One of things I keep up with is firearms, both out of interest and the use they see in my games. A lot of research goes into weapons for my games so that people selecting them have reasons behind their choice related to real world.
Sometimes the news is (while not unexpected) silly. In that line, it seems that yet another attempt to replace the M16 is on the edge of failure. I've nearly lost count of how many time they've attempted to find a replacement, just off the top of my head there was the ACR, the OCIW, and XM8 and now this one and it was only targeting a small percentage of the total weapons. Currently just about every firearm maker offers a improved M16 in one form or another.
So what's going on here? Has firearm tech really stalled to the point that there's nothing better? Is it actually politics and penny-pinching being hidden by spin? Are people stupid?
Well, that last always applies of course. After all, people still stick with D&D and that's a worse performing platform than the M16 ever was. This is true even if the goal is playing rpgs instead of killing people.
But here I think it's mostly a case that the technology just hasn't moved very far in the last hundred years. I'll still take a M1911 over any 'modern' pistol and for many cases I'd take weapons from WWII over those deployed today. About the only real improvement has been in weight, and that seems to have hit its limit.
In any case, I think any replacement project is doomed as long as they insist on the replacement being chambered in .223. You can add bells and whistles all you want, but no amount of improvement around the edges is going to impress anyone if you're still using a poor ammo choice. After all, rifles are built around the bullet. And it's far pass time for them to revisit that first choice if they want an improvement for the future.
Note: Currently (and somewhat in line with my thoughts), SOCOM is still going to buy the 7.62mm version of the rifle.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Central PCs in Campaigns
Came across a blog post that I mostly liked today. It presents the idea that a RPG campaign doesn't have to be peer focused thing- but can mirror classic source material. Things like Doc Savage perhaps, with one main character and the supporting casts.
I liked the blog article because it's really something of a match to how I always run my campaigns. Sort of a match, because I don't agree with everything there.
For example, I think most who have dug into Middle Earth consider Sam and not Frodo the main character of Lord of the Rings. Or one could say that no single character is, instead claiming that it is a collection of individual stories that make up the history of the War of the Ring and that Frodo and Sam only got the most screen time because they were closest to the Ring. In much the same way, one could claim that Luke wasn't the main character in Story Wars- that taken as a whole it's Vader. But all that is nitpicking as certainly there are story arcs that feature a main character with a supporting cast.
The major point that I disagree with is that in order to recreate this the GM and players must actually work at it- i.e. put story concerns first. And that just isn't true.
IME it's very common for one player to for whatever reason stand out at a gaming table. And they become the focus for the story as much as say Sam (or Frodo depending upon your POV I guess) in Lord of the Rings did.
Sometimes it's because that player is the best at the table. More often IME it's because the other players are very interested in that one character themselves for some reason. I've seen players twice decide to have their characters die to save specific characters that they themselves decided were the most important in the campaign, not with respect to story- but purely as a element of their character.
GMs react to this, and storylines start to revolve around these characters. This doesn't mean that the spotlight is always on them, any more than it's always on a single character in Lord of Rings or Star Wars. In a large and long running campaign there is room for everyone to shine somewhere.
So I think these types of campaigns can grow naturally without effort in a gaming group that avoids trust issues. Indeed, I think a campaign of equals is actually difficult to enforce as a playing style, and if attempted likely the cause of any number of harms along the way.
I liked the blog article because it's really something of a match to how I always run my campaigns. Sort of a match, because I don't agree with everything there.
For example, I think most who have dug into Middle Earth consider Sam and not Frodo the main character of Lord of the Rings. Or one could say that no single character is, instead claiming that it is a collection of individual stories that make up the history of the War of the Ring and that Frodo and Sam only got the most screen time because they were closest to the Ring. In much the same way, one could claim that Luke wasn't the main character in Story Wars- that taken as a whole it's Vader. But all that is nitpicking as certainly there are story arcs that feature a main character with a supporting cast.
The major point that I disagree with is that in order to recreate this the GM and players must actually work at it- i.e. put story concerns first. And that just isn't true.
IME it's very common for one player to for whatever reason stand out at a gaming table. And they become the focus for the story as much as say Sam (or Frodo depending upon your POV I guess) in Lord of the Rings did.
Sometimes it's because that player is the best at the table. More often IME it's because the other players are very interested in that one character themselves for some reason. I've seen players twice decide to have their characters die to save specific characters that they themselves decided were the most important in the campaign, not with respect to story- but purely as a element of their character.
GMs react to this, and storylines start to revolve around these characters. This doesn't mean that the spotlight is always on them, any more than it's always on a single character in Lord of Rings or Star Wars. In a large and long running campaign there is room for everyone to shine somewhere.
So I think these types of campaigns can grow naturally without effort in a gaming group that avoids trust issues. Indeed, I think a campaign of equals is actually difficult to enforce as a playing style, and if attempted likely the cause of any number of harms along the way.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Game Prep- is it All That Big of a Deal?
One of the responses I received on my last blog entry was the claim that one of the things that doom 'heavy' systems for older and/or more busy gamers is the game prep they require.
Now, I'm a older more busy gamer with limited time. And somehow this isn't a issue for me. Why would that be?
Perhaps I'm smarter, faster, better looking and frankly more than a step above the common gamer at everything. But while that is likely true, I don't consider it the primary reason. Rather I think the primary reason is the same as always- anyone who doesn't really know their game system will suffer horrid inefficiencies both in running them and preparing to run them. Those who do know their chosen game systems well, won't.
I suppose first we need to define game prep.
Back at the dawn of the hobby it was extensive mapped dungeon complexes or other adventuring areas with backgrounds on dozens or more of NPCs- friend and foe. Call it World/Setting Creation and doing that sort of thing is certainly a major time sink...
...except that it would be time sink no matter what the game system if what you want is a completely mapped world with backgrounds on all the NPCs. Very few of the popular heavy systems (HERO, GURPS, D&D 4E) do this sort of thing for you- at least with the core books that make up said heavy system. World creation is world creation and if you want to skip it, you can skip it no matter what game rules you're using. If you do it, you do it again no matter the system.
There's the creation of adventures of course. This may take time although a pure sandbox skips this step completely. However once again, few of the common heavy rule systems offer more than advice in this area. A campaign against the dark elves of New York remains a campaign against the dark elves of New York if it's done in HERO or in FATE.
So three major components of game preparation- Setting and Background, detail maps, and adventure creation aren't really impacted by game systems. And that's nearly everything except actually playing.
The one detail left is the mechanical NPC write-up. Determining game stats and abilities for those NPCs (or things in some cases) that require them. Certainly this must take up a huge amount of time for heavy systems?
Not for those who understand their system.
Let's take an example from my own campaign, from a session ran a couple of weeks ago. I want many consider a highly complex game system- HERO for this campaign. I knew that the players would (after choosing a certain path) come across a high tech security android assigned the task of guarding the area the players were seeking access into. I didn't want this to be a stand up fight, so...
1. The android would attack after or during an encounter with mutant ruin rats.
2. It would be neat of the android looked like a corpse, it would appear that a dead man just stood up and started to kill them.
3. Hmm, dead looking android. I could steal much of the design from Terminator there.
HERO is very detailed when you're interested in adding up all the points and balancing the creation to a budget. But points aren't game balance no matter what anyone says. What matters in this encounter is it's weapon, it's OCV and DCV, BODY and defenses. I've ran this system for years and decided upon those values in less than a minute. I tossed in some enhance senses and skills that might be important (PER, combat levels, etc) for another maybe another minute of thought. Nothing needed to hit paper, nothing needed to be pointed out.
Same process with the ruin rats (already done some time back, so I already had these).And I was ready to go.
Prep Time: About 20 minutes in total split up through the week thinking about what adventure I was going to run Sunday. The result was tightly fought and close battle that had the desire effect (i.e. scaring the players) and then some.
I can rather easily run such things off the top of my head with no prep- because I understand the system and its game balance. Later I spent about three hours actually writing up the T-800 just to have a copy of it because I enjoy that sort of thing. And it makes it easier for players who don't have a firm grasp of the rules if they should want to run something. But that's above and beyond just running the game.
Add in published write ups for NPCs/creatures (HERO has lots, although I don't care for their construction methods they can still be a base for something)- and really, I don't have any prep time.
I can do these before I've been running HERO since it was first published in the 80s. The editions are close enough that any work I've done before can be applied to something done today. I have a huge resource at my call.
And that wouldn't be possible if I was changing game systems every few months like most bloggers seem to do.
So if prep time is a problem for you- it's your own fault. Caused either by your own non-mechanical related demands, or a failure to stick with something long enough to know it well enough. You're just wanting to pass the blame to the game system.
What about people new to the hobby who don't have decades of experience to make this possible? It's called work, you get out what you put in. If you don't have time to learn a heavy system, then you don't have the time. You have to do what you have to do.
But don't claim it isn't possible for others. Your limits do not define mine- or the hobby itself for that matter.
Now, I'm a older more busy gamer with limited time. And somehow this isn't a issue for me. Why would that be?
Perhaps I'm smarter, faster, better looking and frankly more than a step above the common gamer at everything. But while that is likely true, I don't consider it the primary reason. Rather I think the primary reason is the same as always- anyone who doesn't really know their game system will suffer horrid inefficiencies both in running them and preparing to run them. Those who do know their chosen game systems well, won't.
I suppose first we need to define game prep.
Back at the dawn of the hobby it was extensive mapped dungeon complexes or other adventuring areas with backgrounds on dozens or more of NPCs- friend and foe. Call it World/Setting Creation and doing that sort of thing is certainly a major time sink...
...except that it would be time sink no matter what the game system if what you want is a completely mapped world with backgrounds on all the NPCs. Very few of the popular heavy systems (HERO, GURPS, D&D 4E) do this sort of thing for you- at least with the core books that make up said heavy system. World creation is world creation and if you want to skip it, you can skip it no matter what game rules you're using. If you do it, you do it again no matter the system.
There's the creation of adventures of course. This may take time although a pure sandbox skips this step completely. However once again, few of the common heavy rule systems offer more than advice in this area. A campaign against the dark elves of New York remains a campaign against the dark elves of New York if it's done in HERO or in FATE.
So three major components of game preparation- Setting and Background, detail maps, and adventure creation aren't really impacted by game systems. And that's nearly everything except actually playing.
The one detail left is the mechanical NPC write-up. Determining game stats and abilities for those NPCs (or things in some cases) that require them. Certainly this must take up a huge amount of time for heavy systems?
Not for those who understand their system.
Let's take an example from my own campaign, from a session ran a couple of weeks ago. I want many consider a highly complex game system- HERO for this campaign. I knew that the players would (after choosing a certain path) come across a high tech security android assigned the task of guarding the area the players were seeking access into. I didn't want this to be a stand up fight, so...
1. The android would attack after or during an encounter with mutant ruin rats.
2. It would be neat of the android looked like a corpse, it would appear that a dead man just stood up and started to kill them.
3. Hmm, dead looking android. I could steal much of the design from Terminator there.
HERO is very detailed when you're interested in adding up all the points and balancing the creation to a budget. But points aren't game balance no matter what anyone says. What matters in this encounter is it's weapon, it's OCV and DCV, BODY and defenses. I've ran this system for years and decided upon those values in less than a minute. I tossed in some enhance senses and skills that might be important (PER, combat levels, etc) for another maybe another minute of thought. Nothing needed to hit paper, nothing needed to be pointed out.
Same process with the ruin rats (already done some time back, so I already had these).And I was ready to go.
Prep Time: About 20 minutes in total split up through the week thinking about what adventure I was going to run Sunday. The result was tightly fought and close battle that had the desire effect (i.e. scaring the players) and then some.
I can rather easily run such things off the top of my head with no prep- because I understand the system and its game balance. Later I spent about three hours actually writing up the T-800 just to have a copy of it because I enjoy that sort of thing. And it makes it easier for players who don't have a firm grasp of the rules if they should want to run something. But that's above and beyond just running the game.
Add in published write ups for NPCs/creatures (HERO has lots, although I don't care for their construction methods they can still be a base for something)- and really, I don't have any prep time.
I can do these before I've been running HERO since it was first published in the 80s. The editions are close enough that any work I've done before can be applied to something done today. I have a huge resource at my call.
And that wouldn't be possible if I was changing game systems every few months like most bloggers seem to do.
So if prep time is a problem for you- it's your own fault. Caused either by your own non-mechanical related demands, or a failure to stick with something long enough to know it well enough. You're just wanting to pass the blame to the game system.
What about people new to the hobby who don't have decades of experience to make this possible? It's called work, you get out what you put in. If you don't have time to learn a heavy system, then you don't have the time. You have to do what you have to do.
But don't claim it isn't possible for others. Your limits do not define mine- or the hobby itself for that matter.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Review: HERO System Advanced Player's Guide 6th Edition
Most of the book (again with the ugly cover from hell- could these possibly be worse?) consists of sections yanked from 5th edition books- be it genre books, ultimate books, or whatever.
There are basically three types of 'rules' contained within.
First is those that should have been in the core books. For example, piercing from Dark Champions? It's in here. Applying Limits on Advantages? It's in here. And so on. A significant amount is just going into more details on what are IMO mainstream rules. One could say that they are in this book because they are 'advanced'- but that doesn't explain why for some powers he goes into detail in the core book but others are withheld until this. Unless while he cuts and pastes- he's really not that good at it (like after removing COM from the game, he still left in modifiers to COM under the Disabling Wound section...). So maybe he just forgot.
Second are those rules that are more genre or specific item focused. Things like salvaging gear and items from the 5th edition Post-Apocalyptic HERO book (lots from that book actually). Stuff from Ultimate Brick 5th edition. And so on.
The third and smallest type of item is actual 'new' rules or methods. I think I've seen all them at one time or another but generally they aren't very interesting so I don't recall just where I ran across them. Nothing that I'd use (movement by segment instead of phases for example, other ways of using SPD, etc).
One is on their own with the rules contained within. They often cover the same ground (for example options to make AP offset a fixed amount of defense are but pages away from the cleaner Piercing rules- which offset a fixed amount of defense) or even conflict.
Some do part of the job and then fall flat when you go to apply it throughout the game. For example there's a welcomed 'Heroic' STR chart that has an improved progression (i.e. slower)- but it wasn't carried over into any of the other related subjects- like Growth, Density Increase or the defenses of the environment (doors, walls, etc.). I guess that would take more than cut and paste editing.
In any event, it doesn't live up to its billing. Nothing here strikes me as 'advanced', very little if anything is new, and it doesn't really take the game in new directions unless gutting the SPD and segmented systems core to HERO is your idea of a new direction.
However I still like the book, because it means that there's almost no reason (unless you want what I consider rather basic and obvious genre advice + lame versions of those settings) to buy any future genre/setting books. All the rules have been pulled into this one- just select what you need and go forth.
So if you're into HERO 6th- buy this book and avoid any future ones. Or if you for some strange reason like those genre/setting books- don't buy this one and wait until your favorite(s) comes out. I'm sure Long will cut and paste whatever he thinks it needs from the Advanced book.
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