, the heroes have the moral requirement (and often legal right) to deal with the villain.

Quick Examples:

Magnificent Seven- Normal law is completely missing and the bandits are in control, so the heroes intervene in effect as 'law for hire'.

Robin Hood- in most versions is a landed noble and supporter of the rightful King acting against injustice.

Star Wars- Luke and the entire rebellion are acting against tyrannical rule.

Known and accepted heroes, likely cheered on even by those writing articles like those linked above. And yet by their reasoning Chris, Robin and Luke are all murderers for killing bandits, Gisbourne , and stormtroopers.

Yeah, right.

People can play Teletubbies the RPG if the like, but stop calling my characters murderers when they're defending innocent people from death and worse. It ticks me off, and makes you look like the amoral five year old you are.

Reviewing the Week of 4-10-09

It's Friday and time for my look around web. It's been an eventfully week, with more to comment on than normal. So I've picked two items from the blogs instead of one, I'll likely get in trouble with everyone with these.


First up was a great deal of ranting from the blogs about WotC pulling the plug on selling PDFs of their old work. This hit the 'old school' crowd rather hard, but from where I sit I can at best summon the effort to shrug.

They own the product, and can sell it or not as they like. Given that I don't like their products, the impact on me is effectively none. Those that do like them are understandably upset. But WotC is under no obligation to provide material that supports old games and thus undermines sales of their current publications. People claim that isn't the result, but the only people truly able to make this claim are those ranters buying and playing 4th edition. A passingly small number, and even those aren't singing the praises of 4th and thus marketing it on their old school websites.

Given that simple fact, those PDFs were in effect a net lost to a company who needs every dollar to go towards supporting its core business. Thus WotC's action is completely understandable.

I'm amazed that it took this long.

It also shouldn't impact anyone that much. There are now old school copy cat publishers out there, and people can make and add as much as they wish to out of print games, or even take the concepts and make their own.

Yeah, it's a bummer that something you like is gone. Now move on with your hobby- in whatever direction you like. If needed, leave WotC behind.


Second up is a two part series of posts over on Unclebear by a G. Kinslayer.

So the idea given there is to lie to your players, misled them, and in general cause them to waste their gaming time or worse.

How depressing.

That the author is a creater of a "dark fantasy" rpg is no surprise. And I guess that those drawn to 'dark fantasy' in the first place will likely enjoy such things.

But gaming isn't about that for me. In fact gaming is much closer to the ideas I found in this unrelated post on movies. Movies aren't rpgs, there are great differences. But the ideas I found in that article mirror those that I run my own RPGs with to a degree.

And those ideas don't have room for "screwing with the players".