| Three Things in the World of Darkness that Irk Me |
[May. 17th, 2008|04:36 am] |
Pseudo-Lovecraftiana: Yes, yes. I've warmed to HPL, gamers like the Mythos, but there's are fine games that do all that stuff. Pseudo-Lovecraftiana is like watching a cover band. It can really kick ass, but you're mentally putting the actual band on stage. I especially dislike the quasi-Mythos names that come from hammering on random keys.
I actually argued against a focus on the Abyss when Mage was coming down the line for this reason, but Bill Bridges smartly observed that it didn't have to be pseudo-Mythos. The Prince of 100,000 Leaves from Boston Unveiled was my attempt to take the Abyss in a bit of a different direction.
The Phrase "Closely Guarded Secret:" This hoary freelancer cliche is basically code for "Your character doesn't know this unless the scenario allows it." I've written this phrase myself and felt fine with it until I noticed it in a zillion other books. Aside from avoiding these words, I think its about time to mix this up a bit, even if the LARPers do find information restriction handy. That's why in Mysterium I basically said that they probably have information about nearly everything, but the filing system's a bitch.
Everybody Thinks Everybody Else is an Idiot and Can't Use Their Stuff: The new games kind of got away from this but it occasionally slides back in. Not only do I think it's unwise to stoke resentment between fans of different lines, but it smacks of the "fake shared world" issue, where fandom create the subliminal idea that everyone is playing in the same continuity. This is really only a problem in the Camarilla, where it isn't fake.
I run a Vampire/Mage crossover from time to time, and it's great -- but there's very little support for this kind of thing because of the idea that every splat has issues with the others and because of the strict bans on interaction. My mages can become ghouls, and vampires who were mages occasionally acquire strange powers, because this is more interesting than the current, lead-lined limits.
Now I know they can't really support this as a core assumption in a big way for a few reasons, and other games that have been freer with conceptual or character type crossovers have generally ben kind of boring about it. What I'd love to see is plenty of optional support that is full of strangeness, instead of standard theories and cautions. |
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[May. 11th, 2008|03:22 am] |
I declare Silat to be totally awesome.
The rest of this is notes from the seminar which you may or may not understand. I think I may have forgotten one or two things.
( Read more... ) |
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| Recent RPG Purchases |
[May. 10th, 2008|04:49 am] |
This is what I've ordered:
Dread: This one arrived a few days ago. Some parts of it are really, really cool; in other areas, it screams "Didn't need to be its own RPG!" It was amusing to read Ron Edwards praising something that he would say gives gamers cancer if it had featured a paw print on it.
Dread's sparseness is one of those areas where design trends have taken a flaw in the community and attempted to turn it into a feature . . . without succeeding. The idea of wanting to make games with "focused" settings seems to often be code for "I don't want to spend all this time on a setting" -- but settings display how flexible a game's framework can be, and provide avenues for creativity by both supporting *and finding tension with* other rules and design goals. That's why wacky splats succeed so well. Pure archetype and toolkit approaches are cardboard.
Dread has some cardboard elements. You're some guys who fight demons. There are some powers, and some demons. There are maybe two factoids that constitute a setting. Once you integrate this with the very rigid structure designed for game play, you'll end up with pretty repetitive games. This may go unnoticed in the indie circuit, where single sessions at conventions and meetups are where a lot of play happens, but I can see it being grating over time.
That said, it has some clean rules, and the bits that are described are evocative. For an experienced group this is more than enough to get started with, so I'm glad I got it.
D&D4th: I think it'll be a good game. I also think there are aspects I won't like. We'll see. My main concern is that the game will demand more subordination of narrative concepts to the rules structure -- that you want X to be in the game, but the system will demand Y. This was a problem in our 3.5 game that eventually forced me to change my character's concept even after we instituted some serious house rules. This *did* give me some creative alternatives in the end, but it took some work to get there. Classes read as being more conceptually rigid (they're play functions first, narrative backbones second). On the other hand I'm looking forward to better ways to generate challenges and the new magic system.
Houses of the Blooded: The purported "anti-D&D" will no doubt contain some ideas I disagree with too, but I don't mind strong opinions. I've gotten quite fond of the idea of flexible descriptors and want to see the full treatment of what I've read about. A lot of the commentary I've read so far seems geared toward groups I would say have "issues." I don't believe it's really a good idea for a game to try and support these groups, since these are aspects of things that are more important than gaming.
Lately, I've been thinking about games that aren't generational, but support multiple groups crossing paths and participating in the same setting -- a kind of The Thin Red Line play style. I ran Mage for years this way very successfully. |
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| Where I'll be on Saturday |
[May. 6th, 2008|11:29 pm] |
In Toronto, at:
http://www.trinityjunfan.com/news.html
Anybody want to hang out before or after? Any PTBO martial arts people want to go down? Lemme know. |
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| Final Cylon |
[May. 4th, 2008|08:17 am] |
It's Gaeta. Well, that's my speculation, anyway.
It can't be anybody with kids and relatives without some oddness, or Baltar (too obvious), or Kara (mother in flashbacks, has been examined by Cylons in icky detail). Gaeta's also different enough from everyone that he fits that archetype deal. Also, due to a dropped plotline, there's a loose thread about what Baltar said to him last season -- and Baltar's Cylon detector does in fact work.
Yep Gaeta. In fact, I bet he's known for a while and is "Number Seven."
And if this isn't true, it should be, because this is better than all the other options. |
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[May. 4th, 2008|04:03 am] |
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One of the hallmarks of a good developer is that he can create an outline where you end up writing a multi-part, non-linear novella without making you suspect how difficult this actually is. This is not so much a trick as a form of insidious morale building. |
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| RPG What Ifs |
[May. 3rd, 2008|04:27 pm] |
What if . . .
The RZA wrote RIFTS? |
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[May. 1st, 2008|11:22 pm] |
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| Need WordPress Help! |
[Apr. 29th, 2008|10:56 am] |
Hi folks,
I'm looking for a tool that will provide LJ-style avatar functionality to WordPress. Basically, I'd like a setup where every login on the blog has its own avatar and these attach themselves to the user's blog entries and comments (kind of like LJ comms, I guess, but without the source LJ user).
Don't tell me about Gravatar, by the way. I tried it; it sucks. |
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| Rhodium's unbalanced classes |
[Apr. 26th, 2008|07:28 am] |
One of the things I want to do with my old-timey tribute game Rhodium RPG is have unbalanced classes, befitting a game where Frodo, Thundarr the Barbarian and Iron Man might team up. But unlike a traditional hacked together method, I'm going to organize it into tiers:
The Hero tier consists of normal folks done good, the kind of protagonists who top out at the Die Hard level of competence.
The Adventurer tier is for folks like Blade, Batman, Buffy and many more low-level superhumans.
The Legend tier is for guys in powered armor, outright superheros and demigods.
How do we balance these? We don't, but we use blatant staples in the form of GOOJ (Get Out Of Jail) points to balance appeal. These allow you to buy special privileges or just avoid death. Now I could just differ the number, but these would not give the class tiers different flavours. Here's what it is instead:
* Heroes gain GOOJ points as they go up in level. Your Frodos and McClanes change over time and wrestle their central status from the cruel hand of fate.
* Adventurers start with a fixed amount of GOOJ. Batman never gets any luckier. He's consistently Batman-like. (Batman is an Adventurer; Robin is a hero, assuming he survives in a particular incarnation.)
* Legends loose GOOJ as they advance. They have wild origins and early days, but tend to settle down a bit over time.
The tiers are still unbalanced, but GOOJ is fun to use (or will be), so the question isn't just about power, but the kind of play experience you want, which will qualitatively change more and more from the alternatives as time goes on.
The goal is not elegance. The goal is Rational Inelegance -- that means I'm exploring a more hacked together design, but those design elements have reasons for being the way they are. |
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[Apr. 26th, 2008|07:21 am] |
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So what is ST Joshi's deal, exactly? |
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| Politreks |
[Apr. 25th, 2008|03:18 am] |
Chain of Command Part 2 is on. It's the anti-torture TNG episode.
The problem is, of course, that according to the current position of the US government (and silently, tacitly approved by my own government), it's not torture. Picard is not in danger of death or organ damage and sends most of his time in a stress position. The plot hinges upon the Cardassians being free to treat Picard as an "enemy combatant" without any treaty protections.
Just thought y'all should know. |
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| It's the Rhodium RPG! |
[Apr. 24th, 2008|11:54 pm] |
The Rhodium Role-Playing Game is an old-timey RPG that uses multiple task resolution systems and imbalanced classes -- but it does so for specific reasons.
Attributes!
Let's start by rolling 4d6 for 8 Attributes. Arrange the results however you like among:
Strength (ST): The basic Strength skill is Might. Add half your ST to muscle-powered hand weapons. Your ST is your base starting Stun Points.
Agility (AG): The basic Agility skill is Grab. Add half your AG to parry or slip hand-held weapons and unarmed attacks, or strike with them.
Endurance (EN): The basic Endurance skill is Toughness. Your EN is your base starting Hit Points.
Move (MO): The basic Move skill is Evade. Add half your MO to dodge ranged attacks. MO + 10 is the number of feet a human character can move per round.
Appearance (AP): The basic Appearance skill is Charm.
Intelligence (IN): The basic Intelligence skill is Reason. Add half your IN to all skills, including IN skills.
Presence (PR): The basic Presence skill is Convince.
Willpower (WL): The basic Willpower skill is Resist.
AP, PR and WI are "dump stats." This means they're less important that other Attributes outside of specialized niches, allowing characters who want to concentrate on other areas to better arrange their scores. Of course, some characters will want to focus on these, and characters with low scores may be left in the lurch at unpredictable times. Treating them as dump stats benefits players, but it also creates flaws that the GM can exploit at a later time to make the story interesting.
Skills!
There are lots and lots of skills -- so many that I'll deal with them later, when we get to character classes -- but they all work they same way. Every skill is based on a percentage score . . . well, several. Each skill has a base attribute. Multiply this by the ease of the challenge:
Hard: x1 Tough but memorable; most people only have a 26% chance of success.
Medium: x2 Getting hard; in a crunch, a normal person has a 38% chance of succeeding.
Easy: x3 Not so bad; in dramatic situations, the average person has a 50% chance of success.
Here's one trick. If your skill is a class specialty, you automatically add 1 to your ease rating, to a maximum of Simple (you can't get the Simple rating any other way).
Simple: x4 When stress or drama is involved, the average person has a 64% chance of success.
As characters go up in level, they improve at basic and trained skills. For every level for which they possess training (or basic ability), add the following:
Hard: +5%
Medium: +3%
Easy or Simple: +1%
Training works better for harder tasks, you see -- that's when all the sweat you poured into learning has a chance to shine.
Add your IN bonus to skills at the same rate at all times.
Skills are percentage-based to make them easy to figure and resolve. This game is mostly about action, so that's where the tactical detail comes in. Skills are simple.
When two characters compete with skills, the winner is clear when somebody fails. Otherwise, resolve in this order:
1) The character with the highest skill.
2) The character who rolls lowest on d%.
3) Flip a coin.
If one character is the "main guy" (a PC, the initiator of the situation and so on) he can set a dare, by rolling against a lower ease multiplier. If he succeeds, his rival has to use the same multiplier as the main guy.
Skills are only one kind of acquired trait. The rest are Physical Training (PT), Combat Training (CT) and various special abilities. |
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[Apr. 20th, 2008|12:59 am] |
GSP |
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| Palladium Bits |
[Apr. 16th, 2008|08:30 pm] |
1) I'm looking for Palladium Fantasy 1E books -- the core book first and foremost, with Old Ones 1E right after that. I have lots of doubles of Mage stuff and tons of other stuff I'd be willing to trade. Let me know it you have it.
2) Also, I have a comprehensive hack of the Palladium RPG system in my head that does not make it a D20 clone or unify task resolution. I have fantasized about offering to do all the work on a corebook and split in with PB 50/50 in return for a quasi-official partnership, but I have no idea how I'd ever accomplish it without excess complexity or coming off as a jerk for offering to tweak the designer's game system. I also think it would make perfect economic sense with the plan I have for both of us and sell about a bajillion copies.
3) Last random bit: The Steranko Heroes Unlimited Cover is the best superhero gaming cover ever. |
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[Apr. 16th, 2008|01:44 am] |
If I ever wrote superhero comics, my dream assignment would be a Marvel title called Marvel Comics. It sounds unoriginal, but bear with me.
In the Marvel Universe, Marvel actually exists*, which makes comics there a form of journalism -- probably the lowest, most lurid form. I would think it began as wartime propaganda, but eventually bloomed into a semi-serious field called Graphic Journalism. Writer-artist teams (and occasional individuals) would work under horrible deadlines to condense major (and spandex-related) news events into panels and prose. The mainstream news would hate them for their sensationalism, their fast and loose approach to the facts for the sake of the comics form, and their obsession with superheroes.
Of course, starting in the 80s, people would argue its merits as a serious form of nonfiction. Seth wouldn't be self-absorbed. Instead, he'd self-publish a title about the local beat. Chris Claremont would be a human (mutant) rights figure. Doctor Doom would have graphic journalists produce plodding propaganda about Latveria. There would be martyrs, as bad guys killed artists who rendered things *too* accurately. There would be lawsuits, envy from the Bugle. Peter Parker probably hates them, because Spider-Man's a popular topic. There's a political component, then, in his interest in photojournalism.
There would be rumpled men and women with cameras and sketchbooks chasing disasters, and there would be writers who've mastered the art of the interview and have gotten folks like Spider-Man to open up about things they'd rather keep private. There'd be debates about using photography versus traditional art (the art having been used back when Marvel was too cheap to give folks cameras -- which of course helped touch off the form). Jack Kirby would be a Thompson-esque figure; nobody would be sure what was true, and what was a trip. There would be sleazy costumed informants, too.
Comics as the gutter journalism of a superpowered world would be pretty cool, I think. Maybe there's a game or supplement in it or something.
* Not my idea, BTW. It's actually in the canon MU. |
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| More PG Game Thoughts |
[Apr. 4th, 2008|05:15 am] |
I'm just winding down before bed. I have some ideas about the aforementioned game.
1) I think I'll use Quick20 as my base, though by the time I'm done it will probably have few if any OGL artifacts. Characters have a basic stat block of: Fortitude, Might, Reflex and Will.
2) Weapons will have qualities, not a damage rating per se. A sword has the qualities Threatens (it's sharp!) and Parries (it's long!) Each template provides a straight bonus to something and allows for one special action. The environment may also have qualities, and magic might be the ability to bring certain qualities into being.
3) Other stuff has qualities, too. These take the place of skills, feat-type things and so on. I'm sensing a bit of a FATE vibe in what I want to accomplish, except a bit more individually-driven.
4) The goal of any violent conflict is to get your opponent to flee or surrender (and maybe, knock them out or give them a scratch). Your "damage" determines just how long and reliable this condition is.
5) To steal from old cartoons, the game world has plenty of automatons to destroy. 100 years ago, the Steel Orders came over the sea. Some came for slaves, others for territory or the land's wealth, but all sought the legendary Blue Passage, that would take their ships to the wealthy Worldsend Islands. They brought machines that moved like men and women but had no wills of their own, being nothing more than puppets who danced to a tune set by the etched cylinders inside them.
6) PCs start between the ages of 13 and 17. There will be detailed(ish) rules for maturation, so that every year of game time, characters change and grow independently of their advancement.
7) I'm going to call it Against Steel. And now I'll give it a tag. |
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| The Following Content is Suitable for Children |
[Apr. 4th, 2008|01:26 am] |
So, I've been thinking lately. Over the past however-many years, I've spent a lot of time going to pretty dark places with my work. This doesn't affect me so much lately, because so much of the horror and fantasy genre material I've done has edged toward . . . loftier business. There are secret universes and strange laws, and the ways the affect ordinary people may be intimate and painful, but for me they don't have the raw effect of interpersonal violations.
(I've always found the Devil scarier than Cthulhu. Cthulhu treats you as an insect to be brushed aside for the sake of a vast, unknowable and unstoppable agenda. Satan hates you, especially when it comes to the things you find refuge in as virtuous character traits.)
But over the last few years I've slowed down my dark fantasy and horror consumption. I even like stuff like this less in subtext. On the other hand, as I've spent more time with the kids, I'm learning to appreciate "kid stuff" more. K like Kim Possible and I've become a big fan of Avatar. I don't pretend that kids like sanitized content more (if anything, the opposite is true -- I think children's TV is often about exploring a place where adults feel comfortable connecting with kids, and not the unadulterated interests' of kids' private culture), but when it's presented with a certain wit, I like it, especially when it exploits its restrictions to create something interesting, like some kind of narrative bonsai.
So I've been thinking of a light-hearted fantasy game. There's no blood and no real on-screen death without a weighty occasion, not even Star Wars' "it's a stormtrooper so you can shoot him" deal. There is violence, but it's the knockdown and make the bad guys run away sort of thing. I'm really in the beginning stages of thinking about it. It presents some interesting verisimilitude and design challenges. I want characters to be able to carry swords and use them without cutting or stabbing people, for instance. I'm thinking of some kind of fine-tuned reciprocity-based mechanic, where players set how intense a scene might get, but not where it turns into a "game of chicken," which is what most of these sorts of systems end up doing. |
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