Merry Christmas to All

I offer a fond Merry Christmas to any readers out there (not a happy holidays, if you're offended- you're likely not a reader of this blog anyway). This is likely my last blog post until the new year.

I have a number of game related activities planned for my vacation from work this year. My son and his girlfriend will be visiting and we'll get in at least one (and likely more) Tomorrow's War battles. It's a fantastic game and will make a wonderful last minute gift for any wargamer one has forgotten about.

In our case, we'll be making up our own armies using all the 40K miniatures that my son bought over the years. For the first time ever he'll be able to use those Imperial Guard figures to represent something more than a semi-soviet style mob of cannon fodder. The whole character of the game will different.

System does matter, when you're actually playing it.

There is little doubt that we will be doing something on the RPG scene, but it's sort of a secondary concern this year. Likely Superhero or Shadowrun (using HERO System) or maybe something in Claymore (using Age of Heroes). I'm going to see what they're interested in this week and start making plans.

I hope everyone has a great time, see you in 2012.

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.

Play Test Update

The play test for the version 5.0 core rules of Age of Heroes continues. Some more typos corrected, interesting what people miss.

From a true rules perception, the only significant change requested was to the mounted combat rules. That sort of cascaded through the rulebook touching two of sections as well to keep things consistent.

Otherwise it's been typos, one request that I swap a bit of art, copying a table in one part of the rules to another and adding a modifier mentioned in the text to a table. All easy stuff.


I imagine this will continue for another couple months just to make sure it's the best it can be.

A Dustup over the State of the Hobby

It seems that Joseph over at Greyhawk Grognard has gone ballistic over a new blog written by someone going by the handle of fugaros that is taking wild swings at the RPG Industry as a whole and the OSR specifically.

Joseph comes off more poorly than he should with the sadly typical ad hominem attacks. I wish people realized how much weaker such things make them appear. Fugaros on the other hand is of the RPGPundit school of blogging, i.e. foul language and insults are more common than logic and good writing. In fact, Fugaros is similar enough to Pundit that I wonder if he's a sock puppet or just a student of his.

From where I sit, it's not worth the word count spent so far.

Joseph is right, people are free to do what they want and they answer to only two masters- the Market and their own desires. If they don't care about the former, they're free to do the latter in any way they wish. But that being the case, others may comment on their activities however they want, and it's not worth covering yourself in mud when someone like Fugaros does comment.

Fugaros on the other hand does have good points. The Market is fragmented, and the OSR is stagnant, unimaginative and so badly designed that the OSR actually claims it to be a feature in order to justify it.

Neither conditions are good for the Industry or for the quality of gaming as a whole. But there is little point in being a jerk about it. From what I can tell that's the hobby's natural state. Very few quality games were ever produced and when they were, the Market ignored them for lowest common denominator products.

When the hobby was large enough (early 80s), it could turn out some quality work for those able to make use of it. Take the automobile market as an example. Most will be buying boring and plain cars and trucks, but the Market is big enough to support high quality niche products for those with the money, skill, and need to make use of them.

RPGs aren't big enough for the automobile model. So all you got is the basics these days, and if you despair of that- you can design your own (and be the only one playing it given or take a handful)

Fugaros goes off the rails by thinking he can change this natural state. He can't. No one can. Rather than attacking the OSR guys, or any of the gaming companies- he should be spending his time working on his own stuff.

Yes, I know the OSR stuff is deadly dull, yes I want to see good games too. But one can't change the world, only your own little part of it. Take it from me (as someone who's spent too much time online in the past), doing your stuff  is a lot more fun and more a worthwhile way to spend one's time

The Fading of HERO

Anyone who's followed this blog or my writings elsewhere know that I've always been a fan of Champions and the HERO System. IMO, the best published game system ever.

Most are also likely aware that I was of the opinion that sixth edition was a mistake. A trip down a rabbit hole to fix things only Steve Long (and his personal fan base- as opposed to fans of the game) thought needed fixing. Combined with the the lost of map and mini support, horrid art, and an ugly layout- the final result was far from appealing.

Looks like I wasn't the only one with a negative opinion.

Nov 28th saw the following appear on their Hero Games website (There seems to be no direct link to the article, so I'll repeat their announcement here):


__________________________
Hero Games has been around for 30 years with ups and downs. The economy's been pretty rough lately, as has the gaming market. With declining sales and fewer releases, Hero has reached the point where it's no longer possible to maintain a full time staff of three, so it's scaling back.

Darren and Steve will be departing December 2nd, with our thanks for a decade of hard work that gave us 108 books, and best wishes for their future endeavors, which may include producing new books under a Hero System license. We'll keep you posted on that.

Jason will remain to continue shipping books and handling day-to-day matters. Existing books will continue to be available for purchase, and the company will continue in business, just a bit more slowly. The online store remains open. Steve will continue to answer rules questions on the Hero boards as "the guy who wrote the rulebook."

We're looking into doing a Kickstarter to print Book of the Empress, since it's complete and ready to go.

For the near future Hero would appreciate your kind thoughts and your patience. Transition periods of this sort take time, and Jason has a lot of work cut out for him, so the support of our fans is much appreciated.

Jason Walters
General Manager
__________________________

In a way they so deserved this.

Long was both the best and worst thing that ever happened to HERO. He was a fine editor and a work horse that personally put the game back on the map after the original owners gave up on it. Fifth Edition had some problems due to small changes he made, but on the whole was wonderful. It won awards and fans. It became a significant player in the hobby.

Success breeds hubris, and Steve Long bred it well. He grew to feel that it was *his* ideas that made the game a success instead of the game making him one. He thought he could change whatever he liked and he'd only go on to greater glory. He thought he could focus on rule changes, not settings or adventures.

Now we see the result. HERO is barely alive, it's future dim indeed.

I don't believe it had to be this way.

Will luck someone else will take over the reins in the near future.

• Someone who will return the design to the map and mini focus it had in 5th edition and before.
• Someone who will clear away the ugly art and layout
• Someone who will drop the cardboard settings that have plague HERO from the start
• Someone who will create the background and supplements that actually take advantage of HERO's ability to create the best published RPG experience I've ever seen

There's not much luck in the world. But HERO has my best wishes to find it. Without Long involved, there may be a chance it does just that. Success often breeds failure, but failure also often breeds success.

My Experience with Lulu

As I've commented on before, I ordered and received my hardback copy of my home grown rules. The book is nice, and it was a pure joy to be able to browse through it checking rule questions and doing other look ups during last weekend's game.

Binders holding hundreds of pages of rules are a thing of the pass for use now, although they remain for characters and are still useful for individual spell lists used by said characters.

I'd recommend anyone with significant homegrown rules to put them in a bound rulebook like this. Even so, I do have some comments on the process and not all are completely positive.

• The paper/binding combinations are odd. For example, you can get letter sized with soft covers but not in hardback. I'm sure Lulu has reasons for this, but it is a pain. Even worse is the limits on their abilities to offer your book through places like Amazon- the selection of format options there is quite limited.

• I used Word 2010 to produce the final PDF for printing. To do so I had to use a compatibility setting that prevented me from using some of the better formatting features (boarders and picture formatting). It pays as a result to verify what you're doing ahead of time by checking the PDF result. If one is willing to shell out the cash for the full version of Acrobat, perhaps this issue can be avoided.

• The production and shipping time is... notable. It took me the full two weeks to get my copy (and half that time for the one I sent to KC- but I used my 'proof' discount for that one). Needless to say, that was a impatient two weeks. But considering it was a custom order, it doesn't really upset me. It's just something to be aware of.

• Shipping costs are steep. I paid $10 for FedEx ground shipping that took a week. The only cheaper option was US Postal, without tracking. I'm so used to free shipping from Amazon that I was rather taken back by this. A person would be wise to keep the shipping cost in mind when making their plans.

•  The full process was very easy. Basically you download a word template so you get the margins and other settings correct, write your rules, add art if desired (I used a ton of Public Domain stuff) and save as a PDF (their online help held the correct settings for use). There after you upload the PDF, and create a cover using the online tools. You're done.

• I've read online that some have better experiences with other companies than Lulu. But I can't really speak to that (having no experience with them). Lulu did what I needed and did it to an acceptable level. Perhaps in the future I'll try another company and see how they compare.

• Unconnected to Lulu, I should note that over the years I've had a number of problems with Word (but still, little desire to change software). Basically it would lose it formatting at the oddest times. This time it was Word 2010 and it was far more stable and effective than in the past. However I found the indexing feature completely unusable.  It would automatically throw on fully editing symbol display and when I switched it back off- the formatting would be whacked. So no index, not that I'll miss it all that much.

Unreasonable Goals: Single Combat in RPGs

I remember the days when game designers were looking for really good kick-backside single combat systems. The one vs. one duel, the first attempt noticed I noticed was En_Garde! back in 1975, a game about duellists.

It wasn't very successful at meeting it goals. No one has been.

There are a number of problems that stand in the way. The most important one is the requirement is to come up with a system that involves the player to the same (or greater) degree as all the complexities of group combat- and do so in a why the presents meaningful choices that aren't effectively random (historical most attempts in this area present the player with random choices).

I consider this problem to be unresolvable, for if it was actually solved- the game becomes too complex to play with groups. An group play is really what the rpg is all about.

My own game (Age of Heroes) like many works acceptably with one-on-one combats in that it resolves them. But group battles are far more interesting tactically. They are also much safer, a single PC can easily be undone by a short series of bad rolls or decisions- groups spread these around and allow allies to aid stricken players.

A result that nicely mirrors the needs of table top gaming if you ask me.

Why does D&D hold the Market

And by D&D, I mean all its favors- OSR, 3.x and its copies, and now to a lesser extent the 4th edition version. Add together these make up most of the game sales and nearly all the online discussion one sees on forums and blogs (unless they are dedicated specifically to something else).

It's a difficult question, likely with a number of different answers. It would be fun to actually dig into it in a solid investigative fashion and determine what those answers are. But I don't have the time, money or contacts. And I doubt anyone else does (that would be willing to do so, and then willing to release the information). But that doesn't mean we can't make a good guess.

We know from previous WotC information that it isn't driven by play style as such. So that can be dismissed.

Other possible answers:

Market Penetration

D&D was the first to market, made the biggest splash, and from there on has the largest production budget and the largest amount of supporting materials on the gaming shelves (or in online catalogs).

The power of this simple fact cannot be underestimated. The same basic factors resulted in VHS winning over Beta, Windows over MAC, etc. The examples are nearly endless. You don't have to offer the best product, just the widest selection for use with your product.


Appeals to our Worst Nature

D&D combat is meant to be predictive, safe and lengthy (something clear in the writings and statements of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, such as this one to pick one example). So safe adventure with controlled danger that the player can still pat themselves on the back for. That's a easy draw, nice reward for little risk.

Add to this simple greed. The very act of leveling, and the fact that D&D offers a lot of levels to level through. The endless search for money and magic items. MMORPGs based their entire business model upon these things, but D&D was the first to offer it.

We see this in passing statements by D&D GMs and Players, such as Jeff Rients' comment here:

"The abstract concept of treasure appeals directly to the players, by tickling their normal greedy impulses.  This goes back to my thinking that D&D is about providing an acceptable venue for expressing one's less civilized urges.  I.e. if a scenario doesn't invoke at least one of the Seven Deadly Sins, you may need to rework the premise.  Greed is one of the easiest ones to work with in D&D thanks to all the gold pieces lying about the dungeons."

We see these concepts often expressed in reviews of non-D&D products, where any that offer dangerous combat are seen as 'unheroic' for some reason or those without treasure and extreme ranges for advancement are said to be boring or incomplete.


Return to Childhood

This is most telling in the OSR movement, but really works with version of D&D. It's all still going home, it's fun to go back and do those things you enjoyed as a kid. Even if you've actually forgotten what you did, or have covered it up with the rose glasses of middle age.

It's safe, it avoids the disappointment and effort of dealing unknown game designs. And it carries with the advantages of the above two points as well. What's not to like?



All the above have resulted in stagnation in the larger hobby. It feeds upon itself in a nearly endless loop,

- D&D has the largest supporting material meaning it has more players, and the OGL allows even more material which in turn attracts even more players.

- Old timers returning to old games means new players are likely to get introduced to the hobby with these old games, meaning that no one ever looks for something different or better.

- And appeals to greed and reward without cost? That almost goes without saying. Such things never end, they only ask for more.


And thus here we are. And here the hobby is likely to stay. It wouldn't be changed by a better product. It would take a change in the moral character of gamers themselves, but IMO the influence is working the other direction.

There will be other games, but they will have little hold or influence. On the bright side, if this hobby should die (be it from more sophisticated MMORPGs or other means), it would likely be a good thing.

The Age of Heroes Proof Copy Is Here

Just a bit more than 31 years after I first wrote down the core combat rules, I finally have a hardbound copy of the Age of Heroes rules.

We're considering this a playtest copy, a final shakedown of the rules to spot any last typos, remaining page layouts I can do better on, and one last pass to make the written rules match what we actually play.

This last point is more difficult than one might think. About a week after I put in the order I caught one rule concerning Huge Creatures and their parries that was missing- and a rather key one it was at that. It's far from easy to capture what's become second nature to us over the years. It's like writing an book on how to walk or breathe.

Oh well. That's what this copy is for. On the other hand it's close enough that I could stop here, once I put up what will hopefully be a short errata webpage. Others however want an even more perfect copy, and want it posted to Lulu for sale.

Using Lulu for the first time was quite the experience.

The book looks quite good and more professional than I am. The only compliant I've gotten so far is that the color of the cover is bland (that suits a playtest copy IMO) and they want it changed for the final version.

Lulu's printing and shipping times vary greatly. One copy I sent to KC arrived within a week, while my own took twice as long to reach me. The price was acceptable for a 260 page hardback, at least for me.

I wonder how the binding will hold up, only time will tell. If anyone has experience in such things, I'd be interesting in hearing it.

From here we'll spend the next couple of months doing playtest and final proof readings with my group, and with the much larger one in KC.

October 2011 Random Thoughts

Noticed  this little coming product, basically a mini-supplement for a Black Witch. It sparked off a few thoughts...

• A class per supplement, at $5. I wonder how that will work as a business model. More expensive per class than the traditional supplement idea
• Looks like all he's doing is evil classes. Not all that useful to me even if I was running some flavor of D&D
• Does D&D have a official non-evil witch version this days?

Little questions in passing.
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Meanwhile the proof reading is done, the order is in for a proof and play test copy of Age of Heroes. One going to KC and one to me. Should be about a week or so. Exciting times.
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Speaking of Age of Heroes, put together a little six page GM screen for version 5.0. Using it with this wonderful Customizable GM Screen. Expensive but worth it.
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Are GameScience dice really more random? They certainly are ugly and more expensive. I bought one set to try them out. Right off the bat, the 5 sided dice is worthless, as is the 3 sided one. But I have use for the d14.
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I must finish the Claymore Supplement before we finish our Claymore campaign. It will be a nice race.

Book Review: The New Death and Others

I don’t often review books although I’ve mentioned some that I like, mostly to point out inspirational sources for gaming. But I don’t consider it a strong suit of mine, what with lacking any formal training in the subject and no talent of my own. So a book review by me isn’t really worth all that much.

So it was quite the bit of surprised to be asked to review The New Death and Others by its author James Hutchings. But having written articles and the like, I can understand the desire for reviews and comments. It doesn’t even matter if the reviewer likes it, the feedback is worthwhile and both drive interest to the author.  It’s not easy to write a book, and doing so- no matter how badly, is to my mind something to respect.

Besided, maybe I'd get a idea or two for my games.

So it was in that mindset that I agreed, and promptly received (free I might add) the book formatted for the Kindle. I love my Kindle.

The New Death and Others is available for the Kindle or from Smashwords. It consists of a series of fantasy related short stories with some poems scattered through the book.  The Kindle version didn’t come with a page count, but it isn’t long- I was able to read it through in about four hours containing some significant breaks.

And now to the review, let’s start off with something positive… well… there’s… I sort of like the stories with cats.

Sigh, I want and can do better than that (if only by a bit). So let’s give it a go and I’ll put what I’ll hope is some constructive suggestions at the bottom.

First off, I don’t think I’m the type of reader this book is aimed at.  A number of the stories are left-wing politics at their worst, with a number of shots at Afghanistan, free enterprise, religion, etc. These are done with all the subtlety of an internet flame war due to the short length of the stories and the writing style.  For someone like me, things like that make it hard to judge the rest of the work. For a reader on the Left, it may be more enjoyable.

Stepping back from that, I think the collection suffers from a number of other problems.

The first is that there is no unifying theme to the works. There are the outright political comments, some fable like myths, some are intended to be pure parody, and others are just a pun fest.  The strongest repeating thread (besides the politics) is a common fantasy city used as a backdrop in the fable style stories. And Death, the author likes Death.

There are only two reasons to read a collection of short stories: because their common subject, theme, or setting appeals to you; or because you know and like the author’s writings. The New Death and Others doesn’t provide the former, and James Hutchings doesn’t have a body of work to provide the latter.


As to the individual stories…

The short story format is demanding as it gives little room for development of character and that in turn means that you have pull the reader in quickly in order to invest him in what you’re trying to say.  Not easy, and so IMO the short story can be short- but it can’t be too short.

Most of these are too short.  Some are little more than the plot idea with basically nothing else. This is most felt in the fable like stories, some of which I almost liked. But the shifts were too sudden, the pace too quick, the ending too pat.

Many of the stories indicate to me that the author is trying to mirror one of two styles. The HP Lovecraft descriptive near verse or the Twilight Zone style twist ending. I love both, but the former should be kept to an occasional appearance instead of battering the reader every sentence. And the latter needs to be built up to. It’s ok to twist the ending, even if it’s a predictable twist- IF we care about the characters being twisted. Here, we don’t.

He may also be going for Grimm Fairy tales style, a bunch of short ‘fables’ lumped together. But that can’t really work because the author isn’t the Brothers Grimm. He hasn’t had generations of parents making his tales live for children- he has to make do on his own and he’s not aiming this at children (I hope). That takes more work.

A good example is How the Isle of Cats Got Its Name.  I like cats; I like mystical cats even more. I should have loved this story. But we didn’t get to know any of the cats. And we didn’t get to know the villain Abi-simti.
We know she wants to learn all the magic there is, and after a bit we find out that she’s willing to do anything to do so. But we never find out why. Magic is a tool (especially to gamers, but it’s also the case in the genre), and what we’re being asked to take as the primary mover of a story is a lady who in practical terms wants the complete set of Craftsman Wrenches. Somehow that’s supposed to result in evil interesting enough to make a fable of.

A longer version of this story with a better goal for the villain (even the classic ‘quest for immortality through magic’), together with cats with real personalities that one would root for, would have worked much better.

Lastly, this book was a downer.  Except for the cats, the world of these stories is a dark place with only tears for company. Some people like that, so I won’t fault it other than to say it’s not my taste and thus may have colored some of my comments above.

Suggestions for the author:

Characters- make them more alive. I can’t write as well as you do, so I can’t make suggestions as to how to do this. But do it.

Patience- you have good ideas. Take time to build up to them. The trip is always worth more than the destination.

Subtlety- you can get away with being political, if the reader doesn’t notice. The best works are often those that both sides end up thinking reflects their views.

Theme or Setting- pick one or both, and use it for all the stories in your next attempt.

Oh, almost forgot. Did get any ideas for my games?  Not really, I already knew I wanted to do something with cats and this did reinforce that.

I also picked up a good Sherlock Holmes pun for the next time I want my players to throw dice at me.

_____________________________

Note: I was hoping I'd find more that I'd like. I'm quite straight forward on game theory and other subjects and normally not shy about tearing into something. But tastes in fiction are very subjective.

I was inclined as a result to not post this review and offered to let James off the hook for it. But his word was to go ahead. Rather impressive. Here's hoping he keeps at it and that his writing skills grow. It's a field that one can only learn by doing, taking the lumps along the way. I couldn't do it.

Well Then, What Next?

I'm still on a bit of high after finishing Age of Heroes. Just completed the appendices that include designer notes, and a short overview of the history of RPGs and where AoH fits in. So nothing left to do but await the proof readers.

Dang slow proof readers. But we love them.

So I'm sitting here trying to decide what to do next. I think I read a book first, yet another Urban Fantasy novel looking for something as good as the Dresden Files. It will likely be horrid, so far only the October Daye books have been worth any effort at all (mix lot those, but good enough).

After that I'll likely finish up the Claymore Campaign Supplement. It's rather far along.

And then... beats me. There's not like there's a demand for this sort of stuff. But I'll likely work on the Magic Expansion next. Or maybe the Firearms Expansion. It will likely be driven by what we're playing after we finish our current Claymore campaign.

And It's Done...

Finished the play test draft of Age of Heroes last night. The wonderful wife did her proof reading, I created the PDF and sent it off to my other two proof readers.

But I'm counting it as effectively complete, the first time ever that *all* the core rules have been assembled in one place and formatted for prestentation and use. Previously there was a spiral bound copy of the very most imporant core rules. Nice but about half the size.

It ended up a bit longer than planned, 242 Pages with 116,030 words. Nearly all of it rules although a bit of our settings got in the Bestiary with the creature descriptions.

From here I'll let my two remainingg proof readers point out any lasting typos they can find (knowing they'll never find them all of course) and then order a couple of bound copies for final playtest. I'll give it a few months mostly to make sure I didn't screw up something mechanically as there is some new stuff (in detail, not in concept) in there before I call it really really done, remove the playtest stamp, add the designer notes and handout hardcopies to the players in our groups.

Interesting feeling to be here, even with something I don't intend to market. Likely due to my never imagining that I'd write anything that would result in a bound hardcover. When I was born, it was just something out of the realm of possiblity for the typical person, and is only reasonable now due to Print on Demand.

Just a Few Pages More

Still working on Age of Heroes, and it's looking like I'll finish the proof and play test draft this week and send it off to Lulu.It's currently at 230 pages with only five more creatures to write up (and a few paragraphs in the intro).

Exciting times, well at least for my gaming groups. It only took 31 years, although before print on demand there was almost no reason do it.

Infinity: An Example of a Bad Die Mechanic

One of my kids was into Warhammer 40K. He's realized now just how bad of a game it really is, and we've been looking for a replacement.

In this search, he came across a game called Infinity and I decided to take a look at it. It's not a very good game, and there's a lot to take apart as a result. In fact, I consider 40K better than it. It's not a RPG and so I won't delve too deep into it. But it so happens to have a rather brain dead stupid core die mechanic that I've seen in RPGs before. And that deserves a comment.

Basically the system resolves things with each player making a opposed d20 roll. Whoever rolls higher but still under his skill rating wins. So a skill of 14 with range weapons might fire at a defender with a skill of 12, whoever rolls higher wins, as long as the first guy doesn't roll a 15+ and the second roll a 13+.

There's some other minor details, but they don't significantly modify my core point that this system manages to meet the Two S Rule: Simple and Stupid.

Just consider it for a moment. In a game you don't want things missing most of the time, that's not fun for most players. But if you're using dice, you don't want to hit all the time either.

So what does that mean for the range of possible skill numbers? That's right, it's very narrow. I would expect them to range from... oh 12 up to about 16. And sure enough, that's where most of the units in the game fall (you can look at a number of them online at the link above). There's some exceptions (especially for cannon fodder type units), but most of the standard units fall right into that line.

To make that narrow range even worse, the game uses a linear die d20 die roll.

The end result is to make unit skill of minor importance, i.e. it's very difficult to move far away from a coin flip in your chances unless you really pile the modifiers on.

Makes for a very limited game, basically only those settings where everyone is roughly equal. That hardly seems the point of games like this but then I'm not a member in good standing with the modern wargame crowd. Maybe they dig pointless differences.

Combined with other issues, we quickly discarded it as a option.

Vortex however is looking interesting...

Can WotC and D&D go home again?

To their credit, it appears that WotC is willing to act after losing the top selling RPG, they've hired back Monte Cook to do future R&D. And that seems to imply that the future is the past, and that we'll see a 5th edition that is far closer to 3rd than to 4th.

Not that bad of move considering that 4th Edition is effectively a failure. But will it work? Yes, 4th edition was a poor design, likely driven by concepts taken  from the worse of the last decade's online game theorists. But it only existed because WotC gave D&D's core IP away to people like Pathfinder. It was in effect a Hail Mary pass to create a new replacement IP, hurled with the hope that the marketing and brand loyalty would turn the tide.

That failed. Will going old school suceeed?

Like anything in the market, hard to say. The brand loyalty is lost and it is now the other guy's club to beat WotC with.

Marketing they may still have-  deep pockets and the return of a well regarded by many (not me BTW, but hey- its D&D. No one could make that a good game IMO) designer. They'll certainly be able to create a lot of noise, and get a lot of people to try a 5th edition if that's where they're heading.

But the old saying is that you can never go home. And the simple truth is that they don't really control the old IP, and thus will in the end need to fight tooth and nail for every sale against an successful company who can offer want is effectively the same product.

If they go this path, they will at best split the D&D style market between them, better a half pie than any, unless the two half pies aren't enough to live on... and that may be the plan. Let Pathfinder die of hunger while living off the fat of the parent company, then everything flows back to WotC.

Can that work? In this age of Print on Demand and low cost market entry? And what about the fact that WotC still wouldn't control the IP and the problems that causes?

I wouldn't go this path. I'll give 5:3 odds WotC won't either in the long run.More likely we'll see WotC try the 4th edition Hail Mary again with a different enough system that's it's different. Maybe a almost good one this time.

But will that even work? I doubt it.

Maybe they'll do a change up. A 5th edition to kill pathfinder, followed by a 6th to stake out new ground. That's a long shot that already failed once.


Either way they go, they have a chance. An uphill against the wind chance. They need to be hit by lightning, but that's business in today's world. So let's give them a cheer for making the attempt.

An Example Age of Heroes Creature

I've made a number of comments about working on my Bestiary, and this post is for Roequard who asked to see what one of the write-ups look like.

So here it is. It's a draft of the Goblin Chieftain, a not uncommon foe in our campaigns by any means. I converted it to PDF and from there to PNG so it's a bit blurry, hasn't had its final edit (I just completed this draft today), and is likely rather cryptic given all the game speak specific to Age of Heroes in it.

I picked it due to a lack of references to special rules and abilities, well beyond the morale effects anyway.

Looking at this I notice that I use a lot of white space, which certainly increases my page count. This for example takes up an entire page and most entries take up a half page.

On the other hand I think it results in a clean appearance so I'm sticking with it.

Up to My Elbows in Creatures

Been busy, putting most of my free time into working on the Bestiary section of the rules. So not much time for posting on the blog.

I had originally intended for that section to be short and sweet. maybe a dozen pages. As usual I couldn't keep it from growing beyond that. It's currently up to 25 pages, and I'm about half done I think.

The goal is to provide a good overview of what's possible in the system, while breathing some life into the various creatues so that enounters are more than just a stack of hit points to be degrades as is all too common in the gaming world. I hope to make each entry a springboard and inspiration for entitre adventures. Likely didn't succeed, but what the heck.  Worth the try.

Age of Heroes Status

Work continues on getting my homegrown rules into a form that I can use for Lulu.

I'm basically in the last section of the rules proper with 191 pages complete. This last part is the Bestiary, a short selection of sample creatures and people. It's going well, and even with my limited time I think I'll finish it up well before the end of the month.

I suppose I should admit that the last section isn't really the last section. Rather it's the last section of rules. There be a pages talking about what goes into a campaign setting. But that's just a couple of paragraphs so who cares.

Also after the rules are done, I have plans for appendices that will have a few items in it including some extensive designer notes. But that's for later. I'll order my first hard copy before the end of the month without the appendices. It will be used for final play test and one more proof reading.

The Shattered Hobby

Came across this blog post on Roll for Initiative today bemoaning the current state of the RPG world.

Have to say that I agree more than disagree. Too many games, often with very similar systems- none of which are really supported.

And thus there's little reason to buy into them. I already own such systems as BRP, HERO, and so on. And I can adapt them as easily to a setting as any designer, and do so to my own taste and not theirs.

And even better- I can continue to make adventures and expansions for them. Something the game companies no longer do.

As a result, to catch one's interest a RPG publisher would have to offer something new- but they don't. Instead they give us Fudge yet again or maybe yet another version of D20. And we yawn. And we keep our money.


The disagree part?

Small things. I think the OGL made much of the fragmented market possible and removed the entire OSR crowd from the hobby along the way.

I also think the Edition wars matter, be they for D&D or HERO System. Someone sticking with a edition abandoned by its publisher no longer needs anything from the publisher. The result is a publisher who has lost not only one of their best customers, but one of their best salesman as a result.

I doubt the hobby will recover, until it near dies. Shouldn't be long now.

Magic Items are Campaign Defining

Continuing to work on my homegrown rules in my spare time. Currently I'm well into the magic item section.

Basically the intent is to give examples of how some things are done in the game system, and provide a spark for imagination. The latter isn't really all that important considering that the system isn't intended for beginners, but for my own groups.


The nature of a campaign defines what sort of magic items are suited to it. A historical dark ages game without magic would reject any items while a 'magic paves the city streets' setting would require them by the hundreds.

My campaigns tends to be rather magic poor. Most characters can expect to get a minor item or two if they live long enough. Only a few will obtain an item of true power. And to be honest the core rules are written more for this sort of campaign than any other.

Despite that, it's important to give enough examples to cover a good range of possibilities. It's interesting however that the list of example items will likely be longer than the entire list of magic items that players have actually earned in my campaigns.

What the Rules Leave Out is as Important as What is Written In

I've long consider that (i.e. the title above) one of the key insights in RPGs, and sadly a rare one to encounter. At least with any understanding.

The rules of a a game can be 100% concerned with combat and loot. And that tells you nothing about the campaign using those rules. The total time spent gaming might be 90% role-playing out political infighting with not a single die ever rolled or rulebook opened, with 10% of it spent actually in combat that results from someone losing politically.

All that a missing rule means is that the designer may will expect you to handle it on your own- not that it must be ignored. I attempted to cover this in my Layers of Design article back in 2002.

What brings it up today is that I get to look at the same subject from a slight different point of view.  That of a game designer trying to fit a set of core rules into a single 200 page book. Layers of Design looked at the sum total of all the rules, not just core rules or a single supplement.

Page limits impose a completely different reason for leaving stuff out. There's not room to put it in.

So instead of more than a dozen or so types of magic we use in our campaigns, there will only be five in the core rulebook. Just a handful of sample monsters instead of hundreds. Nothing about the campaigns we play. Nothing on mass combat. All those will have to wait for expansions, or just remain in the disjointed notes form they are now because I'm horrid at writing and really would rather just avoid it.

Some stuff isn't missing completely, but has been simplified. In place of pages of equipment lists and details is an abstract encumbrance and gear section taking up a couple of pages. It works, but leaves some gaps by its nature.

All of the man-to-man combat however is present. All the character generation except some missing classes.

After all this, I think in the end should someone unconnected to our campaigns read the resulting core rules (unlikely I know) in the end they'll end up not really know anything about our campaigns.

Verisimilitude is a Lie

It is quite the fashion in today's gaming world to dismiss realism in game design as an impossible and undesired goal. Rather common wisdom claims that the real goal is verisimilitude, as if that's something different.

Let us consult the online Merriam-Webster definitions.


Verisimilitude means: having the appearance of truth : probable as the first definition. The second definition is simple: depicting realism (as in art or literature).

That second definition is highly interesting. We're after all talking about game design. Not much of an art IMO, but like art a created image.


Let's look at realism. First definition references the mindset, we're talking game design so that doesn't work. The second a philosophy, again- doesn't apply. The third and last seems to apply: "the theory or practice of fidelity in art and literature to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization."


Ah, that one applies. And oddly enough it means exactly the same as Verisimilitude when applied to the same subject. Exactly enough that Merriam-Webster uses realism to define Verisimilitude.

Looks like we can lump the crowd screaming about "Verisimilitude Not Realism" into the same group as the discredit Forge Theorists. People who make up words and change common meanings of existing ones to suit their goals.

In short, people who can't make a good point and resort to two-bit words in order to give them the illusion of credibility.

Free Markets don't work in RPGs

As I was working a printable copy of my homegrown rules, I can across an old issue with the Artificer skill (i.e. the one that could under the right conditions make magic items).


In real life, I'm far more Hayek than I am Keynes (rather sneaky way of sharing two really cool videos that). I love free markets.

In the real world, I don't own a Seawolf Class submarine to cruise around the world for a simple reason. I can't afford it. Heck, I can't afford a simple sail boat. Well, I could but I have more important things to do with the money and I'd never get a good return on what a sail boat would cost.

Real limits those. And limits is what the free market is all about.

This doesn't work so well in RPGs. There reality is inversed, and players expect to to chase impossible pipe dreams. Destroy the dark lord, save the princess, and along the way gain a flaming sword and a mountain of loot. That sort of stuff.

Thus balancing a RPG based upon rarity is basically a fool's game. You're going to allow players to create magic items but control it by requiring rare materials? Won't work, you just made it more desirable and thus the players will bend all their will to getting it. Soon you're be drowning in magic items.

If you block them (i.e. keep rare stuff rare), nine times out of ten the reaction won't be to thank you for the game balance. It will be to find a better game that allows players a shot at reaching their goals.

I overstate that some of course.

Rarity works fine depending upon what we're talking about. One princess, one Excalibur, that sort of thing. It goes without saying that someone will get the princess and someone will get Excalibur (likely the same guy, success breeds success but one never knows. A jerk with Excaliber may still in the eyes of the princess be a jerk).

Good players will let you get away with that sort of thing.

But in general I'd suggest to avoid rarity as a method of game balance with anything that would have a 'market' price. That is, it just costs a bunch. Never works.

And with anything, if you don't want to the players to have something, don't put it in the game. If you do put it in the game, make it plain by what it is that it won't work for the players (Excalibur? Dude you're not the rightful King of all the Britons, it stays in the stone where it belongs).

It will save you trouble down the road.

I tell myself that gamers aren't worse than the common man...

...and from what I can tell, that's true. They're not. They just happen to be a group of people that I tend to have more contact with and so they seem worse.

Self-centered, entitled, thoughtless, clueless of their limits and immoral both in their fantasies and in their online actions. Children basically, in a modern world where Extended Adolescence defines the new common man. The impact is everywhere and is of course increasing.

• In the 70s gamers were a small crowd playing complex historical wargames
• By the 80s the wargames with their values of history and simulation had been replaced by complex table top fantasy RPGs
• By the 90s the assault on complex RPGs was well under way. Amber, FUDGE and the like.
• The 00 saw the rise of the Forge GNS movements, not only were the games mechanically simply in the extreme- they by design could only contain one campaign idea.

Same in video games. I played complex flight sims in the 80s and mystery games. Today we have Angry Birds.

Today the gamers say that the games of the early 80s are impossible to play. Too complex. No matter that people played them and did quite well. They remind me of people who claim mankind couldn't have built the Great Pyramids. Small minds thinking small thoughts. Of course they'd have to play small games.

The moral side of the hobby has decayed as well. It always had it's underbelly. But it was either by today's standards almost innocent (D&D's succubus artwork) or known to be a niche stupidity.

In the age of moral relativism, things can't be that simple. From Little Fears to FATAL to  poison'd  to LotFP we have the progress of fifth and increasing acceptance. Now days even the mainstream of online gaming is willing to accept artwork of women being torn apart from their sexual organs out as long as they think the game design displaying it is... what? A cool rewrite of original D&D?

That's how low we sell our morality. We don't even require a new game, just a fluffed up version of an old one.



What set off this, my latest rant on the subject? An experiment of a sort. I wanted to see if the OSR crowd was any different.

So I decided to respond to a recent post (together with this older one on the same site) that was something of a bugbear for me, the idea that a modern gamer can take history and remake it in their own image. Not a genre (like say Westerns), but history.

A timely concern, given today's efforts to rewrite history. Even Texas is considering removing the Alamo from being taught in school. Too offensive you know.

I wondered what response a call for respect of history, and the people who were part of it would receive from the OSR crowd. I got the same one I would have expected from the gaming world as a whole.

Self-centered, clueless, and lacking in any respect for others. They felt the dead were owed nothing.

I asked them if they were dead, would they feel that they would be owed something? What if what we considered horrid deeds today were accepted in the future? Would they then be accepting of future gamers labeling them with those deeds because it made them more acceptable to that future?

I got no answer, only claims that I was vile for asking the question. They hold their values dear, but they won't even accept the question asking if those standards should be applied to themselves.


In over 100 posts, there was not one person besides me willing to claim that people deserve the respect of truth after their death. Not one. We may as well get rid of the graveyards now, and let the vermin eat well. For that is now what we are.


Self-centered, entitled, thoughtless, clueless of their limits and immoral both in their fantasies and in their online actions.

Extended Adolescence indeed.

Home Grown Rules Update

Things are going well with my attempt to get Age of Heroes into a printable form. I've recover from LuLu format changes, the first 152 or so pages have been proof-read twice by different people (which will only reduce the errors by 80% or so, but perfection isn't the goal).

Another 20 pages need to be proof read but are otherwise complete.

Just need to take a deep breath and push through the last of it. Getting a bit weary and I've been distracted by visiting friends and family.

We are our Fantasies

Looking back over the hobby started in the 70s is difficult in many ways. So much loss of potential. So much decay. Not that it ever was ideal, but foolishly we thought it could be- at least for us.

I (like so many others) snorted at the overblown worries of BADD, claims of satanism in D&D, and worries about kids dying in tunnels. And with good reason. They were overblown, founded on basically no facts, and they ignore the simple truth that games (like so much else) are tools. Games don't corrupt people, people corrupt people.

We didn't consider that corrupt people would produce corrupted games. And if those were accepted, the very nature of what defined corruption would be lost. In time, nothing would be off limits.

Archimedes said, "If you give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world". Games are excellent levers. Still, the world is a big place. Games are small things, and only one of many influences. It's impossible to say how large or how small their influence is, and I claim no outstanding significance for my little hobby.

But I do think it's something of a mirror. Where we stood. Where we now stand.

As recently as the turn of the 21st century, games such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess, or Courtesans would have been viewed as the filth they are with but the rare trollish defender. Now they are effectively accepted (online at least) as just another RPG. Slowly, things get worse year by year. And the moral corruption predicted by 70s turns out to be in too many ways correct, wrong only in the details.

Assisting in this was a major change in RPG design itself. Originally RPGs were an outgrowth of wargaming. And simulation of reality was a major goal of wargaming itself. For a while, RPGs continued in that path with many designs seeking a more complete and accurate simulation.

This changed with the move towards story focused games. With the move, games no longer worried about being a simulation of reality- but instead a vehicle to unleash the imagination of the player. To give them free reign, and the ability to wander where they will. As unconstrained as possible.

Freedom from even moderately complex games is freedom from learning. Freedom to create whatever story is desired is a surrender to hedonism. These games were meant to give the player more power. And power corrupts.

Lines have moved. And once moved, they become the new line to cross. Decay seeks ever more decay. I have a simple test for any doubtful reader. Come back in ten years and see if you can tell me that things are better, or if items like LotFP now look rather old fashion and innocent in comparison.


I greatly doubt games caused any of this. But they reflect it, and they certainly didn't stand in the way of it.

We are our Fantasies. They are what we seek to become.

Look in the mirror, are you proud of where you are going? Is that where you want your children to end up as well?

And sadly, I expect many of you will answer 'yes' for the simple reason you know not what you do.

Captain America was a Solid Movie

Went with friend over the weekend to see the latest Marvel movie. Completely enjoyed it.

Despite some waffling on the part of the people behind the movie (who for some perverse reason refused to openly embraced the American values of their title character), things still turned out very well indeed.

Indeed in a bit of irony, their attempt to downplay patriotism really only highlighted it. Having been raised by a member of the Greatest Generation, I'm familar with some of their traits. Understatement, deeds instead of words, and doing the right thing flowed naturally while lofty speeches were left to generals and Politicians.

At times they claimed that they were making a movie not about an American, but about a good man. They forgot to mention that he was a good man because of his American values. This may have been intentional, so as to not damage their future in the very left wing Hollywood. If so, good job.  If that wasn't the case and they really were attempting to remove America from Captain America, one can only be amused at their failure.

On other matters, they used the World War III German 'future weapons' look very effectively. Chris Evans was perfect in the role, and I never once saw the human torch. Hayley Atwell was amazing as Peggy Carter, and was one of the few superhero romances I've believed in while watching a film.

I give it a strong thumbs up.

Too Little Time, Too Much Work

Been very busy of late, and what free time I have has been going into finishing up Age of Heroes for printing and working on the Claymore Campaign Supplement.

On the core rules front- my wonderful editors (my wife and an old friend) are just about caught up with me on their proof reading. Massive pain that and I doubt it will ever be 100%. But it should be good enough for us to use without it being instantly too painful to continue.

Lots of work, and I'm really not very good at this. It's why it's taken so long to do it. But if I don't do it now, it may never get done. So it's time for doing.

Currently at 142 pages in the proof-reading. About another 30 already written pages to go. Need to finish up two more sections.

Currently on the magic item creation part. This should be short as I don't intend this to be a major part of the game. For one thing, it really won't allow the creation of permanent items. Few things can more quicky ruin a setting than unrestricted creation of magic items. Cost and rarity of materials are no real control of this problem.

On the Claymore front, all the key rules are in place, and we play-tested it a little this last weekend. Went quite well with mid-level characters. This weekend we'll see how it does with high level ones.

Quite happy with the write ups of the primary monster from the series and one of the series characters. I'd post them but since no one has the rules it's rather pointless to.

Talking about the weather...

Currently typing up the rules for weather. Something that most games never concern themselves with although there was a time that they did (some favor of Rolemaster was the last time I think I encountered it myself- maybe their Middle Earth supplements).

It's a impossible subject. Way too many influences to make a short *and* good simulation of the subject. So like most of this section of the rules I'm going for an example and favor. It should work fine. Robust enough that it can easily be expanded if needed, and solid enough that it can work for a whole region of the world.

Based it all on Kansas City, because it is the center of the universe and all.

Age of Heroes: and on to the boring stuff....

With only a couple of minor details, I've finished the layout and updates for the main rules for Age of Heroes. That is character generation, combat and the magic section. Those must make up 99% of  typical rule use.

The remainder is what I've always thought of as the boring stuff. Travel time, determining when characters naturally die, herbal lists, travel times, sample bestiary, doing the layout for the character generation example, etc.

It will be a bit of hump to get over, but it's going well so far.

The Endless Search for a Game System

Saw this article over on the the RPG Blog II. I respond there, but thought I'd put my reaction with just a bit of expansion here as well.

-

I agree and disagree.

I agree in that once you find a system that matches your needs- just stay with it.

I agree in that if you don't find a system that matches yours needs- create your own, in whole or as house ruled modification. Then just stay with it.

A different system is only required if the needs change. Most often some changes in your existing choice can meet those new needs just fine. I haven't changed game systems in 30 years save for version updates.

I disagree however that this is possible for most people. That's because they keep picking poor systems, but they never realize it. Dissatisfaction  builds, and off they going looking for a new game.

Wasn't as bad as I feared

Only took me the weekend to redo the layout after Lulu changed their paper size and requirements. Went from 138 pages to 155 due to the change. Oh joy.

At least now I'm back to doing new stuff. Got the disease rules in. Progress once more.

And a Good Swift Kick in the Backside from Lulu

Well, this is something of a disaster.

Was trucking along and doing rather well on getting my homegrown rules together and the layout done so I can order myself a bound copy. Decided to review all my various options, candy store like you know...

...seems the template I download so long ago for letter sized books is out of date. Changed margins and all, and not in a good way. They want larger ones now. Worse, you can't get letter-size in hardback anymore (could one ever? maybe I didn't read it right back in the day). Nope, you're stuck with something smaller overall.

So the whole layout is blown. Have to redo it all. A number of the tables will have to be rebuilt with few columns. Sets me back about a month I think. Just about on the edge of giving up on it, thinking it's no longer worth the effort. Never really was truth be told, hell of a time sink just to avoid using binders.

It's really all my fault. I should have finished this back when I started it.

Sigh.

Are we too whipped to call a shovel a shovel?

Sigh.

The phrase used to be 'call a spade a spade', back when spade meant a type of shovel and before we were trained to be hypersensitive to... well everything. The old days weren't perfect, but today is if anything heading towards something worse.

This here is a case in point. This is a typical example of someone who can't bring himself to label the art in Lamentations of the Flame Princess the vile and disgusting trash that it is. Instead he has to celebrate the pushing of boundaries. The publishing of a horrid and repulsive thing in our hobby is seen as a chance to display not one's moral and artistic standards- but how open minded one is.

So here we are. A world where we basically remove an old and harmless saying from usage due to fears of racism, but we celebrate graphic art showing a woman being ripped apart from her vagina out...

Gives a whole new layer to the phrase "you've come a long way baby" doesn't it?

And I find that there are days when I hate this hobby, or rather what is becoming the face of it.

The Good and Bad of Published Settings

Did a lot of work on the rules for the new campaign over the last week. Things are starting to come together and we even rolled up characters Sunday. We'll likely be able to start play this weekend, although the work on the rules will continue in order to make the materials at least approaching complete.

While doing this, and the research that goes into it, I encountered some old friends. The advantages and disadvantages of using settings created by other people.

One big advantage is that it's easier to hook people by showing them the source material. With that comes understanding of what the feel of the campaign is going to be.

The big disadvantage is that you don't own that material, and the people who do will without exception screw it up badly.

Using the Claymore anime as the background for this campaign has proved that disadvantage once more. I was able to bypass some rather uncomfortable things in the anime and ignored some stupid things (the sidekick) easily enough. Keep all the really good stuff and was ready to go.

Then in my research I came across the Manga. Not nearly as easy to ignore some of the stuff in that. Oh it has good parts too. But I can see why plans to do a second anime season based on it were dropped.

That brings be back to another advantage of basing campaigns on published material. You can change things and do them better.

This Week I"m Enjoying Working on My Rules

More prep work is going into our new campaign than I've done in a long time. This is due to our selecting Age of Heroes (a home grown set of rules) for it. Much of that is clean up, as I insisted that I get our notes and draft rules into shape so I can toss it up on something like Lulu and get myself a hardback copy of the (core) rules. I'm done with binders, it's time to have a real book.

The other part is doing the campaign supplement. Age of Heroes is a game first, but still a rather strong simulation second. It was originally created for Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Prydain style gaming. That's a long way from Claymore. So it needs significant rule additions to manage that.

What has been gratifying is the fact that no rule additions have been needed. Back when I did a test for using these rules for Star Wars, I found that they were far more adaptable than I would have given them credit for. Right now I'm trying to work out the core mechanical concept for the setting- Yoki.


So far things are going well, and everyone is looking forward to the first play test of the supplement. Currently it looks like we can do the first of those this weekend.

Are MMORPGs going the way of PnP?

I've been looking to replace the MMORPG I've been playing for the last four years or so. Typical reasons, the game is moving away from the play style it started with. The people in charge move on, new goals appear and core concepts change. It's the way of things, when it happens in Pen and Paper you just don't buy the new edition and keep playing. But that isn't possible with an MMORPG, so you find a new game.

MMORPG game design (and PnP too for that matter) has effectively been stagnant for years now. Modified D&D style combat with rare (and rather unsuccessful) exception. And that looks to continue. The online world never experienced the explosion of different approaches that was attempted in the 80s. And given the costs of development and marketing for even a small attempt- likely never will.

But while the core game play remains very familar, they are playing with stuff around the edges.

I've been watching three games in development with an eye towards one of them being my next waste of time: Star Wars: The Old Republic, Guild Wars 2, and The Secret World. All these talk about radical changes in game play- they lie. The new stuff from that point of view is little but minor changes or additions.

What is new is the focus on Story. The first two promise individual and personal storylines. Frankly, I think that's a lie too. It's really just a choice between whatever handful of character arcs *they* allow us. In the case of the Old Republic, it's even worst than that- as your storyline choices may not even be yours when in a group, but instead is owned by a random member of your party.

But still, this is quite new for the MMORPG scene. The Secret World doesn't promise an individual storyline, but does promise mysteries and investigation arcs into the storyline of the world and your place in it. Not individual, but still a major feature of the setting.

After more than a decade of playing D&D, it seems the MMORPG world is now ready to try World of Darkness. Let's hope they do a better job than White Wolf did.

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.

Picking a New Campaign: Part III- Borrowing the Good Stuff

I am something of a setting thief. Most people are, if they admit it or not.

Running a traditional fantasy world but with your own names for the people and places? You stole that from the masters of such, basically Tolkien but you could toss Howard in there if you want. Or some of the more modern authors- you know, those guys who pick pocketed it from Tolkien before you did.

Running a non-traditional fantasy world, in order to avoid anything that hints of Tolkien? You stole that. From Tolkien. After all, what you're doing is reversing or avoiding what he did- not very original if you think about it. Oh, and a bunch of people beat you to that too.

The truth of the matter is that there isn't really anything original, i.e. a concept that hasn't been done yet. And if there is, it is all but certain (I'll leave in a non-zero lightning bolt chance in there) that it wouldn't be worth doing. For our culture, there are certain concepts that speak to us, and we are well spoken to indeed.

Perhaps if we undergo a massive cultural change, it will bring with it new stuff. Unlikely IMO, because such change is likely to do nothing be return us to previous cultures and their non-original concepts. But it new stuff has happened before, perhaps it will again.

Now the bells and whistles will change. And the old ideas can be done *better* and more suited to certain people or groups just as they can done worse. Forbidden Planet is sci-fi, even if it's also a redo of Shakespeare's Tempest. I like the former and am rather uncaring about the latter, because sci-fi offers me personally a better view on the same underlying concepts.

Because of this reality, I'm rather open in my borrowing. I don't hide it. If I chose to run a Captain America clone in Superhero campaign, I'll run Captain America thank you. I'll just run him *right*, i.e. how I think the character should be- and the comic companies and their every changing writers and takes on the character be damned.

My first and central RPG campaign was based in Middle Earth, and I use same setting as a base for ever other campaign I run. Why? Because it matched my values, offered the type of adventures I desired, and sparked my imagination.

But my campaigns are not copies of the "Lord of the Rings". Never done that period actually. After all, Tolkien detailed that place and time quite well. Rather I've done games set in other periods. What was things like in the middle of the Third Age instead of its end? What about the First? What about the Sixth? Yes, the Sixth- it was part of his overall history you know.

So I borrow, and then extend and expand.

If Middle Earth was lost history, if Eru created the world and the Third Age is lost to time- what changes would that make in a future Age borrowed in part from- oh Shadowrun? It would change everything. Creating that is original enough for me.

Or to pick something I haven't done (yet), what would a Warhammer 40K setting be if everything they believed about history was wrong, but the history of Middle was correct? How do you get from one to the other, and what does options does it open up or close off compared to traditional 40k?

For me, this is in part of a way of saving really cool ideas, ruined by where the original writers took them. The stupid wimpy ending the Shadow War in B5? I can do that better. The fatalism of 40K? I can replace that with a tale of light surviving even the greatest darkness and human failings. Those horrid Star Wars sequels? Anyone could better.

In a nutshell, I borrow concepts, names, background- whatever I want. Then I change it how I want and come up with something mine. Something that for me is better than the original. Much like the old wargaming hobby often sought to develop better ways of fighting historical battles.

In a very real way, this is the core of how I play and part of the why as well.

Picking a New Campaign: Part II- What's Important

As covered in my last blog, we were picking from a number of possible campaign settings:

1. Ages of Middle Earth
2. Nephilim (pre-flood earth)
3. Hidden World (19th century up to the modern era)
4. Shadowrun
5. Year 1 (our re-imagination of silver age Marvel)
6. Morrow Project (cross off list as we just did)
7. Outreach (early sci-fi interstellar expansion)
8. Federation (original show star trek like setting)
9. Tri-Galaxy (wild sci-fi)

To end things before it begin we attempt to find out if we had any real consensus on what it should be. No such luck of course. After spinning our wheels a bit, we took a slightly different tack- define what was important to see in the next campaign and narrow things down to match.

It turned out to be a somewhat interesting list, both in what it was and in if actually influenced what we chose.

An overarching storyline like we had in the Morrow Project campaign, i.e. a planned end.

This was rather easy in any of the settings truth be told. It's really little more than defining a goal and the basic idea of what would be in the way. So, really no impact.

More niche for the characters.

This one took me a little by surprise. One of the players wanted a change from Morrow Project which featured an all military group using national weapons to a group of PCs with radically different backgrounds and 'weapons'. Now the Morrow Project campaign did have solid niches and roles for the characters (I doubt I could enjoy a game without them), so this call for even more niche, more to have those niches be more front and center.

This removed a number of possibilities. Outreach, Federation, and Tri-Galaxy were all intended to focus primarily on what were in effect military characters, armed with military arms. Something we just did.

Sure we could focus on a different aspect of the setting, but at this time there was little appeal to that. Do these were removed.

The more we consider this, it seem that in general it was the concept of production firearms and their like that was really the core of the objection. Colonel Colt made all men equal it seems :)

This dropped us back to the two fantasy periods where sword and sorcery were the rule of the day. Ages of Middle Earth or Nephilim.

A player's background will have influence

One of players has a degree in theology. The concept of linking pre-flood Biblical accounts to Middle Earth was something of draw. Roughly on par with my interesting in modern military history and weapons causing me to often be drawn to more modern settings.

This perhaps was the turning point that removed the Ages of Middle Earth from the running.

In the end, campaign choices are made by a small subset of the players

In over thirty years of gaming, I don't think I've ever seen a group where a majority of the players felt strongly about what they're playing. I don't mean they're uninterested, just that they are open to a wide range of options.

That was the case here. Everyone was involved in making the decision, and everyone pointed out advantages and disadvantages. But nearly everyone would have been happy with any of the choices before us. So the final selection came down mostly to the just one of the players.

Next, I'll spend some time detailing the new setting.

Picking a New Campaign: Part I

The first order of business after completing a rpg campaign, is to pick the next campaign. And that's what we set out to do after the final game in our two year Morrow Project run. We spent a number of hours on it, and it will take more than one post to cover the process we ended up using.

First, a bit of background. Way back in the 80s right after we moved out of dungeon crawls for nothing more than dungeon crawls- we went straight to a concept of a meta-time line. A single time line that contained all the settings we wanted somewhere in it starting at the beginning of everything and end up with... well the end of everything.

It was a nice bit of luck that my first choice in a setting was Middle Earth, as it turned out J.R.R.T was fond of the same idea in a way. Middle Earth was *this* earth, but from a forgotten era. It made it very easy to build things out from there using J.R.R.T timeline for nearly all of the world's prehistory, only the extension into the fair future needed to be done. The basics of that was completed years ago as well (stealing inspiration from any number of sources along the way).

So it was to that meta-timeline that we turn our attention. We quickly identified a few broad areas and options. In order from earliest to latest:

1. Ages of Middle Earth
2. Nephilim (pre-flood earth)
3. Hidden World (19th century up to the modern era)
4. Shadowrun
5. Year 1 (our re-imagination of silver age Marvel)
6. Morrow Project (cross off list as we just did)
7. Outreach (early sci-fi interstellar expansion)
8. Federation (original show star trek like setting)
9. Tri-Galaxy (wild sci-fi)

Each of those cover huge ground, but they served as a guide to general concepts and feel. I think it's interesting that I left out most of human history (it's in the timeline, but not considered for campaigns). I just haven't found anything in there before the 19 century that sounds interesting to me. Odd, consider that includes the Age of Sail...

In any case, this was our starting point.

The Morrow Project Campaign is a Wrap

We finished the Morrow Project Campaign this weekend. It ran a month short of 2 years in real life and about half a year in game.

The world was saved, for the lost of one PC (Sgt Preston Walker). He died buying time for his teammates to escape, taking the master villain of the epic with him by setting off the mini-nuke self-destruct in an old project CDC/research base that had been taken off by said villain

Also missing in action was the team scientist NPC, Doctor Winston. He too may have been buying time for the team to escape an earlier event (a collapsing tower, who's fall was brought about by an overloaded dimensional portal). Or maybe he saw a technical pretty and just had to investigate it and lost track of the fact that everything was falling apart around him. Those left, will never know. But history will likely selected the heroic end.

The backup to Prime Base was located, and the Project is coming fully online. There are untold adventures left in that world. But the characters have done their primary job, and the players are moving on to a different setting in the meta-time that runs from Middle Earth of the past to the far future.

All in all, very successful and everyone had a great time.

This was the first campaign that I've done that had a planned end point. Previously I've always been more of a sandbox player and where there have certainly been arcs, the campaigns themselves were never planned to end. There is a certain joy in completing something. I see advantages to both approaches if done right.

As to what's up next? We spent a couple of hours determining just that last night. I'll be talking about it some here as I iron out the details.