Politics In Gaming

"Everything is political." Haven't I heard that quote somewhere before?

Folks who have read my blog over the years are used to me occasionally (or more than occasionally) shooting my mouth off about my personal politics. Y'all are actually fortunate: what I pen here is generally curbed and toned down from my actual thoughts on various "issues." I am a seething ball of hatred, disgust, and frustration with regard to all sorts of things (duh), which may be why I tend towards the cranky end of the personality spectrum despite the actual hopefulness and optimism that my personal beliefs give me.

[no, I'm not talking about my Catholicism giving me the thought of heaven-after-death, etc. I'm talking about my belief that humanity is basically good. Despite all the fucked up shit we do. And that God/The Universe is basically wonderful. Despite all the fucked up shit that happens]

*sigh* Trusting "The Plan" is tough, I suppose.

Anyway, I'm not writing today's post to talk about MY politics. Instead, I'm writing to talk about, well, my reaction to politics or (rather) political talk.

I'll start with this: I've been reading a handful of blogs lately that have very interesting, possibly useful, things to say about Dungeons & Dragons. Really, fascinating stuff. And if I were to consider my own delves into D&D to be at all "professional," I suppose these people would be on the level of "professional colleagues" for me (not that we are on the same tier...I'll not presume to measure myself against other designers...just that we're in the same field of study/design). 

But as I've dug a bit deeper into these authors personally, I've found I dislike (not strong enough, but let's not start harsh) many of their professed political opinions...not only as they apply to "real world" stuff, but as they apply to gaming (and other aspects of "geek culture" but let's just stick to gaming). 

For me, what ends up emerging is many conflicting feelings. 

Do I want to promote these people (by writing about them)? I've always been of the opinion that there's no such thing as "bad publicity," and folks may have noticed that over the years there are a couple individuals in our community that I simply don't write or talk about. I don't link to them, I ignore their blogs, I (generally) write as if they don't exist. Railing against folks doesn't make them disappear; it simply adds fuel to the fire (and fans the flame). It also has the potential to drive the curious to their site, increasing their following and/or breeding more divisiveness (leading to more talking about them, in turn promoting them MORE). There are some things made by some people that just aren't great for the hobby.

In my opinion.

[and no, Venger, I'm not talking about you, ol' hoss]

But some of these folks have concepts and ideas that are worth discussing on my blog, and I always want to credit folks when they're responsible for a particular topic or thought exercise. How to do this without promoting something? How to separate the work from the author? This has caused me difficulties in the past, but to be honest, it's a far less tricky subject when you're dealing with a dead author, instead of one who is alive and well and continuing to make art. Especially in our more enlightened (dare I say "woke?") 21st century. I can somewhat excuse the racism of Lovecraft, for example, considering his culture of the time...at least enough to enjoy his works for what they are (imaginative though somewhat formulaic). Far harder to excuse failings in a contemporary author.

However, to be clear: it is not racism that leads me to NOT want to promote individuals (that was just Lovecraft's (main) issue).

Do I support these people financially? Do I buy their product(s)? I know I've written before about not buying WotC product as a form of protest ("voting with one's wallet") but that's more about the product being BAD and trying insanely to prod the industry giant into doing things better/different (a Quixotic-idiot quest if ever there was one). What about a product that was actually good or useful? You find out that a particular author has "terrible politics" (whatever that means to you) but their book is exactly the thing you're looking for? Do you put money in their pocket?

It should be understood by now that few (if any) independent publishers in this hobby are making the kind of money you can "live" on. I sincerely doubt I could, even if I didn't have a family, mortgage, car payment, etc., not even if I tripled my output (which could only happen if I didn't have a family, etc.). Certainly not in Seattle. But don't underestimate what that money means to an independent publisher. Receiving currency...even in pitifully small amounts...is incredibly uplifting to an artist-creator, especially the amateur/semi-pro. It says your work has VALUE. That people will PAY REAL MONEY for stuff you made. Money that could have been spent on something else (beer, rent, whatever) was instead given to YOUR WORK in preference...work that you may have undervalued yourself for a myriad of reasons. For many folks, receiving any cash for our product simply incentivizes us to create more.

Do I want to incentivize individuals whose politics...or behavior...make me cringe?

Spoiler Alert: today, this morning, I did just that.

And, I believe this was a real first for me. There are plenty of products floating around the OSR that get high praise that I haven't touched, and not just for reasons of politics. To be blunt: most are things I have little or no use for me. Old School Essentials, for example: I've perused its beautiful hardcover pages in the shop, but I've never bothered to purchase it (despite the complimentary reviews I've received on it) because I already have B/X, and know how to run a game using my old, floppy saddle-stitched books. Has nothing to do with Norman's politics (I don't know anything about Norman's politics); it has everything to do with OSE being a clone of B/X, and B/X being a game I already possess. Same holds true for OSRIC and a number of other similar products. Likewise with adventure modules: I have plenty, and can quite happily write my own, too, so it's exceedingly rare that I'll buy an adventure...usually only because it fills some sort of niche vacancy in my collection.

[there are, of course, exceptions]

But when I have purchased OSR products, it's generally been without knowledge of the publisher's political stance (most publishers don't wear their beliefs on their sleeves). Today, I purchased (what appears to be) a well-researched reference book (in hardcover!) from an individual who holds some political views I find...distasteful.

And I wonder how much of my nonchalance about it (I really didn't hesitate at all with my purchase) had to do with a conversation I had last night with my old buddy, Steve-O. Please allow me to explain: Steve is one of my best friends in the world, and (because of our busy family lives) we don't get the chance to talk nearly as much as we once did. Maybe half a dozen times in the last year and a half, and mostly lightweight stuff about football (specifically the Seahawks).

Last night I was running errands and we ended up in a long phone conversation that veered straight into politics because I mentioned the fam was watching a 9/11 documentary while I was out. Steve, like myself, is a Democrat, with liberal, progressive values on most issues...in prior decades, we've had many an entertaining conversation about politics and the state of chaos that is our country.

Yesterday's conversation was neither entertaining, nor enjoyable. My friend has gone down a rabbit hole so far to the left that he's ended up coming around to the same conspiracy theories and nonsense one finds on the Far Right. The polarization of nation's politics has led from spirited or passionate debate to life-and-death, unreasoning, unrelenting extremes of position. It's disheartening. Even trying to talk him back to my own "moderate" position (and frankly, I'm fairly far left-of-center), caused him to shut down: unwilling to converse, respecting me too much to argue, but so dug-in that no negotiation was possible. For my Libra-buddy, who has gleefully argued both sides of every argument the last 35 years I've known him...the personality change was both profound and disconcerting.

And I realize this type of attitude is something I've fed with my own rhetoric. I'm like most folks I suppose: I consider my own opinions/beliefs to be "correct" (due to "reasons") and folks who don't think like me are either ignorant, assholes, or idiots. This is not an unusual way of thinking...but I have (as I wrote at the beginning of this post) a propensity for shooting my mouth off about my thoughts. Which, while perhaps "charming" to some, probably has the overall impact of further polarizing folks in BOTH directions.

And that sucks. Because it's stupid and destructive. And even doing it ONLY here (on the blog) and ONLY relating it to gaming...well, it still bleeds into non-gaming life. Everything IS political these days, and you see it in the culture wars being fought between disparate factions of the hobby.

It sucks. And I'm tired of it. Fatigued.

I never bought into the idea that all gamers (or all D&D gamers...or all Old School D&D gamers) should be some sort of united group based on their hobby or nerdy-ness or outsider status or something. I've never felt a need to support and promote EVERYone in this hobby of ours. And I still believe that it's okay to critique and criticize and say, "I don't like this product," or even "This product is garbage."

But I think I may be done with getting hung up on someone's political stance, even the truly stupid ones. At least, I'm going to try not to let politics...or behavior outside of gaming...overly influence my opinion of someone's work or product.  

I can't not be political, but I can try to be more broadminded. And I can try to be less polarizing in my interactions and writing in an already too-polarized world.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have Blood Bowl to play. Happy Labor Day, folks.

Random Wednesday World Building

The in-laws left last night...finally. Dropped 'em off at the airport along with the wife, who had to take a last minute biz trip (just a day shot to San Fran...no bigs). So to celebrate, I kicked up my feet (after putting the kids to bed) and settled in to watch something the Mrs. wouldn't normally dig on (as I am wont to do). In this particular case, I chose The Witcher.

This, by the way was partly due to curiosity, but mainly due to the recommendation of my old buddy Steve. I'd already got a bit of a taste of the show from Fr. Dave's blog (he did not recommend it), but Steve-O really sold me on it as "something you would like, Jon." He told me it's "just like D&D" far more than Game of Thrones with all that intricate political scheming and weepy plot/non-fun stuff...just badass monster kicking. While his read of what I like in a D&D game is pretty far off, I was intrigued enough by his enthusiasm to flip it on.

I fell asleep pretty fast. I tried to stay awake, and drifted in and out of consciousness through about three episodes, but my overall impression wasn't good enough to really maintain interest. Like, at all.

Maybe I'm being unfair to the show and I should give it another shake in the light of day, but the impression I got was indeed that the show was "just like D&D"...but bad D&D. The kind of D&D I'm not interested in playing. The kind where heroic (or anti-heroic) characters with little risk to survival, posture and weep through silly backstories of their own creation. Dungeons & Dragons by way of World of Darkness with a setting even more ridiculous that your usual high fantasy Tolkien riff.

Which, by the way, is not to say that a setting for a GAME needs to be a masterpiece of world building, because the game at its best is about the experience of playing, not the resolution of story. But for my FICTION, I want a little more robust world building, even if it does have insane demographic anomalies. And for both fiction AND role-playing, I'd like to see a little less trope when it comes to the main character. Damn, I am soooo tired of action heroes these days, especially outside of the superhero genre. Even the WB and Disney do better at assembling ensemble heroes.

[by the way, I won't say it's a terrible thing for a VIDEO GAME (such as the one on which The Witcher is based) to have an over-the-top badass of a protagonist who looks like a Targaryan-skinned Drizz't the Drow. One player CRPGs are generally exercises in mental masturbation anyway, with no serious challenge and just an interest in playing out some creator's particularly constructed story line in an awesome fashion...they are guilty pleasures and I've played my share over the years. But it's embarrassing for a TV show or film, and shameful in most tabletop games]

So it was around 2:30am or so that I finally dragged myself conscious enough that I could turn the damn thing off, mercifully cutting short some elf bitching and moaning about how humans gave their race a raw deal (gee, never heard that kind of thing before) and thus "we hates 'em forever" ...whereupon I discover the TV show behind the Netflix to be Alien Resurrection, a film I've never before seen, despite generally enjoying the franchise (at least enough to watch the first three films more than a couple times). Not only was it interesting enough that it brought me fully awake, but after 5 minutes of watching I enjoyed it enough that I restarted the movie (ahh...the magic of On Demand television), only forcing myself to turn it off an hour in so that I could get SOME sleep before starting the Wednesday routine (ahh...the curse of On Demand television).

Not that Alien Resurrection is a fantastic piece of cinema by ANY stretch. Spoiler Alert: it shares the same plot as pretty much every film in the franchise (humans underestimate xenomorphic entity and bloody massacre ensues within a claustrophobic labyrinth of a setting). Film doesn't even have the interesting bits found in the earlier franchise installments...loving attention to technophile detail, subverted genre tropes, brilliant character acting...instead being, well, a pastiche of the genre and about what you'd expect (it DOES have great character actors...including Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, and Dan Hedaya...but they're largely wasted in a mediocre script).

However, at least there's an ensemble cast of characters, each on about equal footing in terms of both competence and fragility, and that piques some interest...even if it's only of the death pool variety.

And seeing this, and comparing and contrasting the two (the film and the TV show) in terms of what they both build, and mulling it over last night and this morning, I find myself calcifying some thoughts I've been having a LOT the last couple weeks.

First is this: I am just about done with heroic fiction. I intend to watch the last Star Wars film (for the sake of completeness) but I am about ready to give the whole thing up. Finally. The same way I gave up Star Trek circa 1988...I'm just not interested in it anymore. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ruined the action genre for everyone. Yes, I realize this paragraph makes little sense...it requires a very long, detailed, and intricate rant. One of these days.

Second is this: While I've long been in the "loathe" category for RPGs that seek to emulate the heroic action play style typified of popular computer RPGs (i.e. stuff like late edition D&D), I have now come around to being done with "story type" RPGs of the indie school. I'm just not interested in group storytelling at all except, maybe, as the occasional one-off at a convention or something. Probably not even then: if I want to tell stories, I'll tell stories, thank you very much. While I'm not saying I'm capable of creating my own decent fiction without help, I have zero interest in collaboration when it comes to story-telling: you tell your story and I'll tell mine, thank you very much. And let's keep BOTH our stories off the gaming table, because that type of action is NOT what I want to be playing at. My escapism requires a little more direction.

Third is this: in making a list of RPGs that I would still want to play, I'm finding the list shrinking rapidly to a handful of games all of which are of the EARLIEST variety. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Classic Traveller. First edition Gamma World. First edition Top Secret. Etc. It's not that later games (or editions) don't do good things when they come along, clarifying and streamlining rules, fixing systems that are broken and such. It's just that:

• Much of the time, the kernel of the game (or the thing that made it great) gets lost in an update. See the transition from 1E to 2E Gamma World or 1E to 2E Heroes Unlimited or 1E to 2E AD&D for blatant examples. 
• Many of the changes are ones that don't NEED to be fixed; this is especially true with much of AD&D (I would argue that 2E's reworking of the default XP system is the main rule change that "broke" D&D). Many designers, kowtowing to the whining of the masses ("why didn't you include a skill system?") inadvertently ruin their own, mostly solid, games. 
• Most of the updates are things I could do myself and/or could probably do better. And even in cases where a game's writers are more elegant in their design than myself, I'd still prefer to make these changes myself because they're for MY game and MY needs...the needs of MY table. Plus, I'm more likely to remember and use design changes that I implement myself.

But really, it's just that it's hard to the originator of a subject or game, even when the original game suffers in execution. Would you really try to "out-Tolkien" Tolkien? I probably wouldn't, but even if I did, I hope I wouldn't try to make a buck off it (looking at you, uber-popular genre writers who shall remain unnamed). Yes, 1E Gamma World is ridiculous, but it is coherent and sensible and theme-oriented within itself, and I can adjust its level of ridiculousness to suit my tastes, which may not be to the taste of others; I don't need every new edition that comes out doubling down on the sheer absurdity of the game just to provide "more of the same."

[I've been thinking about GW a lot lately...probably another post needed]

Fourth (and final) thing is this: In any tabletop RPG, the world building is immensely important. It may, in fact, be the most essential element that a GM needs to handle and something to be approached with care and a serious mind (regardless of the seriousness of the game/genre). Knowing the rules, running the game...these things are, of course, super-duper important things to a GM, but you always have the rulebook (and possibly knowledgeable players) to help with that aspect of GMing. World building rests squarely on the GM's shoulders; even GMs incorporating input from players needs to act as final editor of what is included in a world and how it interacts with the rest of the setting. And without a viable world, you lose the ability to have satisfying, long-term game. World building is absolutely essential.

I'm just sorry I haven't prioritized it higher in the past; I'll try not to make that mistake moving forward.

All right, that's enough for now.

Starting Over

Or, perhaps more appropriately, Where To Start?

I've sold 56 books over the last six months (February through July). Almost all of these have been electronic sales, not print. While that's a nice chunk of change, I certainly can't pay the mortgage on a $100 per month. So what's an unemployed guy going to do to up his earnings? Get a job, natch.

Not that I need to pay the mortgage at the moment...part of our incentive for living in Paraguay is enough extra pay to cover our Seattle expenses despite me leaving my employment. However, we will be returning to Seattle at some point, and when we do, I'm going to need to pull my own weight. Child care costs in the USA being what they are. SO...

I'm looking into it.

In the meantime, I'm entering what I hope is a new phase of my existence as a writer/publisher. I don't want to clutter the blog with a bunch of blah-blah-blah about the nuts-and-bolts of publishing...I prefer this to remain a space for my creative ramblings and musings on games, design, and related stuff, even if that's a bunch of "blah-blah-blah," too. BUT...I might be doing some solicitation in the near future as I explore the possibilities available to RBG (Running Beagle Games). Just FYI.

Okay...that's the recent news. My boy started "real school" (kindergarten) this week, so I might have a little more time on my hands. Of course, football season is kicking off soon and I've agreed (happily) to help my buddy Steve-O co-manage a fantasy football league...we'll see if my usual OCD rears its ugly head and cuts into the little free time I've got.

Ya. Mas tarde.

Missing Science Fiction

Folks who think Paraguay must be "something like Mexico," really have no idea. Forget the fact that there's no tortillas here and that people have an aversion to spicy food (truly...the slightest amount of spice throws folks over the edge). They don't even eat beans! There's a saying in Mexico: 'a house without beans is like a house without a roof.' Most homes down here would be open to the sky.

What they do have...in addition to a love of red meat and starch...is an incredible, incurable sweet tooth. Dulce de leche oozes out of just about everything and boy-o-boy do people love candy. It's not even about tasty pastries (they're fairly good bakers)...it's just about making it sweet.

Ice cold without ice is best.

I recently ordered a gin martini (unlike Mexico, Paraguay has and uses gin) and nearly choked on the damn thing. Haven't ordered one since, but had the chance to talk to a bartender yestereve to figure out if this was a one-time anomaly or not. Turns out: not. In the United States, a dry martini is usually four parts gin (five parts when I'm pouring 'em) to one part vermouth (a sweetish, white wine used mainly for cocktails). Pure deliciousness, especially with Bombay Saphire gin (save the Tanqueray for your gin and tonics).

Welp, in Paraguay, the ratio is a little different: two parts gin to three parts vermouth. That is, frankly, obscene. But the bartender (who works at the Sheraton in Asuncion and is aware Americans have a different take on this) explained that it just fits what Paraguayans prefer: something to match their sweet tooth. I suppose it's the price you pay for ordering a cocktail in the first place: "real men" in Paraguay seem to thrive on straight whiskey (Johnny Walker only) if they have money and beer (various) if they don't.

[everyone drinks wine of course but that's just, you know, "water;" it's not a DRINK drink]

[on the other hand, they never serve wine to the people during the Catholic Mass which is...well, whatever]

Cultural differences are interesting: sometimes intriguing, sometimes frustrating. Experiencing them is one of the highlights of travel outside my native culture. Not because I'm especially adventurous in temperament (I'd probably say I'm the opposite), but because I have a curiosity about how humans can live so differently from each other. And when visiting a new culture (as opposed to living there and occasionally wanting non-gag-worthy beverage) it can be fun to steep yourself in the differences.

In a way, it's one of the things I miss about science fiction.

I used to like science fiction quite a bit, and not just of the Star Wars variety. Truth is, I might still like it...I'm just not a huge fan of what I see in the SciFi realm these days. In film, it's so spectacle-driven these days, and probably with good reason (it drives patrons into theaters to see the latest-greatest FX and puts money in the pockets of the film industry). But...ugh, how to articulate this?

[I've been having a real problem finding words these days...partly because I'm constantly trying to communicate in Spanish, and partly because most of my human interaction in English is with my now-four year old...sigh]

Cool weapons and explosions and spaceship battles and strange aliens aren't the things that make science fiction "good" for me. Instead, it's a sense of wonderment...something so subjective, I realize it's impossible (or ridiculous) to try to define. I suppose it's one of those things that "I know it when I see it."

And sci-fi literature is even less appealing for me, as authors seem driven to stick with "hard science" and the realm of what is "conceivably possible," rather than risk becoming a laughingstock within their own genre. My buddy Steve-O is a sic-fi aficionado, and he's constantly giving me novels that postulate terraforming or space travel or whatnot based on real applied science and telling me I need to write an RPG that incorporates things like plasma rockets and hollowed asteroids and whatnot. But I just can't bring myself to do it. It's not that I want Burroughs-type "sword & planet" romances or more Flash Gordon-style "rebels against the evil space empire" stories. I don't. But I guess I don't want my fiction to be smarter (or much smarter) than me...and perhaps I'm not terribly smart to begin with,

In some ways, it seems like sci-fi is afraid to become "dated." It either passes into the realm of speculative, "this-is-a-logical-thing-that-could-happen-based-on-our-current-state-and-trends-of-development" or else it's just a bizarre, over-the-top free-for-all of laser blasting, world wrecking, giant robot, blah-blah-blah. The stories might be good, the writing/film-making excellent, but it might as well be set in a different genre than "sci-fi" for all the wonderment it provides. File off the sci-fi trappings and it's just "a story."

Maybe I'm just jaded. Or old. Or both.

As a kid, I played the original Traveller game (the "little black books") with my buddy Rob as the GM and I remember having an immensely good time doing it. It had a similar feeling to the "Rogue Trader" aspect of 1st edition Warhammer 40,000 (before the story lines were codified and inter-woven with the whole Chaos fantasy thang). It lacked so much of what, say, Star Frontiers had in a codified setting...and yet that mystery of "how things/the Universe fit together" contributed to a sense of "wonderment." You never knew what you might find when you stepped off your scout ship to explore some random alien planet.

[I realize there are many ways to play Traveller and that not everyone was simply "blasting off into the unknown," so experiences in that regard might be very different]

Anyway, today I find myself missing the space-faring science fiction of my youth...both in gaming and entertainment. I'm not sure where this longing will lead me (if anywhere), but I just feel like hanging onto it for a while and turning it over in my mind. Probably has something to do with my own current status of being something of "a stranger in a strange land."

Fighter Love 3: First Among Equals

Leadership. O man…another tricky topic.

I’ve run a lot of B/X games over the years for a lot of different people…and by “run” I mean “as a DM.” Small groups and large groups and ones that hung together with consistency and ones that had a constant rotating bunch of faces and more than a couple that were simply “one-offs.” The largest tables had nine or ten active players, the smallest had one. In nearly every case I can remember…and here I mean, “going back to childhood”…in every session I can recall, nearly all groups of two or more players suffered from a distinct disadvantage:

A complete lack of leadership.

Now, I am not referring to the presence of the B/X “caller.” Callers are useful…especially when dealing with a large, rowdy group that’s trying to make their intentions known over the noise of the karaoke at the bar. Especially with large groups, I’ve required the election of a caller, if only to keep some semblance of organization and efficiency. But a caller isn’t a leader; he (or she) is simply a mouth-piece for the group, the medium channeling the spirits that are the other player characters.

Don’t you folks have leaders in your lives? Authority figures…that’s what I’m talking about. People who’ve played team sports are used to deferring to a team captain on the field of play, and to a coach when off. People who work for companies or volunteer for organizations usually are beholden to someone…a boss or manager or supervisor or foreman. And military people certainly understand chain of command and following orders and the importance of both.

Because it IS advantageous to follow a leader…to have someone with an overall vision who coordinates activity and provides a direction (and directives) for activity. A coordinated team with a good leader is more efficient and more effective. I’d think that would be evident to most people just by experiencing it in their daily, real lives.

But at the gaming table? O boy…what a bunch of dithering, bickering, consensus-laden saps!

There are plenty of reasons why groups display a lack of leadership. All the players are “friends” (or maybe they aren’t, having just met each other at the table, but they would like to be), and want to consider each other equals. After all, all the players are Capital H Heroes, right? D&D is supposed to be “fun,” and telling people what to do (or taking orders from someone) creates discomfort or feelings of resentment (depending on which role you fall into). Authority figures remind people (uncomfortably) of their daily lives which they’re trying to escape in game play. Players may not be “A” type personalities (that’s usually the dude who gets assigned the gig of Dungeon Master) and aren’t used to stepping up into leadership roles…this one is especially true of kids who are more used to taking orders (from teachers, parents, coaches) than giving orders.

And perhaps for folks who learned to play D&D from a young (kid) age, this behavior of “free-for-all,” lack of leadership is simply learned behavior carried over into adulthood. ‘We never elected a leader when we played as kids, why do so now?’

Yeah, well, your characters got smoked a lot as kids and you cared a lot less about it, too. NOW, you act all cautious and shit to avoid getting killed…to the point that the whole group dithers around and is hesitant to take assertive action. At least, that’s what it feels like to me. Sure if something obvious triggers a proactive action (“A chest? I’ll search for traps!”), individuals are likely to stand forth. Otherwise, there’s simply a bunch of cautious negotiation (for the players who are wary of stepping on each other’s toes) or outright chaos (for the players inclined to “do their own thang;” though they're a rarity amongst adult gamers).

That’s been my experience, anyway. The intrepid party of adventurers is approached by a group of [insert semi-intelligent humanoid monster race]. “Should we talk with them? They might not be hostile?” “Does anyone speak their language?” “Maybe they speak common. Or we can try signing.” “Who has the highest Charisma?” [lots of consultation] “Do you want to do it or should I?” “Maybe the magic-user should have a spell ready?” “Do we know who’s going to attack if everything turns sour?” “Who’s holding the torch again?” Etc., etc.

It’s not just creature encounters, by the way. I clearly remember, while running a large group through White Plume Mountain, multiple instances when the party got “bogged down” upon being confronted by some trap or obstacle. Multiple ideas for circumventing the hazard would be hashed out, batted around, considered…but no one would make a frigging command decision. At some point, one has to act…someone needs to take charge and say, “hey, this is good enough…let’s try it.”

How many times have I heard, “let’s put it to a vote,” and wanted to pull my hair in frustration. It’s not rocket science folks, it’s D&D and things certainly don’t need to be solved by committee!

On the other hand, you do get the occasional impetuous personality who’s willing to fly off the handle (solo) and put everyone else at risk. I’ve seen this both in games I’ve played (as a player) and games I’ve run as a DM. My buddy, Steve-O, is semi-infamous for this in fact. It’s not that he gets bored or frustrated at the consensus process (Steve’s a non-conflict, Libra-type himself)…it’s just that he sees a void of action, gets an idea into his noggin, and proceeds to fill said void. Sometimes the result is a spectacular success; usually it’s the exact opposite. The thing is: Steve is perfectly happy to follow someone’s lead. I know this from having known Steve outside of gaming for more than 25 years. But no one ever attempts to rein him in. No one steps up and fills the leadership role…and neither does Steve.

[besides, it’s often humorous for everyone to see where Steve’s ideas take him. It’s just less humorous (for the players anyway), when his antics lead to a TPK or other clusterfk]

Now in addition to all the other reasons listed above, one of the problems with establishing a leader in a party…even assuming the players are mature enough people to elect someone to shogun the group, if only for a session or two…is the lack of quality examples in fantasy literature. I mean, most fantasy literature (and cinema) – which is what informs a lot of our ideas on “fantasy adventuring” – showcase a single individual, not a group of individuals. Conan. Elric. Perseus. Whatever. Sometimes there’s a pair, but usually the focus of fantasy stories is on ONE person with everyone else denoted as “side-kicks.” And D&D isn’t about “one dude plus supporting cast.” It’s a group effort. The stories told are not about a single character; they’re about what happens to an ensemble cast.

Unfortunately, other than TSR produced fiction (a la Dragonlance), there’s only one place to find an “ensemble group of equals,” and that’s the prototypical adventuring party found in the prototypical dungeon detailed in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. The fellowship consists of an all-star group of adventurers: a couple of heroic warriors, a dwarf and an elf, a wizard, as well as several hobbits (not a single one of which is a thief, by the way). And as a bonafide “fellowship,” everyone’s on a more-or-less equal footing with each other (it helps that most of the characters are princes or royalty in their own way). Sure, most of the group defer to Aragorn, who in turn defers to Gandalf…but Gandalf often asks Frodo what he feels is the best or correct course of action. In the end, of course, the fellowship splinters, but it operates effectively with its “group of peers” attitude, while it lasts.

BECAUSE IT’S AN F’ING FAIRY TALE NOVEL, PEOPLE.

Written by one guy (Tolkien) with a single agenda (as the author) to spin a good yarn. Real human beings don’t function so well as a true democracy…at least, they tend to be a lot less effective without a brain directing the body.

So then what’s the answer to the quandary? And what (if anything) does it have to do with fighters?

[*inhale*] Okay, here goes:

First off, I think it behooves a group of players to elect a leader from amongst themselves. Now, the leader may only be temporary…should, in fact, only be allowed to remain in power as long as he (or she) is doing a good job…and may only be for a single session. Now a GOOD leader isn’t a domineering tyrant…the wise leader will ask input from his (or her) fellows in order to make decisions, and will respect the opinions of those in the group.

Because truly the player characters ARE all equal…at least in the terms that they are all ambitious, special, and uniquely talented individuals, heroically braving dangers that normal folks wouldn’t dare to encounter.

Okay, having said that a good leader should listen to the opinions of his or her peers, the leader still has to LEAD. That is, the leader has to be decisive…has to make decisions and then pull the trigger and have those decisions executed by the other party members. Assuming the player is elected to the position by the other participants at the table, those “other participants” have to abide by the leader’s decisions…at least until those decisions prove the leader inept, incompetent, or morally corrupt.

[and even in those cases, it might be best for the leader to remain in charge, depending on the alternatives available!]

The leader should not be a “consensus builder.” Adventuring (especially underground) is the fantasy equivalent of being on a war-time mission, more often than not, and is neither the time nor place for facilitating a brainstorming session. For this reason, the choice of leader should often be informed by the experience of the possible candidates…that is, it’s useful to have a player with more experience (not “experience points” but real, gaming experience) act as the leader. But what about when all the players have roughly the same general knowledge base? Because (as I mentioned earlier) B/X isn’t rocket science, and a person who’s played for six months (or less) will probably know as much as the guy who’s played six years (or more).

Well, after experience, I'd say the choice of leadership more often than not should come down to a question of temperament. Who’s willing to take charge? Who’s untroubled by conflict and willing to become embroiled in confrontation? Who’s ready to stick their neck out and lead by example?

From a game mechanics point of view, the character best suited for the gig is the fighter.

Why the fighter? Why not the intelligent wizard or the wise cleric or the crafty thief? Why the blunt instrument fighter? Because the fighter is best equipped for the job. A character’s ability scores (great knowledge or spiritual understanding) don’t translate to any of those intangibles that make a good leader, they simply give bonuses to languages known and saving throws. The fighter, by the nature of the class, suits the temperament of decisiveness needed for a leader. They are designed for staying power, with their high armor class and hit points. They are built to forge ahead into the thick of battle, with their high strength and attack abilities. The are able to amass power (at high levels) by carving out a barony, attracting troops and vassals to their banner, and making war as needed.

The magic-user is powerful and intelligent, but too weak and easily killed to lead. The cleric is tough, but is looked to for support, especially as he gains in level, and often has his attention divided. The thief, while clever, is seldom considered trustworthy, and suffers from the same fragility as the magic-user. And the demihumans are limited in the role they can play over-time, both due to their level restrictions and their inhuman nature (at least in a campaign world dominated by the usual human settlements).

The fighter is used to taking the lead, literally. Walking point and kicking in doors is a lot easier for an individual with a high strength and wearing plate armor. Assuming the player has the experience and know-how of the game (and is not the newbie at the gaming table, given that “simple, easy role” that undermines the perceived value of the fighter), the player should have the built-in temperament for leadership that comes from choosing the fighter class. Decisive? The fighter is the epitome of the Gordian-knot-solver!

It only makes sense to give the mantle of leadership to the fighter of the party…assuming the players are ready to make the smart move of electing a leader. Best make sure the PC is worth the title.

Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!

A Heaping Pile of Awesome

The wife got back safe and sound Thursday night, and my single parent duties have ended (well...until next week when she one again has to jetset off to the East Coast), but I took a couple days for myself and left the blogging on the back-burner. Caught up on some sleep, reread Al-Qadim (found even more I liked) as well as found a new, incredibly kick-ass reality TV show in the form of Full Metal Jousting (which actually kicked sleep's ass for awhile as I had to stay up till 2am watching back episodes last night).

I would dearly like to write more about AQ and FMJ (and hopefully will sometime in the next couple days), but I can't, as I just spent the afternoon at the Cinnebarre movie theater (no relation to the RPG) in Mountlake Terrace, drinking Guinness and watching John Carter of Mars in 3-D.

I'm going to go ahead and call it one of the all-time best fantasy-SciFi films I've ever seen. Definitely in the Top 10, quite possibly Top 5.

As others have written, the marketing for this film really didn't do it justice. I was not terribly impressed with the previews I'd seen, and I'm fairly nit-picky with films. This one? Really not much to pick at all.

Now, I should probably say up-front that I've never read Burroughs (sorry, folks, I have a large backlog of reading material I'm trying to catch up on...ERB is scheduled for around 2014 or 2015). As a consequence, I can't say how true to the book the film is.

However, I HAVE read a lot of other later imitators of Burroughs's John Carter character, including John Norman, Michael Moorcock, and S.M. Stirling. Of the bunch, the character portrayed on the screen...and the story narrated in the film...blew away anything I've read from others and certainly exceeded any expectations I had on this film. It was simply fascinating to see how much of the plot had been borrowed for other fantasy stories over the years. And yet JCM's story felt fresh...it felt original (as in "the originator") rather than a pastiche of the films that have stolen from it.

What can I say? Sometimes Disney gets it right (like with Dragonslayer or that first Pirates of the Caribbean film); certainly Pixar are the #1 guys doing this CGI stuff (the six-armed aliens might as well have been animatronics. Or real aliens, I guess. Best CGI acting I can recall seeing). But the other film stuff...acting, pacing, art direction...great, great work. Perhaps not as spectacular as Avatar, JCM was still a damn sight better than that film.

And I prefer a better film to a better spectacle anyway.

Airships and pseudo-steampunk tech, weird cultures and traditions...with no heavy handed exposition needed to explain what the f is going on, may I add. As with Whedon's Firefly, the filmmakers just created a world, invited the audience in, and figured you were smart enough to figure stuff out (fortunately, it's a bit simpler than Firefly so it's pretty easy to grok in a single two hour movie).

And what a world! I think my favorite part was the panoramic views of Mars. Holy smokes...I never wanted to set an RPG on Mars so bad! Made me consider scratching my Arabian Nights setting for something a little more out-o-this world. Where's the Barsoom campaign setting for Labyrinth Lord, huh? Come on now! You OSR folks are going to leave me to cannibalize that Savage Worlds Mars book? Please don't do that!

All right, now I'm just raving. Suffice is to say I liked it a lot. My buddy Steve-O (who accompanied me) is a bit of a SciFi connoisseur (or at least and aficionado), and HE thought it was a heaping pile of awesome. Said he wanted a sequel. Of course, he hasn't read Burroughs either.

Point is, it was a great film. Certainly a Disney flick I'd want my child to see (when he's a little older, that is).

: )

***EDIT: Oh, just found this little gem for folks interested in old school fantasy role-playing on Barsoom. Check it out...it's exactly what I was looking for!***

Tim Tebow

My buddy, Steve-O, is no great football fan, but he does love to socialize and is happy to do so on Sunday mornings while watching football with Yours Truly and others. And since he's gregarious and a kind of "go with the flow" type...and as susceptible to mob rule and passion as anyone...I've turned him into a Seahawk watcher over the last few years.

Actually, Steve was (at one point) more of a football fan than myself, insomuch as he went to a Division I school, while my alma mater had no football team at all. Being a former WSU Cougar, you'd think he'd get all excited when Fall rolls around, but as with many former Cougars, he spent most of his five or six years in Pullman skipping class and partying like a rock star and doesn't remember much more than a deep abiding hatred for the Huskies. Oh, yeah...and Ryan Leaf. Steve-O was the same class and, boy, has he got some stories about that guy.

Anyway, recently Steve (who really is not much of a football fan, college or otherwise) has become smitten with Tim Tebow and the whole mystique surrounding the polarizing quarterback. Me, I could give a rats ass about young Tim's politics (I was and am a Hasselbeck fan and he is just about as dyed-in-the-wool Republican as they come...barf). For myself, I'm following the whole Broncos-Tebow story because I keep waiting for Denver to go down in flames. Sorry, old habits die hard and as a lifelong (since '73) Seattleite, I will probably carry a special loathing for all things Orange for the rest of my days.

And yet, Tebow continues to win despite being...well, is inept too strong a word? I mean, there is a certain idea about the role of the quarterback in the National Football League, and Tebow ain't it. Sorry, running backs are supposed to run, receivers are supposed to catch, etc. Young Tim ain't living up to the billing of a starting QB by anyone's stretch of the imagination.

So, yeah, "inept." And yet he continues to win...3 of his last 4 games. I find myself hoping that he will lead the Broncos past the implosive Chargers and Chiefs as well as the cast-off Raiders and into the AFC playoffs. Not because I like Denver (as I said, I don't) and not because I like to root for an "underdog" (I don't like that either).

What I DO like is people who can "shake things up" and throw off the expectations and perceptions of others. Like when the Seahawks blow up the Giants or the Ravens when everyone expects 'em to tank (including me). It's not that Tebow's detractors are wrong...he IS a terrible quarterback relative to the caliber of NFL starting QBs (including Seattle's own terrible, terrible passers). The detractors are right, he's terrible...but he is turning the league on its ear when it comes to showing what one needs to win in the League. Maybe you don't need an Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady. Maybe you can win with a guy who completes two passes in a game...even though the starting two running backs are injured.

I wouldn't call it inspiring, exactly. But it makes me glad to know that some people can still, through their very actions and effort of being true to themselves, give all those set-in-stone presumptions a big middle finger.

For a guy who writes pen-and-paper RPGs in a world of increasingly complex video games, there's a lesson there.

Anyway, Steve-O called me twice today, which is very unusual. His first cal was to find a fried chicken place in Greenwood; his 2nd was to to tell me Thursday was Tim Tebow day. I had to remind him that I do NOT get the NFL cable package, so the game won't be on at my house AND ALSO remind him that Thursday is gaming night.

Of course, Cafe Mox does get the NFL cable package, so Tebow will be playing on their TV screens. Perhaps, that will be enough enticement to get Steve to come help me playtest the space opera game this week.

; )

On Endgames & Expectations...

So things got a little balled up, unfortunately, and Heron’s B/X game didn’t happen last night. Steve and Josh and I still hung out for a drink, and I was tempted to run a one-off B/X game of my own using Heron’s setting by scavenging his emailed notes (it really is a neat setting, fraught with ideas and conflict and drama potential). In the end, though, we played another one-off of my post-apocalypse game MDR and that was pretty enjoyable.

[sorry, Randy…I know you asked me to tell you when we would next be playing MDR, but it really was a last second kind of thing]

Steve-O liked the game a lot, especially the quick character creation that comes with the card-dealing mechanic. He sees it as having the potential for a wide range of RPG applications, and I agree…but right now I have enough on my plate without spreading myself any thinner. Again, there was some discussion about the truncated endgame: having an endgame at all makes the game feel kind of “board gamey” to the players, even though they understand that in a normal campaign there would be many adventures before anyone “won.”

I think the “weirdness” for the players may be their relative inexperience with indie games. A lot of the indie RPGs have endgames or set limits on play…very few of ‘em have the “infinite play till you die” expectations of “regular RPGs.”

With the “mainstream” RPG scene, it appears that the default assumption (or hope) is this: good games will be so entertaining that people will want to play them until their attention is drawn to another game, and possibly indefinitely so long as one puts out adequate quality source material for exploration, or so long as there is potential ideas for mining.

Um, okay, that’s a valid point of view/design consideration, I suppose. It especially takes on more merit when one considers the size and scope of your average game system on the market. Even “small” RPGs like Mongoose Traveller or Thousand Suns (in its first incarnation) take quite an investment of time just to learn the game…there’s an expectation that one will get more hours of game play out of the game than the hours spent on reading the book.

Right?

Hey, I AGREE with that premise. Hours of Game Play SHOULD exceed Hours of Game Study/Learning. Fact o the matter is, folks these days (including myself) are pressed for time; time is a commodity precious and not to be wasted (and yes, sleeping is valuable and a good use of time, too).

But I grok this premise a little different from others. I do it like this:

X > Y

Where X is time spent in actual play…not reading the book, not teaching the game, not character creation…and Y is time spent in all that preliminary/start-up stuff.

If D&D (and old school D&D specifically) has been uber-popular for decades, could it just be that Y is so well-known and understood that X can’t help but exceed Y?

In a way, the phenomenon of “one dude knows the rules/owns the book” is a short-cut method of helping to achieve this objective…if only one person has to spend 12 hours learning a game system, than then the other 3 or 4 players can just show up and the GM can “explain the game as it goes,” perhaps even providing pre-generated characters. One then gets multiple hours of game play (4-5 players, including the GM multiplied by hours spent playing) compared to the time spent by one player (the GM) reading and prepping.

Does what I’m saying make sense? As usual, I’m a little groggy this Friday, so I may not be writing this in an exceptionally clear fashion. Let’s get some concrete examples.

I am going to stick with my X/Y thing, but I'll nail down proper definitions:

X = hours of game play. It is defined as hours spent in-session (doing imaginary things in an imaginary world) multiplied by the number of players participating.

Y = preliminary set-up prior to game play. It includes time spent reading (and re-reading) the rules and supplementary source books used, any explanation or teaching that occurs, dungeon/adventure creation, and character creation. For each of these tasks, the number of hours spent are multiplied by the number of individuals participating in the task.

For example, say me and three buddies decide we want to play Basic (Moldvay) D&D. We each buy a copy of the book and spend a couple hours or so reading the rules (it’s 64 pages long, not all of which are necessary for immediate play, and assume we all have some passing familiarity with D&D, if not this specific edition). So far that’s 6 hours (2 hours x 3 people) in the Y category.

Prior to “game night,” it is decided that I will be the DM and I dutifully prepare an adventure, including a scenario idea, a map, and a list of monsters, treasures, and traps. Call it four hours of prep time total, just because I’m slow and it takes me awhile to get everything together (usually, a one level dungeon doesn’t take me that long to script, once I have a scenario idea, but I’ll spend time fine-tuning some of the challenges). Category Y is now increased to 10 hours (6+ (4x1=4) ).

On game night, each player spends 45 minutes making a character. An extra dude shows up to play and the DM (me) helps him with charactergen while simultaneously explaining the basics of the game (since Buddy #4 didn’t buy/read the book). An extra 3 hours and 45 minutes is added to the Y category giving us a total of 13 hours and 45 minutes of human time spent in preliminary set-up “costs.”

So how does the game time become “cost effective” (in terms of entertainment value for time “spent”)? By having more actual game play than those preliminary costs.

If the five of us sit down and play for three hours (after character creation), we get a total of 15 hours (3 hours x 5 people) of actual game play (the “X” in X/Y formula). Not much of a “return” for our preliminary efforts. However, if the adventure created by the DM takes two or three sessions to complete and the players are able to keep their characters alive (or if they get a lot faster at making characters, as tends to be the case with B/X game play), then that X category starts building up; 15-20 hours per session multiplied by 3-4 sessions results in a much better return for time invested (the Y category). And because the Basic set is so simple to learn, there’s not a whole lot of “refresher training” needed between sessions; for the truly obscure issues that arise, DMs generally need to make snap rulings during game anyway, rather than conducting Search & Handling efforts (something that takes away from actual play time).

Now compare that X/Y value with a game like Vampire the Masquerade or GURPS or (God forbid!) Champions. Look at the number of hours that goes into the preliminary set-up (“Y”) of those games…hell, even character creation. How many hours of actual game play (“X”) do you need to run to get back a decent return on those games?

And what is a decent return? 4 to 1? 5 to 1? Personally, I’d want a lot more entertainment for my time. When I bother to go to a movie the commute to and from the theater is generally less than 20 minutes, and I expect a good solid two hours of entertainment (a 6+ to 1 return on my time, depending on how long I have to wait in line). But the quality of entertainment for a cinema is pretty amazing: big screen, big sound, quality acting/directing, etc.

Last night’s MDR game took us about 5 minutes to do character creation and 5 minutes to explain the rules to Steve, and the scenario was already written (it was “Part 2” of last week’s scenario). We then played from about 9 to 11:30, sprinkled with a lot of BSing and wandering conversations and food ordering distractions. Call it close to two hours of game play, probably a 10 or 12 to 1 ratio of X/Y. THAT’s the kind of return I want, but most games don’t give you that “out of the box.” Instead, you have to play many-many multiple sessions to get that kind of return on, say, Pathfinder or 3rd edition D&D.

I mean, how long did it take you to learn 3rd edition D&D? How long does it take to teach the game to those who haven't owned/read it? I know part of the reason I grew to loathe the game was the time spent prepping adventures due to extensive stat blocks of monsters and such. I understand that a lot of folks “wing it” when it comes to D20 or Pathfinder, making shortcuts to prep, and house rules to decrease S&H time, but I’ve always been of the opinion, “why bother?” when you can just play a simpler, more efficient rule set.

But that’s getting off-subject: most of the big, slickly-produced RPGs on the market take a ton of “Y” time…so much so that one needs to have an assumption of “long-term campaign-play” in order to make learning the game worthwhile…and with character generation (often EXTENSIVE chargen) being such a huge part of post-1990 RPG design, it becomes even more important to allow PC survival to occur (as creating new characters eats into the X time with additional Y time expenditure).

God, just realizing this makes me a little sick to my stomach…we used to play games like Vampire that spent an entire first game session (three or four hours) in character generation alone…not counting all the hours I spent as a GM poring over an impressive collection of books and supplements. And then we’d play maybe three or four sessions? Maybe? Ugh…I always felt like I was getting the shaft when I was asked to run those games and now I see why!

Indie games (just to get back to the earlier topic) aren’t often concerned with “long-term” campaign goals, and often provide only the basic rules one needed to run an ultra-specific type of game. I’m not terribly interested in this type of play, because I like the development of both character and setting that comes out of long-term play. At least, that’s what I’ve always said in the past. I still feel that way…but now I’m starting to think that “real development” only occurs with extensive time spent in the X category, rather than the Y. We saw more of this type of development in games like old school D&D and Marvel Superheroes than we ever saw in a White Wolf or Palladium games (the latter are interesting because they require so much time to “fix” their broken bits that you effectively ramp up the Y time on what is a relatively simple system). Despite White Wolf’s touting of emphasis on story, the bulk of any storytelling always occurred in the set-up phase (the “Y,” in other words) rather than in the actual play of the game itself.

In other words (or rather, to sum up): long term play is desirable so long as the play is "actual" and not just prep (adventure prep, rules prep, character prep). If the X to Y ratio (where X>Y) isn't good, than it doesn't matter whether the games last many sessions or not; you're not getting a decent investment for your time.

Wow...this goes a ways to explaining a lot of game design decisions of the last 20 years: like the inclusion of extensive fiction/prose in games and the need to make character creation (or "advancement planning") a form of mini-game. It's almost like the designers have been saying, "well we understand that the Y-portion of this role-playing game takes a lot of time away from the X-portion, so we'll try to make it more entertaining for you," instead of just...*sigh*

WELL...this turned into a bit longer post than I expected. This is probably enough to chew on for awhile.
: )

[you know, last night Steve was giving me a bunch of ideas for a high concept setting using my MDR mechanic and made the statement, "the game practically writes itself!" No, Steve, games do not write themselves...this kind of theory-bashing just makes me realize it even more]

Few Quick Updates...

...before I start my A-Z series of posts.

• Last night's game WAS short-handed (three of last week's eight players only). However, Steve-O made an appearance rounding the party out to four and bringing his normal standard of craziness. O my God...I laughed so hard I had to excuse myself from the table a couple times. The only downside? We ended up cutting the session mid-mission (and mid-assault). Steve's borg character has already passed the point of no return, being kept alive solely by the temporary hit points provided by his combat drugs. I'm sure he'll be concluding his story next week.
• As for the others, they seemed to have a good time. AB finally got to use the 25mm autocannons on his gunship, though now that I've completed the vehicle rules his initial budget got shrunk a bit (that 10% hike in vehicle prices due to "troll modification" really hurts!). Heron got to prove his worth as the charismatic front man in the team's detective work (and by doing so prevented any back-alley confrontations with Steve-O), and Hans the dwarf got to go shopping...for smartguns, goggles, and military grade armor. The last bit came in handy when the frag grenades started flying in the assault. All in all, an excellent play-test.
• The group (including Steve) berated me for my "bad review" of Neuromancer...apparently a favorite novel of everyone. I liked the book...did I say I didn't?...I just didn't see what was so "cyberpunk" about it. HOWEVER, Matt and Heron did point out that in 1983 (when the book was published), compared to the other science fiction of the time, the mainly-Earth-setting and no-aliens-of-any-stripe WAS a big difference from the offerings readily available...one might call Neuromancer a humanist form of futuristic fiction, but coupled with the high tech tropes of space opera, unlike (say) Soylent Green. And that IS interesting. I might just have to go back and read the thing again.
• The book writing will continue throughout April, but I will be keeping non-A-Z posting to a bare minimum...y'all have been warned.
• Best of luck to everyone else blogging the A-Z challenge...to me it looks like a real mental stamina test. We'll see if I can stick to it!

; )

Stars Without Number (No…Really!)

Last weekend I was down at Gary’s, browsing the used game section (as I am wont to do) where I found not one, not two, but THREE copies of Dark Heresy in the bin. What the heck?

I went and asked Tim about this: Is there a 2nd edition coming out or something? No. Is the game going out of print? No…in fact there was a new published adventure for Dark Heresy on the display shelf. Did the people that sold the game SAY anything about why they were returning it? No…in fact there were several postings on the bulletin board looking for Dark Heresy games. Why the sudden exodus from the hot, young system then? A mystery, certainly.

Maybe those people have recently discovered Stars Without Number.

Even though it takes place in the year 3200, the game feels more like the Warhammer 40K RPG than any game I’ve yet seen…and that includes the Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Death Watch books. Beautifully produced as those GW volumes are, if *I* were going to run a space opera game set in the 40K universe, Stars Without Number (SWN) would be the way to go. It just needs rules for titans and possession by warp entities.

SO…that’s a good thing. But for me, it’s about ten to 15 years too late…or more. Back when I first discovered 40K (in the late 80s) or when I RE-discovered it (in the late 90s) I would have leaped through hoops of fire to get an RPG like SWN. These days? Not so much. My tastes in RPGs and gaming have changed somewhat over the last decade, especially with regard to game design, and there are more than a couple red flags for me here.

Not that the game isn’t an amazing piece of work. Kevin Crawford has put together something every bit as good as Proctor’s Labyrinth Lord and offered it for free on the internet. Scratch that…what Crawford has done is even more astounding, as Labyrinth Lord is really just a rehashing of B/X D&D (and an adaptation of AD&D to B/X with the Advanced Edition Companion). Crawford isn’t “retro-cloning” anything at all. He’s created a SciFi themed RPG using the rudiments of the D&D system.

And I mean REAL rudimental. You’ll find the following familiar terms: class, level, XP, the Big Six ability scores, hit points, saving throws, initiative (using a D8 dice)…aaaand that’s about it. Most everything else is pretty darn new. Especially, SWN’s approach to adventure design and the designer’s objectives in the matter (more on this in a moment).

So back to my “red flags” (since I’m sure I piqued some folks curiosity). Let me first start by admitting up front: I am not a science fiction fan. Not really, no. I enjoy the hell out of “space fantasy” like Star Wars. I enjoyed Asimov’s Foundation because it’s a good yarn, NOT because I enjoy Asimov’s real physics approach to SciFi (for the most part, I’ve dislike Asimov’s writing for many, many years). Planetary romances like Stirling’s recent books? Good. Military SciFi with emphasis on the non-SciFi aspects (Starship Troopers, Armor)? Great. Visual storytelling (i.e. movies and TV)? My usual cup o’ tea.

But I am NOT into cool technology or “technobabble,” or even pseudo-technobabble. My buddy Steve-O is a reader of SciFi literature and combs the internet for the latest breakthroughs in computers and alternate fuels and space travel. When I started writing my space opera game he wanted me to include all these actual and theoretical technologies like plasma rockets and solar sails and a bunch of other stuff that I really didn’t bother to retain in my memory. I’m more of the “Lucas School” of SciFi terminology: blasters (they blast things), transports (they transport things), speeders (they speed around). I don’t need no dilithium crystals to power MY spaceship (I don’t even care how it’s powered…so long as it gets around!).

Crawford appears to be more like Steve-O.

The book is stuffed with cool technology, pseudo-scientific terms, and hard SciFi jargon. Me? I have a hard enough time saying “Griffon’s Crag Keep” in my weekly D&D game…I am just too lazy (or too unconcerned with specifics) these days to worry about the difference between mag pistols and rail guns and spike throwers. Now if YOU are like my buddy Steve in your love of nano-tech and whatnot, SWN does a pretty bang up job…I definitely give it a thumbs up over A LOT of SciFi games with extensive gear lists (better than or on par with ShadowRun, CyberPunk, Blue Planet, and Mongoose Traveller). For me, I find it incredibly tedious to the point of stupefaction.

Let’s see, other Red Flags for me personally…I didn’t bother reading the psychic section extensively, but it appears to be done well enough (Crawford takes a similar approach to my own game, though his categories are more classic SciFi: see WH40K or Mongoose Traveller for examples powers. Of course he uses Big Words for powers (even if the titles aren’t very intuitive, this is fine as there are a lot fewer psychic powers than types of tech). However, he uses a point (resource pool) system for psychics which is just one more record-keeping exercise I don’t find terribly interesting.

[oh, yeah…there’s also a lot of other tracking in the tech section regarding cost, availability, ammo, power clips, etc…ugh! I am too old and lazy for this kind of book work!]

Another red flag is the inherent skill system, though (and I found this to be very cool) Crawford provides optional rules for junking it! Neat…but with skill packages such a major part of character distinction, I’m not sure what chargen looks like without it.

Ah, chargen…you could sneeze a hole through a 1st level character in this game. From where I’m reading, the game combines some of the worst pieces of Old School and New School. Character creation is pretty long/cumbersome (New School) and character mortality is pretty near the surface (Old School)…the worst of both worlds! To make up for characters fragility you’ll find some metagame mechanics (combat re-rolls for warriors), high (i.e. good) armor classes, “Lazarus patches” (resurrection tech) and psychic healing, plus an admonishment to GMs to encourage playing smart, setting ambushes, and hiring meat shields.

Now this isn’t totally bad…again, I think the rules as written would be of great use in modeling Warhammer 40K (where life is cheap, and space marines are the most likely to make it through with their power armor, psykers, and apothecaries… though they still get wasted, too). But not everyone wants to play 40K…and I’m not sure the game works as well for, say, Star Wars or Firefly or Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica.

And advancement is its own weirdness.

But rather than talk about THAT, I want to talk about the new and innovative part of the game…at least new and innovative from a design perspective. That is, new to ME. Crawford’s main objective (other than writing a cool SciFi RPG that uses D&D as a base)…his MAIN objective appears to enable real and useful “sandbox” play. Several chapters of the game (including the GM Section, Factions, Adventure Creation, World Creation, and Aliens) are all written in aid of enabling the GM to run an organized sandbox campaign right out of the box.

I won’t beat around the bush…it’s a lot of work. But if you don’t mind the work AND you aren’t really feeling especially creative yourself AND you want to run a sandbox saga, then this is the game for you.

Sector creation, world creation, alien creation…all these feel very similar to Traveller (for me anyway), save that there are key words and phrases associated with various choices designed to act as indicators and hooks. “Factions” are a bit different, being a way for the GM to create influential power organizations (from pirates and cultists to Imperial hegemonies and rebel alliances), all of which are tracked in their own mini-game (complete with phases and turns) so as to keep third party action occurring on the sidelines, even when the players’ actions/attention divert them elsewhere.

It’s all very interesting. While Crawford acknowledges different ways to play SWN, I infer from his writing that he prefers (or at least idealizes) the old school “let the chips fall where they may” sensibilities. His text cautions GMs not get attached to favorite NPCs who might get dropped at any time, and players are cautioned the same about their own characters. It would appear that the faction system is a way to bring the neutrality and impartiality of The Rules to the GM’s management of the game universe. Factions have X number of resources and Y number of “hit points;” player actions deplete these resources, possibly disrupting or demolishing the faction…all as governed by the rules. It IS interesting and I’m curious to know how it plays in practice.

Not that I have an interest in practicing it. Running a game is as much an art as a science, and GMs of SWN are still expected to artistically integrate all the faction, planets, and alien hooks/key words along with player motivation.

And that last bit is where the whole house o cards starts collapsing for me. Players are supposed to give their characters motivations, something that drives them forward into adventure…but no hard and fast rules are given for this. Nor is there any game mechanic that manages it. Nor is it tied in any way, shape, or form to a reward mechanic (the main motivating factor for long-term play of an RPG). GMs have this huge swath of tools that allow them to craft and manage the sandbox universe (with a lot of work), all so the characters can putz around, maybe get the gumption to go do something, or maybe sit around doing nothing and saying, “huh what do we do now?”

I look at this game, the way it’s written (and it’s written well by the way; you definitely won’t find typos the way you would in the first printing of my book!)…I look at this game and I get this image in my head of the author. I see him as a highly creative individual, a person with a deep passion for his subject matter and his ability to create worlds, who has decided to codify his normal GM actions/prep-work, designing a game that will make his life easier in the future. He has put together a system that will allow him to manage (and micro-manage) vast galaxies of stars without number, so that no matter what the players in his game do, his created universe can continue on and on...sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes out in the open.

Man, I hope he has players that appreciate it. I sure hope they are down with his type of game and don’t whine “Ugh! You can sneeze a hole through my first level character!” My players bitch when I don’t let clerics have a spell at 1st level.

I hope they appreciate it because that is a CRAZY level of work to run a giant, galaxy-spanning sandbox that operates in such semi-independent faction. It’s like wanting to create (not play, but design and program) an MMORPG for the table-top…a living one with constant updates based on the actions of the NPC characters/groups. It’s like playing “Sim-Civilization” on a galactic scale.

Crazy. But GMs and game designers have been known to have a certain level of “crazy” in ‘em (look at that Tekumel guy).

Okay, the last thing I want to write about is the advancement system. Character behavior is often shaped and almost always influenced by reward mechanics present in a game…I don’t care if it is a game designed to facilitate a simulationist creative agenda. If anything clued me in on this being a sim-style game it was the scant attention paid to rewards (at least compared to other sections of the game).

Characters gain levels through experience points (XP). XP awarded are determined on a “per mission” basis, based on the highest level party member and the total number of player characters. Per the XP guidelines, at least half of the XP that would be awarded should be “hidden,” contingent on the performance of the player characters. From the writing, it would appear the XP reward = treasure found/awarded though this isn’t explicit in the text…it simply says here’s the reward (number) and that only profit from this (number) awards XP to characters.

Whatever…it appears that there are various ways to profit in SWN, but only a set number of points per mission will provide XP…and that number can be adjusted arbitrarily by the GM depending on the GM’s whim/preference per the text.

What is the net effect of this? Um…that PCs don’t know how or when or what they’ll do to advance. Level is tied to both effectiveness (in combat and skill use) and survivability (hit points and saves), but characters impetus to adventure is supposed to be some chosen “drive” that is unenforceable and unmanageable by the rules as written. And the reward mechanic doesn’t promote a particular in-game behavior because PCs are simply being rewarded for showing up at the table…if then (depending on the whim and designs of the GM).

This IS sim gaming, but it is pretty weak. That is to say, the drives of the characters are only going to be as strong as what the players bring to the table based on their own investment in the game. The detailed chargen system will help provide some initial investment (assuming players have at least some character concept to begin), but since a 1st level character has a maximum 10 hit points (warrior with max hit points and an 18 Constitution) and even a greatsword does 2D6 damage (not to mention a non-energy rifle which does D10+2), it’s hard to believe players are going to want to invest TOO much in their characters.

Now this post is not really a review of the game: I don’t really do reviews. I just talk about my personal likes and dislikes and thoughts and feelings. If a lot of this sounds negative, it’s because I’m explaining why the game doesn’t work for ME. A lot of these things…skills, technobabble, 220 page books with pretty pictures…are going to appeal to people besides me. Do I think the game is any worse than other SciFi RPGs that have been published? Not really…and it’s quite a bit better than some.

But it certainly wouldn’t work for ALL types of space opera and SciFi fantasy. I would certainly use SWN for any game modeled on the Warhammer 40,000 universe (the included setting knocks off more than a bit of the 2nd edition fluff). I found myself drooling a LOT at the thought of using it for a series that modeled Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series (at least the later books with the interaction between the Terrans and Darkoverans).

I would NOT use it for Firefly or Star Wars or a Heavy Metal-inspired mutant mash-up, nor for planetary romances like S.M. Stirling’s recent Venus and Mars books, and it’s a little limited for trying most military SciFi (like Starship Troopers and Nu-BSG). I mean, you could use it…but I would think it needs some hardcore tweaking to model certain serials effectively.

As for whether or not it can model hard core SciFi literature, I really couldn’t say. I don’t read that much, probably because I’m not a big SciFi fan.
; )

Some Notes...and Some Philosophy

RE Thursday Night's Session

Hmm...four sessions at the Baranof...plus a "pseudo-session" at my house. Three players. Seven characters. Seven character deaths.

De-briefing (decompressing, I like to call it) after Thursday night's session, I once again found it a bit odd that everyone had a good time and intended to come back for more, besides getting killed off. I mean, it's not like I'm running S1:Tomb of Horrors, right? Just B2...you know, an introductory adventure for characters level 1-3? The guys haven't even fought an owl bear or anything.

Life as an adventurer is hard...pure and simple. Sure it beats working on the farm, and pays better than apprenticing to the local candlestick maker, but it's damn dangerous. "Feast or famine," as they say...except the famine part is actually "grim and painful death." So far, everyone that's died in B2 has been put down by cannibalistic monsters, so you KNOW most of their bodies ended up in the stew-pot (the heroic man-at-arms, Mac, is the only one who managed to get a decent burial...you think Bud worried about hauling six bodies out of the Caves after the ogre fiasco? No way, Jose!).

Here's the thing, the players talked about it and KNEW they could have done better than they did. They could have run. They could have tried to bribe the ogre with food or treasure (that's what the goblins did after all). The elf could have cast charm person at the giant humanoid. Hell, I don't know...maybe it was afraid of fire (like the Frankenstein monster)...would some flaming oil or a torch waved under its nose caused it to panic?

Could running have been an option after the first character died? How about the second? Or the third?

I know Steve-O kept waiting for his gnoll buddy to come back, but the gnoll was chasing goblins deep into their warren...for all I know he was killed by the chief and his bodyguards (who the escaping guards had went to warn)...regardless, the "fight" (more like "the slaughter") was over in a handful of rounds, and it would have taken the gnoll more than a turn to come back. And seeing his "master" slain, he probably would have killed and eaten the last, lone man-at-arms anyway.

All that XP and treasure being left on the table...what a waste.

Luke actually suggested that I could have "fudged" the rolls with the ogre. Wha-wha-what?! Fudged?

You're kidding right?

Actually, I bit my tongue and didn't say anything of the sort. After all, here's a guy who's been acting as a dungeon master for the last several years, generally with the latest editions of D&D...games that scream to keep players alive if only so you don't have to go through the several hour process of creating a new character.

And besides that, I HAVE fudged dice rolls before...as a Dungeon Master. Even in the old days, when playing Old School D&D...you know, 1st edition AD&D? While I can't remember any specific instances I'm sure...like 99.9% sure...that I fudged dice rolls to allow players to survive...both encounters and traps.

But I don't want to do that anymore. There are a couple reasons why.

For one thing, fudging rolls is a bit of a slippery slope: where does it stop? I mean, you want character death to be "on the table" (at least, I do), after all...it makes the risk/reward dynamic more poignant. But who gets saved and who doesn't? And how many times before someone's number is finally up?

For the DM to make that decision means the grossest exercise of DM fiat. And, yes, one could do random tables to act as "get out of jail free" cards...like one of the various Death & Dismemberment tables put forward by various blogs. But I don't really want an additional table...especially one involving extra math determined by the extent of that final blow. Hit points are reduced to 0, character dies. It's tough, I know it's tough, but it's the way the game is written, right? I can think of a couple ways off the top of my head to soften it, but let's get to my second reason why I'm against fudging.

I don't think it's necessary.

Really...I don't think it's needed in order to ensure characters survive. I think that adventuring parties, appropriately equipped and on-their-toes sharp CAN survive...and thrive...even at 1st level.

Really, truly. The game is hard. And maybe Gygax was a psycho-bitch of a Dungeon Master to craft adventures where, "oh here are our 1st level characters fighting goblins and oh wait a huge ass ogre wades in and beats the living snot out of all of us."

Sure...if there had been a magic-user with the wonderful sleep spell, the ogre would have gone down like a sack of bricks...but who's to say the party wouldn't have used sleep to knock-out the half-dozen goblins? Who's to say a goblin spear (D6 damage) wouldn't have killed the 1st level mage (D4 hit points)?

Sometimes, the game IS a bit of a crapshoot...but one has got to do everything in his or her power to maximize the odds and take advantage of the situation.

I just keep thinking back to the on-line game hosted by DM Pat Armstrong in which I played a low-level cleric. We took out a damn cockatrice...and insta-kill monster and a 4 or 5 hit dice monster...with zero casualties. But half-a-dozen 2 hit dice troglodytes wiped out most of our (full strength) adventuring party, including my cleric...and I KNEW that was going to happen. I knew it was a bad idea to engage those scaly f***ers and I could have beat feet out of there if I wasn't inclined to be some sort of damn hero/"team player" at the time.

Up till that point, my character PERSONALLY was doing quite well...it was either our 2nd or 3rd session and I'd already acquired quite a stash of treasure and a magical artifact. I didn't have to die then and there! But I screwed up, and took a very un-wise risk and I paid the price.

And, no, I don't think it's necessary to play the game cowardly nor particularly mercenary in order to survive...you just need to be SMART. If Joachim had not charmed the gnoll first, do I think Hensvik would have allowed the elf to un-chain it? Hell, no! He wouldn't even free an orc, despite the fact the PCs could probably have easily handled a single orc that decided to turn on them. Would Thundarr and Cain have died if the two hadn't been divided and conquered? Maybe...but it would have been a lot LESS likely.

My players' characters have perished through mis-adventure...that doesn't mean they're not learning to be more cagey and inventive. It doesn't mean "trust no one;" how many blogs have I read where people talk about B2 and how, "boy, my players would NEVER team up with the evil cleric...they kill anyone that tries to be friendly, they're so paranoid!" Those players would probably have put the crazed gnoll to the sword rather than attempt to turn him into a useful tool/weapon...and the latter tactic was a pretty darn good one if you ask me. It was only other missteps that prevented the players from capitalizing on it.

Anyway, my point is: I don't think I need to fudge jack-shit. I know dice rolls are random, and sometimes those random results suck (and random results that "don't make sense" should of course be discarded...like when the elf rolled that he was the cousin of the dwarf on my Random Relationship table). Chargen is NOT so hard or tedious that it's a burden to make up new characters when necessary...and low-level players CAN survive with a little care and ingenuity...as well as the occasional ballsy or brazen maneuver.

By the way, while Luke had to go home to his family after Thursday's game, AB and Steve did insist on rolling up new characters then and there for the next session. Steve (who does not read my blog at all) created a Halfling, and was pretty excited by the prospect. Finally someone who's truly excellent at the whole knife-throwing shtick. His name is Roderick, he has a short, attachable hood, and pretty darn good ability scores (including a Strength of 16 and a Dexterity of 14), as well as plenty of gold to spend, unlike his last two characters.

My brother rolled up a thief with less than optimal ability scores, but a Dexterity of 16. He's bare-headed but has an (amazing) curly mane of hair, and the required thief mustache and stubble. His name is Blarth.

Unfortunately, EVERYONE is going to have to wait to try out their new characters. My wife and I are leaving for Spain in the next two days, and we won't be back for a couple weeks. Yep, the ol' B/X Blackrazor Blog will be going down 'round about Tuesday folks. Though I might toss up a couple posts while I'm in Europe.

; )