Fiasco

A quick side note: I received a new laptop from my wife for Christmas, due to my old one being fairly out-o-date (I think I got it back in 2007 or 2008), the expected emphasis on my “writing career” (ha!) while unemployed, and the difficulty with finding quality hardware (for reasonable price…even American-brand toys manufactured in China are two or three times as expensive as they are in the USA, and I don’t even shop at WalMart!).

On my old Mac, I had copies of MSOffice for Mac so that I could use programs like Word and Excel. The reason for this was two-fold:

MS programs like Word and Excel are the ones I’m familiar and proficient in, due to using them for years on my (prior) job’s PC computer.

As a person who sometimes found time (or made time) to work on personal projects ar my (prior) job, I needed the ability to work in the same software both at home and office.

Mac’s equivalent programs (Pages and Numbers) can “translate” Word and Excel documents, but the process is only really one-way, and I learned early on during the book writing thang what a pain in the ass it was to try working in two different systems…plus my lack of familiarity with the Mac software made me uncomfortable (that’s putting it mildly). Sure, “Mac Word” isn’t an exact duplicate of MS Word (there were issues with missing fonts and margin limitations), but the differences were small enough that I could work with them with only minor frustration.

However, when we got the new laptop, I decided NOT to get the corresponding MS programs loaded on my computer. My thought was that I needed to learn how to use Pages, etc. and I would never do that with the MS programs…plus, since I’m not actually working anywhere besides my personal computer, there’s no reason or requirement for me to have PC compatibility. I figured by the time I got back to the USA, I’d be fully proficient (or at least competent) in my Mac programs and all my writing/publishing/whatever would be handled in the Mac programs.

Of course, I completely forgot that ALL my documents (including all my books, published and non-) are still in MS Word format. Trying to edit them for typos, or get them ready for upload (I was planning on making The Complete B/X Adventurer available for sale as a PDF), has turned into a giant clusterf**k. Crap on a stick.

But that’s not the “fiasco” to which the title of this post refers. That refers to Jason Morningstar’s excellent and award winning game, of which I’d never heard…up until December.

Bully Pulpit Games first released Fiasco back in January 2010…back around the time I was trying to figure out how to make a cardboard box for my B/X Companion book. Gosh, only four years ago? Comparing Mr. Morningstar’s work to my over over the last few years is an exercise in envy (on my part)…not only has he won multiple awards and sold thousands and thousands of books, the guy seems to design nothing but GM-less RPGs, of the kind I’m only now starting to really explore.  It’s really enough to make you feel like an antiquated schlub.

PVP Action? Yes!

*sigh*

I was introduced to Fiasco through a friend of one of my semi-infrequent, drop-in gamers. I mentioned (back in November or early December) of my interest in checking out a collaborative RPG or two (I’d previous had some experience, as mentioned with games like Capes and Pantheon) and Jon (Redbeard) suggested Fiasco. His buddy and his buddy’s wife (really don’t remember their names at the moment…sorry!) showed up to the Baranof one Thursday night, and we ran Fiasco with my brother, AB.

[my brother has recently returned to Seattle in October and has since been attempting to reenter “normal society” after a couple years of homeless wanderings and mental illness in the Hawaiian Islands. He’s not what one would call an “indie gamer” by any stretch of the imagination. In a conversation about game design, he once espoused that a game could not be a “real” role-playing game without a combat system and some method of character advancement. He is (or rather was) also a big fan of World of Warcraft…]

Fiasco is a great game. Very fun, very interesting and a real collaborative challenge to craft a good story. We all enjoyed ourselves…even my brother, who was extremely hesitant to try such a game. Usually, AB is the type of gamer who will poke fun at/derail games that he doesn’t understand or doesn’t appreciate or that I am taking “too seriously.” He doesn’t do this to be malicious…it’s just how he is, that “little brother” annoying prerogative. However, he actually had a good time and was able to get into the spirit of the game quite nicely, making for a satisfying, Story Now gaming experience.

For people who aren’t familiar with Fiasco, the idea is for 3-5 players (though I’ve been assured four is the optimal number) create characters from a number of random narrative elements (rolled on tables) that define what they have in common with each other. It’s quite simple in practice, and negotiating how the distributed elements interact (i.e. what they signify) both creates the characters at the table and creates an idea of the story at hand. Game play consists of players taking turns to create scenes with negotiation and dice rolls helping determine how those scenes play out. The game session is divided into acts with twists (or “tilts”) that help the story slide in unforeseen ways until you have some climactic resolution (that’s “climax” in the narrative sense…it’s not necessarily a big, blow ‘em up kind of event).

The original game setting is built on the “crime caper gone horribly wrong” premise…the film Fargo is the often cited sample inspiration (not to mention all those British films by Madonna’s ex-husband). However, what makes Fiasco so playable (and commercially viable) is the ability to change and customize the setting to all sorts of different “plans-gone-wrong” ideas; Bully Pulpit Games was issuing a “playset” of the month (with new random element tables and “tilts” specific to each new setting) and many fans of the game have contributed their own playsets. For our game, we used a “high fantasy” setting…D&D-esque…based on my brother’s request, though we could have done Renaissance or Elizabethan England or Old West or whatever. The folks who ran the game (why am I blanking on his name? Kevin? Phil?) has a whole folder full of  possible playlets he’d printed.

The fantasy setting was a concession to my brother, but the story was nothing like a dungeon crawl. “Phil” played a the daughter of the local thieves guild master, who masqueraded as a man, my character was an elven princess who was his betrothed (the guild master’s plot being to move up into “high (elven) society” or possibly blackmail the elven nobility by the scandal), my brother was the princess’s bodyguard/master-of-arms/champion (who also happened to be female AND a werewolf), and “Sarah” (“Phil’s” wife) was the wolf that AB’s character sometimes turned into…she was kind of like the Dark Side of the PC’s consciousness (or her “kill ‘em all” id) while AB was the honorable, duty-bound warrior-woman.

[why did all the guys end up with female characters? It just worked out that way based on the elements that came up and what would make for a good and coherent story…I don’t remember anything requiring that any of us had to be specifically female and (at least between my brother and I) we aren’t ones to play “gender-bended” characters in RPGs. We all remarked it was a little weird, but as said, it made for a better story/adventure/session and we all did our best to play our characters in serious fashion]

Anyhoo, it made for a good night’s play, though I can’t recall exactly what happened (this was back in early December and, as usual, there was a lot of drinking involved). At one point, my princess led a big battle charge against an orc village, and there was a lot of discussion about the “wolf fighting style” that she needed to learn to be a true leader of her people. I think the characters did actually end up getting married and being “unhappy ever after,” but I don’t really remember. Like I said, it was an enjoyable and satisfying, story creating experience, and another good foray (for me) into the world of collaborative role-playing.

That being said, Fiasco felt much more like a parlor game to me (albeit a very fun parlor game that did involve role-playing and characterization). It’s not really designed for long-term or serial play, and thus lacks the development over time (and subsequent character identification and attachment) that I enjoy. There were also some difficulties with the “choose to set the scene or choose to resolve the scene” mechanic that is inherent in the game. Either Phil and Sarah didn’t explain this succinctly enough, or I was too drunk to understand, or it’s as murky in the rules as it was at our gaming table (having never read the rules, I can’t say). Whatever it was, at some points it felt like we were just negotiating what happened and kind of “winging it” depending on A) the needs of the story, and B) the dice rolls. And in that regard, Fiasco was was a little loosey-goosey for my taste.

I tried to get hold of a (print) copy of the game before I came down to Paraguay to study up on it, but was unable to do so. Fiasco’s a good one to have on-hand if you’ve got enough players and nothing else planned for the evening.

Giving Up Power

No, not another superhero post.

This post has been a long time coming. Last Autumn, probably round about October I started to feel something akin to burnout. At the table. Frustration with gaming…with gaming itself. Feelings that I’d rather not be doing what I was doing on Thursday nights.

This is somewhat reflected in my lack of blog posts stemming from this period, though mainly my lack of output the last few months have been caused by my busy schedule and the overall stress of my daily life. My writing suffered from a lack of focus, not a lack of desire (and now that I finally have some time to write, I find I’m a little rusty/out-o-practice). But my gaming itself…yeah, it was getting harder to drag myself to the table, even when I had the evening free to do so.

Kayce down at Gary’s Games actually helped me figure out what was going on in my brain…I was tired of running games. I was tired of play-testing. I was tired of being in the puppet-master position…I wanted to game, I wanted to participate, but I needed to stop approaching the thing like a 2nd job…especially when I already had a 2nd or 3rd job (depending on how you count the work nannying my own child and trying to get the writing biz off the ground). 

Kayce suggested I let someone else run a game…unfortunately she wasn’t available to do so, and the games that were available to me (I’m on a couple regular mailing lists of Thursday meet-ups) were not playing anything that piqued my interest.

Fact is, I was still interested in many aspects of the GM chair, enjoyed them even…but I wanted to be a player participant in the game as well. I wanted a chance to play the hero for a change…whatever the genre. But who was going to run 5AK (or Cry Dark Future or Boot Hill or Star Wars or DMI) for me? I was writing and creating games that I wanted to play…as a player!…and I was the only one not getting a chance to play.

It was about that time I started thinking seriously about GM-less games. Giving up the power of the game "master" for an (equal) place at the table.

Collaborative role-playing games (I believe this is the P.C. term) have been around for a while, but they are certainly a small, small part of the RPG market. Many of them feel more like storyteller type system (the card game, Once Upon A Time comes to mind), lacking a true feeling of characterization, character identification, or (God forbid!) role-playing at all…at least in the “traditional” manner of speaking.

But I knew it was at least possible to bridge the gap…previously, I’d had the chance to play Capes, an indie superhero game that works without a GM and yet still has strong character construction/identification (one of the coolest takes on chargen I’ve ever seen in an RPG, actually). The game itself shares the narration and normal GM duties between players (like challenging PCs), by setting them up in a competitive environment with a system of bids and points for control of narration. The competition level is certainly on the “light” scale…little is risked/lost when chargen is as throwaway-easy as Capes (still cool, though). Part of the reason Capes doesn’t work for me is that “little risk” factor, but mainly the system (how the game plays) is a little clunky and slow for a genre I think should be slam-bam fast. Competitive, nuanced bidding structure for narrative rights? This isn’t a bull session in the Marvel editor’s office!

*ahem*

Anyhoo, back in October when I was in the throes of this “burnout” thing, I stumbled across Western City, another GM-less game with a much less complicated bidding system of narrative control and stronger “character attachment” (players each have a main character/protagonist and then get to bid for control of minor characters and antagonists) then what is found in Capes. Western City’s method of bidding and splitting chips is an easy way for a group to determine narration rights and ensures that this control will be shared between all participants  by the nature of the spend. It still holds a few problems for me (a slow setup time, an overly complex skill system, a weird way of scheduling the day’s conflicts) that make me hesitant to actually try the thing…but just reading it got me thinking (back in November), and thinking started getting me out of my funk.

Unfortunately, my life conspired to prevent me from really sitting down and hammering out my own thoughts and concepts in the way I wanted…or writing about my blossoming ideas as they started growing in my brain. Knowing that I would be moving to Paraguay, the holidays, and tying up the loose ends at the job I was leaving (not to mention my wife’s continued travels to South America)…left me struggling for air, let alone writing time. I started and abandoned more than half a dozen blog posts during the time.

But I kept reading and researching…stuffing info into my brain in hopes it would become a digested, useable thing. I borrowed a copy of Polaris off of Tim, a game I’d been meaning to look at for a long time anyway due to my interest in the subject matter (it has a real “Fall of Ancient Atlantis” type feel…doomed tragedy is a favorite fantasy concept of mine. Well, so long as there’s some rebirth/hope that arises from the destruction). Polaris is also a GM-less…um, “collaborative” RPG that incorporates ritual beautifully, in a way that is highly reminiscent of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, another game that straddles the border of RPG and collaborative storytelling.

[as a side note, any book that incorporates the purchase and consumption of alcohol into its gameplay is a must have for this gamer’s library!]

Polaris is the basic model for a game I tentatively started designing ‘round about Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, that design has had a stunted growth, being mainly composed of half a page of notes and a headful of prosaic “color” text. Part of the problem is I haven’t actually had a chance to figure out the tone…part of me wants it very, very dark (though it is not a doom & gloom game) and the other part of me wants something much more light-hearted (albeit snarky). And, no, that one has nothing to do with superheroes, either. More on this later (probably).

To continue my story: at the same time I was really starting to groove on the idea of creating a GM-less game, one of the gaming newsletters to which I subscribe sent me a list of articles on “collaborative role-playing.” These are old articles, and the list was unsolicited…it was simply that serendipitous kind o thang that sometimes happens when you’re mind is aligned in a particular direction.

Ian Millington is the one responsible for most of these articles, which were penned more than decade ago. I’ll post the links below for folks who are interested…as I write more on the subject, I will be referencing back to some of thoughts, concepts, and ideas Mr. Millington was developing:

Shifting the Paradigm of gaming (with pictures).

Ten Principles for Mr. Millington’s concept of collaborative role-playing (not sure I’m on board with all these, but they aid in understanding his work).

An essay on “Avatarism” and a new way of looking at “why we should play role-playing games.” This one is sure to raise some hackles, though I found it quite mind-blowing.

An interview with Mr. Millington (interesting...and mentions some of the limits to collaborative role-playing he sees).

Four actual games by Mr. Millington incorporating his principles of collaborative role-playing.

Okay, that’s enough to chew on for now...more on the subject later. I hope to write individual posts about two very specific collaborative games as a follow-up to this post: Fiasco and Blood Red Sands, perhaps later this week.

Old Heroes Never Die (No, Really)

Yes, "Superhero Week" continues here at the ol' blog.

I spent a few minute again this morning watching the trailers for the new Captain America movie on the YouTube. Boy, do they get me revved up!

I've written before that Cap is one of my favorite superheroes...maybe my favorite of all time from the Marvel comics universe. Well, Daredevil's up there, too (even the Ben Affleck version).

[*sigh* I thought of writing a Top Ten List of Superheroes this morning, but then realized how utterly ridiculous that would be...there are so many, old and new, that there's no guarantee mine would even be "set in stone." And what would I be basing it on? Writing and artwork? That varies across the length of a series. How the hero is portrayed in film? Varies by actor and director. Based on which powers I'd like to possess? No way! THAT list would include characters like Wolverine, Silver Surfer, and Green Lantern...none of whom would fall into my list of "favorite" superheroes. At least not these days]

Even though Cap is one of my faves, I've owned very few of his comics over the years...like maybe one or two. Not that I haven't owned comics that included Captain America...Avengers, of course, Marvel Team-Ups, Secret Wars (the first series anyway), etc. Cap is a character who really stands out when working with others...not because he isn't badass in his own way, but because he gets to demonstrate more of his intangibles: his leadership, his idealism, his ability to inspire and mentor.

Still, I stopped buying comic books with any regularity back around 1990, and those were mainly Silver Surfer or Dark Horse imprints, not the Marvels that would feature Captain America. The last Cap-featured comic I purchased was probably around 1985 or '86. Maybe even earlier than that.

However, I've had the chance to visit some of the later comics, thanks to my old high school/college buddy who is (possibly) a bigger nerd than I am. No, he doesn't play role-playing games (or even computer games), but he has the largest collection of comics, Legos, and toy paraphernalia of any adult I personally know. He's loaned me a few of his trade paperbacks for Captain America, allowing me to follow some of the story arcs of the last 10 years (give or take), and that's why the trailers for the new film getting me so stoked: without a doubt the Falcon and the Winter Soldier are (other than The Ultimates reboot) the two best things to have happened to Captain America since I was a kid.

[yes, I realize that Cap and the Falcon were a team back in the 1970s, but this was before I was reading anything other than Golden Key comics...during the 80s, I just didn't see Falcon that much, and it was only after he got thrown back into the comic that I saw what a nice pairing they made]

Please O Please keep the name "Snap"

I'm not a huge fan of Snap's re-conception as "Bird Master;" sometimes less is more with superheroes, and I was plenty satisfied with his low-powered heroics. Why must you get your Cosmic Cube in my peanut butter? But I am totally on-board with him as a super-secret agent-of-SHIELD dude that appears to be the situation in the new film.

[for folks who haven't seen the latest trailer, here's a link]

And Winter Soldier? Other than being just about the coolest Marvel villain since before Apocalypse (who ruined O-So-Much for me)...well, folks should know by now how much I love tales of heroes falling to the Dark Side and then getting a shot at redemption, right? Add that to my passion for cyborgs (which I've blogged about on numerous occasions) and you can see why WS is in the top two or three Marvel baddies of all time...for me, anyway.

[there will probably be some spoilers in the following paragraphs, so consider yourself warned]

Winter Soldier does something that few plots in the comic book do...he emphasizes the age (or rather agelessness) of the comic book character. When the writers of Captain America decided to bring Bucky Barnes back (Cap's original WW2 sidekick) they had to figure out why he would still be spry and kicking ass after so many decades. Cap, of course, has the Super Soldier Serum running through his veins that makes him (apparently) as ageless as any mutant, but Bucky was just a young, highly competent "masked man;" how would he have survived decades to come back and haunt his former mentor?

Thank goodness for the comic trope of periodic cryo-freeze!

Thing is, I like the idea of the aging (or increasingly decrepit) superhero. We watched Pixar's The Incredibles the other evening, and I was once again struck by how entertaining it is to see costumed crusaders transition into "normalcy" (domestic life and the subsequent challenges it brings). Sure, this may be in part because I can identify with it (as I gradually take on more aspects of "middle age" myself)...but the reason we can ALL identify with it is because it does happen to all of us...all of us outside the four-colored world of comic books, that is.

And I think it's interesting to see people who were super heroic...who are still super heroic, actually...deal with those challenges.

The subject of the aging or "past their prime" hero is not a new subject for exploration. Miller did it in his Dark Knight graphic novel, it was explored at length in Moore's The Watchmen, and you can see traces of it in film: the aforementioned Daredevil with Ben Affleck and the most recent Batman film of with Christian Bale show the effects of crime-fighting taking their toll (non-stop Advil consumption and lost cartilage leading to knee braces). But usually, it's perpetually glossed over (or outright ignored) in the genre...Batman being as effective as ever despite a lack of supernatural or superhuman ability.

My recent games...both published and "not-yet-"...have all tried to take into account decrepitude and the toll taken by the adventuring lifestyle. I know that when you're a teen or 20-something gamer, you don't care all that much for these kinds of rules...in fact, when I was a teen playing AD&D or Traveller the penalties for advanced aging always annoyed the hell out of me! I wanted to play a perpetually young/prime of life character in the same stripe as a comic book super or cinematic action hero! But nowadays, that's a lot less interesting to me. I'd rather play a guy fighting his own slowing inertia than a young buck with a randomly required weakness or limitation.

The problem with such rules is the tendency to make them too crunchy or granular, necessitating more record keeping than I (or my usual players) want to track. For something semi-abstract like Marvel Superheroes, you could do something easy like:

Middle Age =  minus one column shift on all actions (-1 CS)
Old Age = minus two column shift on all actions (-2 CS)

[yes, that includes mental-based actions like inventing stuff...why do you think all those battle suits are scratch-built by YOUNG inventors? You lose focus and drive as you age, too]

Of course, experience and wisdom (i.e. the Karma mechanic) can still be used to offset this.

But for crunchier hero games, like Heroes Unlimited or Mutants & Masterminds, age mechanics can be a real pain to incorporate. And it's nigh impossible with more abstract, narrative-driven games like Capes and With Great Power...unless the players themselves want to account for this in their story-telling.

Mmm-mm-mm...I know there are some readers out there, who consider this whole line of thought to be of little-to-zero worth, and not just the youngsters. I can hear one particular person I know, ringing in my ears with "People don't play RPGs to emulate the sucky-ness of real life! They want to escape from these things for the length of a game session!" Ugh...you ARE escaping from the suck, dude! I'm just trying to incorporate a different and (I think) interesting new wrinkle/challenge. Ah, well...it's time for me to go pick up D from daycare. Maybe I'll write about this more later. Maybe.

I might just have to settle back into the writing of my own supers game.

Of Dice And Men

Some folks might be wondering, "hey...when JB moves to Paraguay, what sort of books and gaming equipment does he take along for the ride?"

Truthfully, not much. The plan was to to be down here a couple months (from mid-January to mid-March), then return to the USA for the birth of our child before making the more serious move in May intended to last for twelve months. This initial two month "trial period" was to supposed to give us a chance to settle in and see the things we'd really be missing, so as to better prepare when we come back in early June.

For me...a guy who's personal office space is practically over-flowing with books and games...I had to make some serious editing of what was important and what wasn't. I figured I probably wouldn't be doing much gaming down here, if any (so far, that's proven pretty accurate), but I hoped to at least do some reading and writing, and that would necessitate some source books.

Here are the games I packed (alphabetically):

Five Ancient Kingdoms (print copy, including dice...you never know!)
Hillfolk (Robin D. Laws)
Kingdom of Nothing (Jeff Himmelman)
Polaris (Ben Lehman)
Western City (Jorg Dunne)
With Great Power (Michael S. Miller)

While it's not actually a full game, I also brought my copy of WH40K's supplement Codex: Space Wolves (3rd edition), mainly because I was thinking of creating a game that riffs on the Space Wolves' "fluff." Haven't quite gotten to that, yet!

Other than 5AK, there are probably a lot of titles here that are unfamiliar to my usual readers (since I've kind of made a name in the "old school D&D" biz and these are anything but!). I'll probably do a write-up of each over the next few days, just to explain why I brought them and what value each holds for me. None of them were brought for "nostalgia" purposes...in fact, other than 5AK, I've never played ANY of these games. They all hold interest for me as a designer.

[okay, okay, I have used the Space Wolves codex before, but mainly for house guests interested in using my few Space Wolf models...when I travel with minis, the only thing I pack is my Khorne Worldeaters]

As far as books go (non-gaming), I managed to sneak a handful into the suitcase as well. Besides the children's books we brought for Diego, my reading material includes the following:

• 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (SciFi novel given to me by Steve-O...haven't yet cracked this open).
• Alien Legion Omnibus #2 (a trade paperback...i.e. "graphic novel"...of the comic book series. I was intending to use this as research inspiration for a game idea also, but I got bored after the first couple chapters and haven't finished it).
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (this is a book I was reading to Diego back in Seattle)
• Of Dice and Men by David M. Ewalt (mom gave this to me before I left...finished it a few days ago)
• Win Forever by Pete Carroll (was reading it, but am taking a hiatus from football at the moment)

And that's it. I've got the internet (now) and a few things downloaded to my computer (mainly RPGs) but I really haven't had much time for reading. Heck, I haven't even had a chance to watch the last week's Downton Abbey, and you should know by now that the watching of quality television is a priority in my family (being one of the few things my wife and I both fully enjoy).

[ooo-ooo...quick sidenote: the second season of Vikings just started up on the History Channel, and damn am I sorry to be missing it! Yes, it is available for download on iTunes for a hefty sum, but I hope to catch-up via On Demand when I'm back in Seattle in two weeks. But, boy o boy is it hard to wait! I've decided that the series was definitely my favorite of last year, and quite possibly in the running for favorite television series of all time. You can read my thoughts on the show in this prior blog post]

But even with so little time, I did manage to knock out David Ewalt's book in a couple-three days. Of Dice and Men is an easy read, and an interesting one for any gamer interested in the underpinnings of D&D and its corporate history. It doesn't bother me that Mr. Ewalt plays a different edition (3.5) than myself, and even though he covered a lot of ground that was old news for me, it was fun to read about his personal journey of discovery (and rediscovery). It helped remind me of things I know but sometimes forget: like how we're all kind of in this hobby together and we should bitch-slap each other too much. Even Mike Mearls.
; )

The Underappreciated D12

It was especially nice to see into the heads and gaming minds of those oldest of old schoolers with whom he had a chance to game (Frank Mentzer and Ernie Gygax); the anecdotes he relates about them and others (including the contrasting styles of Arneson and Gary) just gave me a lot of food for thought and a deeper appreciation of the different ways one can approach the game of D&D...in any edition. Heck, even hearing about Ewalt's own gamer group's different style of play (call it the New York Groove) was interesting. Hopefully I'll have some more to say about that stuff later.

I still need to get a copy of Jon Peterson's Playing at the World (it's been recommended to me by more than a couple people), but Ewalt's book wasn't half bad. I'm glad I made space in my luggage for it. I'm sure glad my mom had a chance to read it (she's the one who gave it to me)...she said she finally has an understanding of this whole D&D hobby thing of mine.

Sheesh, mom...it only took you  32 years!
: )

Forging Heroes

Back to the blog list.

I was thinking of penning my thoughts on David M. Ewalt's book, Of Dice and Men (one of the few non-game tomes I packed for the journey and the only one I've found the chance to finish), but I'll save it for another day. I will say the book was a good, quick read and it gave me a newfound appreciation (or at least cooled any leftover ire still harbored) for WotC and recent D&D issues, including the whole D&D Next thing (I've really lost track of that, by the way...how is 5E coming along these days?). I've even got a little soft spot for Mike Mearls (who I've badmouthed before on this blog)...at least as a human being and fellow gamer. But the last week or so I've not been thinking (much) about Dungeons & Dragons, or sword and magic style adventure games.

I miss Heroes Unlimited.

Which is absolutely silly, of course. Hard to miss a game you've hardly played.

[we'll get to that in a moment]

My son is very much into superheroes at the moment; can't really get enough of them. This is what comes from being exposed to such at too tender an age by a terribly nerdy father. Not that he wouldn't be exposed anyway...ever since I was a child, the images of Spiderman and Superman and Batman have saturated toy stores and graced everything from t-shirts to backpacks to coffee mugs. Heck, I remember (as a child) there being a cheapo yellow air mattress in our house with an illustration of "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman" on it, circa 1979. Comic book characters (or their marketing, at least) have only seen to have grown more popular with the years...especially with the advent of the successful live-action films.

But having a father who knows the characters and the stories...and can relate them in depth...means that my kid has a walking font of knowledge on tap for any of the images he sees. The last couple days, for instance, our waking hours have been filled with playing "Iron Man" (or more often "Tony Stark"), with D as the perpetual hero and papa as "Tony's Amigo" (Rhodey).

[my son actually has a steel trap memory, especially for proper names of characters and places. It was a source of amusement to my wife over the weekend that he just couldn't seem to remember Rhodey and would most refer to me (whether in the 3rd person or directly) as "Tony's Amigo." 'Hey, Tony's Amigo, should we go fight some bad guys?' This from the kid who has no problem remembering other supporting cast people (my wife was "Pepper") plus secret identities like Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Peter Parker, etc. as well as all numbers and manners of super-villains and super-powers]

So we've been playing superheroes a lot (and building a lot of secret HQs with Legos...when not building taco trucks, anyway), and blowing time watching old cartoons on YouTube, and it has of course put superheroes on my brain. Plus I've had the chance to watch the trailers for the upcoming Captain America and Spiderman films, which really gets me juiced. Well, the Captain America one anyway.

[that's a blog post for another time...maybe later this morning if I have a moment. I like the new J.J. Abrams style/old school look of The Amazing Spider-Man, but I'm a little burned out on the web-head at the moment. Plus Electro was never high in my rogues gallery of villains]

Anyway, getting back into a "gaming state-o-mind" combined with superhero overload is having the usual effect of getting me to comb the internet for the latest-greatest superhero RPG and also turning my brain to what I'm starting to feel must be my absolute favorite in the form of Heroes Unlimited. The fact that I have such a soft spot for a game I've hardly played...especially when it's rules/system are (IMO) an absolute heaping, steaming pile should tell you a couple-few things: 1) HU does something (for me) that other, better written games do NOT do, 2) I've found something tremendously dissatisfying in a lot of RPGs (since I've owned or read or played so many of the genre), and 3) nostalgia is at least partially in play.

But isn't the superhero genre (comics and film) always a bit about nostalgia? Certainly the movies that are making millions these days are doing so (for the most part) by telling stories already tremendously familiar to longtime fans. Sure, there are younger folks going to these movies to be wowed by special FX, or perhaps wanting to learn about a little-know hero, but for a geezer like me I'm at least as interested in how they intend to tell the stories I already know: what will be the "modern twists," what will they mash together and adapt, what will be recognizable, how "faithful" will they be to their subject matter. For a fan, these things are at least as important judgments/critiques as things like acting and editing and plot and pacing...it's what sets the superhero genre of film apart from most other genres (save perhaps from the adaptation of a previous long-running serial...whether we're talking TV or book series).

*ahem* Back to the subject: I perhaps misspoke a moment ago when I said I've "hardly played" HU over the years. It really depends on what you define as "play." Certainly, I've spent less time gaming with others around a table compared to other games, even compared to other Palladium games, like Rifts. But I've spent many hours poring over the HU books and making characters and running mock battles with the HU system, both of which can be considered forms of play. I would certainly consider the time spent as "playing" (as opposed to "working")!

Adventure included for solo play!

I also miss the aspect of play where I tried to model comic book characters in the HU system.  I've written before about how I love the granularity of a game that does everything from Misty Knight and  Colleen Wing up to something a little less than Thor, without the points-buy modeling nightmare of something like Champions or GURPS. With Heroes Unlimited, it's perfectly possible for one dude to randomly roll up Iron Fist while another to end up with the Juggernaut or some other uber-mutant; I really like and appreciate what others might consider a total lack of "game balance." Yes, you can create a wide discrepancy in chargen (via random roll) using Marvel Superheroes also but A) the end result is likely to be less cohesive than the power types of HU, and B) low-powered heroes in MSH really lack the granularity to distinguish themselves and the ability to be hugely effective (except using the limited metagame mechanic of karma).

Character creation is hugely important to a superhero RPG, much more than other genres of RPG in my opinion. Avatarism (something I'll be discussing in a later post) is a strong part of the genre...not just considering the question of 'how the existence of superheroes change the fantasy world,' but how (specifically) your character's unique set of superpowers change/affect your character's life. As I've also written before, the superhero genre is often the place of wish fulfillment: What would my life be like if I could teleport to work instead of having to take the stupid bus every morning? How would my crime-fighting/world-saving second life impact my own family/friends/relationships?

Heroes Unlimited, of course, doesn't delve (much) into these latter questions (unlike, say, Aberrant or With Great Power). What it DOES do, is give a very specific manner of easily creating very specific and enormously detailed characters...right down to origin, possible oppositions (for heroes on-the-run from the corporations that created them), education levels, and gadget budget. What HU does do is it gives you a chance to become really anchored in the avatar of character with very little input needed from the player in question. I get to make choices but I don't have to come up with much straight out of my head.

For some folks this may feel pretty darn constricting...but as with B/X D&D, sometimes a constraint of choice can help you free your imagination for other things much more important to actual play, like your character's motivation and behavior in-game.

ANYway, I dig on it. And I miss it. Certainly I don't miss my frustration with the game system, both as a GM and a player (I think I've described my one miserable time attempting to play...if not, I won't relate the story here. Suffice is to say the GM was a real prick), nor the mainly useless skill list, nor the length of time it takes to calculate all the damn stats and bonuses characters have. But I find myself wishing it would have been good to at least bring the book down here (to Paraguay)...perhaps to tinker with, perhaps to simply blow some free time modeling various comic book characters.

Lately (and by that I mean "back to November") I have been thinking a LOT about a different type of game design...something even more radical than indie, story-now type games. But the superhero genre is still one that benefits (I think) from a more old school approach to gaming...at least in the aspect of character creation. At least for long term (think "comic serial") play.

Did You Know (Paraguay 1)? Also, Updates

There is no postal service in Paraguay? This explains why I have no mail box.

People still get things delivered, of course...it's just delivered by courier or whatnot (when my wife needs stuff for her work, it's often hand-delivered by a person coming down here from the USA anyway). That's just nuts. I mean, thank God for the internet! It's allowing countries like Paraguay to enter into 1st World realms of business and enterprise even without the infrastructure of mail carriers...or even decent roads!

It really is the infrastructure that's missing...there's plenty of money here (and monied individuals). The neighborhood in which we live is chock-full of BMWs and Mercedes vehicles (mainly SUVs with tinted windows), absolutely huge houses with security boxes/guards on every 2nd or 3rd street corner and high, high walls. But the streets (for the most part) are absolute garbage, and the local parks (more like vacant lots) are entirely overgrown and unkept, and it is a resident/owner's responsibility to upkeep (or build) any sidewalks in front of their homes...and few bother. The tax rate here is one of the lowest (if not the lowest) of any country in South America, and decades of government corruption has resulted in little money going to those public works most Americans take for granted. I'm not sure if I've actually seen police officers here, but there sure is a lot of private security forces (everywhere from the shopping malls to the taxi stands).

There's a lot more that can be said on the subject, but I'll abstain for the moment.

The point is, there's nothing I can mail to anyone (or have mailed to me) without a postal service while I'm here: email is it (thank goodness my house finally came on-line...yesterday, in case folks failed to notice the post). I will be back in Seattle for a couple-three months beginning mid-March, but then I'll be gone for a year (till May 2015).

While I'm away, someone IS doing my mailings for me, so yes, you can still order books while they are in print. I'm strongly considering doing a couple more print-runs while I'm back next month, in order to make sure there's plenty of books on-hand for delivery, but we'll see. Sales of print-books (and PDFs) have definitely slowed down...especially for 5AK...but I figure a lot of that has to do with my lack of marketing and persistent absence from the on-line community the last few months. On the other hand, I've continued to get email requests for print copies of the B/X Companion and PDF copies of The Complete B/X Adventurer, and it would appear there are dollars to be made on both those items if I can just get my shit together...something I'm hoping to do.

In fact, I'm going to get to that right now. Well, right after I wake up my family who has drastically over-slept (at the moment it's 10am, Paraguay time).

Reboot

It’s been a while.

As I write this I have no internet and have had no ready access to the internet for more than a week.

Not that this matters a whole heck of a lot…when you have little-to-no free time, there’s not much use for the internet except to listen to your local (Seattle) sports radio station, basking in the ongoing afterglow of a Super Bowl championship. The fact is, it is only recently that my child has become enrolled in daycare here in Paraguay and so I have been mostly on 24 hour nanny duty since we got down here (i.e. since becoming unemployed). Most of my waking hours have been spent playing Legos or Batman or Spiderman or Pirates or “Star Wars guys” or Zorro or soccer or the usual care and feeding of a small child. Since our interaction has been limited by environmental constraints (we were in a hotel until about a week ago) and his limited vocabulary and depth of experience (he just turned three last month)…not to mention short attention span…it has been a somewhat constant source of inconvenience and frustration.

I’m sure I will look back on it as one of the happiest times of my life, and a very cherished part of my personal history. How many parents wish they could have more quality time with their children…at any age!

The experience (especially the heat and surroundings) reminds me of a time way-way back in my life. When I was very young - six or seven years of age - my family spent a week or three in Kuaii (one of the Hawaiian islands for the non-initiated) due to my father’s work taking him out there for some type of convention. We were put up in a house, and aside from memories of coconut pancakes and body-surfing with my father, the thing that stands out most vividly is the hours I spent playing with little plastic soldiers on the cool tile floor of the house. 

They weren’t actually soldiers; they were cowboys and indians. But you probably know the type I mean: one-piece, single-color, molded plastic miniatures in various action poses. The indians were mine, of course, while my brother had the cowboys. I always preferred the indians (and to be clear I am aware of the politically correct terms associated with our indigenous Americans, but these are the stereotypical toys I’m talking about, complete with war bonnets, buckskins, bows and knives…hardly a historical, factual representation of our Native peoples) to the cowboys in our games. I can recall we (my brother and I) had a couple “Lone Ranger” action figures at some point (the 13” type with actual clothes and plastic horses) and I favored Tonto over the proverbial masked man. I have never really been a “gun guy;” I’ve always been drawn more to swords and knives and bows and axes (tomahawks) when it came to weapons and the indians were easily the action guys of choice. 

[not that I don’t (now) enjoy a good Spaghetti Western shoot-up or game of Shadow Run, but in real life I can’t even stand the touch of a handgun…they just feel “icky” to me, and I have no idea why. Perhaps I was killed by firing squad in a past life…or maybe I shot a loved one or something (accidental or not)]

Anyway, my brother and I (he was a couple years younger) would play out little wars and adventures (cooperative) with these little plastic figures, spending hours making up stories about these two cultures and their interactions with one another. Not all of these were of a hostile or action-oriented nature…as I recall they had other dramatic events happen (flooding rivers, starvation, etc.) and our little “people” would have to figure out ways to survive. My brother and I developed stories and characters on that cold tile floor in the Hawaiian heat and humidity, and had a helluva’ time doing it.

We spent a lot of time making stories in those days, pretending all sorts of things. Once, I can recall my mother finding my brother and I crying in our downstairs hallway because we’d been playing out some sort of fantasy where we were on a raft in a flood (or river) and everyone had drowned/died and we were very sad. This would have been before age six or seven probably. 

“Playing pretend” on the playground was a common pastime of my friends and I, probably up until age 10 or so (when we were hardcore into D&D)…we were never much for shooting hoops or playing “flyers up” or four-square. If we used monkey bars at all, it was solely to navigate some imaginary obstacle (lava being the usual favorite) during our adventures…as knights or elves or Star Wars characters or Indiana Jones types or even Willy Wonka. Nothing so mundane as “cops & robbers” or “cowboys & indians” would have satisfied us.

My son seems to have the same “play pretend” itch I always did…almost always involving superheroes (Batman and Spiderman are the favorites), and often involving firefighting. Of course, he’s also exhibited a profound fascination with the ritual of the Catholic Mass, and likes to march around holding a cross, chanting “Amen, Amen” or hand out Eucharist wafers to people (though this behavior was more regular when we were still in Seattle).Encouraging his play, participating in it, and trying to steer it in positive directions (“Batman doesn’t shoot people with guns” or “a superhero’s priority is to help people before fighting bad guys”) has been a priority for me the last few weeks. 

And occasionally constructing paper batarangs.

*ahem*

But now it’s time for me to button down and get back to work. D has his school, and we’ve almost got our house and schedule in order. I’ve made some commitments to myself to get up early and focus my head in the right place. Even though the internet is still not working (latest glitch: no power to the router and the electrician can’t make it today due to heavy rains and random flooding throughout the city), I’ve had the chance to use the WiFi at the office down the street from our house. Mainly I’ve been using it to check on long-neglected email and catch up on the book orders.

[FYI to folks who placed orders in February: your books were mailed out from Seattle on Monday]

But now it’s time to get back to writing. And for myself, writing begins with this blog.

It’s time for a reboot.

When I first sat down to start Ye Old B/X Blackrazor blog, I wrote out a list of 100 potential topics to post. I did this because my prior blog (combining astrology with professional sports) had dwindled and dried up within three months after starting strong. I wanted to make sure I had enough I wanted to say, before actually throwing my hat into the ring, so to speak.

I probably only made it through half that original list before the ideas for blog topics took on a life of their own (responding to comments, reading other blogs, picking up new books, following the gaming industry, off-topic world events, etc.). Still, I knew that if I needed it, I could probably pull out the list and get back to the 50 or so posts I never got around to writing. It’s a comforting thought to have…plus, just the act of writing the list gets the creative juices percolating a bit, you know?

Well, that list is long gone (or, more likely, buried somewhere in an old notebook in my Seattle home). This morning after breakfast, I sat down and wrote up a new list of 100 topics (“Reboot” was the first item on the page), and I’m hopeful that these will lead me back into regular blog posts…which will feed my other creative endeavor of writing and designing games. It took me a little effort to start, but it was worthwhile…already my brain is starting to get back into “game mode” which it’s been lacking of late. I’m actually pretty excited about a number of the ideas on the list. And some are actually B/X related! Yes, really!

[there’s also some good stuff about wolves]

All right…that’s enough for now. I’m going to try to get this sent off today…which means going down the street before D gets home from school! Later, gators.

: )