[I found this draft post in my list, which I started, God, months ago. Hell, may as well post it]
Earlier today I was reading the Wikipedia entry for Pendragon, which states:
"...campaigns often carry over across generations, with players retiring their character and taking the role of that character's heir. This is quite different from most role-playing games, where one set of characters is played fairly intensively, and there is typically little consideration made of what happens to their family or descendants. The influence of this idea can be seen in the Ars Magica RPG, which also encourages stories taking years or decades to unfold..."
Which got me thinking - Should there be more games that focus on the long view? I can think of number of computer games that do - Populous, Black & White, Settlers et al. Games where the main premise is to develop a tribe into an empire, through technological and cultural change and compete against other similar tribes.
So why aren't there many RPGs with a similar focus? Pendragon follows a quest through generations, and Ars Magica develops the PCs Covenant, why don't we see games that do the same?
Friday, November 26, 2010
Infrequent monthly update
I've not really had time to concentrate on my hobby for, ooo, about a year now, and this blog has suffered. I apologise to my legion of followers (Alex, maybe Andy. Who knows who else).
I have been randomly becoming incredibly interested in specific games of late, Exalted being the most recent.
I have a love/hate thing going on with Exalted. I love the setting, I love a number of the game concepts, I hate the rules.
Unfortunately, certain aspects of the rules are entwined with the setting.
Earlier this week I started flicking through the main rules again, vowing to keep an open mind. I told myself that the basic rules structure was solid, and the weirdness came in as an exception stemming from the irregular use of charms (magic powers).
Yes and no.
Let's quickly go over some background. I own Exalted 2nd Edition. Back in 2005/6 I had to reduce the amount of crap I own, and decided that one way was to rationalise down my gaming books. I owned about 15 Exalted 1st Ed books, most of which I had never used. I also noted that the books were being superseded in the current edition - The first Sorcery book, the Book of Three Circles, was replaced by the Sorcerer and Savant book, which clearly stated that the spells and rules presented in Three Circles were broken, and should be replaced with the ones being presented within.
The Exalted Players Guide featured a chapter which basically said "The combat rules and weapon stats used in every book before this one, including the core rules, are broken. Use these rules instead".
Baring this in mind, I ditched all my 1st Ed books and committed to the 2nd Ed, which would incorporate all this errata and would clearly work.
2nd Edition rolled around, and mechanically it is a massive departure.
The first alarm bells started ringing when the first paragraph of the combat rules stated that trying to hit somebody was the most complicated thing you could do in Exalted.
I had my misgivings about 1st Ed combat, where we regularly ran out of dice during attack rolls. They were excellent compared to 2nd Ed combat rules.
Combat now has nine stages of resolution, including three stages of dice rolling to determine if you've actually damaged somebody.
The combat order abandons the traditional turn based concept made popular by every other game in existence and instead uses a varying speed action system - Combat takes place second by second, and different actions take different amounts of time, and different weapons strike with different speeds. A knife may be used to attack every three seconds, whilst a great axe may be used every six seconds. Weapons with a quick Rate of attack inflict less damage, whilst those with a slow Rate of attack inflict more damage. There are also accuracy and defence dice adds.
I find the Rate of attack system counter intuitive, as everywhere else in the game a big number equals a good stat, whilst a low Rate number is a good stat. Mental gears clashing.
It also means that you have to keep thinking about how long an action takes. I like the simplicity of knowing that an action always takes a turn, be that 3, 4 or 6 seconds (depending on games - White Wolf, Warhammer or D&D, I think). I don't like having to think 'This knife attack takes 3 seconds, whilst this move action takes 4 seconds and this bow attack takes 4 seconds and this tend wound action takes 5 seconds.'
The game also includes the concept of Social Combat, which applies combat rules to courtly debate and intrigue.
Why? What value does it add, other than making the social charms offensive? Well, it does allow munchkins to approach a roleplay situation as though it were a tactical assault, without having to worry about actual characterisation. That could be seen as as value add, although not by me.
I also have a massive problem with the editing and layout of the book. It's really badly written, falling back on formula at every step.
One of the main criticisms raised about writing for D&D by an acquaintance who wrote some d20 Judge Dredd material was having to come up with a new and interesting name for every feat, ability, spell and power. Exalted has a similar issue, and they have a set naming convention, which appears to be to unimaginatively add the words Prana, Stance, Mantra, Method, Meditation or Technique to the end of a power.
Charms are presented as trees and mapped out using flow chart boxes and arrows. 1st Edition actually mapped them out as trees. 2nd Edition, no doubt to conserve space, just presents a block of boxes with the minimal amount of space between them, and arrows crammed in at angles. It's poor visual management, it's poor documentation.
The developer tellingly didn't use the normal playtest methodology employed by other writers and developers, which is to circulate the game around established and differing groups and solicit feedback. Instead he just used his mates.
Which probably explains why there's so much errata being produced for 2nd Ed.
Now, there is a lot I love about Exalted, most of which is the setting. I like the way they've fused classical mythology with Wuxia/Manga and the established old World of Darkness mythology.
I like the defined world - geographically, politically, theologically etc.
I like the way that the setting is so open, you can legitimately play a wide range of games, from classic dungeon crawl to courtly intrigue to high fantasy sword and sorcery to insane martial arts to low fantasy grit to world exploration to epic world conquest to reality bending magical effects to simple quests.
One day i'll try applying the setting to a better system, or find somebody who has.
I have been randomly becoming incredibly interested in specific games of late, Exalted being the most recent.
I have a love/hate thing going on with Exalted. I love the setting, I love a number of the game concepts, I hate the rules.
Unfortunately, certain aspects of the rules are entwined with the setting.
Earlier this week I started flicking through the main rules again, vowing to keep an open mind. I told myself that the basic rules structure was solid, and the weirdness came in as an exception stemming from the irregular use of charms (magic powers).
Yes and no.
Let's quickly go over some background. I own Exalted 2nd Edition. Back in 2005/6 I had to reduce the amount of crap I own, and decided that one way was to rationalise down my gaming books. I owned about 15 Exalted 1st Ed books, most of which I had never used. I also noted that the books were being superseded in the current edition - The first Sorcery book, the Book of Three Circles, was replaced by the Sorcerer and Savant book, which clearly stated that the spells and rules presented in Three Circles were broken, and should be replaced with the ones being presented within.
The Exalted Players Guide featured a chapter which basically said "The combat rules and weapon stats used in every book before this one, including the core rules, are broken. Use these rules instead".
Baring this in mind, I ditched all my 1st Ed books and committed to the 2nd Ed, which would incorporate all this errata and would clearly work.
2nd Edition rolled around, and mechanically it is a massive departure.
The first alarm bells started ringing when the first paragraph of the combat rules stated that trying to hit somebody was the most complicated thing you could do in Exalted.
I had my misgivings about 1st Ed combat, where we regularly ran out of dice during attack rolls. They were excellent compared to 2nd Ed combat rules.
Combat now has nine stages of resolution, including three stages of dice rolling to determine if you've actually damaged somebody.
The combat order abandons the traditional turn based concept made popular by every other game in existence and instead uses a varying speed action system - Combat takes place second by second, and different actions take different amounts of time, and different weapons strike with different speeds. A knife may be used to attack every three seconds, whilst a great axe may be used every six seconds. Weapons with a quick Rate of attack inflict less damage, whilst those with a slow Rate of attack inflict more damage. There are also accuracy and defence dice adds.
I find the Rate of attack system counter intuitive, as everywhere else in the game a big number equals a good stat, whilst a low Rate number is a good stat. Mental gears clashing.
It also means that you have to keep thinking about how long an action takes. I like the simplicity of knowing that an action always takes a turn, be that 3, 4 or 6 seconds (depending on games - White Wolf, Warhammer or D&D, I think). I don't like having to think 'This knife attack takes 3 seconds, whilst this move action takes 4 seconds and this bow attack takes 4 seconds and this tend wound action takes 5 seconds.'
The game also includes the concept of Social Combat, which applies combat rules to courtly debate and intrigue.
Why? What value does it add, other than making the social charms offensive? Well, it does allow munchkins to approach a roleplay situation as though it were a tactical assault, without having to worry about actual characterisation. That could be seen as as value add, although not by me.
I also have a massive problem with the editing and layout of the book. It's really badly written, falling back on formula at every step.
One of the main criticisms raised about writing for D&D by an acquaintance who wrote some d20 Judge Dredd material was having to come up with a new and interesting name for every feat, ability, spell and power. Exalted has a similar issue, and they have a set naming convention, which appears to be to unimaginatively add the words Prana, Stance, Mantra, Method, Meditation or Technique to the end of a power.
Charms are presented as trees and mapped out using flow chart boxes and arrows. 1st Edition actually mapped them out as trees. 2nd Edition, no doubt to conserve space, just presents a block of boxes with the minimal amount of space between them, and arrows crammed in at angles. It's poor visual management, it's poor documentation.
The developer tellingly didn't use the normal playtest methodology employed by other writers and developers, which is to circulate the game around established and differing groups and solicit feedback. Instead he just used his mates.
Which probably explains why there's so much errata being produced for 2nd Ed.
Now, there is a lot I love about Exalted, most of which is the setting. I like the way they've fused classical mythology with Wuxia/Manga and the established old World of Darkness mythology.
I like the defined world - geographically, politically, theologically etc.
I like the way that the setting is so open, you can legitimately play a wide range of games, from classic dungeon crawl to courtly intrigue to high fantasy sword and sorcery to insane martial arts to low fantasy grit to world exploration to epic world conquest to reality bending magical effects to simple quests.
One day i'll try applying the setting to a better system, or find somebody who has.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Lost / Changeling / Fear Itself
Now, having read Fear Itself and had a little time to think on it, I have decided that it would be a far superior setting for any theoretical Lost inspired games.
Why? The book itself features only two antagonists - Mystery Men and the Ovvashi. The Ovvashi are demons that torment tramps (for that popular 'homeless urban survival horror' genre), whilst the Mystery Men are Q-like, god-like beings that can alter reality and do so with the sole aim of tormenting innocent humans. The only real weakness that Mystery Men have is that they adhere to various rules - either because they have to,or because they choose to.
The Fear Itself rules also make use of flashbacks during play, and require all players to define The Worst Thing (their character has) Ever Done as well as deciding which of the other PC's they like the best and dislike the most, which are all familiar devices used in Lost itself.
So, in this theoretical game, we have the following:
The PC's are caught in a contest between two Mystery Men (Jacob and the Man in Black/Smoke Monster) who use their powers to inflict various limitations and benefits upon the local environment (such as how to find it, how to leave, how to arrive, how certain bits of technology work, how people recover from illness, how time works in relation to the rest of the world etc) and to set various tasks and responsibilities for the PC's (press this button every x minutes, or something really bad will happen). They also engineer coincidences and enigmas to madden an confuse the PC's.The game itself would attempt to feature a flashback per session that focuses on one character and allows for development and plot progression.
Sessions would be driven by either investigation into the local environment and the unusual properties it possesses, or by a task imposed by the environment or by conflicts between characters. At times one of the Mystery Men will step in to progress their agenda against the other Mystery Man or to torment one of the characters.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The best game I never played
Geek books are like crack. I see them. I want them. I do morally repulsive things to get them. Then, after I have them, and the euphoric buzz has faded, I feel a little guilty and maybe regret the purchase.
I can normally rationalise the purchase away though...
It's well written, so it's like buying a regular book
It's a good system that's got me thinking, so it's a mental exercise, which is good
Oh, I will use it, it's fucking awesome
Then, months or years later you look at your book shelf and realise that the literally hundreds of pounds you've spent could have gone on something more worthwhile, because you've never used the damn things.
Example
When my wife moved in, I showed willing and cleared out a load of my old RPG books. I sold off about 30 Mage: The Ascension books that I had never used.
I gave away about 15 Exalted books, 6 Orpheus books, 20+ Vampire: The Masquerade books, 1 Mummy: The Resurrection book, 20+ Ars Magica books and 4 Hunter: The Reckoning books that I had never used.
One of the rationalisations i used was that I was clearing house of everything I didn't use and was never going to use again.
I would start again.
Rebuild.
As of now, I have 22 New World of Darkness books, including core rule books, most of which I have never used. I've not used Mage, Vampire, Changeling and a number of supplements.
I have Ars Magica 5th Edition, which I have never used.
I have Exalted 2nd Edition, which i have never used.
I have Trail of Cthulhu, Fear Itself and Star Wars Saga Edition. I've not used any of them.
This is kind of depressing. A lot of these are great games (the exceptions being ArM5 and Exalted 2, which appear to piss all over the previous, stronger, editions).
Unfortunately i don't see an opportunity in the near future for play either, which is a real shame.
I'd really love to do something with Changeling: The Lost, which is a really rich game chock full of opportunities and creativity.
I have about three or four Star Wars games I could run, and could pull off a respectable Vampire: The Requiem game.
I think i'd prefer to play Mage instead of run it.
Now, if only my children would age about 5 years, i'd have a bit more time...
I can normally rationalise the purchase away though...
It's well written, so it's like buying a regular book
It's a good system that's got me thinking, so it's a mental exercise, which is good
Oh, I will use it, it's fucking awesome
Then, months or years later you look at your book shelf and realise that the literally hundreds of pounds you've spent could have gone on something more worthwhile, because you've never used the damn things.
Example
When my wife moved in, I showed willing and cleared out a load of my old RPG books. I sold off about 30 Mage: The Ascension books that I had never used.
I gave away about 15 Exalted books, 6 Orpheus books, 20+ Vampire: The Masquerade books, 1 Mummy: The Resurrection book, 20+ Ars Magica books and 4 Hunter: The Reckoning books that I had never used.
One of the rationalisations i used was that I was clearing house of everything I didn't use and was never going to use again.
I would start again.
Rebuild.
As of now, I have 22 New World of Darkness books, including core rule books, most of which I have never used. I've not used Mage, Vampire, Changeling and a number of supplements.
I have Ars Magica 5th Edition, which I have never used.
I have Exalted 2nd Edition, which i have never used.
I have Trail of Cthulhu, Fear Itself and Star Wars Saga Edition. I've not used any of them.
This is kind of depressing. A lot of these are great games (the exceptions being ArM5 and Exalted 2, which appear to piss all over the previous, stronger, editions).
Unfortunately i don't see an opportunity in the near future for play either, which is a real shame.
I'd really love to do something with Changeling: The Lost, which is a really rich game chock full of opportunities and creativity.
I have about three or four Star Wars games I could run, and could pull off a respectable Vampire: The Requiem game.
I think i'd prefer to play Mage instead of run it.
Now, if only my children would age about 5 years, i'd have a bit more time...
Monday, October 4, 2010
Gumshoe / Trail of Cthulhu / Fear Itself
A few posts ago I got fairly excited about Trail of Cthulhu, a new system based on the Cthulhu Mythos, and licensed by Chaosium Games, therefore legit. It looked much much better than CthulhuTech, so was worth a look.
I asked for it for my birthday, and my wife dutifully bought it for me.
It is pretty ace.
The system, The Gumshoe System created by Robin D Laws (who my friend assures me is a genius), is a nice change of pace from most, if not all, other systems i've played. The focus is on investigation, and the piecing together of clues. Most games require you to pass a test to discover a clue, which can really stall play after a few unlucky rolls. The Gumshoe system takes a different approach - If you have a skill that could find the clue, and you state that you are using it, then you get the clue. The focus then falls on what you make of the clue, and where it leads you.
All pretty good.
A story should be set up to deliver one 'core clue' per scene, and a scene ends when the players uncover it. The clues should then add up to lead the players through the plot and to the final (and in the case of a Cthulhu game, maddening) truth.
Combat is simple and straight forward, and fairly lethal. There's no fiddly initiative, or distances, or speed. Mostly just death.
The most effective thing a character can do during combat is flee, which is so important that it has its own stat. At last!
The Cthulhu Mythos makes up the rest of the book, and is dealt with great affection, as can be seen whenever there's a sidebar that discusses the playtest phase and alternate rules. Think your character is too likely to survive? Here's an optional character creation set for creating doomed characters. Want to die when shot, rather than just take 'cinematic' damage? Knock your self out with these optional firearm rules. Want to create an uneasy sense of paranoia and claustrophobia when your Sanity score falls? Here's a way to portray insanity without telling the player what their character is suffering from.
There's the expected different investigator classes, and imaginative and inspirational write ups of monsters, cults and Mythos Beings, plus an introductory adventure. Brilliant. I heartily recommend it to everyone.
I enjoyed it so much, I bought a copy of Fear Itself. This spoilt the illusion somewhat.
Fear Itself is about 80 pages long, and is sold as an ideal vehicle for running one shot slasher movie / thriller games.
On the surface, I was quite excited. It also uses the Gumshoe system, and I like that it was short. Just the basics, no unnecessary fluff for the sake of it. We're all familiar with the genre it supports, so why waste time writing about it. Let's just get on. Oh, and it's a bit cheaper.
The problem is that it's only 53% new material.
The actual game system is word for word identical to Trail... and, I imagine, any other Gumshoe system game.
This means i've spent money on about twenty new pages, including the introductory adventure (more on that later), out of eighty.
Not so hot.
It's a supplement that's been sold as a stand alone product.
The intro adventure at the back deserves special notice, though, for one reason alone. You play LARPers. Really. And it mocks you remorselessly for even knowing what a LARPer is (although it does mock Vampire/Goth Doom Cookie LARPers more).
A little to close to the bone, I thought, although possibly great fun to play if you really hate a certain clique of roleplayers.
I'd still be interested in Mutant City Blues or The Esoterrorists though...
I asked for it for my birthday, and my wife dutifully bought it for me.
It is pretty ace.
The system, The Gumshoe System created by Robin D Laws (who my friend assures me is a genius), is a nice change of pace from most, if not all, other systems i've played. The focus is on investigation, and the piecing together of clues. Most games require you to pass a test to discover a clue, which can really stall play after a few unlucky rolls. The Gumshoe system takes a different approach - If you have a skill that could find the clue, and you state that you are using it, then you get the clue. The focus then falls on what you make of the clue, and where it leads you.
All pretty good.
A story should be set up to deliver one 'core clue' per scene, and a scene ends when the players uncover it. The clues should then add up to lead the players through the plot and to the final (and in the case of a Cthulhu game, maddening) truth.
Combat is simple and straight forward, and fairly lethal. There's no fiddly initiative, or distances, or speed. Mostly just death.
The most effective thing a character can do during combat is flee, which is so important that it has its own stat. At last!
The Cthulhu Mythos makes up the rest of the book, and is dealt with great affection, as can be seen whenever there's a sidebar that discusses the playtest phase and alternate rules. Think your character is too likely to survive? Here's an optional character creation set for creating doomed characters. Want to die when shot, rather than just take 'cinematic' damage? Knock your self out with these optional firearm rules. Want to create an uneasy sense of paranoia and claustrophobia when your Sanity score falls? Here's a way to portray insanity without telling the player what their character is suffering from.
There's the expected different investigator classes, and imaginative and inspirational write ups of monsters, cults and Mythos Beings, plus an introductory adventure. Brilliant. I heartily recommend it to everyone.
I enjoyed it so much, I bought a copy of Fear Itself. This spoilt the illusion somewhat.
Fear Itself is about 80 pages long, and is sold as an ideal vehicle for running one shot slasher movie / thriller games.
On the surface, I was quite excited. It also uses the Gumshoe system, and I like that it was short. Just the basics, no unnecessary fluff for the sake of it. We're all familiar with the genre it supports, so why waste time writing about it. Let's just get on. Oh, and it's a bit cheaper.
The problem is that it's only 53% new material.
The actual game system is word for word identical to Trail... and, I imagine, any other Gumshoe system game.
This means i've spent money on about twenty new pages, including the introductory adventure (more on that later), out of eighty.
Not so hot.
It's a supplement that's been sold as a stand alone product.
The intro adventure at the back deserves special notice, though, for one reason alone. You play LARPers. Really. And it mocks you remorselessly for even knowing what a LARPer is (although it does mock Vampire/Goth Doom Cookie LARPers more).
A little to close to the bone, I thought, although possibly great fun to play if you really hate a certain clique of roleplayers.
I'd still be interested in Mutant City Blues or The Esoterrorists though...
Sunday, August 29, 2010
What is wrong with gaming today? Part III
So, it's about two months since my last post, and the topic for this one has been weighing on my mind since 22 July.
Rejects and elitists are ruining the hobby!
Let me expand. I had the opportunity to go into both Travelling Man and Fan Boy 3 in Manchester last month, and was unhappy with both stores for very different reasons.
Travelling Man is clean, bright, open and attracts the 'cool' geek crowd - the ones that like the painfully cool Japanese animation and horror movies, that read the indie comic press and listen to imported hip-hop and alternative rock. It is a store staffed and frequented by the elite. It's the comic book/RPG store version of the shop in High Fidelity.
As a (now) casual browser who does not have his finger on the pulse of gaming, I felt quite intimidated. I clearly wasn't cool enough to spend my money there, and wondered how somebody new to the hobby would feel walking in the door.
Next I went into Fan Boy 3, which has found a niche as a gaming house, with tables set up in every spare inch of floor space, and incredibly smelly (literally offensively smelling) teenage metallers playing D&D at them. It's small, dark and the smell of body odour hits you the second you walk in. It's horrible.
I know my wife mocks this store, and I know why. The patrons are the lowest common denominator of social outcast. They're girlfriendless weirdoes recently escaped from the dark place their parents mercifully kept them locked in most of their lives.
Again, what would somebody new to the hobby think when they walk in that door?
EDIT: I did an image search on google so I could ad an image of both shops, and the first image on the list was this one. It pretty much mirrors my wife's reaction to the store as well.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djdamien/3971525760/
I probably sound like i'm being overly harsh, but I really can't stress how disappointed I was with the public faces of my hobby.
To illustrate, I recently bought a 1/4 size guitar for my son, who's three. I went into a professional music store first, which was incredibly spacious, with beautiful displays of instruments and all the latest equipment. It was air conditioned and staffed by serious musicians who no doubt sat in with some dead guy when he recorded that seminal album you don't own but is painfully influential.
God, I hated it. I had no place asking about a cheap hobby item for a toddler. No, I was directed to a small corner full of beautiful things I didn't want, and by God I was thankful of the sparse attention I did receive. Once I'd finished looking (but not touching) I backed out carefully, ensuring I didn't sully any of the priceless items within reach.
Instead, I nipped into a local family run music shop, less than a quarter of the size, with a mixed stock of instruments ranging from cheap & cheerful to mid range pricey. The other customers were teenagers getting their prized first electric guitar repaired, parents looking for a present for their teenagers, local musicians hanging out and chatting and casual browsers.
The staff took the time out to talk to my son (who had been roundly ignored by the staff of the first shop) and fuss over him. They determined my level of knowledge and exactly what we were looking for, and then sold it to me.
It was great. I'll go back again.
So, my overall point is, why are there no welcoming, friendly, inoffensive gaming shops? Why do we have to either be elitists or scum? Why can't we just be normal people who like gaming and who take the time to talk to everybody at the level they need?
Rejects and elitists are ruining the hobby!
Let me expand. I had the opportunity to go into both Travelling Man and Fan Boy 3 in Manchester last month, and was unhappy with both stores for very different reasons.
As a (now) casual browser who does not have his finger on the pulse of gaming, I felt quite intimidated. I clearly wasn't cool enough to spend my money there, and wondered how somebody new to the hobby would feel walking in the door.
 |
| The interior of Travelling Man |
Next I went into Fan Boy 3, which has found a niche as a gaming house, with tables set up in every spare inch of floor space, and incredibly smelly (literally offensively smelling) teenage metallers playing D&D at them. It's small, dark and the smell of body odour hits you the second you walk in. It's horrible.
I know my wife mocks this store, and I know why. The patrons are the lowest common denominator of social outcast. They're girlfriendless weirdoes recently escaped from the dark place their parents mercifully kept them locked in most of their lives.
 |
| A passing 'normal' persons reaction to Fanboy 3 |
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djdamien/3971525760/
I probably sound like i'm being overly harsh, but I really can't stress how disappointed I was with the public faces of my hobby.
To illustrate, I recently bought a 1/4 size guitar for my son, who's three. I went into a professional music store first, which was incredibly spacious, with beautiful displays of instruments and all the latest equipment. It was air conditioned and staffed by serious musicians who no doubt sat in with some dead guy when he recorded that seminal album you don't own but is painfully influential.
God, I hated it. I had no place asking about a cheap hobby item for a toddler. No, I was directed to a small corner full of beautiful things I didn't want, and by God I was thankful of the sparse attention I did receive. Once I'd finished looking (but not touching) I backed out carefully, ensuring I didn't sully any of the priceless items within reach.
Instead, I nipped into a local family run music shop, less than a quarter of the size, with a mixed stock of instruments ranging from cheap & cheerful to mid range pricey. The other customers were teenagers getting their prized first electric guitar repaired, parents looking for a present for their teenagers, local musicians hanging out and chatting and casual browsers.
The staff took the time out to talk to my son (who had been roundly ignored by the staff of the first shop) and fuss over him. They determined my level of knowledge and exactly what we were looking for, and then sold it to me.
It was great. I'll go back again.
So, my overall point is, why are there no welcoming, friendly, inoffensive gaming shops? Why do we have to either be elitists or scum? Why can't we just be normal people who like gaming and who take the time to talk to everybody at the level they need?
Saturday, July 3, 2010
The things you find
For years, pretty much since the New World of Darkness rule set was released, I've been itching for the Aeon Trilogy games - Adventure!, Aberrant and Trinity - to be revised using the Storytelling system. White Wolf have unfortunately said 'no' every time they've been asked about it, though. Apparently the D20 conversion was enough to convince them that the game line is not economically viable, no matter how awesome it is.
However, I have recently discovered that some saint on the interweb has concerted Aberrant to the Storytelling system, and called it More Than Human.
I am frankly incredibly excited about it.
It fixes some of the duff rules form the original (like somebody with Mega Strength 5 being able to automatically kill anybody else in the game with one punch. +25 automatic damage, as well as successes, whilst soak, armour, Mega Stamina, force fields and the like all stacked together struggle to provide that level of protection) and collating the revised powers from the players guide together with the main rules.
ow, if only I had the time to play it.
However, I have recently discovered that some saint on the interweb has concerted Aberrant to the Storytelling system, and called it More Than Human.
I am frankly incredibly excited about it.
It fixes some of the duff rules form the original (like somebody with Mega Strength 5 being able to automatically kill anybody else in the game with one punch. +25 automatic damage, as well as successes, whilst soak, armour, Mega Stamina, force fields and the like all stacked together struggle to provide that level of protection) and collating the revised powers from the players guide together with the main rules.
ow, if only I had the time to play it.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Lost?
Well, TV has now ended - Lost, Heroes, Flashforward, all consigned to the great DVD box set in the sky. Even Big Brother is about to end, although that's mercifully outside the remit of this blog.
Anyways, I, like many right thinking people, was disappointed by the resolution of Lost - i.e. there was no resolution, just a break for a spin off that will never happen and more questions.
So, I've been thinking about how I would have ended it, which tailed into how would I run a Lost game.
I'd always presumed that the World of Darkness / Storytelling System would work well, and stand by that presumption, however recently I started thinking about about using Changeling: The Lost the run a Lost type game.
Obvious puns aside, it kind of works. The player characters find themselves in a strange woodland environment, which could easily be an island, following a disaster / accident.
The Jacob / Man in Black (smoke monster) cold war works well in the context of two Fae beings engaged in an endless contest governed by strict rules, manipulating the players as pawns in their struggle.
The Man in Black (smoke monster) works especially well as a Fae, with Jacob kind of being a bit too benevolent (although he does display a fairly cavalier attitude towards the lives of the survivors, so he works ok).
The time delay and circuitous means of entering and exiting the island / hedge work within the setting, as do any bizarre electro-magnetic disturbances, walking dead people, misplaced animals and anomalous statues.
I'm less sure how to include the time travel and people like Desmond. I guess the hedge could allow for some degree of temporal dislocation, or the illusion of time travel.
I'll have to think more about it.
The major incongruity between Lost and Changeling: The Lost is that the survivors in Lost are human, and the player characters in C:TL are not human. You could use human PCs in the setting, but they'd die very quickly if you use the canon rules and antagonists. That's easily fudged though.
I think i'd like to do it, and see how it turns out. I do believe that the writers of Lost pretty much made up the lower level detail as they went along - I mean, it's kind of telling that they created the character of Hurley because they liked the actor, and Hurley became the 'new' Jacob at the end - so I think that a GM should be able to wing the individual sessions as long as they adhered to a main story arc.
Anyways, I, like many right thinking people, was disappointed by the resolution of Lost - i.e. there was no resolution, just a break for a spin off that will never happen and more questions.
So, I've been thinking about how I would have ended it, which tailed into how would I run a Lost game.
I'd always presumed that the World of Darkness / Storytelling System would work well, and stand by that presumption, however recently I started thinking about about using Changeling: The Lost the run a Lost type game.
Obvious puns aside, it kind of works. The player characters find themselves in a strange woodland environment, which could easily be an island, following a disaster / accident.
The Jacob / Man in Black (smoke monster) cold war works well in the context of two Fae beings engaged in an endless contest governed by strict rules, manipulating the players as pawns in their struggle.
The Man in Black (smoke monster) works especially well as a Fae, with Jacob kind of being a bit too benevolent (although he does display a fairly cavalier attitude towards the lives of the survivors, so he works ok).
The time delay and circuitous means of entering and exiting the island / hedge work within the setting, as do any bizarre electro-magnetic disturbances, walking dead people, misplaced animals and anomalous statues.
I'm less sure how to include the time travel and people like Desmond. I guess the hedge could allow for some degree of temporal dislocation, or the illusion of time travel.
I'll have to think more about it.
The major incongruity between Lost and Changeling: The Lost is that the survivors in Lost are human, and the player characters in C:TL are not human. You could use human PCs in the setting, but they'd die very quickly if you use the canon rules and antagonists. That's easily fudged though.
I think i'd like to do it, and see how it turns out. I do believe that the writers of Lost pretty much made up the lower level detail as they went along - I mean, it's kind of telling that they created the character of Hurley because they liked the actor, and Hurley became the 'new' Jacob at the end - so I think that a GM should be able to wing the individual sessions as long as they adhered to a main story arc.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Tom Cruise vs Emperor Palpatine
I would like to start this post with an assertion: Star Wars is ace!
I mean, don't you just love the imagery, the look and feel, the cross genre cool.
I mean, check this out and tell me that you're not stirred.
Star Wars is awesome. Specifically, Star Wars Saga Edition Roleplay Game is also awesome. It's award winning, for one (Ennies 2008 Gold Winner Best Rules, Best d20 Product, Best Game. Silver Winner Product of the Year), and rightly so.
Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG products have traditionally been used as a testing ground for new D&D rules, which is a little odd considering Lucas Arts charge through the nose for the license, so you would have thought that the rules used would be tried, tested and definitely not experimental.
However, WotC have been using SWRPG as a testing ground. The 2nd Edition was a bridge between D&D 3rd Ed and 3.5, and resulted in some aberrations and jarred a little in places.
Saga Edition is no exception, and straddles 3.5 and 4th Ed.
The only difference is that it rocks!
They've kept all the stuff that worked in 3.5, and introduced all the stuff that works in 4th Ed. The result is a really easy rules system, multi classing options that make sense and Jedi that don't piss all over the other classes.
I love it.
The only downer is that due to the RPG market being in some form of vegetative state, and Lucas Arts demanding so much money for the license, WotC have decided to drop the game.
Not to worry though, there's still stock on Amazon, and my wishlist includes many Saga Edition books. Buy them now before they become rare.
However, onto the the actual point of the post, hinted at by the title.
Hands up if you've seen Valkyrie. It is also ace.
After I watched it, my immediate thought was 'Wouldn't this make a great Star Wars game?'
And it would.
Concept: The players are all high ranking Imperial officers - Moffs, Admirals, Generals etc. The Emperor has just dissolved the Senate, disintegrated Alderaan and allowed the largest, most expensive and most ambitious space station ever built to be destroyed by rebel fighters.
These are dark times, and Emperor Palpatine is leading the galaxy down a path of madness and destruction. He, and his enforcer, Darth Vader, must be stopped. The Empire must be preserved.
The players plot to assassinate the Emperor and Vader, and to take control of the Galactic Empire.
I originally saw it as a letter writing campaign, but wouldn't really know where to start with that, let alone run it.
It would have to be high intrigue and involve meticulous planning by both myself and the players.
It would also be fantastic.
Edit/Update: Well, WotC have now discontinued their Star Wars RPG pages. It's the end of an era. Everybody hand their heads during a moments silence...
On the topic, Will Hindmarch has blogged a post (is that the correct terminology?) regarding why Sci-Fi doesn't sell, which is kind of relevant to this topic.
I mean, don't you just love the imagery, the look and feel, the cross genre cool.
I mean, check this out and tell me that you're not stirred.
Star Wars is awesome. Specifically, Star Wars Saga Edition Roleplay Game is also awesome. It's award winning, for one (Ennies 2008 Gold Winner Best Rules, Best d20 Product, Best Game. Silver Winner Product of the Year), and rightly so.
Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG products have traditionally been used as a testing ground for new D&D rules, which is a little odd considering Lucas Arts charge through the nose for the license, so you would have thought that the rules used would be tried, tested and definitely not experimental.
However, WotC have been using SWRPG as a testing ground. The 2nd Edition was a bridge between D&D 3rd Ed and 3.5, and resulted in some aberrations and jarred a little in places.
Saga Edition is no exception, and straddles 3.5 and 4th Ed.
The only difference is that it rocks!
They've kept all the stuff that worked in 3.5, and introduced all the stuff that works in 4th Ed. The result is a really easy rules system, multi classing options that make sense and Jedi that don't piss all over the other classes.
I love it.
The only downer is that due to the RPG market being in some form of vegetative state, and Lucas Arts demanding so much money for the license, WotC have decided to drop the game.
Not to worry though, there's still stock on Amazon, and my wishlist includes many Saga Edition books. Buy them now before they become rare.
However, onto the the actual point of the post, hinted at by the title.
Hands up if you've seen Valkyrie. It is also ace.
After I watched it, my immediate thought was 'Wouldn't this make a great Star Wars game?'
And it would.
Concept: The players are all high ranking Imperial officers - Moffs, Admirals, Generals etc. The Emperor has just dissolved the Senate, disintegrated Alderaan and allowed the largest, most expensive and most ambitious space station ever built to be destroyed by rebel fighters.
These are dark times, and Emperor Palpatine is leading the galaxy down a path of madness and destruction. He, and his enforcer, Darth Vader, must be stopped. The Empire must be preserved.
The players plot to assassinate the Emperor and Vader, and to take control of the Galactic Empire.
I originally saw it as a letter writing campaign, but wouldn't really know where to start with that, let alone run it.
It would have to be high intrigue and involve meticulous planning by both myself and the players.
It would also be fantastic.
Edit/Update: Well, WotC have now discontinued their Star Wars RPG pages. It's the end of an era. Everybody hand their heads during a moments silence...
On the topic, Will Hindmarch has blogged a post (is that the correct terminology?) regarding why Sci-Fi doesn't sell, which is kind of relevant to this topic.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Deep fascination with game design... Crunch vs Smooth
A couple of weeks ago I tried to drum up some interest in this blog by spamming a bunch of my gaming buddies, new and old, and basically begging them to follow it.
I've received a couple of replies, and one, from Andy Mason, made me think.
He said he'd add it to his RSS feed, but as he didn't share my deep fascination with game design, he didn't see himself commenting that regularly, all of which is fair enough, however it did surprise me, as I've never seen myself as preoccupied with game design, or even game crunch.
In fact, this blog was not supposed to be about design, it was supposed to be about play.
So what went wrong?
When I started nook.geek, I was happily playing every week at my local gaming group, and really just wanted a medium to froth about what I think are cool ideas and moan about the world not understanding my artistic vision (or not liking zombies as much as I think it should).
Then, pretty quickly, the world turned (hello unexpected pregnancy and potential redundancy) and weekly gaming stopped.
Which is where I think things changed. Rather than plot out countless chronicle ideas i'll never run or generate dozens of characters i'll never play, I decided to start writing a system.
I've quickly discovered that writing your own system can bog you down with details and questions almost straight away.
I mean, I started with a nice idea about what I thought should be in a cool game, and then started trying to think of a way to express that with mechanics, but not complex mechanics, and then suddenly i'm spending hours trying to think round combat/damage/defence mechanics and what exactly should a gun or a knife do?
Which is what I always hated when running store bought games. In fact, I recall banning certain firearms from my 1950's vampire chronicle simply because I couldn't be bothered with the various gun rules.
Thinking on it, I stuck with the White Wolf / World of Darkness games not so much because I liked them (I do), but because i'd learnt the system and therefore did not want to have to learn another one.
I also developed a hatred of D&D 3.x simply because the system got so number heavy, with so many different permutations and exceptions.
So, yeah, i'm surprised that i'm spending so much time on crunch, as i've always preferred smooth.
I've received a couple of replies, and one, from Andy Mason, made me think.
He said he'd add it to his RSS feed, but as he didn't share my deep fascination with game design, he didn't see himself commenting that regularly, all of which is fair enough, however it did surprise me, as I've never seen myself as preoccupied with game design, or even game crunch.
In fact, this blog was not supposed to be about design, it was supposed to be about play.
So what went wrong?
When I started nook.geek, I was happily playing every week at my local gaming group, and really just wanted a medium to froth about what I think are cool ideas and moan about the world not understanding my artistic vision (or not liking zombies as much as I think it should).
Then, pretty quickly, the world turned (hello unexpected pregnancy and potential redundancy) and weekly gaming stopped.
Which is where I think things changed. Rather than plot out countless chronicle ideas i'll never run or generate dozens of characters i'll never play, I decided to start writing a system.
I've quickly discovered that writing your own system can bog you down with details and questions almost straight away.
I mean, I started with a nice idea about what I thought should be in a cool game, and then started trying to think of a way to express that with mechanics, but not complex mechanics, and then suddenly i'm spending hours trying to think round combat/damage/defence mechanics and what exactly should a gun or a knife do?
Which is what I always hated when running store bought games. In fact, I recall banning certain firearms from my 1950's vampire chronicle simply because I couldn't be bothered with the various gun rules.
Thinking on it, I stuck with the White Wolf / World of Darkness games not so much because I liked them (I do), but because i'd learnt the system and therefore did not want to have to learn another one.
I also developed a hatred of D&D 3.x simply because the system got so number heavy, with so many different permutations and exceptions.
So, yeah, i'm surprised that i'm spending so much time on crunch, as i've always preferred smooth.
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