Adventures with Photoshop

So, following my previous post regarding how I've realised that a fair old amount of game book art is photoshopped, I've been experimenting further.
It's kinda fun.
I've found myself taking photo's on my phone for the express purpose of running them through some PS filters. That's why I have loads of photo's of kitchen knives.
It is.
Really.

Anyways, here's some examples of what I've been doing.

I took this picture on the way back from a mate's house

Ran it through a 'Cut out' filter

Ran it through a 'Sumi-e' filter after 'Solarizing' it

And finally ran it through a 'Graphic Pen' filter.

I think i'm happiest with the Sumi-e filter.
Now I have to learn how to insert objects into a picture.

What is wrong with gaming today? part II

Also cool because it references a Tom Waits song
http://www.mobunited.com/mobunitedmedia/2010/03/21/where-did-you-go-tabletop-joe/

Disappointed with game art

I'm not the most visually creative of people. I can't draw, and I don't pretend to know anything about art.
Which is a slight worry for me whenever I entertain the idea of designing my own games, which I do from time to time.
I can make standard computer programs do basic things for me that don't look shit - for example I use Word to design forms for two highstreet banks.
This reassures me that I can design a functional character sheet, they're just fields to be completed, after all.

Last night I had a play with Photoshop, which is something i've not done since summer 2006, and discovered that a great majority of the edgy and stylistic artwork i've seen in gaming supplements of late are simply photoshopped photographs.
I am extremely disappointed.
Yet also elated, as I now have a way in to pretend to be an artist, and produce acceptable standard pictures for any game system I produce. Woot! as they say.
For example, here's something I knocked up in about 20 minutes, which will no doubt not be up to the standards of other more experienced PS users, but I don't care. It's a first attempt.

The idea of both was to convert a photo into something that looks like a line drawing. I'm quite happy with the results.

What should I be playing?

When I was in my early 20's I went through a period of angst, in which I really worried about the music I was listening to. Was it cool enough? Was I missing something that everybody else knew about? I got scared reading NME - there was so much going on, and I was there happily listening to the stuff I was listening to fives years ago.
Was I still relevant?


I have recently been gripped by the same fear when I think about role playing.
I've been playing White Wolf games pretty much exclusively since 1998. I've dabbled in D&D (which I do understand is popular with ver kidz, and makes me feel old because i'm sure I don't quite get it), Ars Magica (which is now, as far as I can tell, a game for aging medieval scholars/nerds) and games other people have kindly allowed me to play.


For awhile I thought I was indulging in a dying hobby, but some recent research has highlighted to me that the world has turned, and left me behind. People have moved on, and are no longer interested in the games i'm interested in.


This scares me, and makes me feel like an aging spinster at a 70's disco.


What should I be playing?

Puzzles in context

Last week my wife and I invested in a Nintendo DS. The free game we opted for was Professor Layton and the Curious Village, a classic point and click adventure in which you are tasked with solving the mystery of the Golden Apple, a great treasure hidden somewhere in the small, curious village of St. Mystere. Along the way there are other mysteries to solve as well - inheritances, disappearences, murders and the like.
There are examples of gameplay in the link below, the content of which is pretty much lifted directly from the game.
http://professorlaytonds.com/curiousvillage/

The twist to the game, that sets it apart from other point and click mysteries, is the blatant use of puzzles. Apparently everybody in St. Mystere is obessed with puzzles, and will often only release the information you need if you solve this one riddle they have. Hidden riddles abound throughout the town, secreted in alcoves, bushes and bottles, and the two main characters, Professor Layton and his apprentice, Luke, are also obsessed, posing riddles and brainteasers for each other at every turn.

You cannot progress through the game without solving a set amount of puzzles, and certain key puzzles. There are also hidden games and bonuses you can unlock.

It is very addictive. I've racked up about 9 hours play and solved 90 odd puzzles. My wife, who is not a gamer by any account, has played over 13 hours and solved 103 of the 130+ puzzles.
We've only had it a week.
It is surprisingly addictive.

It has also gotten me thinking about puzzles within RPGs.
My experience of puzzles in Roleplay, tabletop or live action, is not a good one.
The existence of a puzzle usually jars - why would the grand wizard use a block slide puzzle as a lock for his spell book? Why should the shadow spirit demand to know the answer to this riddle about legs and times of the day (which is clearly 'man') before letting the party entry to the tomb? Why do you need to 'speak friend and enter' to get into the mines of morias?
The puzzles used are usually either too simple or too hard - Great, I cannot progress through this door because this fiendish logic puzzle requires a level of maths knowledge I simply do not have! We fought through 17 rooms of Orcs, got to the final encounter, and it was a real anti-climax. Just a wooden puzzle sat on a table with a note saying 'solve me and pass'.

What I like about Professor Layton is that it 1/ provides a clear context for the use of puzzles that works naturally with the narrative and gameplay, 2/ gives an indication of the difficulty level of each puzzle, 3/ has a finite resource based  'hints and tips' buying system, so you're less likely to be stumped on a puzzle, 4/ rewards you for solving as many puzzles as you can.

I'm now thinking about ways I can use puzzles in future games that fit with the setting and situation, and provide a comparable challenge for the party.
And that aren't crap.

What is wrong with gaming today? I'll tell you what...

Written in kind of reaction to: http://jamesmishler.blogspot.com/2009/07/doom-of-rpgs-rambling.html

Hard backed books.

I was in Manchester this week, so stuck my head into Travelling Man, Fanboy 3 and Forbidden Planet to pick up and browse through some geek books, like in the old days.

So, nowadays, you can basically only buy a really nice looking, well made, beautifully printed hardback book when shopping for a supplement (not the core rules, a supplement).
The design standards are all top notch, the writing is impressive, the artwork lovely.

However, they all cost about £20!
For a supplement!?

Ok, this is ten years ago, but i used to buy one or two supplements a month. Splat books, campaign books, setting books, additional rule or option books. I pissed my money away, but that was fine, because it didn't feel like i was spending money.
£8 for a clan book? Seems fair.
£14 for a meta plot advancement with loads of new powers and character options? Cool.
£22 for a supplement about guns? Fuck off!

That's why the hobby is going down the pan and nobody buys teh books anymore.

Indiana Jones vs The Deep Ones?

I am catching up on geek i have missed. Interesting, very interesting..

http://www.pelgranepress.com/site/?page_id=242

Antagonist design

I chose Hunter: The Vigil as a good game to run for my local club for two main reasons.

1. The core concept is fairly simple to grasp, and doesn't deviate much from, say, 'traditional' D&D. You are hunting monsters. You do so either for money, entertainment, to settle a debt / grudge or to protect the people and places you hold dear.
2. Hunter is a good gateway drug to introduce the players to the other World of Darkness games.

I try to keep these two aims in mind - keep the concept simple, introduce the players to other supernatural beings - when planning sessions.
Ok, you might point out that last night was only the third session proper for this game, however i've kept it up so far.
The first story arc I ran, which as discussed earlier was only supposed to last a session, was about hunting a neonate vampire. It had a quick investigate / locate / fight structure, and served to introduce the players to the system, both roleplay and combat.

For the next story arc, I wanted to introduce another denizen on the WoD, and ran through a few options in my head.
A Promethean? Good idea, but possibly a bit too hard for them at this stage.
A Changeling? Again, good idea, but too complex at this stage.
Another Vampire? That would set a precedent and establish Vampires as the main antagonists of the game. I'd like to avoid that at the moment.
A Werewolf? Even a single Werewolf would tear them all to shreds right now. Maybe a challenge for later on.
A Slasher? I thought about being lazy and using one of the pre-gens from the Slasher book. I quite like the idea of Slashers as a distinct adversary within the setting. Maybe next time.

Instead I settled on using a ghost. Ghosts are supposed to be a core element of the new WoD, with specific Werewolf tribes, Mage paths, Promethean lineages being dedicated to them. And, of course, there's Geist.
So, ghosts are supposed to be fairly common, yet I feel they're often overlooked in favour of the game line specific baddy or other more exotic concepts.

I started by looking at the pre-gen ghosts at the back of the WoD core book. The 'deceiver' ghost looked most like what I wanted.

I then started thinking about motivation and anchors and the like.
I knew that the group would be challenged by a ghost, as they had no way of directly harming it, and the only way they would be able to resolve the challenge would be to either destroy its anchors or complete its unfinished work.

I knew that I wanted a hateful, murdering ghost and, because I wanted to keep things simple, decided that the ghost was a hateful murderer in life as well.
I'd been thinking about what fun I could have with the Phantasm numina, which is essentially an illusion only one person can see, and thought about having a cop shoot an innocent bystander because an illusion showed him brandishing a weapon at the cop.
Seemed like a classic way to get people killed or cause complications for somebody using a simple illusion, so I used it as the starting point for the concept.

Looking at anchors, I had a mobility problem.
I wanted the ghost to move around, yet most anchors are stationery, or if they can move, the ghost is unable to control that movement. Also, if I made a living person an anchor, they would have to kill them to banish the ghost. Whilst this would make for an interesting moral quandry, I don't think they're ready for it yet.
In the end, I settled on two anchors - an old taxi cab and an old shed. This gave me two distinct places / objects to be investigated and destroyed, and allowed some mobility.
Maybe a ghost shouldn't be able to drive a cab, but I fudged that.

So, the concept ended up as: Serial killing taxi driver returns from the dead to a/ continue his great work, and b/ extract his revenge on the cop that killed him. The dead cabbie haunts his old taxi cab, which he uses to collect fresh victims, and a shed on the outskirts of town, where he used to cut up his victims.

With this in mind, I had another look at the Deceiver template, and decided that it wasn't quite what I needed.
I statted my own ghost, of similar ability, and gave it telekinesis and animal control instead of ghost sign and terrify.

The finished product, plus my own notes for play, are below.
Unfortunately the group spent too much time dicking around investigating the last story arc to actually meet this guy, but hopefully next week...

Bill Redwood


Ghost



Attributes: Power 4, Finesse 3, Resistance 4

Willpower: 8

Morality: 4

Virtue: Temperance

Vice: Lust

Initiative: 7

Defence: 4

Speed: 17

Size: 5

Corpus: 9   

Numina:

Animal Control – Cost 1 essence. Power + Finesse – animals Resolve. Control 3 animals at once

Phantasm – Cost 1 Essence. Power + Finesse. Negative modifiers applied for complexity. Target makes Wits + Occult roll to disbelieve the illusion.

Telekinesis – Cost 1 Essence. Power + Finesse. Successes = ghosts relative strength. -3 modifier to attack directly, ignores Defence, cover and armour.



Anchors: Old taxi cab, Killing hut in South West Philadelphia



History: Bill Redwood had been a cabbie in Philadelphia for ten years when he got stiffed for a fare. He chased the fare down and when he caught up with him, a fight ensued. Bill didn’t mean to kill him, but when he did, he was left with blood on his hands and a body to dispose of.

He took the corpse to an old warehouse near the airport that his Uncle used to work out of, cut the body up and fed it to the local stray dogs.

Whether it was the act of killing, or the cutting and dismemberment afterwards, but something broke in Bill from that point.

The next fare dodger was hunted down and disposed of in the same way. And then another. Then Bill started driving the long way round to bump up the fare. Then he started looking for other reasons – Queue jumpers. Rude people. Ugly people. Pretty people. People who wouldn’t be missed.

This carried on for months, all the while Bill upped his game and targeted more and more challenging prey.

People soon noticed, and Philadelphia became gripped with a fear of the Cabbie Killer.

The city’s cab drivers pulled together and attempted to police their ranks. Local government ran campaigns to raise safety awareness. The Philly PD worked overtime to track the killer down.

In the end, it was luck that stopped Bill Redwood. Two bored patrol cops stopped his cab near the edge of the National Wildlife Refuge, and discovered the separated remains of Redwood’s latest victim in the trunk.

Redwood was shot, executed, in cold blood by Officer Phil Davies after he surrendered. Davies’ partner, Nick Richmond, corroborated Davies’ story that Redwood had moved to attack them with a hatchet.

The truth is, Redwood was relieved to have finally been caught, and was willing to hand himself in.

Pride and / or Joy

I recently went full geek, and made up a gaming hobby case.
Bask in it's glory.

Hunter: The Vigil - Forming / Storming / Conforming / Performing

Ran session two of Hunter: The Vigil for the Bolton gaming group last night, and managed to attract four players: Gemma, Chris J, James and Gareth.

I'd spent the two weeks since the first session sketching out in my head what I wanted to happen. The challenge was to turn what should have been a quick introductory encounter at the end of the first session into a viable session in and of itself.
It's a new game to the group, and the first time i've run 'Vigil, so i'd originally planned a very basic first session - Local druggie drop-out becomes a vampire, and uses his new powers to kill / beat up the local gang members and drug dealers that he'd formally worked for / bought from.
I 'designed' the antagonist to be a brutal thug, as subtle as a brick, and fairly unintelligent, then threw in the horrific murder of his nice, normal middle class suburban parents to give the players some additional motivation to stop him, just in case a bunch of dead pimps, pushers and players wasn't really floating their boat.

The first session started a little later than envisaged due to character creation and my general disorganisation, but I was happy with the quality of the roleplay coming out.
Then the roleplay got a little too out of hand - everybody wanted to explore their character and showcase their 'soft' skills. The drug addict got high, the criminal stole medicine from the hospital.
Not that I mind any of that, in moderation, but it did slow down the session considerably.
The last 'encounter' (still thinking in linear terms, after all this time) should have been a quick fight with the vampire. They'd established his identity, found a pattern to his attacks and determined who would be next. They'd even narrowed it down to a place and time.
They should have just gone there, waited for him to show up and jumped him. A quick combat would have followed and the session ended.
However, we didn't have time, so it carried over to the next session.

So, to return to my challenge, I had to stretch something that should have taken 15 minutes into about two hours.

I started off by thinking about what I wanted to acheive.
It would still be the first combat of the game, so it had to be a 'good example' of combat. Basic, and introduce the players to the possibilities.
It also had to present additional challenges beyond 'kill this one guy'.
They knew that the vampire's next target was a dealer called 'Tuco' (yes, when needing low life villain names on the fly, I ripped off 'Breaking Bad), so I fleshed him out a bit (again, in my head, as I've realised that 60% of prep' doesn't see the light of day) and built up the scenario in which they would meet him.
I also added some faceless gang members and a ghoul retainer to the vampire, and populated the neighbourhood with tricks, johns and junkies.

I'm pleased with the way to players rose to the challenge. They got close to Tuco, without making any attempt to warn him or ally themselves with him. Basically, they put themselves in direct danger from a dangerous criminal so that they could react effectively to the vampire when he arrived.
I can see, at this early stage, that they're quite morally ambivalent. The majority have no qualms about commiting crimes themselves, either to aid the hunt or to aid their pockets, yet have no time or patience for criminals. In fact, the drug dealers and gang members caught in the cross fire were not mourned and barely noticed. Clearly these people have never seen Austin Powers.

I think I wasn't consistent or harsh enough with Morality tests or Degeneration.
James should have had to make a Morality check for shooting the crippled, defenceless ghoul, and Gareth should have had to have made one for accidentally shooting the gang member being fed on by the vampire.
I can see Gareth's TF:V character adopting an alternative code of conduct before too long, anyway. He doesn't seem to be adverse to this suggestion.

The session ended with a wounded ghoul and a torpid vampire being gaffa taped up and bunged in their boot for further investigation / interrogation.

Next session should be next week. I'm having a real think about what to do. I've got a number of ideas, mostly ones I didn't get to use from my old CSI: World of Darkness game, however these are maybe a little too hard for the Hunter Cell at the moment.
I'd like to do something with ghosts, which adds an additional challenge in that none of them can perceive or effect ghosts or spirits at the moment.
I may do something with a demon cult, or I might use some ideas from the World of Darkness: Slashers book (a fantastic book that genuinely gets you excited about eating peoples livers).
Or I might do a mash up.