You know, things like this shouldn't even merit a minute of my attention. In one way or the other, it's common in our ultra-rich culture where people can obsess on whatever subject they happen to fancy at the time. I couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting an example.
Even so, I can't help but see things like this and think that an asteroid wiping out mankind might be a kindness. Who takes a movie this seriously?
"When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed ... gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning," Hill wrote on the forum. "It just seems so ... meaningless. I still don't really see any reason to keep ... doing things at all. I live in a dying world."
It's enough to make me agree that it's a dying world, well maybe if I wasn't actually alive. After that passing thought I want to slam the guy upside the head with a two-by-four. He so freakin' deserves it. Oh, by the way, the quote above is from Ivar Hill- he's studying game design.
Really, game design. And I thought the Forge guys were screwed up.
We've seen this same sort of thing in gaming before, even more directly. Especially online gaming where people have actually killed themselves and endangered others by refusing to get up from the computer.
And I think many of us have seen table-top gamers just take things too far.
In fact we can visit just about any online forum and find examples without looking. I've seen the author of Little Fears claim his game helps victims of child abuse by playing it out again in a different setting. I've seen others claim you can gain important insights into rape, sexuality (of a type not your own) or racism by playing rpgs. The author of Poison'd spoke about how games can remake our culture and allow it accept... neck raping of corpses I suppose.
Movies are movies, games are games. They certainly reflect their makers, their viewers, and their players. But they don't control us unless we're so weak we allow it.
And many of us it seems are very weak indeed.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Answer to 5E HERO Quiz
Ok, it appears that no one is going to catch the problem with 5th Edition Dive for Cover that posed in the last article. Not unexpected, really. I don't think I have many readers who are really into that system.
As a said in the previous article's comments, Dive for Cover is a straight up Dex Roll (with a -1 per hex of distance you're 'diving'). It was originally only intended for use vs. Area Effect attacks.It was sort of neat as it provided a active defense against AoE attacks that would under normal conditions ignore target DCV and couldn't be blocked. It was also very genre in many cases (such the shout of 'grenade!' in any military setting).
I stated that 5th Edition screwed up this ability when it allowed it to be used against normal directed ranged and melee attacks.
Why?
Let's answer that by means of an example.
In 5th edition, let's check out a normal beat cop (DEX 11, +1 Skill Pistols) shooting at a Hydra thug (also DEX 11, no skills applied to DCV) from a range of 3". The chance to hit is 11+4+1-4 or a 12-.
The Hydra thug decides to dive for cover, and only needs a hex. It's an 11- with -1, or a 10-. He has a 50% chance to avoid the normal beat cop.
Now let's see the ulimate expression of human combat ability (Captain America for Marvel based settings) as he attempts to whack the same thug with a toss of his shield also at a range of 3".
He has a DEX of 25 with 6 combat levels, for an OCV of 8 + 6 or 14. 11 + 14 -4 gives him a 21- or less on 3d6 so he can't miss.
Which is fine, that's basically the way it goes in the comics.
However... The Hydra thug decides to dive for cover, and only needs a hex. It's an 11- with -1, or a 10-. He has a 50% chance to avoid the attack of Captain America.
Really.
The reason is because the Dive for Cover defense is completely unmodified by the abilities of the attacker.
The game result is marked:
1. Genre is broken as comman thugs are avoiding attacks from the greatest superheroes in the campaign as if they are normal people.
2. Actual combat is lengthened as the GM is now able to increase the 'life span' of all his agents in battles- just drive for cover for any that are attacked. Half the time it means the superhero must use at least one follow up attack on the same target- and that allows any remaining agents an additional (in effect) free shot.
Horrible game design. And worse, an unneeded change. The system already had Dodge to help in defense of this type. Long pulled a number of things like this in 5th, and I fully expect 6th to full of them.
To be honest, I feel the only thing Long does in HERO is build things- judging from his rules, he doesn't seem to play.
As a said in the previous article's comments, Dive for Cover is a straight up Dex Roll (with a -1 per hex of distance you're 'diving'). It was originally only intended for use vs. Area Effect attacks.It was sort of neat as it provided a active defense against AoE attacks that would under normal conditions ignore target DCV and couldn't be blocked. It was also very genre in many cases (such the shout of 'grenade!' in any military setting).
I stated that 5th Edition screwed up this ability when it allowed it to be used against normal directed ranged and melee attacks.
Why?
Let's answer that by means of an example.
In 5th edition, let's check out a normal beat cop (DEX 11, +1 Skill Pistols) shooting at a Hydra thug (also DEX 11, no skills applied to DCV) from a range of 3". The chance to hit is 11+4+1-4 or a 12-.
The Hydra thug decides to dive for cover, and only needs a hex. It's an 11- with -1, or a 10-. He has a 50% chance to avoid the normal beat cop.
Now let's see the ulimate expression of human combat ability (Captain America for Marvel based settings) as he attempts to whack the same thug with a toss of his shield also at a range of 3".
He has a DEX of 25 with 6 combat levels, for an OCV of 8 + 6 or 14. 11 + 14 -4 gives him a 21- or less on 3d6 so he can't miss.
Which is fine, that's basically the way it goes in the comics.
However... The Hydra thug decides to dive for cover, and only needs a hex. It's an 11- with -1, or a 10-. He has a 50% chance to avoid the attack of Captain America.
Really.
The reason is because the Dive for Cover defense is completely unmodified by the abilities of the attacker.
The game result is marked:
1. Genre is broken as comman thugs are avoiding attacks from the greatest superheroes in the campaign as if they are normal people.
2. Actual combat is lengthened as the GM is now able to increase the 'life span' of all his agents in battles- just drive for cover for any that are attacked. Half the time it means the superhero must use at least one follow up attack on the same target- and that allows any remaining agents an additional (in effect) free shot.
Horrible game design. And worse, an unneeded change. The system already had Dodge to help in defense of this type. Long pulled a number of things like this in 5th, and I fully expect 6th to full of them.
To be honest, I feel the only thing Long does in HERO is build things- judging from his rules, he doesn't seem to play.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
A pointer to HERO 6th Edition reviews
I can't bring myself to buy the two books needed to do my own review of 6th edition HERO System. But from reading online, these two reviews at RPGNet hit the high points: Character Creation and Combat and Adventuring.
They seem to be rather well done and match what I've read elsewhere with the reviewer hitting most of my own reactions.
Point Inflation. Beh. I knew this would happen, and the reviewer does an good job pointing out why it is a bad thing.
The nerfing of Killing Attacks stand out. The original design considered their advantages to be balanced by their disadvantages, i.e. for most settings not-killing is the preferred option to killing combined with consistent result and better knockback. Long disagreed and dropped the stun multiple markly (and unrealistically) to 1d3 instead of 1d6-1 (or 1x-5x with 3x as the average for those like me who use hit locations).
You could buy it back up of course, by spending many more points. One would have to buy more than just a mere +2 stun multiple however as non-resistent defense apply against stun (even when there are no resistant defenses) to produce the same effect against unarmored targets. Which of course changes the balance unless you buy some piercing likely with it's own limits(which may or may be in 6th, I haven't read anything saying one way or the other on that).
Reviews like this don't cover many minor but significant changes. So I imagine things are even worse than the review indicates. For example, Long changed Dive for Cover in 5E such that it worked against direct single target attacks, melee as well as range.
Brain. Dead. Stupid. Free (worthless) game design points to the reader who first tells me why (my players excluded).
They seem to be rather well done and match what I've read elsewhere with the reviewer hitting most of my own reactions.
Point Inflation. Beh. I knew this would happen, and the reviewer does an good job pointing out why it is a bad thing.
The nerfing of Killing Attacks stand out. The original design considered their advantages to be balanced by their disadvantages, i.e. for most settings not-killing is the preferred option to killing combined with consistent result and better knockback. Long disagreed and dropped the stun multiple markly (and unrealistically) to 1d3 instead of 1d6-1 (or 1x-5x with 3x as the average for those like me who use hit locations).
You could buy it back up of course, by spending many more points. One would have to buy more than just a mere +2 stun multiple however as non-resistent defense apply against stun (even when there are no resistant defenses) to produce the same effect against unarmored targets. Which of course changes the balance unless you buy some piercing likely with it's own limits(which may or may be in 6th, I haven't read anything saying one way or the other on that).
Reviews like this don't cover many minor but significant changes. So I imagine things are even worse than the review indicates. For example, Long changed Dive for Cover in 5E such that it worked against direct single target attacks, melee as well as range.
Brain. Dead. Stupid. Free (worthless) game design points to the reader who first tells me why (my players excluded).
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The Value of RPG Theory
My last post on the International Journal of Roleplaying brought up (without much surprise) the question of its value, and in a related way the value of much of the current academic approach on matter the subject.
Jeff Rients mentioned the Sokal Affair, a case where a professor of physics successfully (and intentionally) published a paper containing nothing but nonsense to a peer-reviewed journal. All that was required was the 'correct' political and ideological bent and keywords.
Even beyond this (and other similar examples), there's a reason our langauge includes such phrases as "it's academic" and "Ivory Tower". There's a long standing and commonly known disconnect between academic research and the real world.
This has impact far beyond RPGS, and I'd to recommend a current book on the subject, Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell. This work explores the results of that disconnect and examines how and to a degree why the results of the failures (sometimes huge) don't reflect back upon such thinkers. For those wanting a quick taste, here's the first of five video interviews with the author of the book (as I write this only the first two are online, the rest will appear through this week).
There's much here that explains such nonsense as Forge Theory, how it begins and how it continues. RPGs are insignificant, but small things often reflect the path of far more important subjects.
Now the wise reader will note that Thomas Sowell himself is basically an Intellectual, and for that matter I suppose that with a bit a reach I could be given the same label (although I think the label 'commentator' is a better fit in my case). A producer of ideas, with no real 'product' beyond that (although I've done game designs, they are unpublished). Thus shouldn't the same suggested skepticism be applied to Sowell and myself as we'd would be subject to the same problems?
And the wise reader would be correct.
This is not to say that ideas are always wrong, and that all academic research is meaningless. Far from it. History shows that such a wide rejection is not only unfounded, but indeed harmful in the extreme.
It just means that one needs to be skeptical first, looking to determine what is wrong before assuming its right. The skills needed to do this used to be taught in schools, but I find them nearly unknown in today's world of moral relativism and post-modernism. Indeed, adherents of those mindsets are by definition incapable of avoiding repeating the Sokal Affair in their lives on matters small and large- because to them everything is equally true or false depending upon how you want to look at it.
So my advice on the International Journal of Roleplaying is skepticism first, you're likely to be diving for pearls in a rather barren ocean. But dive anyway. You never know, someone may come up with a valid and useful thought.
Jeff Rients mentioned the Sokal Affair, a case where a professor of physics successfully (and intentionally) published a paper containing nothing but nonsense to a peer-reviewed journal. All that was required was the 'correct' political and ideological bent and keywords.
Even beyond this (and other similar examples), there's a reason our langauge includes such phrases as "it's academic" and "Ivory Tower". There's a long standing and commonly known disconnect between academic research and the real world.
This has impact far beyond RPGS, and I'd to recommend a current book on the subject, Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell. This work explores the results of that disconnect and examines how and to a degree why the results of the failures (sometimes huge) don't reflect back upon such thinkers. For those wanting a quick taste, here's the first of five video interviews with the author of the book (as I write this only the first two are online, the rest will appear through this week).
There's much here that explains such nonsense as Forge Theory, how it begins and how it continues. RPGs are insignificant, but small things often reflect the path of far more important subjects.
Now the wise reader will note that Thomas Sowell himself is basically an Intellectual, and for that matter I suppose that with a bit a reach I could be given the same label (although I think the label 'commentator' is a better fit in my case). A producer of ideas, with no real 'product' beyond that (although I've done game designs, they are unpublished). Thus shouldn't the same suggested skepticism be applied to Sowell and myself as we'd would be subject to the same problems?
And the wise reader would be correct.
This is not to say that ideas are always wrong, and that all academic research is meaningless. Far from it. History shows that such a wide rejection is not only unfounded, but indeed harmful in the extreme.
It just means that one needs to be skeptical first, looking to determine what is wrong before assuming its right. The skills needed to do this used to be taught in schools, but I find them nearly unknown in today's world of moral relativism and post-modernism. Indeed, adherents of those mindsets are by definition incapable of avoiding repeating the Sokal Affair in their lives on matters small and large- because to them everything is equally true or false depending upon how you want to look at it.
So my advice on the International Journal of Roleplaying is skepticism first, you're likely to be diving for pearls in a rather barren ocean. But dive anyway. You never know, someone may come up with a valid and useful thought.
Monday, January 4, 2010
A new year, and a new call for RPG theorists
To kick off the new year, there's nothing like month old news. The International Journal of Roleplaying is accepting submissions for articles until Feb 1st. They are to be peer-reviewed and published early summer if their plans work out.
It's a new Journal, and like all new things will live or die by the quality of its submissions (and I assume by the reaction and existence of its readers).
Something I found interesting was the nationalities involved in the first issue- Australia, Denmark, Finland, and New Zealand. None of the authors were from the birthplace of the modern RPG. Somehow that seems... right in a way. The US historically is more interested in practical outcomes than theory. Better to play and have fun than overthink it and ruin a good time.
I likely should do short reviews of the first articles to prep for the 2nd issue. I think I'll take that up next week.
In short, here a chance for all you gaming theorists? Think you know your stuff? Have the chops to write a paper for a peer-reviewed journal? Here's your chance. Go for it.
It's a new Journal, and like all new things will live or die by the quality of its submissions (and I assume by the reaction and existence of its readers).
Something I found interesting was the nationalities involved in the first issue- Australia, Denmark, Finland, and New Zealand. None of the authors were from the birthplace of the modern RPG. Somehow that seems... right in a way. The US historically is more interested in practical outcomes than theory. Better to play and have fun than overthink it and ruin a good time.
I likely should do short reviews of the first articles to prep for the 2nd issue. I think I'll take that up next week.
In short, here a chance for all you gaming theorists? Think you know your stuff? Have the chops to write a paper for a peer-reviewed journal? Here's your chance. Go for it.
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