Re: Marv Wolfman's Write Stuff

This article summarizes a panel Marv Wolfman did at Comic-Con. I think his advice to comic writers also applies to roleplayers. For example, "Wolfman noted that perfect characters are rarely interesting, so it’s vital for a writer to build flaws and internal conflict into their characters. Thinking about your characters’ past is one way to do that."

One Page Dungeons

The final compiled PDF of all the One Page Dungeon Contest winners is out. They also posted posted a PDF with all the entries. Details here.

I haven't read the other winning entries yet, but skimming through the PDF, I'm impressed by the graphic design and attention to detail of the dungeons. I'm a stickler for templates and adhered as closely as I could to the one provided. That's why, for example, my name doesn't appear on my entry (page 29): there wasn't a place for it on the template. And no, anal retentive isn't hyphenated.* But I like the way many of the entries broke out of the template.

I might actually end up using some of these in the future. But not mine, it's just way too silly.

* Though this shows it both ways.

Best Silly Dungeon

Back in May, I submitted my entry for the One Page Dungeon Contest. I was intrigued several factors:

• The one-page format. I love the challenge, like my 200 Words essays, of condensing the essence of something into a minimal space.
  
• The "edition-less format." Since I haven't actually made a dungeon for D&D in ages, I could keep it system agnostic.
• "Submitting a dungeon to the contest releases it under the Creative Common Share-alike license (US 2008) with credit to the contest participant." Many other "contests," which force the participants to sign over the copyrights of their submissions to the contest owners or publishers, are really just scams to get other people to provide content for free. Clearly, that was not the case here.

After a day or so, I came up with a central concept: making a dungeon based on a classic video game. My biggest challenge beyond making the map was filling the entire page with what was essentially a one-line joke whose punchline is given away by the map. Thanks go out to Matt Helms, who helped with some constructive feedback.

And now, if you look through the list of winners, you'll find my name after "Best Silly Dungeon." Which is exactly what I was going for. Rather than the standard prize of D&D 4th Edition modules (for which I have absolutely no use), I'll be getting a $20 gift certificate for Drivethrurpg. I have uploaded my entry, the MAZE of NAMCAP. The compiled PDF of winners can be found here.

Friday Night Gaming: Call of Cthulhu

May 15, 2009
Zach was stuck at work, so it was just the five of us this night.

Call of Cthulhu
I ran a playtest of the game I'm running at Kublacon. I won't give any details or spoilers until after I run at the con. Even so, it went pretty well. People had fun. I took notes on what to improve and have a little bit of work to do to round out the descriptions, but I'm happy with how it went.

Simple Rules?

I downloaded the new and free QuickStart rules for 4th edition D&D.

Contained therein, at the bottom of page 2, is this bit of design insight:

Simple Rules, Many Exceptions: Every class, race, feat,
power, and monster in the D&D game breaks the rules in
some way. From minor to significant, the game is built upon
exception-based rules design. For example, a normal melee
attack always deals a few points of damage, but every class
has powers that ramp up the damage when they get used.

To a certain extent, this is true of many, if not most, roleplaying games. The rules define some skill, ability, or power lets you do something that you would normally not be able to do. We certainly saw that in 3rd edition D&D. My first experience with it was to note that all the cool manuevers (disarming, tripping, etc.) came with heavy penalties, making them tactically useless, unless you had the proper feat (and each maneuver had its own associated feat).

On the other hand, having all these exceptions means the rules aren't simple. Perhaps I'm arguing semantics, but I'd say the core mechanic is simple, but the rules are fairly complex. One of the core concepts of chaos theory is that you can get very complex systems out of a few simple rules. But that's not how D&D does it. They have a core concept upon which they add a multitude of special rules and abilities to create a complex system.

As I said recently in A&E (specifically, here): "With rpgs, there is already inherent complexity in the characters, plots, and settings. To me, adding extra mechanical bits is overkill." And this is what keeps me from embracing D&D. All the classes, races, and exceptions that they built the rules around keep me at arm's length.

Friday Night Gaming: Street Fighter, Jamaica

April 3, 2009

Street Fighter
There were two fights this night: a 2-on-2 tag team match and a 3-on-3 king of the hill match. In each case, PCs were teamed up against a team of NPCs. In both bouts, the PCs prevailed.

In the first fight, Brian probably could have finished his opponent without tagging out, but he let Merwin in anyway. Unfortunately, the NPC was also able to tag-out, and so Merwin had to face a fresh opponent. Brian was eventually tagged back in to finish it. As a bystander to the bout, I must admit that I was pretty bored. The rules arguments, griping, and general sense that none of this really mattered got on my nerves.

In my fight, I tried to help Robert and Ian, but was mostly neutralized by good tactical choices and Zach and Brian (who played an NPC to help Zach with the load and also rolled phenomenally against me). I was finally able to be effective at the end and scored the final, decisive point. But since Zach was still having trouble juggling 2 NPCs and left idle one fighter who was causing me problems, I don't claim victory. I was just happy to have it end.

With no other bouts planned for the night (thankfully), we pulled out a board game.

Jamaica
When we pulled this out and began setting up, I made a point to let Brian know that it was a light, luck-based game. Well, it's not entirely about luck, but so much depends on factors outside of your control, including random card draws and die rolls, that it's a game I simply can't take too seriously. But it is exactly the kind of game that I want to play after a heavy game. It's too long to be a filler, exactly, but it's a good alternative if we get burned out on Bang!, et al.

Merwin struggled the entire game, ending with a negative score. Brian was stockpiling gold and seeing if he could survive without getting food (and not doing a bad job of it). Robert and Zach seemed to tangle a lot. Ian and I lead the actual race near the end and we both finished at Port Royal at the end. I won with the most points, but Ian and Zach (who ended with stocks full of gold) were very close. I think 3 of the first 4 treasures were cursed and exchanged hands multiple times. I took a -4 treasure from Ian and ended up giving it to Robert; later, Ian took a -2 card from me.

We ended at 11:00 and called it an early night.

Friday Night Gaming: Street Fighter

March 20, 2009

Street Fighter
We finally started Zach's oft-delayed rpg mini-campaign. To get used to the rules, we played a number of PVP bouts. Between missed rules and misinterpreted rules, it was both enlightening and frustrating. I'm not sure it was fun, though. There was a bit of roleplaying, but nothing to write about. There were several humorous Zachisms, but the only one I can remember right now is an NPC referring to idle fighters needing to spar because they were becoming "stiff boned." Hopefully, next week will be better.

Friday Night Gaming: The Citadel, Bang!

October 24, 2008

The Citadel
The game wrapped up tonight with a satisfactory, if unexpected conclusion. See also, part two (I never wrote up part one).

Ameline, Henry, and Brian managed to outrun the Hounds (mostly due to low rolls from me) though Henry did get separated from the others. He then encountered another Opener, named Rikard, who took him first to Singapore and later to an African savannah. He told him how the Captain of the Guard was closing all the gates, meaning killing all the Openers. They were the last two. He gave Henry some advice on how to move between the world and the Citadel before leaving, always staying on the move so that the Hounds would not catch up to him. During this encounter, Henry also realized that normal people could not see Aspects of The Citadel, such as the giant spider legs growing out of Rikard's back.

Meanwhile, the other four met up at the Tower and noticed how portions of it were fading in and out, being replaced by a high-rise under construction, and then back again. After venturing inside, they saw glimpses of an unfinished hotel lobby. Nigel had the idea to jump into the hotel areas when they appeared. But then they made the leap (and all but he made their Essence rolls), Ameline, Brian, and Terry ended up on a Chicago work site and Ian was left alone. Soon after, the Magician walked in and opened a secret doorway that revealed the empty throne room. He explained how the lack of an Emperor was causing the collapse and that he could stop it if Nigel recovered the Key. As the Emperor, he would then be in need of a right-hand man....

Henry returned to the Tower and met up with Nigel before they both went to Chicago. The building swapping places with the Tower was the building Henry was working on. With the five of them together again, they decided to search for the Key and the Emperor in New York, where Nigel and Brian had encountered him. In the transition from Chicago to The Citadel to New York, they were followed by two Hounds, and they did battle in a New York park. During the fight, Terry discovered that he could use his shotgun, which shot blue flame as it had done when he first encountered a Hound. Nigel developed an Aspect, with mystic symbols appearing in his eyes, and he helped Brian jack a car. After dispatching the Hounds, they retired to Nigel's apartment.

Eventually, Brian lead them to the gate where he had picked up the Emperor. The gate was now closed and secured with a heavy chain (there was no lock). Ameline recognized the area beyond the gate as the Park, where she had met the Emperor and the Magician (during the first session). Brian realized that someone was missing/different. Brian (Robert) realized he was driving a different bus he had used on that fateful day. I then described a cut scene* which showed the Key lodged in the collection bin of the bus. This was a good a-ha moment for the players when they remembered me describing the homeless guy dropping something in the bin back in the first session.

They tracked down the bus, smashed the collection bin, and recovered the Key, all in plain view of the bus driver and his passengers. Terry (at Ameline's suggestion) pretended to take the other PCs hostage with shotgun in hand. Later, they tried to find the Emperor, but to no avail. Terry sent his crow in search mode (another cut scene showing the crow arrive next to a homeless man under a bridge), but he later became aware that crow died. Ameline realized that the Emperor was in a dual state of being/non-being and transforming into something else. After consulting the major tarot arcana, Zach intuited that the Emperor was becoming the Hermit. With this knowledge, Ameline was able to determine he was living under a bridge in Central Park. She also saw a replay of the scene of how the Captain of the Guard had attacked the Emperor, but he had gotten away and came to New York.

They had to decide who to give the Key to. The Citadel needed an Emperor or bad things would happen (like the walls between the world and The Citadel collapsing in a mystic cluster fuck). Needless to say, they were divided. Nigel wanted to give it to the Magician, but Ameline was against it. Her vision had shown the Magician leaving the Emperor's side just before the attack, so she suspected that he was complicit in the coup attempt. I think they didn't understand why the Emperor/Hermit had dropped the Key so were perhaps hesitant to give it back to him.

After much deliberation, Henry took action. He grabbed Brian (who was holding the key) and returned to the Citadel. Nigel and Ameline managed to follow after, but Terry didn't bother. Henry and Brian made it inside the Cathedral where they sought sanctuary. The doors closed behind them, leaving Nigel and Ameline, who were soon joined by the Magician, outside. Brian handed the key over to the Priestess, making her the new Emperor. She opened the doors and the Magician assumed his place as her right-hand man. Brian pledged his allegiance to the new Emperor and eventually so did Ameline. Nigel was given the option to become the Magician's apprentice and he took it. Back on Earth, Terry was beginning a long journey home to St. Louis, when the Hermit came up along side him. Terry's crow returned.

Analysis: I am pleased with how the story unfolded. I had to give them more insight and guidance at the end than I had wanted. I had no plans for how the PCs would find out about the Key and the Emperor/Hermit. I had hoped the players would come up with something inspired, but they didn't. I don't blame them. I used Ameline as the conduit of information because she had not developed any powers up to that point. I had originally envisioned that the PCs would form a cadre allied with the Emperor (whoever that turned out to be); I liked the way it turned out better. This last session, and especially the Key a-ha moment and the allegiance-making scenes, really brought the game to a satisfactory and enjoyable ending. For me, at least. I'm not sure how the players took it. They had fun, I think, but I have a feeling that I got more out of it than they did.

I'm glad I ran it, and I'm relieved to have the concept out of my head. I could turn it into a convention game, but I don't think I will, as I think there is too much opportunity for player frustration and confusion. I plan on taking a break running games for this group until at least DunDraCon, where I am running a space marine sceneario using Savage Worlds. I'm also thinking about Call of Cthulhu for Kublacon. I may playtest these games with the group, but I'm in no hurry to.

*: Brian (the player) made enough references to the cut scene that I'll never use cut scenes when he's playing ever again.

Bang!
This was one of the more unusual games of Bang! we have played. We had six players and all the expansions were in play. Ian, as Sheriff started, followed by Zach and Brian playing the Deputy and Renegade (I forget which was which). Robert, being as far away from the Sheriff as possible, attacked the Sheriff. Merwin followed suit and also played a card that forced us all to discard a card. Unfortunately, my unplayed Volcanic was taken from my hand.** With 3 Bang! cards (and I drew 2 more on my turn), I could have taken out the Sheriff on my turn. I was able to copy Robert's Slab the Killer power, so I knew Ian didn't have enough Missed cards to stop me. But it was not to be a quick win and so I just shot him once.

During the following rounds, the Outlaws seemed to have the advantage without the other three able to establish a foothold. Merwin was close to elimination throughout, but managed to hang on. Since the Outlaws were all revealed in the first round, there was little pussy-footing and deceptive play. We just gunned for the Sheriff, mostly ignoring the other two players. The card selection was on our side and having two Slabs helped too. The Sheriff was the first (and last) to be killed.

Using the High Noon and A fistful of Cards expansions added some weird moments to the game, but I'm not sure they really add much to the game besides the "something different happens this round" factor. Ian has said that he definitely prefers playing with them whereas Brian prefers to leave them out.

**: And I admit that I felt a strong urge to cheat to prevent this from happening. No one was paying attention to the card I was randomly discarding and could have pulled it off. But I didn't. But damn it was tempting just for that brief moment. After my turn, I was forced to discard two cards (I only had three bullets), and I discarded two Bangs to show how close the game came to a first-round win for the Outlaws.

Friday Night Gaming: The Citadel, Red Dragon Inn

October 10, 2008

The Citadel

We had the second session of my modern day mystic shit game. With all the PCs together, it was time to provide some direction. They found themselves in The Tower that is at the center of The Citadel. From the top, they were able to identify The Cathedral, The Ziggurat, The Gate, and The Garden.

After making their way down to street level, they encountered a talisman merchant whom only Nigel (played by Ian) could understand. Eventually, they would all come to understand the language, called Ur, but Nigel learned it first. After making their way to the marketplace, they were approached by a witch who introduced herself as Karina and lead them to her home. She answered some of their questions while getting information from them as well. She noted that four of them bore the mark of The Emperor, now missing. The marks on Ameline and Terry (played by Zach and Brian, respectively), were revealed in brief flashbacks. The exception was Henry (played by Merwin), whom she identified as an Opener. It was also made clear that the black bird belonged (somehow) to Terry.

They then headed to The Cathedral, where they encountered The Priestess and got the first hints of a political struggle in the wake of The Emperor's disappearance. They then went to The Ziggurat and spoke with The Magician, whom was earlier identified as the person on Ameline's card. Nigel allowed himself to be given a mark, which gave him the power of transmutation. This was a hint that eventually, they would all get powers, should they seek them out. Henry has a notion of his Opener abilities, but the rules, scope, and limitations haven't clicked yet in Merwin's mind. Brian (played by Robert) has shown some of his power. Terry's crow is obviously something power-related. Ameline (who really should have been the one to get a power from The Magician) has shown no signs of power.

They then set off to meet with the Captain of the Guard, whom they found at The Gate, giving orders to his Guards. After some deliberation, Ameline, Brian, and Henry decided to approach and question the Captain of the Guard while Nigel and Terry waited out of sight in a nearby alleyway. Unfortunately, neither the PCs nor the Captain was about to give out any information, so the Captain ordered his guards to take them into custody. The PCs decided to make a break for it and the session ended on a cliffhanger.

Red Dragon Inn

Red Dragon Inn and its first expansion Red Dragon Inn 2 which also acts as a stand-alone game) were combined to make a 5-player game after Robert called it a night.

I played the Bard character, which had not yet been played with this group. I built up a considerable lead in gold after a good round of gambling and spoiling another round. But I also gained gold by winning 3 drinking contests. This also proved to be my downfall because they combined for a total of 18 Alcohol points. Twice, Brian and I tied (which prompts a second round in the contest and adding more Alcohol), and we both went under at the end of the third.

I might have survived longer if I had been more conservative. Before the last drinking contest, I was down 1 Fortitude and could have healed myself for 2 (wasting half the benefit) but instead played a card that increased everyone's Alcohol content, including mine. This put my Alcohol 4 away from my Fortitude. Naturally, my next drink had 4 Alcohol, putting me out.

Merwin quickly fell after that, leaving Zach and Ian still standing. And just like last week, they ended in a tie, simultaneously knocking each other out. But as we starting putting things away, Ian realized he had a card that could have given him the solo win. Moral of the story, don't assume you know what the card does.

20d6 Spreadsheet

For your consideration and reference, I offer a spreadsheet showing the probabilities for various totals rolling 1d6 to 20d6, including adding +1, +2, or +1d3 to each.

Ironclaw Review

This is an old review I did and had up on the old site. I have since had a chance to play it a couple of times and confirmed that I like the ideas but hits a level of crunch that I doesn't fit my style. I also picked up most of the setting supplements which add culture-specific rules, giving each their own special magic and abilities. This is good as it adds rules-reinforced flavor but it is also bad in adding yet more fiddly bits. Later games in the same family, Jadeclaw and their version of Usagi Yojimbo, follow much the same format.

I also created an analysis of the system, figuring out what the various odds of success are depending on the skill level and either the opposed skill level or the difficulty.

Sanguine Productions, Ltd., $28.95, 320 pages, First Printing Revised.

Summary
I admit that I have a certain fondness for anthropomorphic (or "furry") art. Usagi Yojimbo is my favorite comic book. Sabrina Online is my favorite online comic. I do not go to furry conventions, nor do I have furry-porn on my hard drive, so don't ask. Some people have a violent reaction against anthropomorphic settings, but I do not find them any worse than dwarves, elves, and other classic fantasy trappings.

Ironclaw bills itself as an anthropomorphic fantasy rpg. What makes it anthropomorphic, as opposed to a typical fantasy rpg, is the selection of races, traits, and art. The book is mostly rules and character creation with little setting information (but far more than the D&D3 Players Handbook). On the other hand, the rules are very complete and include many examples.

This review is based upon reading the book and crunching some numbers. My overall opinion of Ironclaw is a solid "B" which could go up (or down) once I have had a chance to play it.

The production values are very good and the book as a good hefty feel to it. Unfortunately, the soft cover suffered some slight curling of the lamination at the long edge.

The art, which features a variety of styles from many artists, is good to very good—if you like anthropomorphic art, that is. There is neither excessive white space nor cluttering border illustrations.

With a book this size, I wish they could have squeezed in more information about the setting. If they had included more background material, it would have made the book too large and costly, I imagine.

The sample adventure is quite simplistic, with only two pre-defined encounters, but contains plenty of advice for beginning GMs.

I did not find many gross editing errors, but I admit to having poor editing skills.

Most amusing sentence:

• "Being on fire is very distracting."

Most abrupt sentence (tie):

• "The Game Host can either make a simple ruling (say, an hour or two)."
• "For example, if you are invoking the White Magic Journeyman's Privilege, then roll a contest of your Cleric Trait vs. the ."

Setting
The setting is post-gunpowder pseudo-Renaissance fantasy. The guns are powerful but clunky (they take 10 minutes to reload, are prone to reliability problems, and require their own spark roll before you can make the to-hit roll). The printing press (without movable type) is a recent invention.

They do a good job conveying the tone of the time, where nobles can mete out low justice to commoners, trial by combat is still an option, convicts can be sold to slavers, and justice has more to do with one's purse than one's guilt. Whether you want a campaign of diplomacy and courtly affairs, high adventure, or highway robbery and skullduggery, it is all there. One thing that is conspicuously missing are classic dungeon crawls and monster hunts. There are no evil hordes or monsters; instead, there are political foes and bandits.

The island-continent of Calabria is split politically between three noble houses: Avoirdupois, Bisclavret, and Doloreaux. The pseudo-French, quasi-European tone is obvious. Supplements exist for the various houses. There are other lands as well, and though not mentioned by name, they probably include the setting to be detailed in Sanguine's soon-to-be-released Jadeclaw rpg.

Ironclaw drops hints that the world may be our Earth after an apocalypse. Some aspects are very Earth-like, such as the 365 218/900 day year with 7-day weeks and 30-31 day months. They make reference to a lost civilization of powerful wizard-kings, the Autarchs, who built great cities and continental empires before they were befallen by some great cataclysm.

Lizards and bugs fill the ecological nice for vermin. Mounts and cattle are replaced by lizard-like (or perhaps more dinosaur-like) animals. It would not due to have a horse PC riding a horse, after all. Otherwise, the ecology of the world is left very sketchy.
System

The system is very clever. I mean this both in a good way and a bad way. Players get to roll lots of different polyhedral dice. All traits and skills have a number of dice based on their level. For example, you may have a sword skill of d12+d8 with a Speed trait of d8 and a Career trait (like a soldier) of d6. Roll d12+2d8+d6. Rather than add these dice, only the highest result is used. This makes the roll very quick and gives low-level characters a chance to beat high-level characters-perhaps too much of a chance.

When making a skill roll, or Test, you have to beat either an opposing roll or the difficulty, which is rated by a number of opposing dice: 2d4, 2d6, etc. Results are nicely split between Botches (rolling 1s on all your dice), Failure, Success, Overwhelming Failure or Success (missing or beating the opposing roll by 5 or more), and Ties.

In a fit of geekness, I worked out the probabilities in exhaustive detail. A character with a trait of 10 has a 27% chance to beat and an additional 13% chance to tie a character with a trait of 20. In the d20 system, these percentages would are 11.25% and 2.5%, respectively. These figures do not account for any extra traits, penalties, or bonuses that may apply. I put all the numbers into a spreadsheet so you can see them for yourself. The rules do acknowledge that the system is "random" and so the GM (Host) should curtail the use of dice.

When you get a bonus, the size of your dice increases: d4 to d6, d8 to d10, d12 to d12+d4, for instance. This is straight forward until you have to add 2 bonuses to d12+2d10+3d8+d6. When you get a penalty, you roll twice (or more) and take the lower result of the two (or more) rolls. For instance, if you have 2d12+d6+d4 and one penalty, roll all three dice, take the highest die, then roll all three dice again, take the highest die again, and finally use the lower of the two highest die results.

Damage rolls are Strength (Body) plus Weapon Dice against Soak (Body) and Armor dice. When determining damage, you compare individual dice, highest to lowest, as you do in Risk. Each die that beats its corresponding die is one hit. If you take a hit, you have to make a save or be "sent Reeling" (knocked down or off-balance). Not counting Gifts and Flaws, every character has the same number of hit points (12). After taking 3 hits, a character must make saves to avoid unconsciousness; after 6 hits, the saves are to avoid death.

Other noteworthy rule bits:

• Encumbrance places a limit on the size of trait die a character can roll. For example, if you have a trait of 2d12, you might have to roll 2d10 instead. Wizards are not restricted in their use of armor, except in how it applies to encumbrance, which will reduce their spell casting rolls.
• Rules for fatigue are also included. Fatigue effectively reduces the number of wounds a character can take before falling unconscious.
• There is a tactics skill that works as a teamwork skill, improving the combat initiative of everyone in the group. However, to use this, you also must have someone with the leadership skill. Bandits have Tactics as a career skill.
• You can abstractly determine an individual character's survival and glory in a large battle using a warfare test. Your personal Speed and Dodge to not count, but your Leadership and Tactics do. You can even increase your chance for survival at a risk of less glory (and visa-versa). This rule fits well with a Pendragon-style campaign.
• There is a cloak skill for defending against attacks using a cloak as an alternative to a shield.

Given the fiddly bits of the rules, I imagine beginning players and GMs will be flipping pages and doing lots of cross-referencing. For this, the book is laid out as well as it could be. The examples do help clarify things well, like when I thought an example was incorrect until I figured out what I was doing wrong (though there is still an example or two I cannot figure out).
Character Creation

Character creation is also very clever. Players are given a number of dice to spread among their traits. The clever bit is that Race and Career are just traits like Body, Speed, Mind, and Will. Traits are really just skill groups and players can actually add more traits, like extra Careers, Dexterity, Charisma, and Passions.

Characters are also defined by Gifts and Flaws, which the player balances like Virtues and Flaws from Ars Magica. The Gifts include things like Keen Eyesight, increased traits, etc. Flaws are similar to those in Hero-a five-point scale based on frequency and severity (for example, Uncommon-Strong). Some positive character traits like Honor do count as Flaws. When a character picks a race, it may come with inherent Gifts and Flaws; some careers have prerequisite Gifts.

A character's race comes pre-packaged with a number of racial Gifts and skills. The player has to pay a cost equivalent to those Gifts, but they do not count against the limit of Gifts a character can have. So, the most expensive race ends up being bat, with its costly flight Gift.

In an otherwise pseudo-European setting, the selection of races includes many non-European species: ape, armadillo, porcupine, raccoon, rhinoceros, skunk. Among the selection, shrew feels out of place. Since all the selections are mammals, the distinction between many of the races becomes thin. No distinction is made between various species of cat, so whether you are a tiger, cougar, or lion, you have the same gifts and skills. On the other hand, it is no worse than the subtle difference between high, gray, and wood elves or the various sub-races of halflings and dwarves found in other fantasy games. Some races appear unbalanced in the number of racial skills they receive. For example, the traits for boar are the same as badger/wolverine except that the latter has two additional racial skills.

Careers are defined as simple group of four related skills. Every time you use one of those four skills, you can add your career trait die to the attempt-very elegant. As I mentioned above, characters can actually have two or more careers, each adding their trait die to a skill if they all apply to that skill. The careers cover a lot of ground from spell casters to bandits to diplomats and dozens of others. Some may quibble with the skills chosen for a particular career (merchants do not get haggle, for example), but it is a trivial matter to add or modify careers.

As characters gain experience, they can add or improve skills and traits (including basic traits and careers), gain Gifts, or remove Flaws. The book suggests that if players are not roleplaying their Flaws properly, the GM can force them to spend experience to begin buying off the Flaw. Experience can also be used to regain Gifts lost or Flaws caused severe injury.

All in all, character creation and progression falls together very well with the system as a whole and feels well thought out. My only complaint (besides the quibbles on specific races and careers) is that the rules assume you will be making a starting character-there is no described method to create experienced characters, aside from subjectively assigning traits and skills.
Magic

Magic is broken down into several schools, each with its own career: Elementalist (air, earth, fire, water), White Magic (protection and healing), Green and Purple College (mental effects), Thaumaturgy (grab bag of everything else), and Black Magic (relegated to the end of the book). I was disappointed that some Thaumaturgy spells (ball of light, protection from rain) seemed better suited as Elementalist spells; the whole school does not fit together as tightly as the others.

Individual spells have a cost in magic points to cast. The system requires spell casters to make a casting roll in addition to any effect or targeting rolls. If you are adept at a spell, you do not need to roll to cast the spell. You become adept by increasing your spell casting skill to a level equal to the magic point cost of the spell (typically 1 to 5). Elementalists have to learn each element's spell list separately. Thus, while there are no restrictions on wizards being accomplished swordsmen, it is unlikely given the number of skills the character has to learn.

Spell lists are broken up into Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master spells. To gain access to a higher list, a character has to be adept at 5 spells from the lower list. Since each spell has its own spell casting skill, this could take a while. Also, the experience rules do not let characters gain a casting skill for a new spell until they have been taught, either by another wizard or from a book. Wizards can still use their default traits to cast new spells, but they cannot become adept until they have a specific casting skill, which they cannot get without training.

Higher-ranking wizards to cancel the effects of lower spells though privilege spells. For example, a Journeyman's Privilege spell can cancel any apprentice spell. This is done defensively as a test between the two wizard's ability levels. I thought this was a nice touch.

There is another form of magic, if you want to call it that, called Avatism. Avatism is a Gift that gives characters access to a number of special powers relating to a characters drawing from their primal (animal) selves. The trick here is that characters must roll their avatism power level against their own Mind trait to have effect.

In general, the magic system has a similar feel to other fantasy rpgs, though the list of spells is not as exhaustive. There may be an opportunity for a magic supplement.

San Angelo Sentinels

This was originally developed in collaboration with my friend, Matt Helms, who will get a link here as soon as he gets his website up, adopted to the San Angelo setting from Gold Rush Games.

The Machine

Super heroes are celebrities on par with movie and sports stars. Tabloids cover the (often fictionalized) personal lives (and diet secrets) of super heroes (and even villains) alongside actors and pop stars. In the US, here are two basic cable channels (one run by Fox, the other by Disney) and a half dozen weekly magazines dedicated to covering news and special features related to super heroes.

Very few super heroes maintain a secret identity. If heroes achieve enough success to attract media attention, they rarely can maintain their secret identities for long. Corporate sponsors are unlikely to sign a hero who has not publicly divulged her or his identity. Only those heroes who eschew the corporate system or who have been blackballed (typically because of legal problems, ethical violations, or a poisoned reputation) even bother to have a secret identity.

Federal, state, and local governments contract out to private security agencies to provide super powered support of traditional law enforcement agencies. Those who cannot attain contracts with one of the "Big 6" have to contract with a small, independent firm, join one of the few government-sponsored teams, or become rogues. These unauthorized, unsanctioned vigilantes lack the legal backing, resources, and support structure of contracted heroes.

The corporate security firms provide personal management, liability insurance, legal services, and medical benefits for the superheroes. Contracted super heroes receive yearly salaries (with signing bonuses, performance-based incentive packages, and other perks), but the real money is in endorsements and sponsorships. There are always strings attached to contracts, and heroes may find themselves torn between their public image, the demands of their sponsors and managers, their personal lives, and their own consciences. Super teams run by the US Marshals and US Marines are not allowed to have third-party contracts. The state-run Texas Rangers do have private sponsors, but only from Texas-based companies.

Each team has one manager assigned by the firm. The team manager takes care of the day-to-day scheduling, paperwork, and bureaucracy for the team so the individual members can concentrate on fighting crime, making public appearances, keeping in shape, and meeting contractual obligations (not necessarily in that order). The manager is also the team's representative, spokesman, and firewall when dealing with the corporate hierarchy. High-profile teams have large staffs of support personnel including trainers, coaches, administrative assistants, and public relations experts. For the small-market teams, all these fall onto the shoulders of the team manager. Many super heroes also have their own personal agents, trainers, etc.

Each firm has a number of regional teams and teams in smaller markets act as a farm system for larger markets. The most successful heroes are transferred the highest profile teams, where chances for bigger and better endorsement deals are much higher. Trades of personnel between corporations are also common. All teams are assembled by corporate committee whose goal is to distribute resources to optimize crime prevention, balance the abilities of each team, generate team synergy, create a pro-active image, and maximize market appeal (not necessarily in that order).

San Angelo

San Angelo has contracted with Pacific Security Consultants (PacSec), which also has notable teams in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Seattle. The team's headquarters is a converted warehouse in the Riverfront district. The base includes living quarters for four, a fitness room, communications center, reception area, manager's office, and hangar for the team's vehicle, Sentinel One, one of those amazing hovering aircraft only found in comic books. While residence in the headquarters is not mandatory, all members are expected to spend the majority of their down-time there for quickest response should an incident break out. The vast majority of incidents do not require Sentinel interference. In fact, since PacSec charges are based in part per incident response, the government does not call the Sentinels unless the threat is major and cannot be safely handled by local, county, and state law enforcement.

The standard team colors are blue and white. All members have a small earphone/microphone that works as a two-way radio and voice-activated cell phone and other personal equipment as appropriate.

Other Organizations

The following organizations and superteams were defined by Matt. Notice that San Angelo does not appear--I added it as part of PacSec. Most of the franchises are in need of team names.

Notice the NYPD and the State of Texas also have their own teams; the former out of necessity and the later because it's Texas.

Military supers are officially part of the Marine Corps, thought they often work in conjunction with other branches of the military. The US Marshals Service commands the high-profile goverment supers. Other bureaus and branches (FBI, ATF, Secret Service, etc.) also have supers on their payroll, but they do not have a public profile. If the CIA, NSA, and other intelligence organizations have supers on their payrolls, they aren't saying.

Sponsor	Franchise	Home Base	Territory	Staff
Defenders of America, Inc.		New York City		38
	Defenders - Atlanta	Atlanta	AL, GA, TN	6
	Defenders - Charlotte	Charlotte	NC, SC	4
	Defenders - Chicago	Chicago	IL, IN, WI	6
	Defenders - Detroit	Detroit	MI, OH	4
	Defenders - Houston	Houston	LA, TX	4
	Defenders - Minneapolis	Minneapolis	IA, MN	4
	Defenders - New York	New York City	CT, NJ, NY	6
	Defenders - St. Louis	St. Louis	AR, MO	4
Great Western		Denver		24
		Albuquerque	AZ, NM	2
		Billings	MT, ND	2
		Denver	CO, WY	6
		Kansas City	KS, MO	4
		Oklahoma City	AK, OK	4
		Omaha	NE, SD	2
	The Posse	San Antonio	TX	4
Justice Foundation		New York City		22
	Freedom's Four	Philadelphia	PA	4
	Liberty Legion	Baltimore	DE, MD, VA	6
	The Minutemen	Boston	MA, NH, RI, VT	6
	The Patriots	New York City	CT, NJ, NY	6
New York Police Dept.
Pacific Security Consultants		San Francisco		21
		Honolulu	HI	3
		Los Angeles	so. CA	6
		San Francisco	no. CA	6
		Seattle	ID, OR, WA	6
Solaris Corporation, The		Los Angeles	24
		Dallas	TX	6
		Las Vegas	NV	3
		Los Angeles	CA	6
		Miami	FL	6
		Pheonix	AZ	3
Southern Cross		New Orleans		18
		Birmingham	AL	2
		Jacksonville	FL	3
		Lexington	KY, WV	3
		Little Rock	AK	2
		Nashville	TN	3
		New Orleans	LA, MS	5
State of Texas
	Rangers	Austin	TX	6
U.S. Marine Corps
U.S. Marshal Service

I am a Roleplayer

I am a roleplayer. I play games in which I pretend to be other people. I do it for the fun and challenge of playing someone else, typically in a setting or circumstance well beyond my own personal experience. I like fantasy, science fiction, mystery, horror, and most other genres. Roleplaying for me is an escapist activity, but unlike reading a book or watching a movie, an active one. I enjoy exploring my characters' personalities and lives, both internally (getting inside the head of the character) and externally (as one would explore a character from literature).

I am not a gamer. I enjoy board games and card games, but I would rather roleplay. I do not play roleplaying games to kill monsters, work out the puzzles, solve mysteries, or do the other trappings of roleplaying games. Granted, these can be fun, but only in the context that they give something for my character to do. These activities become a framework for roleplaying and hold no interest for me if there is no roleplaying.

I am not a storyteller. Sure, in the course of a roleplaying game, a story is told. There may even be a plot and an underlying structure that is very story-like. As a roleplayer, I want my control of the story to be limited to my character's influence on the story. Some meta-game conventions, like "plot points," are perfectly acceptable, and I certainly want some input on the kinds of plot I want my character to be involved in. But I do not want to control the story from the third person; there are plenty of storytelling games that do this very well, but I would rather roleplay.

I do not dogmatically insist that everything I do in a roleplaying game be in character. I want everyone to have fun and if that means I give up a little character control or make decisions based upon the plot or group cohesion, I am happy to do so. I do insist, however, that actions not be imposed upon my character without my consent.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not think my approach to roleplaying games is superior to other ways of playing these games. I have nothing against people who use lots of miniatures and move their characters through dungeons of ever increasing difficulty. I also have nothing against basketball fans, but their games do not capture my interest. There are simply other things I would rather do.

Roleplaying games are just games, enjoyable pastimes like playing catch or spades. It is possible to take them too seriously, but it is possible to not take them seriously enough. When playing volleyball, I try my best. I do not let balls fall because "it's just a game"—I run and dive for every ball I can conceivably get. Not to do so is not fun for me. When roleplaying, I try my best to roleplay well. I do not succeed as often as I would like, but the fun is in the trying.

As a kid, I played "make-believe" and "let's pretend" a lot—probably more than most other boys my age. Roleplaying is just a natural extension of that early activity. In many ways, I see most roleplaying games disrupting the minimalist purity of those childhood games. As an adult, I cannot play those games any more. There was no character development and no plot. The issues and themes that were fun and new to the child are not interesting to the adult. This is natural—I do not enjoy playing Hungry Hungry Hippos any more, either. The key to roleplaying games is to take the raw imagination and abandon we had in childhood and apply it to characters and situations that interest us in adulthood.

The Damage System (continued)

As with the relationship with armor and toughness, I do not like it when an average person with a knife is no more dangerous than a really strong guy (normal human scale--no super-strength) with his fists. It seems to me that having an actual weapon, whether sharp or blunt, is better than raw power. This does not mean that power should not count for anything, but I have not found the ratio that feels right.

Part of the issue is that I do not know what combat should feel like. Maybe my assumptions are wrong and the things that bother me are fine and it is only my lack of experience and physical intuition that is the problem. So the alternative (and not a bad alternative) is to not worry about realism and go with what makes a good game... Not that I know how to do that either. But rather than get into a moan-fest, I'll continue my train of thought.

What I imagine is that the damage done by a weapon can be plotted on a three-dimensional graph, with axes for quality of hit, weapon size/deadliness, and wielder strength. For guns and similar weapons, strength is ignored (though ammo types can certainly be substituted if you want to get that detailed). In general, I imagine that all weapons will do the same damage if the hit is very weak (glancing blow) or very strong (critical hit). The weapon type and strength differentiate damage when the blow is somewhere in between.

Most game systems make it so that strength always helps, even on weak blows. Or that smaller weapons have no chance of matching the deadliness of larger ones. And unless there are (often complex) critical hit and/or location rules, knife wounds are rarely deadly enough to worry about initially. Basically, I want my cake and eat it too. I want complex results from a simple system. I'm trying to get 3D, non-linear results out of a 1D system.

Huh. That actually helps.

The Damage System

At DunDraCon, especially after spending so much time making my BESM 3rd Edition characters, I told myself that I really needed to finalize the rpg system I've been tooling with for years. But I quickly got stuck where I always get stuck: damage.

Understand that I'm a fairly traditional roleplayer. I do not like narrative games or storytelling games. I want a system in which the success or failure of character's actions are determined by their traits and the dice. Otherwise, I'd just play a freeform, diceless game (which I have done, but I find too exhausting to do it on a regular basis). My primary goal is to have a simple, straight-forward system that I can feel comfortable running. I am very comfortable running BESM, for example, but the headaches of character creation are more than I want to deal with. I like Savage Worlds, but there are enough little things I don't like or don't want to deal with (like making powers) that I still want something else.

So imagine a character skill/trait/ability system not unlike Castle Falkenstein (or Savage Worlds, minus Edges). A typical task roll would be stat + roll (like 2d6) or NxY (where N and/or Y is based on the level of stat) or any number of permutations along similar lines. This part is easy. Where it gets tricky is combat, not least of all because combat tends to be a common and critical component of rpgs, including the ones I run. As much as I do not like hack-n-slash games, combat is still very prevalent in the games I run. It is important for combat to feel right.

For most character tasks, all you need is a simple skill roll. A degree of success helps the description, but is easy to interpret from the results, and is not critical. With combat, how well you hit (how much damage you do) is very important. There are genre conventions to consider (fantasy combat can be deadly or cinematic and feels very different from science fiction, western, or super-heroic combat). That I do not have a fixed genre in mind for this system is part of the problem I am having.

The damage of a successful attack should depend on a number of factors:

• The level of success of the attack: a glancing blow is less dangerous than a solid hit.
• The type of weapon: all weapons are dangerous, but some are more so than others.
• The strength of the attacker: at least for hand-to-hand attacks.
• The toughness of the defender: size can be a major factor here, for example.
• The armor of the defender: armor can literally mean the difference between life and death.

Many different rpgs have approached this problem many different ways with various degrees of success and various advantages and disadvantages. Ideally, I want all five of these factors to have a distinguishable effect on combat with some tactical variability in the choices of what type of fighter someone chooses to play. For example, in Savage Worlds, armor and toughness are the same; an average person in plate mail has the same toughness as a brawny, healthy guy (high Vigor) yet naked person. This is workable as a game, but I would prefer if it wasn't the case. In an hit point-based system, for example, the plate may provide damage reduction while personal toughness determines total hit points. To me, this feels better.

Anyway, it's late and I'll discuss this more in my next post.

Technology vs. Magic BS

I cannot by into game cosmologies which pit technology and magic against one other. Now, it's one thing to say that magic interferes with electronics (because magnets and EMPs do that) or that magic attracts gremlins who like to screw up machinery, but that's not how it's worded. Rather, the statement is framed to indicate that technology (without any qualifier) is incompatible with magic. But fire is a technology. So are levers, the wheel (a type of level), pottery, written language, eyeglasses, and flatware. Magic, as used by the vast majority of games, movies, novels, comics, etc., is a technology--the tools and means of getting things done. Not only can they co-exist, but they are the same thing. Any sufficiently mundane use of magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Belated Synopsis of DunDraCon

• It didn't rain.
• Hell froze over. No wait, that was last year's game.
• I had a generally good time and played in fun games. Nothing orgasmic, but enjoyable.
  
• The coconut is no good.
• My BESM 3rd Edition game went well, though the PCs were such a pain to make up that I don't see myself using the system for a while. I really, really want to like BESM 3e as my go-to system for when Savage Worlds does not fit, but the character creation system is just far more complicated than I want it to be. Given how easy the system is to use, spending time distributing hundreds(!) of character points is too much. I want to do a proper review, but I've been too busy.
  

Catching Up

We saw the new Bond film, Casino Royale, Tuesday night. I was mostly bored. Several points of the plot annoyed me. The poker hands felt staged and unnatural in the way badly choreographed fight scenes do. I am not a Bond fan, so maybe this movie just isn't for me. Or maybe it just wasn't that good.

I am running a Truth and Justice campaign called Generation Zeta, based around ideas found in X-Men: Evolution and Runaways. I have a review of T&J in the December issue of A&E.

The Changeling campaign ended due to GM burnout. We all understood, but will miss it. In it's place will be a science fiction campaign based loosely on March to the Sea and using Mutants & Masterminds as the base systems since some level of psionics is expected. In preparation, I have been creating an SRD for Mutants & Masterminds. Having the PDF of the rules helps.

Lastly, some more work pictures:

Me being pedantic again

So I was looking at the d20 SRD online, and I found this table for the DC of viper venom based on size.

Size	Fort DC
Tiny	10
Small	10
Medium	11
Large	11
Huge	14

This is perhaps one of the goofiest tables I have ever seen. You know I would have put the DCs at 10, 11, 12, 13, & 14.

Quick Kublacon Report

Kublacon was a letdown this year. After having a good start with Unknown
Armies on Friday night, Saturday was a complete bust. I spent much of my
time wandering around, watching my friends play, and getting my butt
kicked at Ticket to Ride: Marklin edition (which is quite a good, tense
game). Sunday, I failed to get a slot in the demo for the new Mongoose
edition of Runequest (the one game I truly, desperately wanted to play),
but the game was cancelled to do the GM not showing. I did manage to
give blood, which is something I always like to do, but always forget to
schedule for myself.

My Call of Cthulhu game, a revisit of the great game I ran at DunDraCon,
did not do well. My GMing skills were not up to the task that day, due
in part to not having the room to ourselves and thus never obtaining the
proper atmosphere. It was however, an interesting exercise in how some
groups fall together (DunDraCon) or fly apart (Kublacon).

Yet More Online Roleplaying Woes

And posts like this:

There is a new product out in the stores of the floting country.This is making a army of super enhanced vilans.Now the world fites back by creating its own super heros.If you want to become one of those new heros then step rite in. You are going to have to complete a siber chalange.Something that will test your ability to controle the powers you are going to reseave. This tournament is held this coming summer.So be ready to complete the chalange if you dare.DunDunDun!!!!!!>_<side afects may include dieing and uncotrolable anger.

I give allowances when English is not your primary language, but this is just ignorance.

In fact, I wholly support the notion that the US should be multi-lingual. The way I see it, anyone who lives in San Jose, California, in Santa Clara county in a land called America really can't make the claim that this is an English country. Ok, technically I live in Campbell, but I am also very close to Los Gatos.

On Orcs, Nazis, & Zombies

Here is my theory about why roleplaying games with zombies are so popular these days.

Back in the olden days of roleplaying, when D&D became AD&D and Uncle EGG taught us all how to play, it was perfectly fine to slaughter orcs. After all, orcs were there to be killed en masse by heroic PCs. Of course, it need not have been orcs as kobolds, hobgoblins, bugbears, et al were all in the same category and it was just a matter of what level you were. Though some did question the morality of genocide against these evil (it says so right in the Monster Manual!) demi-humans, orcs were pretty much free for the killin'.

If you move away from classic, pseudo-Tolkien fantasy and want to do something in a more modern, civilized time, you lose your orcs. With mostly (or only) humans to fight, the slaughter of tens, hundreds, or thousands is not so palatable. In and around World War II, you at least have Nazis, who have been fair game for decades in the genre fiction. Few people complain or object if you knock off a platoon of Nazi's on your way to the maguffin.

Zombies are the ultimate guilt-free foes because you can slaughter them like orcs without any remorse. Plus, you rarely have to worry about zombie politics, infrastructure, ecology, etc. in the way you might with a living, breathing, sentient hordes. Zombies are self-propagating, mindless, damage sponges that can be played with deadly seriousness or slapstick humor. And how can you top that? Zombie Nazis, of course.

More Online Roleplaying Woes

As a followup to my last post, let me talk about the things I don't get with online gaming.

Simming: I do not want to play a canon character from some established television show, movie, or comic. I like Nightwing or Spike, but I don't want to play them. I will play in the world established in the original material, but I do not want to be those characters. Nor do I want to run into or mingle with canon characters. Let me make my own character and do my own thing along with the other players.

The GM Character: I avoid all games that appear to be "the GM's character and her hangers-on." Some game descriptions give me the distinct sense that the GM really wants to play a particular character and write a story about her (most of the time, these GM characters are female, it seems). The worst of these want other players and PCs to boss around and show off to. I belong the to "PCs are the protagonists of the story" camp and all NPCs should be secondary characters.

Excessive Posting: Less obvious than the player who posts only occassionally, slowing the game, is the player who posts more often than anyone else, dominating the action, doing things before others have even logged onto their computers, and in the worst cases, complaining in-character about how slow everyone else is. Private threads that happen outside the context of the main storyline can proceed at any pace, but main threads need to involve everyone and the same rules for sharing and giving everyone a chance apply just as much to online games as face-to-face games.

Online Roleplaying Woes

I have been playing over at Roleplay Online for a while now. So far, the longest running campaign started in May 2004, but that has been an anomaly. Many of the games fizzle before they even start. Characters get made and before even the first in-character post is made, the GM bails, most often without a word. If we're lucky, the GM officially deletes the game so you know it is truly over. I have made countless characters for countless campaigns and none of ever reached a conclusion. (The D&D game that has been going one for nearly two years is still progressing forward, but it is a long-term campaign.) I sign up for more games than I want to just because I know most will be canceled.

The GMs are not always to blame. Players drop out for real life (RL) reasons or just because they are flakey. The good ones tell you and apologize for having to quit; shit happens. The bad ones just never post again, leaving the game in an awkward limbo until the GM finally decides to move the game along. This does not count the players who either have terrible, annoying characters or who behave in terribly annoying ways. Those are sometimes worse because you wish they would just leave instead of making you want to leave.

The primary reason I do not run an online game is because I do not know the players. I tried my hand a Play-by-Email (PBeM) game that never truly took off. There were serious momentum issues that I would correct in my next attempt. But that was with players I knew and had played with before. Running a game for bunch of anonymous strangers does not sound appealing to me. At a convention, I know the game is only going to last several hours; an online campaign can last for months or years. Given how certain character/player types simply annoy the hell out of me, I don't think I can put up with it.

Changeling Politics

During the Changeling campaign yesterday, it was mentioned that all Changeling campaigns end up political. As I reflect upon it now, I am lead to an odd observation: I am not playing the same game as everyone else. Or rather, the NPCs (at least) are playing a game of politics and intrigue. My character is playing a game of personal relationships, exploration, and adventure. What makes this odd is that my character, Charlie, happens to be the queen.

As a player, politics confound me. Someone with a personal motto of "People Suck," is not cut out to play political games. For example I am dreadful at Diplomacy. So it is no surprise that my characters tend to feel the same way. So how did I end up playing a character in such a political situation? Well, suffice it to say that she was in the right place at the right time (and if you know anything about Changeling, that should tell you what Kith (type) she is).

Next session, we should be embarking on a quest through the Dreaming, a task that naturally excited her. And it occurs to me now why. This was a case of me just being in-character at the time and now I am reflecting and realizing why the character acted that way. She wants action and adventure, which is exactly what this quest promises. It is also an exploration into a friend's past, which fits into the type of game I am playing. And though it may all come back to politics, she and I can at least play our kind of game for a little while.

Mastery of the Rules

Monte Cook's essay on Ivory Tower Game Design illustrated to me why I do not generally like D&D and other games that reward players for achieving mastery of the rules. I want characters to be driven by concept and conflict (internal and external). My reward should be roleplaying an interesting, nuanced character, not a better designed character.

What I find especially annoying about this concept of mastering the rules, especially as it applies to character creation (and Mr. Cook specifically talks about feat selection) are random ability scores and hit points. On one hand, they want to reward good (min/maxing) players, but on the other hand, they reward lucky ones. And if you are both lucky and good, then you are that much ahead of the other players.

I was reminded of this mastery of the rules concept when I was reading some posts about the new edition of Exalted. Here is a game I really would like to like. It looks really cool. How puerile of me, but there it is. But any discussion of the rules make my eyes roll back and my brain turn off. Whatever interest I had in the cool setting and concept completely evaporates in light of the rules. Oh well.

Given all the special powers and such that are the trademark of Exalted or Weapon of the Gods, I would think Hero Games could do something very similar to either of these. Maybe they just need to find the time. Maybe the target audience is off. Would anyone who likes games like Exalted or WotG want something similar using the Hero system?

Omega Breakthrough

One of the difficulties I have been having with SSΩ is a simple, fast character creation system that makes a token wave at the concept of game balance. It has always been my attention to not worry about balance, except in the broadest strokes of the game design brush, but the system in my head was so amorphous that even I had a hard time keeping it in my mental grasp.

I started writing it out, but discovered a glitch that I need to smooth out before I go any further. Stay tuned.

DunDraCon Report

The following will also appear in the March issue of A&E:

When I walked out of the house in Friday to go the convention, it was raining. The nice weather we had been having turned chilly on the weekend, but the rain is welcome to what has otherwise has seemed a very dry winter.

Overall, the convention was very good for me. I played in four games, including three which were new to me, and the Call of Cthulhu game I ran went exceptionally well. The games I played reinvigorated me to resume work on SSOmega, specifically to just jump in and start play testing ideas.

Friday night, I played in a Mutants and Masterminds game based on the Marvel series Exiles centered on alt-reality characters bobbing around trying to fix ripples in the multi-verse. This was the first time the GM had run a game at a convention, and it showed. Despite the heavy-handedness of the adventure, I had a lot of fun playing my character, the daughter of Juggernaut who inherited many of her father's powers. Anytime the words "bitter" and "deathwish" are in a character I play, I am sure to have a good time. I also got to see the new 2nd edition M&M rules in action but they failed to impress upon me the need to purchase them.

The first game on Saturday was a first-contact science fiction game with an international team of specialists sent to intercept what turned out to be a generation ship, using the HeroQuest rules. We only used the extended contest rules once, but I was out of the room (and the scene) at the time, so I still do not have a feel for how they work. But the rest of the system seemed to work fine and I am tempted to pick up QuestWorlds when it is finally released.

Goblin City is a clever haiku of a setting, a one-page rpg that has a good heart. It can be downloaded from http://www.wargolem.com/freebies/goblincity.pdf The second half of the six-hour adventure pitted our motley crew of vermin exterminators against a walking mage fortress slowly making its way to the city. Overall, it was a nifty mix of high-adventure and chaotic looniness, marred only by the first three hours of dull directionless chaos.

With the Goblin City game going to four a.m., I chose to sleep in and only play in one game on Sunday, a True d20 game set in the forthcoming Mecha vs. Kaiju setting. We started with creating level 1 characters, the latest recruits to the mecha-based defense force. Three of the PCs became mecha-pilots while the other three, including the two magical and psychic adepts, were assigned to the lower-powered power-suit division. While the mechas fought the giant monsters invading Japan, the others were on crowd-control and fought against the human terrorists (including ninja) out to sabotage the defense effort. I really enjoyed the mix of giant-robot and human-level conflicts and would definitely play it in the future.

A Brief History of DunDraCon

A cool Brief History of DunDraCon has been posted on the convention's site. I have only been attending DDC for half of its 30 years (and contribute to A&E, coincidentally) and have never been disappointed. And I would like to point out that rain was mentioned twice in the article.

What's the appeal?

When asked by A.V. Club about what was the appeal of playing Dungeons & Dragons, Stephen Colbert answered:

It's a fantasy role-playing game. If you're familiar with the works of Tolkien or Stephen R. Donaldson or Poul Anderson or any of the guys who wrote really good fantasy stuff, those worlds stood up. It's an opportunity to assume a persona. Who really wants to be themselves when they're teenagers? And you get to be heroic and have adventures. And it's an incredibly fun game. They have arcane rules and complex societies and they're open-ended and limitless, kind of like life. For somebody who eventually became an actor, it was interesting to have done that for so many years, because acting is role-playing. You assume a character, and you have to stay in them over years, and you create histories, and you apply your powers. It's good improvisation with agreed rules before you go in.

Not a bad answer, really. Of course, I am no longer a teenager and am turned off by arcane rules, but the relation to acting and improvisation is why I have been playing these kinds of games for nearly 25 years.

And then there's me

My tastes & preferences in roleplaying games seem to be out of sync with most gamers. Here are a few that tend to pop up often.

• I like PDF products. I have purchased several and I do not distribute them to my friends. I have printed out a few of them (Savage Worlds twice) and store them in 3-ring binders.
  
• I prefer softcover books to hardbound books. I have always been someone who takes good care of my books and so do not need the added durability (or weight) of hard covers.
  
• I like good art as much as the next gamer, but I do not want full color glossy pages. Good black-and-white art on regular stock can look just as good (or better, depending on the game setting) as color. If you read Usagi Yojimbo and other black-and-white comics, you know what I mean.
  
• I want my game books to be a fun read, but to also serve as a good reference document. I will take functionality over form any day. To pick on one example, I find Angel to be hard to read and difficult to use; the lack of a good index is not worth the pretty pictures.
  
• For a licensed property, like Serenity, I would rather have a sourcebook without game mechanics that I can then adopt to my own system. I do not care what the stats are of the canon characters.
  
• I find the act of converting game A to game B pointless. It is better to use game B to emulate what you like from game A, but this is an interpretation, not a conversion. (This is another area that Savage Worlds got right)
  
• I have no problems learning new systems and have never avoided a game because I did not want to learn a new system. At conventions, I will seek out games I have not played before (assuming the game description indicates it will teach the rules).