Cascade Failure

The wife's in New York over the next few days, which means I'm on single parent duty. That being said, this actually gives me a little more time to myself than usual (some married dudes with children can relate) even if it means, my waking hours with the kids is a little tougher.

SO...I was going to get back to my 4E delving (and I will, I will!), but in the meantime I wanted to talk about a different RPG I had the chance to pick up and read the last couple days: Cascade Failure, a little self-published, space opera game, built on the usual (D&Dish) class-race-level chassis with D20s and saving throws and whatnot. Oh, yeah...it's in my favorite price range: free (not even "pay what you want;" you can't give this guy money). PDF only, of course.

You might guess that such an offering was pretty crappy (i.e. amateurish, derivative) offering. If so, you'd be very, very wrong.

Greg Christopher's game is downright beautiful, with amazing production values. The full color artwork ranges from excellent to amazing...it's on par with some of Fantasy Flight Games more recent offerings, certainly a step up from D&D 4E, maybe around the same level as the last couple Shadowrun books (for me, these are all "high water marks" in RPG art). Even for folks who just dig on good SciFi art (I've written before how I find good art to be incredibly inspiring), you could due worse than taking a look...I did mention it's free, right? Check out this cover:

Really not this blurry.

I mean, that image doesn't really do the book justice. Here's a screen shot from the chargen title page:

Spectacular.

That shit is just awesome.

[sorry about the grey borders...I'm terrible at this kind of image manipulation]

But, hey, all prettiness aside, my main interest with all these RPGs is their design and potential for play. Maybe you're wondering if my "downright beautiful" description applied only to the look and layout. No...the game's pretty sweet, too.

Cascade Failure (download here) claims to be a public BETA (version 1.2, in fact), but I've seen other games that had a lot less going for them than what it has going on. The PDF is all of 95 pages (y'all know I like a low page count) and many of those pages are cover, or full page illos, or one of three (different style) character sheets, or a star map, or an OGL, or whatever. Thing is pretty, yet compact. Now what does it do in those pages? Let's put together some bullet points:

• Uses a streamlined D20 mechanic, where everything is "roll under attribute (plus modifiers)." There are two types of checks (called "responses") in the core mechanic: proactive (using skills, attacks, etc.) and reactive (saving throws). All use attributes as their base, sometimes with a level modifier (depending on class). For folks familiar with it, there are shades of 4E here, but without target numbers. I've toyed with similar designs, so I'm partial to the idea; however, "roll low" isn't the most intuitive thing for folks (outside the BRP/Chaosium crowd) and I've read complaints about this in some reviews of Cascade Failure. That being said, there are ways to fix this...but for me, it's fine as is.
• A very cool setting: immediate post-apocalypse (28 years after the fall) of an interstellar society. The whole thing is very cool, and provides a lot of different "hooks" for characters. I've spoken before that, for me, I need something more than an interesting "wide open" setting to make a game run. Even without providing a list of "adventure seeds," the setting in Cascade Failure suggests plenty of things to do and concrete directions to take, which is something I rarely encounter in SciFi games. For example, you might have some sort of war as part of a setting whether covert (Star Frontiers) or not (Star Wars), but RPGs really fall short (IMO) when this is the driving campaign arc (I should write about this sometime...look at Dragonlance as an example). The setting here...one of survival and salvage, provides motivation for small scale (i.e. personal) conflicts of the sort that would involve a party of wandering adventurers. And there's enough background fluff (without being overwhelming) to provide objectives for said adventures. Dig it.
• Really like how humans are used in the setting. They are responsible for the empire, they are responsible for the fall, they have the (stronger) potential for getting shit back together. It's human centric but humans are far from fallible and have a lot to answer for. Nice themes.
• An interesting and (for me) distinct set of classes, compared to other games. Various non-human races are fine depending on your cup o tea; they're fine but easily discarded or modified (none are "integral" to the setting). The game distinguishes race from class which  (I've noted before) I prefer in the space opera genre: if you're going to posit a number of sentient races with spacefaring capacity, they might as well be able to have different occupations.
• The empath and kinetic classes are excellent...I'll return to these at the end of this post.
• Saving throws specific to the setting (all based on attributes): very nicely done. Dig "breath" (to see if you can hold your breath...like when your spaceship suddenly holed), "pain" (for taking actions after your totally abstract HPs have been depleted), "snap" (the "reflex" save, but also used as a "full defense" type action in combat...like when you need to dodge laser bolts and have nothing with which to shoot back), and "fear" (the PC version of morale). Also love "listen" and "spot" as saving throws: makes perfect sense with the core mechanic to use these as reactive saves.
• Ambitions. Wow. Remember how much shit I gave White Star for its cop-out experience system? Here's an innovative system that works with the genre, and its got two tracks. Each character has a major ambition, something that (if achieved) they'll retire and give up adventuring; examples include acquiring a space ship, finding one's true love, avenging a wrong, or whatever. It's a built-in end-game and story driver, and (similar to The Riddle of Steel's spiritual attributes) provides bonuses in play when characters are taking actions that directly apply to the ambition (it also acts as a directional "guide" for players). Minor ambitions, on the other hand, are chosen in-play, on the fly, based on the situation at hand (i.e. both the adventure hooks and events that occur). Minor ambitions provide no mechanical bonuses, but (when achieved) award PCs XP based on the ambition. And here's the kicker: the amount of XP awarded for achieving a minor ambition is negotiated up-front between the player and the GM. Awesome...so, for example, the players discover there's a band of marauders terrorizing the local village and pose a minor ambition to shut it down for 100xp and the GM says, heck I'll give you 500xp, cluing in the PCs that the opposition is tougher than they think. OR players can "up the ante" saying they have a minor ambition to reconcile with the bandits peacefully and make them productive members of the village or some such for a fat bonus. OR the players can add an extra ambition (for extra XP) that they want to humiliate the bandit leader in the process and steal his high tech gear that he's been using to lord it over the peasants. Very hip mechanic and one I can't ever remember seeing before.
• Morality. Wow again. This is Cascade Failure's take on "alignment." You assign 7 points to three impulses: adherence (which is kind of like "law & order"), consensus (your conformity to your peer group/friends/family), and efficiency (your impulse to "get things done" in expedient fashion). The values assigned to these impulses act as role-playing guide-posts to the players, and can be used by the GM as a bonus/penalty if applicable and if "it would make the game more enjoyable." Shades of both The Riddle of Steel (again) and Pendragon virtues.
• Characters are given an age attribute (Young, Adult, or Mature) that influences how cognizant of the pre-apocalypse galaxy. Being younger gives you a bonus to physical attributes (duh) but being older gives you bonuses to figure out old tech. Remember, the setting is post-apoc so shades of Gamma World figuring out gear...however, I'm not really doing a good job of selling the setting: even though the author doesn't give us a highly detailed galaxy with pages and pages of history and planets, what he does give us is an important overview of what tech allowed interstellar colonization in the first place, how it was interrelated, and how it's breakdown (due to the interstellar war) has led to the collapse of the society. He gives you enough of the information you need. It's really spot on and elegant.
• Gosh, there's a luck score (rolled randomly; humans start with more) that can be spent in-play and never gets "replenished" (except by GM fiat). However, rather than a "get out of jail free card" (as in other RPGs), luck is used to flat modify rolls by your current luck value, decreasing by a point with every use. Man, I love this. At the beginning of a character's career, they can thus expect a lot of lucky breaks ("beginner's luck," right?) but as the game progresses their luck eventually runs out.
• Hit points are abstract and, once depleted, additional damage is applied directly to attributes (as in Classic Traveller). The attribute affected is determined by random roll and attributes correspond with wound locations...like a shot to the hand decreases DEX, while a shot to the head decreases INT. There are some rules for getting maimed and whatnot...all good, though I would have liked some cyborg parts to replace lost limbs (easily added, though).
• Equipment is nice, a short and streamlined list fine for the setting, the usual weapons/armor are on display. Includes cybernetic enhancements (though no 'borg prosthetics). The barter currency with "Value Units" is cool and setting appropriate. The various spacecraft/vehicles (these aren't available for purchase...how many chickens are you going to trade for a battle tank?) are good...abstract and they fit the marks needed...but there seems to be a missing chart here, as the text states vehicles are described by four values and we've got no idea what the range of those values are for any of these vehicles. Maybe that's why this is the "Beta" version? Vehicle combat is a mirror of personal combat which is fine, by the way.
• Factions are neat. The example factions are all very good. You can see where other space opera fiction has inspired some of these ideas (Space Battleship Yamato, for example), but they still feel very original. Especially dig the non-hostile nature of most of these (they have desires, but they aren't pitted to destroy each other). They all make good story seeds.
• Finally we have "Gifts" which are just lightweight "feats" that PCs acquire every other level (starting at 2nd level). I like these, too, especially the kinetic ones.

Okay, that's a lot of slobbering over the game. Can you tell it's my new favorite space opera RPG? That this is one I'd actually like to run?

Now, long time readers of the blog know that I'm a big fan of Star Wars, but have had issues with (pretty much) every Star Wars game that's ever been offered for consumption...from West End Games to WotC's D20 (and Saga) to FFG's most recent version. A lot of folks have touted White Star as THE  "Star Wars game"...at least as far as light-ruled, old school (D&D style) chassis are concerned. I wrote myself that it's the closest such game I've seen.

Cascade Failure is closer.

And I say this even given that the setting is NOTHING like "Star Wars." No, what I mean is that is that the system, as is, is VERY EASILY adaptable to the Star Wars setting, should one care to do so. You'll have to cut out aspects like power armor and such...but then again, there are no hard rules for such, and who's to say you can't scale mecha or power armor up to the size of AT-ATs and AT-STs?

The existing CF classes of Empaths and Kinetics can, be easily adapted to Jedi and Sith (respectively) with near zero modification...if one is willing to forgo all the "canon" nonsense found in RPGs and prequel trilogies. Using the original trilogy (solo) as a base...something I've often considered doing but always failed failed failed in ALL my designs...the "Force" users could easily be modeled on these character classes withOUT such a thing as "the Force" (the Force being instead relegated to a religion or mythological belief of the setting as a way of explaining the existing of such sixth sense powers). Personally, I prefer the Cascade Failure version of such powers to anything I've yet seen, including my own designs. These two variations of "people with strange powers" (which, again, can be classed to any species...a failure of White Star when it comes to genre emulation) will also work well for other space opera settings. In fact, they seem almost out of place in the post-apocalyptic setting of Cascade Failure (nothing about the setting material mentions folks with psychic powers, not even as minor players in the events occurring before, during, and after). But for a CF knock-off in a Lucas-style, original trilogy setting, they find a ready home.

In my opinion.

[no there's nothing like the "Dark Side" or psychic corruption in the game...imagine, for a moment, that Yoda and Ben's discussions of such a supernatural force are simply over-blown and rooted in superstition. Call it a "Force-Atheistic" version of Star Wars. Which itself is pretty cool]

Look, it appears to be a good game. It's free. It's pretty to look at. Go ahead and download it, write to the author, tell him to get his act together and put together a chart of vehicle stats and start charging something for it. Inform him that this should be available in hardcopy (it ain't, not even print-on-demand). The fact it has a 2011 copyright and I've never seen/heard of it is a crying shame. I've been looking for a space opera game this cool for a looooong time.
; )

[by the way, thanks to Age of Ravens for hipping me to this thing through his latest post-apocalyptic RPG post. You can read his review here]

Frontier Space

[quick FYI: KWN posts will be continuing through the weekend...they're on "auto-pilot." However, I may not get around to advertising them on the G+...just so you know]

There are probably some people who are tired of my tirades against that Old School Darling, Star Frontiers. Specifically, they're probably thinking:

"JB...you say things like 'the system is deplorable'...but what exactly have you done better? Sure, you're serializing a supplement for X-Plorers (tl;dr, just BTW), but what exactly have you offered as a substitute system? Where's the space opera micro-game? If it's so damn easy, and everyone else is so darn stupid, why aren't you putting your money where your mouth is?"

The proles, of course, have a valid gripe. So here it is:

FRONTIER SPACE

Your one-page micro-game, free-o-charge. Fairly easy to expand upon, you can use it as the basis for your own Star Frontiers game OR adapt it to a different setting, if that floats your goat.

BTW: there are no gyrojet weapons since, per wikipedia, real world gyrojet weapons are "long out of production" due to their expense and limitations of design. Hey, if we don't use 'em, I'm not putting 'em in a "futuristic society." But you can, of course, add them if you like.

As always, comments are appreciated. If I see enough download activity, I'll consider adapting Knight Hawks (that would probably necessitate a 2nd page). Have a good weekend, folks.
: )

Bunch o SF fans getting ready to jump me...

Third Time's the Charm (?) - Star Frontiers

All this SciFi on the brain lately. It's like...well, I don't think people are getting TIRED of "D&Dish" fantasy, but there certainly seems to have been a ramp-up in the amount of SF gaming (and SF-inspired gaming) hitting the 'net these days, I'm reminded of the similarities in games published during the mid-80s, a decade after the introduction of D&D. Now we're nearly a decade removed from the start of the OSR and there's this interesting deja vu thing happening.

It's like the universe moves in cycles or something.
; )

Anyway, with talk about White Star and Strange Stars and Rogue Space and Far Trek and Alpha Dawn Redux and FFG's Star Wars trilogy and X-Plorers and...well, you get the gist. With all these games swirling around my brainpan, I thought I'd take a look back at Star Frontiers (yet again), to try (one more time) to appreciate this damn relic of Old School SciFi.

[for folks unaware of my feelings on Star Frontiers, I'd direct you to two earlier posts:

Here's where I wrote that the game sucks.
Here's where I wrote that it's "okay" for its specific, limited setting.

These are from 5-6 years ago and I've refined my thoughts a bit since then but, well, you can see my meandering musings of the time]

Reading through Star Frontiers yet again, I find myself happening on something I don't recall noticing in the past: the suggested reading list on the inside back cover of the Expanded Game Rules book. Here is a list of books that are to be used for inspiration and ideas in developing a Star Frontiers campaign; here are books that (most likely) served as some form of inspiration for the game itself. An Appendix N for SF, if you will.

Reading through the list of works, two thinks jump out at me:

1. I've read almost none of these books, and (with the exception of Dune) of the few I have read, most were read long after the last time I played a game of Star Frontiers.
2. Of the books listed here with which I'm familiar, very little can be modeled in the Star Frontiers game, without some pretty stiff "dramatic license."

But in all honesty, it's hard to say if #2 is accurate for the majority of the list because, well, see #1.

I've read Dick's ...Electric Sheep because, you know, Blade Runner. I've read the first couple chapters of Hammer's Slammers (within the last five years or so). I've read Starship Troopers half-a-dozen times (at least) and Dune almost as many, but these are hardly close to the setting and premise of Star Frontiers, especially with their focus on humanity.

I've read the first Foundation book and a bit of Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat stuff and those are both close, but E.E. Smith's Lensmen books? Not even. Heck, any SciFi fiction that includes the development of "psychic abilities" gets left at the door when it comes to Star Frontiers...for being an imagined setting, it's got surprisingly little imagination at times.

But the thing is...the real thing is...this: I'm not big into reading "science fiction." I've probably read more Nancy Drew novels than science fiction novels, and I probably haven't read one of those since age 12 or so (though to be fair, I read an awful lot of Nancy Drew as a kid).

[sorry...I've had ND on the brain lately since catching the Veronica Mars movie on late night HBO a few nights back. Remind me to talk about that sometime...]

My main exposure to the science fiction genre is through television and films, of which I've seen many, many, many different shows. The problem is that all these shows are logistically limited by the constraints of their medium. It's extremely difficult to convey a sense of galactic (or intergalactic) scale when you can only budget so many sets. Each Star Wars movie is limited to (approximately) three separate environments (not counting "shipboard") per film. Star Trek episodes show a single planet or space station per episode. David Lynch's Dune shows scenes on three planets (well, and in the Emperor's Palace planet, though we only ever see the interior). Firefly was about as limited as Star Trek. Each installment of the Alien film franchise (including the recent Prometheus) takes place in a single locale.

And the limits of the film and TV medium isn't only restricted logistically: to succeed in the medium, a "show" has to be about its characters...about their interactions and the dramatic action occurring in their lives. This is the expectation of the bulk of the film audience, the expectation of most folks who go to see a film or flip on their television. The futuristic trappings of science fiction are simply window dressing. The reimagined Battle Star Galactica is a war serial set in space. Star Trek was Wagon Train with phasers. It's unusual for a SciFi show of the TV/film medium to be about the majesty of the Galaxy or the adaptation of humans to a space-faring life or the difficulties of interspecies relations or, I don't know...whatever it is that "good" SciFi is supposed to be.

Real exploration. Traveller stuff. 2001 weirdness. Transhuman-ness and future shock plus ancient aliens and interstellar empires all rolled into one big mess, with the protagonists being just tiny, tiny particles in the universe. A mote in God's eye, ya' know?

Star Frontiers strives to be on the scale of "literary SciFi," but comes up a little short. And that's okay...it's a really tough thing to model. WH40K only manages to do so by focusing on a single tragic aspect of human existence...war...and everything that doesn't serve that kind of falls by the wayside. I suppose Traveller succeeds a bit better, but it's so damn impersonal, right down to rendering PCs nothing more than UPI codes and allowing the easy, casual death of characters during chargen. WEG Star Wars sacrifices the majesty of interstellar space for the cinematic.

I think...I think what I want to say is this:

• I'm tired of, and thus dislike, many of the "settings" created for SciFi RPGs. This includes Bulldogs, Ashen Stars, post-Classic Traveller, WH40K, and several of the created and/or implied settings coming out of the OSR these days (yes, that includes my own Kloane War Knights). I'm not knocking their systems (at the moment), but I can't help but feel their settings are a bit contrived to create "conflict and adventure." I'm not sure this is as necessary to jumpstart campaigns as we (designers/gamers) have been assuming...and assuming for years now. Really.
• I LIKE nonhumans in my space opera SciFi. There was a time when I found the streamlined, human-only setting of Firefly to be simple and elegant. I now find the thought of a "nothing but human" universe to be kind of depressing, and I don't really hold much hope for humanity to get its shit together enough to someday create an interstellar empire. Not on its own. Nonhuman life injects some needed "extra-human perspective" into the mix and, yes, it helps bind humans together based on their own shared humanity...which is cool and hopeful. So I like that. Plus, the existence of other sentient species helps ease the need of a "contrived conflict" for the setting: conflicts will arise based on differences of species.
• For me, the non-humans found in Star Frontiers (dralasite, vrusk, yazirian, and sathar) hit pretty much all the archetypal species one might expect in space opera, barring (perhaps) a reptilian/saurian creature (though isn't it weird to find a cold-blooded life form in space?). Well...and mechanical lifeforms, but I don't really dig that particular SciFi trope (see The Borg, Cylons, Mechanoids, pre-Dune "thinking machines" for examples). Too often that gets into the realm of "horror" SciFi. I want everyone to be friends with their machines and technology.
• I definitely dislike the idea of humans as "the most important species in the universe," whatever that phrase means for a given setting. Allow human PCs to earn their importance in the world; don't set 'em up as privileged from the get-go.

So, if we're just looking at setting and not system (haven't I been seeing some kind of debate about system vs. setting lately?), I think Star Frontiers has a leg-up on most of the RPGs to have come out in the last three decades. I don't need "space elves" and "space orks" and purple-skinned "space Nazis." I don't need a galaxy on the brink of war, or in the midst of war, or suffering the aftermath of war. I want humans to be part of the universe (and probably the player character part...easier to relate, yeah?) but not the brightest star in the firmament.

Star Frontiers is definitely worth another look for its setting material, though (IMO) it needs to be both refined and expanded. It's really only the damn system that's deplorable.

"Only" the system. Sheesh.

My kindest words on Star Frontiers ever? Maybe.

Hot Buttered Brandy

Some folks been sayin': "Now, why don't he write?"

Sorry, folks...just got the latest blog report and saw my total views for the week dipped down under 1000 for the first time in, like, ever. Now part of that is I haven't even been checking it lately (I'm sure I usually account for a couple hundred views myself), but even so, it's the holiday season, and I'm sure there are folks on breaks or vacation or staying home sick from work (like me) who'd like a little bit o their blog entertainment to be up and running.

My apologies.

It's about 9pm at the Baranof...I was over at the Naked City earlier, eating probably the worst meatball sandwich in Seattle. Yes, that's saying something...I mean how can you mess up a meatball sammy? Sure, soggy-bun is always a buzz-kill but that's a usual pitfall of the mbs...what makes it the worst? Some sort of goddamn whole wheat hoagie roll, that's what...it just doesn't jibe with the marinara sauce (which is pretty bad, too). And, just by the way, I should mention that I am an f'ing connoisseur of meatball sandwiches. I can tell you, for instance, that the BEST can be found at Salumi's in downtown Seattle, and that Tat's is probably #2. Naked City's meatball? It's dogshit. Subway's is better.

And yet this is the second time I've eaten it. Why? 'Cause Thursday night I can watch a badass Fred Astaire film (in this case, Silk Stockings) on one screen while catching the Thursday night NFL game (Atlanta versus the Saints) on the other, all while drinking a tasty little IPA called Mjolnir which (need I say) kicks you in the head like the proverbial hammer of legend. They only serve it in schooners, and I had two.

Anyhoo, now I'm over at the Baranof with its Twinkie-decorated Christmas tree, and its life-sized Father Christmas doll. I was in here, what, three days ago? (Monday) and they had no X-mas decor and now it looks like the Baby Jesus exploded all over this place with Frosty and Santa and gingerbread-hung boughs of holly. Ho-ho-hell if I know how they can do such a quick turnaround AND keep the tireless drunks from dirtying the floor, but man they do a good job. AND their corn beef hash is pretty good.

I am drinking a hot-buttered brandy on the advice of my medical doctor (well, actually, he suggested a hot toddy, but that's just whiskey in water and my doc is an old geezer of a quack anyway). Seems I have bronchitis and an upper respiratory infection (again), and I figured I'd hit the bar rather than drink the codeine cough syrup I received for my visit ($1.50...my insurance company loves to come through on the prescription narcotics, but holistic medicine and massage? Bupkis).

Which is, by the way, exactly the number of people that showed for my play-test tonight: bupkis, i.e. zero.

Am I irritated by this? Eh...yes. But not for the usual reasons. I am irritated because I am going to be out-o-town most of the coming month (D.C. and Mexico) or out-o-commission (single parent duty), and the ONLY reason I bothered dragging my sick ass out to the bar is because I had this particular Thursday free AND I really wanted to do some play-testing.

Because I've got a new book.

I'll bet you folks didn't knot THAT now, did ya'? You probably thought I was off doing something exciting or family-oriented the last several weeks or that even (*shudder*) I'd reached a point of disenchantment with the whole blog-thang or OSR-thang or even RPG-thang. No, non, and nope.

[ooo-ooo...they just started karaoke-ing "Jingle Bell Rock!" It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas up in here!]

Round about my birthday (back on the 13th...I turned 39 years young and let me tell you I've got some blog-posts planned about that whole "gettin' old" thang...one o these days)...*AHEM*...back around my birthday I had a free day to myself and I started writing a new book. A compromise of a couple concepts both requested and (on my part) semi-promised. Rather than keep y'all in suspense...or guessing...I'll give you the skinny here and now: I'm writing a supplement for Dave Bezio's X-Plorers. 

Now, before folks start whining "another supplement, JB? When are you going to publish your own damn standalone game?!" allow me to first remind people that A) I DO have a standalone game ready for publishing save for the illustrations, but I'm hoping to publish it hardcover in collaboration with an actual publisher/distributor, and B) so fucking what? Here's the deal:

[and I'll elaborate on some of this in a later post, too]

If there's one thing I learned from the Indie-RPG movement, it was this: don't bother doing shit when it's already been done before. Now, yes, this doesn't apply to D&D (that's the part of the equation that requires elaboration on my part), BUT for other games, it's a good rule-of-thumb. For example:

Once upon a time, I was writing a game with a system that looked an awful lot like 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars. But then 3:16 got published. Now, what would be the point of publishing a second game...with a very similar theme and a very similar system...when one was already on the market? A point of pride? Trying to divide "market share?" Because my "fluff" was "better?"

No, those are all retarded reasons. The point of game writing is (near as I can figure) to put out good, fun games for people to play. It's not to get rich or even make much (or any) money...it's about seeing an empty hole in the game arena and plugging something in. 

Why have I not bothered to design a western game? Because no one would buy or play such a thing? NO. Someone would buy and play it (I would, and I'm not a TOTAL weirdo). But I've already got Boot Hill...and while I have picked up and purchased a couple other western RPGs (and, no, NOT just "weird west" RPGs), none of 'em are as good as BH. I'd like to snag a copy of Dust Devils because it represents a different way to "play western" (one-off, high drama, narrative premise), but for long term campaign play (such as it is in a lead-slinging universe) Boot Hill's your huckleberry.

SO... Dave Bezio's little piece of solid gold. X-Plorers is a great "base chassis" for what I've long said I was going to do: write a B/X space opera game that allowed the modeling of Star Wars-like adventures. And why do I feel the need to make a Star Wars-ish game when there've been so many different versions of SW on the market? Because they've all sucked shit. Or rather, despite beautiful presentations, or adequately stated themes, or wonderfully balanced combat systems, they've failed to provide adequate game-play that I could wholly throw my weight of approval behind.

And let me tell you...I've got some weight. I was at the doctor today and I can attest I've got more than my required extra winter poundage.

So it's been a project I've been working on for a few years now, generally in the form of copious notes and spreadsheets attempting to adequately balance playability (lack of crunch) with a modeling of the space opera cinema and some good ol' fashion weirdness thrown in for good measure. BUT it had never reached a point of real playability...too many parts didn't jibe with others, too many things didn't fit or make sense from a design POV...and here's the thing about taking the arrogant attitude I've taken on the issue: if you're going to bitch about other peoples' game designs, then you better DAMN WELL do it right and not have any bitches or gripes about your own work.

I kept running up against that. It's why I moved away from B/X entirely for my space opera system.

SO...X-Plorers. As I wrote in my earlier post, this game reminds me of a (better) "light" version of Star Frontiers...minus the standard six-pack (five-pack?) of alien races from TSR's space opera opus. And much of it is remarkably similar to what I, myself, was trying to do when I was still working with B/X (B/X itself derived from OD&D which, along with S&W is the basis for Bezio's game). Accept Bezio did me two better:

1) He finished parts that I'd struggled with, including starship combat and advancement. He did this in a way that I find inadequate (especially regarding "XP for missions;" hey, how 'bout some guidelines? anything?), but he still DID something. 
2) He typed it all up.

So, since he was kind enough to include an OGL and give tacit approval for supplements based on his game, I took all those notes I've had from the last couple-three years and started typing them up as a setting-specific space opera supplement for X-Plorers. You want B/X Star Wars? I'm gonna' give you an add-on for your easy-to-use, streamlined X-Plorers game that will allow you to swing a laser sword and flourish your cape while waging galactic war against an evil star system-spanning empire.

Sound good? 

I sure hope it does, 'cause I'm nearly finished. X-Plorers is under 40 pages long and I'm trying to keep my supplement to the same length or so, if possible. Last page count was 38 pages (as I said, this is what I've been doing with my time since November 13th)...but that's unformatted and without illustrations. I'll be scaling down the font and adding columns and such to get the page count down. I'll let you know how that goes.

Okay. It's 10pm...time to head for home. I am sick, after all.

: )

Blowing Up Space Ships

Damn, poutine. Just…damn. I LOVE you poutine, my friend.

Gary’s was closed for the evening, so we were back at Ye Old Baranof…they of the stiff drinks and the free seafood stew. However, after a (fairly successful!) play-test session we were off to our new debrief location, The Angry Beaver, for some of their fantastic poutine.

“The Beave” (as I’m going to refer to it for the foreseeable future) is also a Greenwood establishment, having moved into the old Pig & Whistle location. A “traditional Canadian bar” (I assume that means they’ll be broadcasting the NHL all season) their food is a damn sight better than the old P&W (from whom my wife received mild bouts of food poisoning on multiple occasions). And they’re poutine has got to be the tastiest I’ve ever sampled.

I’ve been to the Beave three times since it opened. The poutine has been on my plate every time.

Why am I talking about poutine? Well, probably because I’m hungry this morning. But also because the flavor memory (only a few hours ago) is still in my mind…DAMN that was a good plate! With Beecher’s flagship cheese curds? Come on!

But maybe my experience was colored by the game session (and/or the whiskey sours)…I was extremely pleased with how the game session, picking up a lot of valuable feedback (my own notes and those of the players) on one of the trickiest mothers of the space opera RPG genre:

Starship combat.

Ship-to-ship space combat is a hoary staple of the space opera genre (duh) and it poses multiple design challenges to the dude writing a starfaring RPG. These challenges include:

-          Modeling the genre (like Star Trek and Star Wars) in a genre where the definition of space combat can vary across series…and even across episodes within a series. If you want to model “realism” (accounting for “real world” physics, etc…see the BSG re-boot) that poses additional modeling (and research) challenges.

-          Balancing the “realism” or modeling against ease and facility of game play; the more “crunchy” you add to your rule system, the slower and clunkier and uglier it tends to become.

-          Adapting the abilities of a player character(s) to a system that involves driving a big of metal through space (and I don’t ONLY mean “ability scores,” but whatever passes for mechanical effectiveness in your RPG: abilities, skills, class, level, whatever).

-          Accounting (at least somewhat) for player skill or choice. What I mean is: it’s not just enough to say “roll 2D6 and add your ‘spaceship’ adjustment;” for a role-playing game there has to be some operative, non-mechanical room for player error and/or success. This can be the player’s choice of ship type or armament (how do you configure for success?), or how the party wants to assign gunners or engine room mechanics, or actual choices of maneuver and tactic when engaged in a spaceship battle.

-          Finally, the designer has the challenge of accounting for the general RPG premise of a group or “party” of characters and giving them all “something to do” (or not). How do you involve ALL the PCs…and, in addition, how do your rules adapt to LARGE groups of players versus SMALL (1 or 2) groups of players.

These are all the issues a designer will generally be grappling with…or at least considering…when writing a space opera RPG.

I mean in general…the designers can always just punt as did the Star Frontiers writers (sorry, but making me buy the Knight Hawks “expansion” in order to have rules for starship combat is deferring an essential part of the genre…either out of laziness or a blatant grab at more cash, IMO). But this, I hope you agree, is less than desirable. Tempting, given the enormity of the challenge, but less than desirable.

At least, I think it’s a pretty rough haul, tackled in various ways by various games/designers. I’ll give you a couple examples:

X-Plorers divides space combat into several phases (in addition to “roll for initiative”): Navigation, Engineering, Piloting, and Gunnery. Each phase requires a player to occupy the named role (involving players), requires a skill roll depending on action (related to character’s class and level), and offers several CHOICE of action (accounting for player skill)…for example, the pilot can choose to escape, evade, or move to attack position. All that is a nice, tidy way of involving both the players and their characters; though if there aren’t enough PCs to fill the required roles…or too many PCs for the ship’s crew/gunners… the system is less than optimal.

On the other hand, combat is reduced to “deplete hull points and inflict critical damage” which, like D&D combat itself, is fairly simplistic (and, I should note, is similar to my own “first pass” at a B/X space opera game based on the Expert set naval combat rules). “Simplistic” isn’t a bad thing, but when combat is mainly about attrition with each ship having scores of HPs and only using D6s for damage (and with the normal chances of hitting/missing) there’s the potential for the engagement to be long, drawn out, and boring…especially when you have few tactical options.

[the gripe here is two-fold: 1) you don’t want to spend extended amounts of time on a single system that is not the main portion of the role-playing game, 2) you don’t want a (traditionally exciting) part of a fast-paced space opera game to resemble the word “boring” in the slightest]

Ashen Stars (a game whose review I’m still putting together….sorry, I’m easily distracted!) is quite different in the way it incorporates similar elements. First, each player takes on a different ship-board role from the following choices: pilot, gunner, communications, “stratco” (think Captain Kirk’s job), medic, or “wrench” (engineer). At the outset of an engagement, each ship decides what they want as the goal or outcome of the engagement, things like escape, or scan, or disable and board, or utterly destroy. The goal that is chosen sets the number of successes that must be accumulated over a series of rounds (like your traditional RPG “extended skill test”) in order to accomplish the objective; for example, escape requires six successes while disable & board requires 18 and total destruction requires 21 or thereabouts.

Throughout an engagement the ship is presumed to be doing all sorts of things all the time: maneuvering, shooting, jamming transmissions, etc. However, each round the crew chooses one of four tactics to focus: shooting, maneuvering, comm, or “trickbag.” The choice of tactic determines which player gets to roll to accumulate successes towards the crew’s objective/goal. Since skills in the GUMSHOE system are a degrading resource (and since ship’s take a penalty from simply performing the same tactic over-and-over) the system ensures that the action will pass around the table, giving each PC their “spotlight time.” Meanwhile, the medic runs around patching up the injured while the wrench patches up combat damage that might occur (every time one side gets 3+ successes in a round from a single tactic, the defending ship is “rocked,” degrading the ship’s stat line and having a chance of injuring crew members).

Ashen Stars takes a different approach to meeting the challenge and isn’t especially complex in execution…except that it IS skill based, and so opponent PCs have their own degrading skill pools that need to be tracked and yadda-yadda-yadda. Not to mention, PCs need to nurse their degrading skill resources somewhat for later (unless this is the last big battle of the game session), while the NPCs can simply “go for broke.” I mean, while the PCs are generally more competent than the opposition, it still requires at least some careful handling by the GM not to accidentally over-whelm the players…but maybe that’s just my “gamist” bias.

Oh, yeah…and from reading the example ship combat (in the appendix) it sure seems like even a simple small combat is fairly looooong (13 pages?) to resolve. Like the number of successes to achieve objectives might be set a little too high…although this seems to be the trade-off to balance “everyone gets a chance in the spotlight.”

So anyway…designing starship combat is tricky (and that’s even without worrying about different classes of ship and armament and whatnot). For me, it’s probably the second biggest hurdle in designing a space opera game (the biggest hurdle, of course, is creating an advancement system that does not revolve around counting stormtrooper helmets or spiraling “skill use” or participation ribbons). Add to this challenge the fact that I’ve recently (well, in the last year) changed over my “BX-based” system to the DMI system and I found myself wondering how the hell can I do this without being completely disconnected from the card counting part of the game?

And after wracking my brain a bit, I found some ideas to test and they worked well!

Last night’s session revolved around Will (“space prince”) and Josh (“wealthy space Sinbad”) wanted fugitives of the Imperial Family of the Golden Empire (said Empire being founded centuries ago when the Chinese achieved space travel and left the nuked Earth behind, establishing a new Galactic Dynasty in the stars). Their small craft picked up a distress signal from a damaged and drifting colony ship and executed a boarding action to pick up survivors. Turned out they’d been ravaged by Lathiter, lizardman-like humanoids with multi-faceted eyes and a penchant for slavery for fun and profit (they’re also meat-eaters but I decided not to include cannibalism in the space opera game at this time).

The PCs had already decided to track the pirates to see if they could rescue the colonists when the Lathiters showed up themselves, trying to cripple the heroes’ craft. Fortunately, some deft maneuvering and active card play allowed the PCs to come out on top in a most satisfying fashion (the lizards surrendered and were disarmed, the colonists were all rescued and towed back to civilization in their damaged ship, and the PCs didn’t take any critical damage to their own vessel). They also were awarded with 5 “victory bennies” (I have yet to rename or reinterpret the reward mechanic for the game…all I know is that this was a pretty good success!).

[remember me saying how reward mechanics were tough for a space opera game? Duh]

So a good evening of play, with lots of good stuff to work on and tighten down (screw-wise). I really did have a good time, especially with my own card playing part of the DMI equation. The combat felt a bit more fast and furious (and I suspect it will become moreso as I tweek it) and the expenditure of cards tied well both to the in-game action and the feeling of being diminished through effort (both visually and tactilely more satisfying...to me...than keeping track of diminished hull points or "degraded stat lines").

 

Anyhoo, looking forward to next week's session, when I hope to do some more dog-fighting type stuff. And poutine...gotta' get my fix of that particular num-num.

; )

Dave Bezio's X-Plorers

 

A couple weeks back I managed to pick up a copy of Dave Bezio’s X-Plorers down at Gary’s Games in Greenwood. A lot of people over the last couple years have suggested I pick this one up due to my A) dissatisfaction with most space opera RPGs on the market and B) my love of things “old school” and somewhat “rules light.” However, until recently the thing wasn’t available in a print form that I could pick up and hold and flip-through and read…at least not that I’d seen down at my FLGS.

See, I’m a weird dude. I read email and comments (here and on certain forums) fairly regularly from folks complaining that I don’t offer my books in an electronic or PDF format (though, yes, I do offer my B/XCompanion in such a format these days)…but for me, it is extremely rare that I will EVER fork out hard-earned cash for anything less than a solid, tangible product. I can’t be sure, but I think the only time I’ve made such a purchase (at least in recent memory) was Raggi’s Death Frost Doom, and I was terribly disappointed (not because it was a bad adventure, but because I ended up blowing a bunch of ink and paper to print the damn thing…I just don’t like reading books off a screen!).

[oh, wait…I also purchased a copy of 3:16 in electronic format, too]

So anyhoo…I’m an anachronistic kind of guy and unless something is readily available for me to buy in a physical format I generally won’t…such was the case with X-Plorers. I had previously browsed the free version on-line, but truth-be-told I didn’t pay all that much attention to it, being put off by the large swatches of blank space (compared to, say, the downloadable Terminal Space)…it gave the whole text a feeling of…well, a fairly amateur effort I guess.

[to understand my bias, you have to grok that I’ll write up 30 pages of game rules and charts myself that, save for the nifty spaceship diagrams, look about as good and yet are nothing I’d consider publishing…]

So fast forward to me shelling out hard currency and holding the glossy soft-cover in my hands…Bezio’s book is great, and I was VERY impressed when I saw the printed book. Previously, I’ve written a brief piece on my thoughts of Terminal Space and a rather lengthy bit on my feelings for SWN but I’ve got to say that between these three Old School offerings of space opera fantasy, X-Plorers has got to be my favorite of the bunch…something I was not ready to say prior to holding the solid work in my grubby grasp. Here’s why:

X-Plorers isn’t “dungeon-delving in space.” It’s not “space opera on a B/X chassis.” Heck, I wouldn’t even call it a “what if RPG that examines an alternate reality where the designers of D&D instead chose to focus their efforts on pulp Sci-Fi” (which is, pretty much, the objective laid out by the author).

Nope, what we have here is a mash-up of Star Frontiers and Swords & Wizardry (the OD&D retroclone) with a tiny bit of D20 sensibility thrown in to boot. And Star Frontiers (which I’ve lambasted system-wise on more than one occasion) has never looked so good.

The fact it can do this in under 40 pages is truly remarkable.

Now my own “B/X space opera” game (on-hold lo these many moons as I’ve pursued the development of my DMI-based system) shares a number of similarities with X-Plorers, which probably goes a long way towards endearing it to me, especially as Bezio has managed to articulate some things better than I ever did. His spaceship combat system is very close to my own, but better done, and his classes and level structure…and especially his class-related skill checks…are very similar to my original ideas and I especially like the particular archetypes he’s chosen, and their corresponding overlap of skills. Interesting that I can see the integration of Star Frontiers skills into the classes in a very logical and intuitive way…as someone who played a lot of SF back-in-the-day I find this ingenious, even if it is a no-brainer in retrospect.

Allow me a moment to gush over some of the additional highlights (*ahem*):

-          Compacted Star Frontiers equipment list; keeping the flavor without going over-board (to we really need rules for a recoilless rifle? No…and Bezio leaves it out, while still including sonic swords and lasers and SEUs). Kudos especially to adequately adapting the system to its OD&D base.

-          Very workable starship combat.

-          Good rules for crafting alien monsters…better than Star Frontiers ever did, IMO.

-          Nice, workable psychic rules.

-          Good ability scores/modifiers (doesn’t overwhelm the game).

-          Good, adapted personal combat system (hard to tell without running a few rounds, but seems just fine).

-          Nice, tight, streamlined package allowing plenty of space for imagination and hours of adventure possibility with little extra effort.

Now it’s not a perfect game. Some of the “low lights” are pretty critical ones. Without getting TOO nitpicky I’ll say the multi-classing doesn’t work, or else doesn’t make much sense…I understand what his objective was, but it just doesn’t translate in execution (quick! Your character starts as a level one warrior and advances five levels in scientist…how many XPs does it take you to achieve 7^th level?). It’s just not quite as slick as it could have been…but I understand that it’s tough to make the “warrior-botanist,” etc. without it, since most specific procedures (i.e. “skills”) are tied directly to class.

The other main issue is the lack of guidance on how much XP to award for successful “missions.” Well, the guidelines for mission creation in general is pretty sparse, but especially with regard to reward/advancement there’s little guidance aside from “whatever feels right” (I guess). Which, to me, is a fairly big cop-out of game design, though I suppose it beats the alternative of trying to make sense of a nonsensical advancement system (which is something I’ve struggled with for years now in attempting to write an intelligent space opera game).

Those are the main gripes, though of course X-Plorers isn’t really built to do Star Wars (which is kind of the point…for me…of writing/playing a space opera game). If I wanted to do Star Frontiers with players working for the PGC against the evil Sathar and space pirates, etc. this would be the system to use…I don’t think it would be too hard to come up with rules for dralasites and vrusk and yazirians (either making them their own classes or else having an XP up-tick in exchange for a few species related bennies).

Actually, X-Plorers is slick enough (and sleek enough) that it should be a real piece o easy to adapt a LOT of classic space opera ideas to it…including Star Wars. Hell, like I said it’s already pretty similar to the B/X Star Wars I was working on prior to DMI. I am sorely tempted to create a compatible supplement using the terms of their X-Plorers Trademark License using the rules and notes I’ve already got archived on the old zip drive.

Sorely tempted.

; )

And Speaking of Secret Histories...

...had the chance to watch Anonymous the other night. Wow. Quite an interesting tale for folks who are into Shakespeare and Elizabethan England, etc. But I'm not going to write about that. It IS a good film for folks who like, um, good film.

Instead, just wanted to say I"m still waiting for my book (damn mail order), AND to bide my time I've been reading all the articles on Mr. Kasmink's web site. And I am just more and more intrigued about the "stuff" that has gone into the making of the Star Wars franchise, especially the input (credited or not) of strong female creative types, specifically Marcia Lucas (GL's first wife) and Leigh Brackett.

Unfortunately (or not) I am not someone who is particularly well-versed in science fiction literature. Oh, I've read a bit more than perhaps the average person (I've probably read a few more books than the average American anyway), but I am by no means a "SciFi buff" unlike, say, my buddy Steve. And especially unlike ol Steve-O, I could care less about most of the semblance of "hard science" (whether well done/researched or not)...I care far less for the "real possibilities" of "what could be." As with nearly all my fiction reading, I am drawn far more to "fantasy adventure" (whether in space or not). Stirling's recent retreads of Burrough's planetary romances are much more my speed than anything involving nanoware or AI or plasma rocket powered space travel.

And, man, doesn't it sometimes feel like women authors/artists are the ones creating the best fantasy adventure stories?

I know I spoke about this before (if briefly)...at least my attachment to female authors of the fantasy genre, not specifically the SciFi genre. Although, last year about this time I was mulling over the role of family in science fiction (with regard to game design), and it seems like I'm once again contemplating it...especially in light of Marcia Lucas's admonishment for George to pay more attention to the human element in his films (from THX on...). Maybe that's what's missing from the Star Wars prequels...maybe that's what's missing from my own space opera game. The "human interest" element of the speace opera genre.

Because unlike, say, the indie RPG Shock I'm not really interested in the "what if" of science fiction...I don't really care much about the affects of future technology on our recalcitrant human race's inability to deal with change and on-going evolution (I have a hard enough time trying to figure out my damn "smart" phone in real life...why do I want to deal with these issues in an RPG?). What I AM interested in is (duh) fantasy adventure and laser swords and blasters and androids and space ship dog fights...and maybe all that means I need to have something very intimate and human as part of the mix, so as not to be a coldly mechanical (think GURPS) role-playing game.

After all, it's not like the PCs are looking to find gold coins in outer space. I need SOMEthing to encourage the players to take action in the game.

[by the way, I have much more to say about player character motivation based on recent play-tests and conversations with other gamers; I just don't have the time for it at the moment. Soon, I hope]

"A Hot Mess"

That's how I'd describe Ridley Scott's new film Prometheus.

I'm not sure if I'd call it altogether disappointing, though. Steve-O and I caught a midnight (or rather 12:30) showing on the IMAX 3-D screen and the main thing I was looking for was some hard core science fiction, complete with cool visuals and logical world/setting. Story and plot? Well, I already figured out it wasn't going to be any great shakes as the commercials/previews have pretty much given the whole thing away (and no it didn't "intrigue" me in the slightest).

Here's the best thing I can say about it: it was never boring.

That might not seem like high praise to you, but let me put it in this light: I didn't fall asleep. And I went into the film plenty exhausted, having worked a full work week (well, except for the all day traveling earlier which was its own brand of stress and exhaustion), plus I was feeling pretty out of it from being at the end of my second day of a detoxing fast (don't ask), and I have become somewhat notorious in recent years for falling asleep during movies that are boring or dumb (in my opinion) in the slightest...at least when I'm watching 'em late at night.

Prometheus is a hot mess...it just doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. Is it horror? Is it sci-fi? Is it action? Is it an homage to Alien? Is it trying to say something about faith? Is it trying to say something about the origin of the species? Is it trying to say something about the perils of investigating Life's Deepest Mysteries? Is it trying to put a boot to Graham Hancock?

I don't know...I mean, I really don't get what the director (and writer(s)) were trying to do. I guess make money, judging by the amount of advertising/marketing the film got leading up to its release. However, if there was a point other than that...um, it was lost on me. It tried to hit all these notes at once, and kind of pooched it from what I can tell.

And yet, it was NOT boring. It provided enough eye candy and suspense and balls-to-the-wall crazy that I didn't nod off even once. And the visuals were fantastic and there was some neat sci-fi stuff in it. Hell, I even thought the aliens were pretty cool, despite looking like a 'roided out version of Billy Corgan having an emo moment.

Would I recommend the film to someone else? Um...

Speaking of "hot messes," I am a wreck at the moment. Went to yoga this evening for the first time in God knows how long and it completely kicked my ass. Turns out I'm not as stretchy as I used to be. I could barely walk out of the studio afterwards; thank goodness I decided to drive instead of biking, like I'd originally considered. Right now, I think I'll throw on a Star Wars DVD and chill for a couple hours...followed by an Epson salt bath. The physical discomfort has (temporarily) displaced the melancholy of missing my family (still in Mexico)...but it's no freaking picnic.

In gaming news (just before I sign off), I decided NOT to re-do Pendragon, Game of Thrones-style. It's just too much work for too little pay-off at this point. I did do a serious read-through of the A Song of Fire and Ice RPG from Green Ronin today and I have to say: just not very impressed. Sorry, I'm not. It's a beautiful book, with a simple base system and thoughtful design...and then a bunch of extra stuff that seems totally unnecessary. Why-why-why to game designers START HUGE and tell people ix-nay what you don't want? Why don't they START SIMPLE and let players add on any extra stuff they feel is necessary? Just to pad the page count? I really, really don't get it.

But that's another post. Maybe a little later tonight. After my bath.

Objective-less or “Crippled” RPGs

Just before I start stomping on toes, let me just state that this is a blog and personal soapbox, not a forum/workshop on game design. As such it reflects my thoughts and opinions…things that have certainly changed over time (and will probably continue to change). I welcome discourse and disagreement for a couple reasons: it’s more interesting, it helps me rethink my own position, and it helps me refine my ideas/theories.

All right, let’s start stomping.

Yesterday’s post touched off a number of disagreeing responses regarding my complaint that most RPGs have no inherent objective in their design, and that this is a BAD thing.

Since this is a blog, I don’t have a provisional glossary and tend to throw around terms willie-nilly…when I say “objective” I’m talking about the object of play for the non-GM players, and (as a consequence of this) how the GM creates a game to meet that objective.

The following are NOT objectives:

“The objective of the game is to have fun.”

That’s not an objective…that’s a self-evident truth of game playing (as in, “we hold these truths to be self-evident…”)! If a game isn’t fun, why the hell would we play it? To keep our spouse happy? To get a job promotion? I guess there are other reasons to play a game, but for most of us, we aren’t being paid to play. We assume that RPGs are written for entertainment and recreation (i.e. “fun”). If having fun isn’t an unspoken goal (at least) of sitting at the table, then it may not be worth playing. Jeez!

“The objective of the game is to tell a story.”

Unless your game system provides specific rules for structuring the game in something resembling a traditional narrative structure (you know, like having a beginning, middle, and end centered around a plot and conflict and climax, etc.)…unless you’re playing a game that provides you with the specific tools to do this, then no, that is NOT an objective of play.

Now I’ve written before that story CAN come out of play (or has the potential to do so) regardless of a game’s strength at facilitating a story-telling agenda…but such is an afterthought, or “gravy,” not an objective of play. Without tools to structure your game as a narrative, there’s little one can do to guarantee a story (at least a coherent or quality one) arises out of play. This is one of those reasons why “system does matter.”

“The objective of the game is to pretend to be an imaginary character having adventures in an imaginary game world.”

No, that’s just defining adventure role-playing.

Okay, so getting THAT out of the way, what exactly are some valid objectives of play?

Depends on the game. An objective should provide a foundation for play and should point both players and GMs in a direction of “what to do” both in play and preparation. Good game design will (in my opinion) clearly state the objective(s) of the game…usually somewhere near the beginning of the rules (as you might find with most games of the board- or war- variety). Good game design will also establish a “road map” (at least) for the GM to see how to get to that objective.

Let me give a couple of examples, good and bad. I’ll use out-of-print games so as not to wreck anyone’s current revenue stream:

GOOD: Dungeons & Dragons
I’ve quoted this before, but here it is one more time: the opening paragraph of the introduction to Tom Moldvay’s Basic set.

In the D&D rules, individuals play the role of characters in a fantasy world where magic is real and heroes venture out on dangerous quests in search of fame and fortune. Characters gain experience by overcoming perils and recovering treasures. As characters gain experience, they grow in power and ability.

It really doesn’t get any clearer than that. In chapter eight, the rules describe how to create an adventure scenario for players. Later rule sets (like the Cook/Marsh Expert set) builds on this foundational objective, explaining how to take characters out of the dungeon and become movers and shakers in the world (establishing castles and dominions).

BAD: Star Frontiers

Yes, yes, I’ve taken flak before for lambasting Star Frontiers. What can I say? It’s a sorry-ass game (it is also the second RPG I ever owned/played, after B/X and the AD&D hardcovers). There are two books in the SF set, a Basic book and an Expanded rules set. I’ll quote each:

Basic Rules:

Each player in a STAR FRONTIERS game plays a character, either a human or alien living in the far future...characters can do anything a real person could do if he was living in a STAR FRONTIERS world: shoot a laser, drive a skimmer, chase dangerous interstellar criminals, explore alien worlds, or anything else the player wants the character to do. Players are not limited to only a few actions by the rules. A player has complete control over his character, and makes all decisions for him.

Unlike many other games, there is no clear winner or loser in a STAR FRONTIERS game. In most games, the players will have a goal, such as capturing a group of terrorists who have kidnapped a politician or recovering a rare medicine that was lost when a spaceship crashed on an alien planet. If the players cooperate and reach their goal, everyone wins. A skillful player who uses the same character in several adventures will see that character rewarded, becoming richer, more powerful and able to handle more difficult missions.
Expanded Rules:

STAR FRONTIERS Science Fiction Game is a role playing game. In this type of game, each player controls an imaginary hero, making all his decisions and guiding him through heroic exploits: defeating villains, capturing criminals, and exploring strange alien worlds.

To me, this says nothing of how to play the game: your character is an imaginary hero. You control him doing heroic exploits. "In most games the players will have a goal." What about the other games? Some possible, specific examples are provided but the main focus is on "be this guy, cooperate with other players, shoot lasers." It is emphasized that you have "complete control over your character," but then, why are you not determining your character's own goals? Or if you are doing so (because you have complete control), then how do you determine which goals to make?

To me, the game crippled…like a bird with a broken wing. Yes, you can pick up the bird and move it around, but it doesn’t move by itself. The Star Frontiers game provides some ideas for creating “adventure scenarios” but without objectives for players, there’s no incentive for them to do anything, other than “well, if you don’t go on the adventure I’ve created than we won’t have a game tonight.”

That’s lame. That might as well be a railroad. The adventure included with SF is a total railroad: you’re on a ship that gets taken over by pirates. You have no choice but to escape in an escape pod sans your standard weapons/equipment and end up marooned on a hostile planet.

[my one-page dinosaur game maroons players in a prehistoric past, but that’s a premise of the game, in the same way that SF’s premise is “characters in space”]

But we’ll come back to “player incentives” in a moment; let’s talk about crippled RPGs from a GM perspective, first.

When a game doesn’t provide clear, valid objectives of play…in other words, when all it provides is a system for interpreting player actions and a game setting…it is left to the GM to make the game “go.” This is problematic for a number of reasons:

- It relies on a high level of motivation/drive from the GM, which often relies on GM railroading (and thus player de-protagonization) to make the game “coherent”
- It produces wildly divergent, possibly unrecognizable styles of play…something that can lead to a conflict in player expectations and thus dissatisfaction

Dissatisfaction? Yeah. If I expect grand space opera and I get gritty noir or over-the-top space comedy (all possible ways of playing Star Frontiers), I may very well be disappointed. Do folks not see how this can happen?

If I sit down to play D&D, there might be dungeon delving or wilderness exploring or political intrigue, but regardless I know that overcoming challenges and finding treasure is going to net me experience that will ramp up my level and get me closer to individual goals like personal power (spell casters) or titles and land grants (fighters). The objective of play doesn’t change, regardless of campaign or adventure (or individual) goals.

Some folks have stated this “concrete objective of play” limits their creativity. I don’t see how it limits creativity, only that it focuses game play. Nothing stops a GM from modifying Expedition to the Barrier Peaks to allow the PCs the opportunity to get the space craft up-and-running again (exploring brave new worlds). Nothing stops a GM from providing PCs with a temporal gate back to “dinosaur land.” I have rifted AD&D characters into Boot Hill through the Machine of Lum the Mad before, and it didn’t change the game except to provide a few new challenges and toys to the players. And I’ve had plenty of intrigue and romance and vengeance –based campaigns as well…all build upon the same foundation of play.

For me, games that don’t have objectives have never lasted very long except on the strength of predesigned/pre-written adventures (I ran a long Vampire chronicle using all those 1st ad 2nd edition adventures). Without that structure (um, “railroad?”) things tended to devolve into “um, what do we do now?”

More on that (and more on player objectives) in another post.
: )