The Second Issue of the International Journal of Roleplaying

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

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

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

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

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

I don't quite know what to say.

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

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

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

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

I don't think I like the picture.

Visiting my FLGS because I needed to be depressed

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

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

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

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

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

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

Picking a New Campaign: Part V- Picking the System

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Someone Nailed the Limits of Inclusion

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

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

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

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

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

Picking a New Campaign: Part IV- The Borrowed Bits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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