White Hot Star

I started writing yet another "poor me" post about my lack of time for writing and realized that such a post is itself a waste of my time (I keep forgetting that). So F that noise.

If I wanted to just do reviews of games and game products on this blog, I'd have material for at least six months (even assuming I stopped acquiring new stuff). It wasn't all that long ago that I wrote how I loathe buying PDFs and prefer actual printed books, and how I really hate buying both. But this before my local game store (Gary's Games) closed shop, and long before I moved to Paraguay for what appears will be an extended stay. These days, I'M one of those dudes emailing publishers and asking "when will this be available in electronic format?"

[yeah, I've turned into that guy. I still prefer hard copy, but since I can only get mail order every 3-6 months (when I get state-side), more often than not I'm purchasing BOTH hard and e-copy so that I can peruse the PDF while I'm down here. New Fire, for example...a beautiful book that I will probably never, ever use...is one which I bought both in print and PDF format. I should write about it...and about Bulldogs! and Capes, Cowls, and Villains Foul and Crimson Blades and Dust Devils and...well, you get the idea]

Read.

SO...White Star. Everyone's talking about it, so I bothered to pick it up a couple days ago (at the same time as I purchased Hill Cantons Compendium II, actually...perhaps something on that later, too). In PDF form, because it was relatively cheap (I found a coupon through Tenkar's blog). Here's what I think about it:

James M. Spahn's White Star is S&W Star Wars...no more, no less. Like my years long, on-and-off B/X Star Wars project...except using Swords & Wizardry as its base. The text, monsters, and campaign ideas imply that the system can be used for more concepts: Star Trek, Firefly, Aliens, etc. But it really can't...not as written. It says it's taken a cue from other space opera stories, like Flash Gordon (and presumably Buck Rogers)...but it's lacking in areas that would allow one to run those kind of games.

Without modification, that is. Folks have already started adding their own supplemental setting material for White Star. Tenkar's doing as series of WS "pocket settings," WrathofZombie knocked off more than a dozen alien races for the game, and Calum M created a hack-splice one might call White Star 40K (if you were so inclined) set in humanity's grim, dark future. Clearly, people love a game that can be house-ruled easy-shmeazy.

Have they never seen Dave Bezio's X-Plorers?

White Star is very spookily similar to my original "first pass" at B/X Star Wars...right down to a "Star Knight" (i.e. Jedi) character class with Wisdom as a prime requisite. An "aristocrat" class based on CHA? Check...though I call mine "high born." Spahn's three robot classes? Almost exactly the same. Star Wars monsters with the names rearranged? Check and double check (though I called my Sith "Shadow Lords," not "Void Knights"). The equipment list as well (though I had "shielded" weapons occupying the spot of him "monofilaments" and I had a catchier name for my lightsaber knock-offs).

This kind of thing is easy enough to do...if you take Saga edition Star Wars and examine the differences between it, simple D20, and early edition D&D it's not very hard to "reverse engineer" to something like B/X or OD&D (or LL or S&W). That was my initial impetus for tooling around with the idea after all. The stuff Spahn has done, concept-wise, is the easy stuff.

[writing, organizing, and commissioning great artwork isn't anything to sniff at, just BTW...in this review, I'm just talking about the design of the game]

Which is to say, I guess, that I'm a lot less impressed than some folks are. I know, I know: I'm a big turd. Thanks. Now let me talk about the stuff in White Star that I REALLY don't like...

[boy, I hate this part...the "honest opinion"]

One of the things preventing White Star from being something other than Star Wars, is its conspicuous lack of a scientist/engineer class. Without such an archetype you lose a large swath of protagonist characters from classic space opera: the Spocks and McCoys and Scottys (Star Trek); the Dr. Hans Zarkovs (Flash Gordon), Dr. Huer/Dr. Theopolis (Buck Rogers), Kaylee and Simon Tam (Firefly), The Robinsons (Lost in Space)...even Cale Tucker from Titan A.E. These are major protagonists, not hired henchmen, and they allow for different types of problem solving besides blowing holes in things with your blasters, or ships guns, or "star sword." Sure it's an easy fix (house rule your own)...but it's easy enough that it should have already been included in the game (with a prime req of INT, yeah?).

[and if you're going to bother to have hired assistants, it would sure be nice to have a description...or better yet, an NPC write-up in the monster...er, "alien creatures" section. After all, these aren't ALL "aliens" (see soldier, for example)]

But that's just an annoyance. What's far more problematic is the damn experience system. I've written before that about the hardest thing to design for a space opera RPG is a decent method of character development...even X-Plorers effectively "punts" on the subject. White Star simply defaults to standard OD&D (or, rather, S&W) save that it gives XP for "credits" as opposed to gold pieces.

How is this in any way informed by the space opera genre? Sure, it makes the game S&W compatible (which appears to be a clear design choice), but how does that facilitate anything other than a Firefly/Traveller-esque game? Hell, how does that allow one to play Star Wars, the thing for which WS seems expressly designed? In which Star Wars film are the protagonists looking for a big score of cash?! This is worse than a punt...it's a knucklehead move. And, yes, you can, of course, house rule something different...but when you start needing to change the basic building blocks of the game, then you might as well be designing your own game.

[or, to put it another way: file the fantasy tropes off S&W classes, monsters, and magic spells and don't even bother buying White Star]

At least Bezio's X-Plorers gave you an XP value for blowing up enemy starships. White Star has no XP award for space combat (unless you're supposed to add up an amount for the pilots and techs aboard an enemy starship...difficult considering there's no guideline for how XP is calculated (like for, say, NPC character classes) and there's no NPC listing for things like, say, enemy pilots and gunners). Sure, you can house rule your own stuff in this regard (in fact, you have to) or steal from something like Terminal Space...but then, why are you bothering to play this game again? Because it has nice artwork?

[it does have nice artwork for B&W interior pieces]

Magic...er, force powers...er, "Meditations and Gifts" are simply the Vancian magic system re-written for Star Knights and Alien Mystics. Nothing particularly special here, and again it's just taking the "easy road" design-wise, rather than attempting to model the genre in function as well as form. But, of course, you can house rule your own system...as with everything here....

Spahn takes an interesting tact with regard to non-human races ("aliens"), creating two specific race-as-classes in the forms of the archetypes Alien Brute and Alien Mystic. I'll be honest: much as I love me my race-as-class in fantasy adventure games, the one time I feel it's better to add a species tag is in the space opera genre, where other space-faring races have their own pilots and techs and nobles and soldiers, etc. So...ballsy as it is to take this route, it's probably another thing that I'd want to house rule...especially if you want to play something that looks like the Star Wars Expanded Universe with its non-human Jedi, er "Star Knights." Just another "possible campaign setting," right? So how do you model all those be-tentacled, saber-swinging Jedi monstrosities from the prequel trilogy using only the "Alien Mystic" class? Heck, they even have a different spell list from the Star Knights' "meditations" (and Why O Why do you need a purify food & drink spell?). What if I want my Alien Brute copilot to aid in repairing my starship (or putting my protocol 'bot back together?)?

Oh, right: just house rule it.

Look, let's talk turkey for a moment. It probably sounds like I'm being awfully hard on White Star...and, yeah, I guess I am. Fortunately for Mr. Spahn, my opinion isn't valued all that much these days, even around my own corner of the blog-o-sphere. And anyway, he's making his money: White Star is #36 on the DriveThru RPG sales. I bought it myself...no one gifted me with a review copy.

Here's the thing about White Star: if you want to run something space opera-y ESPECIALLY in the Star Wars (original trilogy) variety, and want it in a familiar system (i.e. "old school D&D-esque"), then White Star is the closest thing you're going to find. It does more work than X-Plorers in a couple regards (monster lists and a Jedi/Force system), and is much more streamlined and (in my opinion) "user friendly" than Stars Without Number. But at 130+ pages, nicely laid out and well-illustrated...well, I guess I was expecting more for my money.

Actually, scratch that. For the $8 I paid, it's a quality product...I've certainly paid more money for less useful game material (consider the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide...). And I don't think the game has been "over-hyped" by the blog-o-sphere (not nearly the same way as "5E Basic" was, for example). Like I said, it's the closest thing to its target that you're really going to find. Hell, its got falcon-men and felinoids...it obviously wanted to be Flash Gordon compatible.

It's just that Flash never looted anyone to "level up."

But I AM disappointed that it didn't do more, or invest more, in the design process than what I was doing back in 2010...back when I was calling my project "B/X Starkillers." There's a reason I didn't publish something like this: it wasn't good enough. Even if I'd had the artwork and professional design layout, the content wouldn't have been good enough. And I suppose I'm disappointed that this is the best someone can come up with after all these years. Production-wise, it still doesn't hold a candle to FFG's Star Wars series of RPGs.

Tell you what I'll do: let me look over my very long-ass document that was going to be a SW-esque supplement for X-Plorers (no, it's not the same thing as my B/X Starkillers...White Star is close enough to BXSK that publishing it in any form would be fairly redundant). Give me a chance to clean it up a bit, and I'll post it to the blog as a series of posts to spice up your X-Plorers game. Free of charge. My original idea was (of course) to publish it and make some money for all my hard-earned words typed, but I am sooooo sick of looking for artists and artwork (God, I wish I could draw like some of these self-published dudes)...I'll give you the "sans art" version as a freebie.

Yes, I have no less than three other projects I'm working on at the moment, but you people deserve a bone, every now and then. Right? Sure you do.
: )

Shaming My Space Opera

Jay recently commented on my gushing post about X-Plorers (the RPG):

I'm late to this party, but just wanted to pipe in that I'm running X-Plorers with a space opera setting (having jettisoned the "corporations in space" conceit, which I found dull).

So far, two different play groups - one of novices and another of veterans - have all found it to be great fun.

Attached were links to the Red Astra-themed posts on his blog.

Well, I read through his posts and his play-tests and Jay's take on what "space opera" is all about and I have to say he made me feel...O what word should I use? Shame? Yeah, that's a pretty good one, though perhaps a little harsh.

First and foremost, he reminded me that KWN has been back-burnered in recent weeks and has yet to have a single play-test. That is me totally dropping the ball, and pretty f'ing inexcusable. Why? 'Cause the thing is practically done (it's 42 out of maybe 48 or 50 pages total!) and ready to roll out. But it needs the play-testing at this point...I've just had such a damn hard time getting a game together lately. Either people are sick or have other plans or else I can't make it 'cause the wife's out of town or she's been sick or the boy's been sick, and I've had to stay in. She's been back for two weeks, and sick for all of it, and now she's been called down to Latin America again, on short notice, and will be flying out tomorrow morning for a week...which means no game for me this week either. So I'm...what...one gaming session in a month? And I've got four or five things I'm trying to test? That makes for a very sloooow publishing process, even as I've managed to find some time to write it all up.

Not that my life is bad, folks...I'm not so stupid as to say I'd trade it for anything. I'm just venting my frustration. Frustration is a feeling...we all have feelings, regardless of what logic dictates we should be experiencing feeling-wise.

Anyway, I could be concentrating on KWN and play-testing it, but I actually allowed my frustration to get the better of me about 5 or 6 weeks ago, and so went back to working on 5AK...not to mention a 1-2 week stint with DMI supers...um, Legendary Might, right? Um, yeah...that was the most recent name. Anyway I could be concentrating on KWN, and I'm not, and that's leading to the project gathering dust on the shelf which is the first part of my shame.

The second part is...after reading Jay's posts...maybe I'm doing it all wrong. Maybe I don't know space opera the way I should...at least, if I want to write a space opera supplement for X-Plorers.

Ugh...the problem I have, or that I suspect that I have (and that I've had for awhile) is that I take myself too goddamn seriously. Or rather, I don't take myself too seriously (anymore...it was a different story fifteen or eighteen years ago), but I take my WORK (that is the stuff I'm writing, game-wise) too seriously. Like, the subject matter, silly as it is, needs to be treated with some high degree of sanctification or dignity or something. Like, I'm not allowed to put specific rules for capes into my game even though I was considering it for DMI (and even though Jay has totally come up with a slick way to do just that in his space opera campaign.

What makes me have such a stick up my ass? It's like I'm trying to do a Jedi version of Dogs In The Vineyard or something using a B/X chassis (actually, I've often thought DitV would make the ideal vehicle for a Jedi-centric space opera game, but I've...duh...just never been able to find the time to try it; plus, ship-to-ship combat would be problematic). Anyway, part of why space opera kicks ass is its super-duper wahoo factor...and there is very little "wahoo" to be found in my KWN supplement. Or rather, "none." That would be a better way to describe it.

So I'm feeling a little shame...a little for letting the project slide, especially when it's so near to completion, and from doing it in a terribly serious fashion, as I seem to do with ALL my games. I purposefully tried to make my fantasy cyberpunk game more "over-the-top" but OTT for me is still pretty staid and serious, I'm afraid. I mean, compared to some things out there...it's probably NOT as serious as Shadowrun itself (which it apes), but well...never mind. I was talking about space opera. And shame.

*sigh*

I have an interview for a promotional opportunity Monday at my regular job-job, and I don't think I even have a damn suit that fits me anymore, it's been so long since I had to wear a tie or button-up shirt that you "tuck in." And I don't even really want the gig, because it will mean I need to commute downtown again and learn a whole new skill set and deal with all new people in a managerial/adversarial position, plus possibly be working longer hours with less time to write. On the other hand, I'd make more money. Frigging money. And the only thing really on my mind right now is space opera.

Crap.

I really need to get a couple more of these books finished/published.

Okay, that's all for now. Thank goodness tomorrow is Sunday. Maybe I'll drop Diego off with Grandma for a couple hours and go write. Like at the bar.

@ Jay: You are not late to the party, man. You ARE the party. Keep up the good work, and maybe I'll be buying your book.

P.S. Want to play-test a 40+ page supplement?

Space Opera = Capes

My wife has a fairly awful flu bug at the moment, which caused me to be a bit late to my play-test last night (it also had me up till 1:30am with the boy, and then missing the first half of today’s work day in an “emergency child care” capacity…Friday is usually Mom’s day to watch the hijo). Fortunately (unfortunately), I only had one player show up for the evening session, so the total number of people I disappointed was minimal.

Of course, when it’s just Josh and me at the table, we often end up bullshitting for most of the session anyway. Don’t get me wrong...I love digressing off into tangential meanderings in person as much as I do on a blog post. But my normal disposition leads me to drunken rambling in buddy-buddy situations, and fun as that is, I do have some objectives regarding game design and whatnot.

Still, it WAS productive...Josh made a psychic (think “Jedi”) character at my request and just talking through the class abilities was useful, helping me articulate what and how the powers functioned. I was also able to bounce ideas off him regarding jettisoning the fringer/survivalist class which always seems to pop up during game sessions and which just doesn’t work for me in a non-one-off session. Oh, yeah…and we decided Beast Handler is just a stupid, stupid “special ability” (think “feat”) to have in a space game. Not sure what I’ll replace it with, but it’s just dumb for a game set (mostly) in space rather than planet-side. After all, beasts only really come in two shades in the space opera genre: trusty riding mounts and hungry antagonists. The idea behind the feat was the ability to turn the latter into the former…but that kind of defeats the point of the GM including them in a game session, doesn’t it?

Besides “lion taming” is better handled with the heart suit (think “charisma/Reaction”) anyway.

We also talked quite a bit about Star Wars in general, prompted by the recent news of Lucas-Disney and my recent reading of The Secret History of Star Wars. One of the (few) virtues Josh was willing to extol on the original films/Lucas productions was the art direction that (aside from haircuts) give the films an extremely timeless-classic visual quality. Although, he admits, the films might only appear timeless due them having such a dramatic impact on our psyches at a young age (in effect coloring “the look of Sci-Fi” for years to come thereafter), he can’t help but feel a lot of other sci-fi films over the years have appeared “dated” or poorly age compared to the old Star Wars trilogy. It doesn’t have the gaudy outfits and crazy headgear found in the old Flash Gordon space opera-types, for instance. To which I replied:

“What the hell is more Flash Gordon than dudes wearing capes in space?”

Capes abound throughout the Star Wars universe. With the exception (perhaps) of The Phantom Menace, there is a new caped individual to be found in each film of the series…whether you’re talking Vader or Lando or Luke (in Return of the Jedi) or Dooku or Grievous, I would say the presence of capes is a defining (if nonsensical) part of the art and visual style of Star Wars.

I mean, really…why does Grievous need a cape? Does his cyborg body get cold? His fleshy parts consist of a couple internal organs in a metal torso…all he needs is a hot plate or heating coil! Don’t tell me it’s to better carry his lightsabers: it’s called “wear a weapon harness,” dude. The cape is total show and visual space opera. It’s flourish.

Same with Count Dooku. All this crap I read in the D20 games or the wookiepedia about him wearing some sort of “armor-weave” cape…like it’s body armor? For what…back protection? It doesn’t cover his head or any of his 6’5” torso from the front. Is it supposed to guard against back-shooting? Isn’t Dooku a Jedi Master and thus presumably aware of such threats to his person?

Let’s just face facts…people wear capes in Star Wars because it’s space opera and opera of any stripe is fond of the cape. In Star Wars (and it’s equivalent) the cape signifies a badass, pure and simple.

What? You think Lando was chopped liver next to Han Solo? Need I remind you that he was the ruler of his own mining colony, not to mention the original owner of the Falcon, tough enough to fly it after years of “rust” and blow up the 2^nd Death Star? Did you forget he had the balls to talk his way onto Jabba’s payroll with little more than a snaggletooth mask and a force pike? Not to mention all Lando’s natural charm and swagger…there’s a guy who earns a cape.

Frankly, I’ve decided that capes are as deep a part of space opera (and Star Wars, and SW-knock-offs) as weird-ass headgear is to Old School D&D. After our (tipsy) conversation last night I’ve been spending the day considering ways to work capes (and the earning thereof) into my DMI space opera game…though only for the serious ass-kickers, of course.

[by the way…happy Dia de los Muertos!]

No Armor in Space

Just a quick note as Monday's a holiday (which means a long weekend for me, i.e. one in which I spend the whole time at home and don't get any writing accomplished) since I have other things I need to pound out on Ye Old Keyboard before I leave for the day:

Armor in space games is kind of ridiculous.

At least in Heroic Space Opera of the Cinematic Variety. How many space heroes on the screen actually wear any kind of armor? Buck Rogers? Flash Gordon? The Star Wars crew? Starfleet Federation officers?

No, no...even when Luke and Han don stormtrooper outfits, it's quickly removed at the first breather they get on the Death Star. Why?

Well, the cinematic reason is: so the audience can see the actors.

But what's the "justified" reason? It must be that the disadvantages outweigh gain, right? Or something like that, anyway.

Most space opera RPGs include some sort of personal body armor, even the non-military ones (and to be clear, I'm not saying it ain't appropriate for the Warhammer 40K universe...but that's a wargame, after all, not really cinematic heroic space opera...) including Star Wars (all editions), Traveller, Stars Without Number...hell, even Star Frontiers had "skeinsuits" and albedo armor. Though how a dralasite would squeeze into such stuff is a little tough to visualize...

Anyway, I'm not sure yet exactly how to model this in my space opera game, but I've decided that it's about time I do. And MY game didn't have anything besides light and heavy armor anyway! But I think I'm going to make armor

a) not very useful (it already has 0 value in protecting against energy weapons; see Exhibit A: Stormtroopers)
b) requiring a skill or class-based ability to use effectively (Zoe in Firefly wears a bullet-proof vest under her flannel, but she's a warrior archetype. You don't see the others sporting that kind of gear).

Okay, just an update on what I'm thinking about...now back to the rest of my day. Cheers!
: )

Success

Some mornings you just can’t find the right pithy phrase to name a blog post. Today, I’m just going to go simple.

Last night was round 2 of play-testing for my space game. Again, I was limited to two players (of four) players due to prior commitments. Also again I was operating on very limited sleep…about two to three hours…and a loooong work day. And, yes, while I stayed away from the whiskey, I did quaff (most of) a pitcher of beer…

BUT, I am going to call the game session successful. Much more so than last week. In fact, I’d say it went better than any prior iteration of the card mechanic RPG (Out of Time, MDR) due to certain changes I instituted…namely, the need to spend cards to utilize ANY thing more than “average effort” in a success check.

This had all the desirable types of results I was looking for:

• Cards got spent and played, depending on the “stakes” necessary
• In turn, this led to decreased effectiveness over time as resources ran slim. This is the way I had originally envisioned the game being played, but previously the dice mechanic was too “easy” with players steering tests into areas of high suits and not needing to expend cards for extra success. NOW they do the same thing, but once the cards are spent, they have to switch to a different “arena” (where they still have cards).
• Players were forced to use different avenues to accomplish tasks (see the last note) because of running low on cards. This was also how I imagined the game being played, and forcing card expenditure accomplished this, causing players to take different tactics when one suit ran low.
• The use of cards provided the “game balance” I was looking for…as one player ran low on cards, the other player was forced to step in and step up. Perfect…everyone gets their turn in the spotlight.
• Doing the card play in this way made ALL the cards important. Whereas before players would short suit themselves during character creation to keep a bunch of Aces and faces, now having “depth” in a particular suit is just as important (if not moreso)…at least if you, as a player, are attached to a particular style of play. For example, if you want to solve problems with your fists, you better have a bunch of clubs. Heron had a single Ace of Spades and had to hold on to it until he REALLY needed it since it was his only spade. This was cool…though now I’m thinking a 7 card hand might be better than 6.
• Or Not: Drive points (given as a reward for role-playing certain aspects of your character) can be utilized much like cards. By limiting the cards in a player’s hand, it forces them to complicate themselves in order to “regain effectiveness.” This makes for interesting play, and I imagine it will come faster and easier as players get more comfortable with the concept (I hope).
• The complication die/card draw (what Josh calls “the calamity die”) worked well in practice, helping to add depth to a roughly sketched scenario…in addition to being fun.

Since the wholesale change of the system turned out to be so effective, it means I will need to rewrite much of what I’ve previously written (doh), AND I will also have to re-tool many of the character advantages (double-doh), and probably the entire credit/purchase system (triple-doh!). However, that’s a small price to pay for sporting a system that does what the game designer (me) wants it to do…pretty exciting stuff, in my opinion. It was a great session from my perspective and the only thing that kept me from being more giddy was my extreme fatigue and the knowledge that I would have another looong night with sick baby once I got home.

[and I did, too]

Some other random thoughts of things learned from last night’s playtest:

Classes work well with the system, even the new rules. Unfortunately, for long term play some of the classes seem mutually exclusive. For instance, Josh’s “mole man” (a fringer/survivor with a home environment advantage of “space station”) worked great for this session that happened to be ON a space station…but Heron’s spacer pilot didn’t get to do a whole helluva’ lot of flying. And if they HAD taken off in Heron’s ship, what would Josh have done? The key may be a lot of cut scenes and environmental (scene) changes…or possibly finding a way for PCs to operate towards the end of a single scenario objective even when separated. Think Return of the Jedi (Luke’s on the Death Star, Han and Leia are on Endor, Lando flying the space mission).

NPCs (named versus mook) worked well enough for me, but needs to be even MORE simplified. This may just be my own leftover baggage from wanting “major villains” to be as competent as PCs (think my favorite Star Wars baddie, Count Dooku, who kicks an incredible amount of ass). However, there are ways to do this withOUT assigning cards. I’m going to have to mull over this.

ALSO (regarding NPCs), I have a rule about bestowing names on NPCs automatically gives them significance and importance. This actually came into play during the session, when Heron christened some nameless mook “Butt-Boy” (or something equally descriptive). Under the terms of the rules I should have dealt him some cards and converted him to a “major NPC;” instead I skipped the step as it was too complicated for the quickfire action of the time. In retrospect, I think dealing a “named” mook a single card (and assigning hit points) would have been an easier, simpler way of accomplishing what I wanted. I’m going to have to mull over this as well.

Frenetic pace and lavish card spending was definitely the way to go. I think Josh had more fun doing this then he had in previous sessions (he tried both Out of Time and MDR). He definitely seemed more engaged in the action of the game…but then, he was also digging hard on his mole man character (“Jub-Jub”).

Finally, although it’s a space opera trope to have the occasional alien protagonist, I’m thinking of making non-human PCs a completely optional side rule, and getting rid of the Jokers all together (dammit! I forgot about the Jokers!...they need to be revamped for the rule changes, too!). It’s just more fun to do “humans in space” and keep the aliens as NPCs or sidekicks (sorry, Spock). Even a weird human (like Jub-Jub) is easier to grasp (as a concept) and relate to than a “mostly human” type o character. Dralasites and vrusk are cool and all, but…well, I don’t know. It’s another thing I’m going to have to think about.

All right, that’s enough debriefing for now. I’ll be working on the space game over the holidays (hopefully getting some writing done in Mexico)…at least when I’m not pestering my artists to get their submissions in for the new book. I don’t plan on doing another space opera play-test till 2011 (got to get back to Heron’s BX game and I understand the DCC experiment may be finally over as well…we’ll see what’s up next down at the Mox)…but you never know. It’s certainly possible that we’ll run another session before Christmas.

Cheers!
: )

Rough Thursday Outing

Thursday night's play test didn't go nearly as well as I had hoped. We were shy a couple people anyway, but the chargen process took much longer than I anticipated. In addition, the characters that got created turned out to be much more exciting/interesting than the scenario I'd written up for the play test.

I think the main thing that didn't work, though was ME...I was coming off my third (fourth?) night of less than 4 hours sleep, and shooting a whisky to start the evening was a stupid, stupid idea (especially as I'd had a beer earlier with dinner, but I was watching a pretty good Seahawks game). By the time I'd been slurring along for a couple hours, my energy was completely sapped...and being less than enthused for my own adventure (not to mention, being two weeks out from when I'd initially written it...so I didn't remember it all that well), made it a less-than-memorable event.

I think I need to fall back on the old space opera trope of starting in media res...you know, an action sequence with blasters firing and starships swooping and all that jazz? Or maybe not...I mean, if the session is supposed to play like a symphony, shouldn't it start slow and build to a crescendo?

(*sigh*)

My players have been generous enough to give me one more week of play testing as we didn't make it very far last session. I shall be re-tooling the adventure between then and now to "spice things up."

One thought that's been drumming on my mind, I think there may be too many cards in play. OR maybe there just isn't enough incentive to use them. Ugh...have to ponder this, but it sure seems like guys with a good hand really don't need to expend all that many cards (unless they're taking damage in a fight...and the smart money can find ways to avoid fights). I'm going to have to think about this...I really, really want cards to get spent in play.

Maybe I need to charge characters a "toll" card for ANY action that requires a roll. Or any action where they wish to roll more than one die. Hmmm...something to consider.

Done With Wounds

[I realize the last couple posts have been a bit "whimsical;" sorry, but I'm easing my way back into the whole blogging thang...]

Previously when considering alternative combat systems to B/X, I put forth the idea of cutting out attack rolls altogether. At the time, my reasoning was this: one works so hard, sometimes damn hard (at low levels) to even hit some critter, then you just roll a “1” for damage anyway? Wouldn’t the monster lose 1 hit point (call it “fatigue”) just dodging all those previous “missed” attacks?

The idea was “just roll damage.” And while I still see SOME merit to the idea, I never bothered to implement if for two reasons: A) too complex and B) too slow. Fact is, B was directly caused by A, and since part of my whole thing was “making combat faster,” well…you see how it goes.

So now, I’m working (working, working…oh so busy!) on my space opera game and I’m kind of looking at combat through the opposite lens of the spectrum; namely, do we really need damage rolls?

No, really. Do we?

Now, I will be the first to argue (and have argued in the past) that random, abstract damage (especially in an “all D6 damage” world) is not only desirable but downright realistic…or as close to realism as one might come, representing damage in an abstract fashion. Sometimes a sword nicks you, sometimes it runs you through your gizzard, and only heroic luck (i.e. “high level hit points”) is going to save you from the well-placed blade.

Good. Great, even. For a game like D&D. How about a space opera game, like one that might model Star Wars?

Let’s take a look at this: in the films we see a lot of blaster fire traded between protagonists and their opponents. Sometimes there are misses, sometimes there are hits. How many times does an enemy stormtrooper get tagged and say, “whew, that was close…just a flesh wound.”

Um, never. Getting hit by a blaster is a “no one gets up from that” kind of proposition.

In fact, there are only two instances (in all six films) where a character is hit by blaster fire and survives (no, Grievous doesn’t count…he was toast with the first shot; Obi was just being a sadist when it came to shooting him again). The first time occurs in Return of the Jedi when Luke gets tagged in his cyborg hand on-board Jabba’s sail-barge. The second time is Leia during the battle of Endor. Neither hit puts our heroes out of the fight…or even slows 'em down much.

By contrast, everone else who gets tagged by blaster fire is dead-dead-dead. At least, if they did survive, their recovery took place “off camera;” we never saw their faces again.

Blasters are freaking deadly…makes one wonder why stormtroopers even bother wearing armor (hint: see the rock-throwing natives on Endor). But this is pretty much par for the course when it comes to “lasers” or energy weapons in space opera. I don’t remember anyone in the original Battlestar Galactica ever walking away from a laser burn…and victims of a phaser in Star Trek tend to be burned to a crisp (unless the weapon was “set to stun”).

So why do you even need a damage roll for a space opera game? Characters are hit (and killed) or missed and fine…OR characters are heroic protagonists that aren’t killed by weapons fire.

That’s right, the same rules do NOT apply to player characters…because in space opera, PCs are really and truly larger-than-life heroes. Whether we’re talking Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon or Luke Skywalker or Mr. Kinnison and family from the Lensmen series.

If we don’t need damage rolls (and I’m telling you right now I think we do NOT), if we don't need damage rolls, do we need hit points?

I’m starting to come to the conclusion that the answer is “no.”

How do you want to kill your opponent? With a blaster? With a lightsaber? With a curvy knife (a la Vin Diesel as Riddick)? The question, for the most part, is not “how much damage do you do?” And that kind of quantitative one-upsmanship is the kind of TWINK QUESTION that just starts the whole game on a downhill slope towards 4th edition and their “one encounter per session” system.

No, the question is more (or should be): can you get things done? Can you rescue the princess? Can you blow up the Death Star? Can you free your buddy from the bounty hunter’s clutches? Can you take out the Sith Lord in hand-to-hand combat?

There seems to be three types of mortal combat that need to be accurately modeled in order to make the space opera game work, and none of them really require hit points or damage rolls:

Shooting scrapes: blowing holes in each other with guns. One Shot = One Kill…but characters (PCs) can get off a number of shots and get a number of kills. As Han Solo said, “Pray they don’t have blasters.” Because folks with blasters tend to put people in the ground.

Starship combat: more involved in some ways because ships can take various amounts of damage with decreasing functionality before being destroyed. At least the good guys’ ships (and some of the bad guys’ ships, too). Back when my space opera game was still B/X based, I had an excellent way of modeling this…now I’m thinking it may need to be worked out along different lines, more similar to personal combat.

Sword duels and hand-to-hand combat: mano-a-mano, that’s what it eventually boils down to, right? Whether we’re talking Skywalker versus Vader or Malcolm Reynolds versus the Nameless Agent or Shatner versus Lloyd the Klingon, eventually you get up-close-and-personal with your nemesis and forced to “duke it out.” Jockeying for advantage, wearing down your opponent, looking for that chink in the other’s defenses…that’s a bunch different from simply shooting a hole in the target.

Certainly with laser blades, the chaff can be reaped as easily as with a repeating blaster (see Skywalker versus Jabba’s goons or any of the prequel Jedi versus the droid army). Against a similarly armed opponent with a bit of moxie, though, things get a lot dicey-er. If one actually bothers to time out the action sequences in the Star Wars films (and a Big Nerd like myself has, let me tell you), the personal combats can be broken down fairly easily into 10 second “beats” (or as we call it in the B/X business, “rounds”). The final fight between Dooku and Obi-Wan/Anakin takes 9 beats (90 seconds) from start to finish. Between Mace and Sidious the fight lasts approximately 8 beats (plus 4 beats of electro-shock therapy). The final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan on Mustafar takes roughly 20 beats depending on how you count time during the cut-away scenes with Yoda.

The thing about these duels is that there IS damage taking place, even before the final “cut” (that singular blow that severs limb or torso or whatnot)…generally, there are body blows and telekinetic slams and falls and bruises and bloodying. Again, though, this type of drawn out combat only takes place with prominent antagonists. Jango Fett has no problems gunning down a nameless Jedi at close range and Obi-Wan slashes through multiple droids with a single sweep of his blade.

Anyhoo, that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately (the last 48 hours or so)…having hit “points” gives you the ability (from a design perspective) to do a bunch of fun, crunchy math bits with the numbers…but is it necessary for game play? Does it FACILITATE game play? See, if it doesn’t, maybe it needs to be thrown out. I’m tired of all these “default RPG presumptions.”

Hell, I already got rid of “initiative” for the game.
; )

Star Wars Canon

I’ll admit it: this is probably a retarded (as in “silly” post), but this is what I’m thinking about today. It was a looooong weekend (especially for Seattle sports fans), I am still physically and mentally exhausted. My brain is operating a little tangentially right now.

I was reading up on SW “canon” today…that is, what is considered “official” material that feeds into the Star Wars universe versus what isn’t…and I’ve got a couple new (or newish) thoughts on the matter.

#1: Wow, most EU folks really missed the boat on this licensing thing, and

#2: F it…that is, the non-film material can all go to hell for all I care.

I shall, of course, endeavor to explain myself a bit.

First, understand that I am a purchaser and enjoyer of plenty of non-film, EU material…I’ve read several of the novels, I own more than a few comics (or compilations) and I have owned (and continue to own) much of the RPG material put out by both West End Games and WotC. In other words, I have put my money down in support of the creative effort (as well as given an investment of my time in reading and rereading this stuff). So while my statements may seem dismissive please understand this isn’t coming from any place of disgruntlement…there IS an entertainment and artistic value in these works, in and of themselves. I’m not a total cretin.

So, then, let’s get to the point.

As far as George Lucas is concerned, the only “true canon” of Star Wars are the films he’s created and the story they tell. Everything else is…well, he doesn’t say it outright, but basically it’s “fan fiction” as far as he’s concerned. He’ll mine it for ideas, but the “Bible” he uses in making his films consists of A) his own mind, and B) his own films.

Now, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate the creative effort. It just means that, in his mind, those people creating additional Star Wars stories are doing so in a “parallel universe.” Or a parallel continuity, if you will. To GL, the Star Wars universe is a big playground, he doesn’t mind others playing in it (so long as he receives his cut), and he’s not so concerned with how it interacts with itself or with his films, so long as everyone groks that his feature films are THE end-all-be-all.

Lucas has also stated that the way other writers have written the further adventures/histories of his own characters are NOT how he would have done them. But again, this doesn’t bother him as it’s all happening in a separate, parallel continuity…in his own, the Emperor is never clones/returned to life, Luke never gets married, Coruscant is happy and celebratory, not blown-up and destroyed, etc. But what the “enthusiasts” do with his mythology is fine and dandy…again, so long as he gets his cut.

Personally, I think GL has come to a place in relationship to his IP where he realizes he can’t stop the enthusiasts from doing their own fanfic, so he licenses his IP to them and outsources the management of the material to others (like those Holocron folks) to keep it all running. Isn’t that better (and in the long run, more fun) than trying to sue people? Plus, he retains authority to say, “only *I* can make feature films, and only I say what is true to MY fantasy’s reality.”

Which is as it should be, by the way: it IS his baby, his creation. People who have made money off the franchise with their own “contributions” (from Timothy Zahn to Dark Horse to whomever) are simply riding the coattails of George Lucas rather than create their own sci-fi opuses. And why not? It’s great business strategy to hop into an already existing ginormous (and seemingly indefatigable) fan base. That is money in the bank.

All right, so now to my two thoughts listed above:

#1: Missed opportunities. Why the hell do these authors continue to use and recycle the same characters over and over again? Luke, Han, Leia, Anakin, Mace, Obi-Wan, etc. etc…if Lucas is going to allow you to play in his “universe,” why not turn out stories that have ZERO to do with the stuff in the films. After all, it doesn’t matter anyway, right?

Instead, most authors add something from the films to their material: Boba Fett or the original heroes or the various bit-part Jedi “Masters” (it’s hard to give the title to characters like Aayla Secura and Ki-Adi Mundi after watching them get so easily punked by, basically, stormtroopers), or Jabba or whatever. It’s like they’re namedropping rather than doing anything else. Hell, even using the “Skywalker genealogy” (the great-great-grandchildren, etc.) is silly. Sure, there is a theme of parent-to-child inheritance in the films (Jango to Boba, Anakin to Luke, Yoda to Dooku to Qui-Gonn to Obi-Wan)…but then make those themes with your own characters, not recycled lineages.

Granted, some EU creators HAVE done things without recycling characters from the films: the Knights of the Old Republic video game and its spin-offs (in comic and novel) is probably the best example. But there’s not enough of that, in my opinion. I mean check out what Star Wars has:

- Jedi (and everything that goes with it; lightsabers, Force, etc.)
- Sith (Ditto)
- Hyperdrive, droids, and blasters
- Smugglers, gamblers, and bounty hunters
- System-spanning intrigue, drama, and conflict

What more do you need to write a tale of space operatic adventure? You don’t need Skywalkers and Solos; you don’t need to keep making backwater Tattooine somehow a central hub of the galaxy. You don’t need to deal with the Empire and the Rebellion and their conflict. Hell, you only need to worry about the Republic because it’s “a thousand years old” (a pretty long timespan), but Lucas’s films make it pretty clear there are sectors outside of Republic authority (Hoth, Bespin, Dagobah, Tattooine…hmm, most of the film locations in the original trilogy, I guess).

Which brings me to my thought #2: Screw it…all of it. And I do mean ALL of it, including the otherwise interesting/brilliant KotOR stuff. If Lucas is content to ignore that which doesn’t pertain to his story, why shouldn’t I (or anyone else) do the same…all of that stuff is simply fan fic in the Star Wars universe. There is no need for “continuity” except as so far as keeping hardcore completionists (and Lucas Licensing) happy. Why not just junk it?

For that matter, why not simply junk Lucas’s own story (and its characters/plot/drama) as well? Or rather, take it as it is: a single 40-or-so year span of time in a many-thousand year galactic history…and one that occurred “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” The blink of an eye really…and only a single story of a single family (the Skywalkers) in what is surely a galaxy made of trillions of inhabitant families, each with their own stories.

Yeah, just like those ones in the Ewok movie.

In writing a space opera RPG based in large part on Star Wars (and its Expanded Universe) I find that I’ve been going about it the hard way: trying to create a simple space fantasy game that provides rules allowing for the incorporation of a metric ton of “Star Wars stuff.” Totally ridiculous, really. All I need is a game that includes the earlier components listed (with the trademarked serial numbers filed off) and then give folks the tools they need to create their own SW-like adventures…which, by the way, is NOT the same as giving people a book of rules, and saying “go do it,” with-or-without “helpful inspirational fiction” included in the text (*barf*).

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking about today. It takes my mind off the really terrible football games of the weekend.

Artistic Exploitation

While I'm not quite ready to start accepting artwork submissions for my un-named "space game," I DO want compile a list of interested persons wanting to contribute. Here are the specifics:

- At this time, the presumption is the game will be in a similar format to my B/X Companion; i.e. 64 pages, black & white interior, full color cover.

- The Companion had 27 illustrations, plus the cover leaf, plus the cover. Over-all, that's not a whole lot of room for drawings and it's quite possible the new game will have LESS room, depending on how good I am at stream-lining the rules. That means there ain't a whole lot of room for artists, so get on the boat now if interested.

- Payment: I feel a little bad about not paying anyone anything for the last project; though not TOO bad (it's not like I took a trip to Hawaii with the profits!). Still, I understand some folks would prefer to be paid for their work in cash rather than free product. Last time, I gave a book to anyone who had at least three submissions accepted. This time, I'm thinking $5-10 per submission, based on size of illustration OR a free book with three to four decent-sized pieces. This is for the interior B&W pieces only; anyone interested in doing the cover leaf (also black & white but expected to be friggin' awesome) or the color cover can negotiate with me via email. However, my budget IS limited (there ain't going to be any "pre-order" on this thing).

- Artwork must be original and not-previously-used-or-sold. You retain the rights to your artwork and are free to re-sell it once the book comes out; I get to use it in my book without anyone complaining or hitting me with a lawsuit.

- Stylistically sound: all artwork should be "serious" in tone, though you might change my mind with a particularly cool piece. Spacecraft, aliens, robots, adventurers, weird tech, planets, ship battles or "scenes" - all are fair game. If your specialty is in fantasy work rather than SciFi, you may STILL want to submit stuff...antenna-ed Amazons with spears mounted on bipedal lizards in a jungle setting might be perfectly suitable for some planets. This is a "space opera" game after all, not hard SciFi. On the other hand, I don't want any damn "cat people." Period.

- Lastly, I don't want ANY submissions yet. If you are interested in contributing to this project, please email me at my contact email address. Once the book is complete, I will contact the people who are interested, and put out another submission request here at the blog. Again, if you are interested in doing the FULL COLOR COVER or B&W COVER LEAF please state your interest in the email. Right now, I don't have an idea for what I want these to look like; if YOU have an idea, please feel free to bounce the idea off me.

All right...back to work.

: )

Friday Morning Updates

Ugh. Day old rice pudding...pretty pathetic stuff, even heated up. The wife told me not to eat it (she said it didn't turn out right), but it's still carbs. And I need some energy...I've got a busy day a head of me.

Last night I went into our Thursday night game mostly unprepared (well, I had a couple D&D scenarios but I didn't have "back-up scenarios" for other games I brought). It went fairly well, and set up a nice little game for next week (when I hope to have more people back)...but last night was a missed opportunity that I'm lamenting a bit this morning.

I got a request to play my space game.

Now, of course, several of my players read the blog (though they're polite enough not to start any heated discussions on the topics posted here) so I should have figured there might be at least a little interest in the game I've been discussing in roundabout fashion lately...curiosity if nothing else. These cats at the Baranof table are a fairly eclectic bunch (in the past I've had the misfortune to run into players who were solely devoted to one game or another to the point of not be willing to TRY anything new). If I needed 'em I have several ready and willing play-testers at hand.

But I was unprepared to field such a request. I've got no "quick start" version of the game, no player introductions, no print-outs of any type. The game even has the stuff for "instant adventure creation" so it's possible I could have put something together on the fly...but my NPC/monster section isn't even close to being completed. And as I said, everything's still on the computer (well, flash drive actually) and I don't bring a laptop to my Thursday night games.

[Bleah! The rice pudding is terrible! There should not be "crunchy chunks!"]

So today, I'm going to try to put together some stuff for the "space game" (yes, it has a name...I'm just not ready to reveal it yet). I have a lot of other chores to do around the house as well...but I won't bore you with THOSE details. Right now, I'm heading off to the bank, post office, and coffee shop. Got to get something to wash these carbs down with!

I'll post more later. I wrote a little something about Buddhism in Space and such (a SciFi follow up to my last post), but it's a little long and I want to look it over once before I post it.

Hasta!

Eureka! Space Battles R Us!

Okay…so I spent much of today figuring out how I wanted space ship combat to work. The good news? I got it done. The even better news? It makes me excited to play the damn thing.

Hoo-boy!

Right now, the rules aren’t in a “completed” form, just 5 or 6 pages of detailed notes and random tables….who knows how many pages this will blossom into once I’ve typed it up in a readable (and hopefully learnable format). I’m hoping it will take fewer than 8 pages (I’d sure like room for some examples!). However, they’re pretty simple, as well as fast…even faster than the old WEG Star Wars, if I did it correctly!

Wow…the boarding actions are cool, by the way. Not only does it model tractor beams with the same simple system as gun combat, I’ve got boarding actions a la Battlestar Galactica (the revised version)…you know, landing a squad of Colonial marines on an enemy ship with a Raptor transport? Dig it!

[MY Jedi don’t need no stinking R2 units to fight the “Clone Wars!”]

Anyhoo, I do have to write up the vehicle stats and run some scenarios to make sure it works all well and good. Getting the stats right will be important, as I don’t plan on including “vehicle creation” rules but want to have an adequate selection of models for people that want to do their own thang. One thing that helps…each vehicle has only three STATS and one CLASS. And there aren’t that many classes of vehicles (um, three to be exact). Well, each also has a number of weapon batteries, but I might even streamline that particular deal-i-o…we’ll see. Tomorrow, I’ve got the day off, so I’m thinking of putting together some LISTS for the game (specifically VEHICLES, MONSTERS, and EQUIPMENT). I mean, I have lists already, but I need to “fill in some blanks.”

Ooo-oo! It’s coming together, folks! Thanks to everyone who provided input on the subject over the last couple days.

: )

Battleships and Broadsides

Ugh. I am having a heck of a time writing starship rules for my space opera game and part of it comes down to simple (if figurative) schizophrenia…there are two or three different tacts to take when doing starship combat and I am having a darn tough time figuring out which I want.

Maybe I should let you folks decide for me.

Or maybe I should just “write it out.” Here’s how it breaks down (as far as I can categorize it):

#1 Old School Pirate: this is the “Age of Sail” transported into space. Warships try to maneuver close to each other to unleash “broadsides” (blasting the hell out of each other at close range due to heavy armor/force screens). Bringing one’s ship alongside another is preferred, as it allows more of the warships weapons to target more of the opponent’s hull. Boarding actions with tractor beams and assault vessels mimic the swashbuckling pirate movies of old.

In real world history, this type of action was rendered obsolete by advancement in better guns (longer range)…and certainly a sci-fi game with spewing lasers and plasma cannons might do the same. Still, we’re talking fictional super-science…who’s to say those cannons don’t need to get close enough to penetrate deflector shields or super-heavy durallium armor?

#2 World War II Dreadnoughts: Warships are more like Space Battleship Yamato, i.e. huge, armored, mobile gun platforms. In the early part of the 20th century, the main arms race was to build the biggest, bestest battleship. Heavily armored and bristling with big guns, these behemoths used radar and smaller observational ships to fire over the horizon line, devastating surface vessels. No broadside necessary, and no boarding action appropriate.

In real world history, battleships became obsolete due to ascendance (literally) of air superiority. Small fighter squadrons with bombs and torpedoes could sink even the largest battleships for a fraction of the cost, and aircraft carriers became the preeminent capital ships of today. In classic space opera stories Battlestar Galactica and Space Battleship Yamato (aka “Star Blazers”), we see this treatment with combo battleship/fighter-carriers.

#3 21st Century Futurist: let’s face facts: I’m really not up on current military technology or where it’s progressing. People actually working for Boeing or who are in the more technical combat ops areas of the U.S. military (or who read well-researched science fiction published for today’s sophisticated connoisseur) probably have a better idea of the “shape of space opera to come.”

But that’s not me…I was just trying to make a game I could use for Star Wars that wouldn’t suck.

[EDIT: actually, now that I think of it, a “21st century take” on ship battles would probably be similar to films like Avatar, Aliens, and Starship Troopers, a la “marines in space” where it’s all about the deployment of the infantry-style fighting force supported by gunship fire. However, I don’t consider these films to be very “space opera” in scope or depth]

And speaking of Star Wars…Lucas’s approach to starship combat is a hodge-podge of everything. Episode IV showcases the classic pirate boarding action and WWII dog-fights; episode VI shows Battle of Midway type action (battleships AND fighter squadrons), and Episode III shows pirate broadside action between the huge-ass capital ships. Not to mention it throws in Lensmen-style screens and lasers (excuse me “shields” not screens), not to mention tramp steamer exploration/adventure (echoed later in Weedon’s Firefly).

What a mess. I mean, it makes glorious cinema (as in “fun, visual spectacle”)…but role-playing isn’t cinema, and the object isn’t to make a nice movie but rather, have fun playing characters in a virtual, imaginary environment.

Which leads me more towards option #1, even though it makes the least amount of sense (if space opera can be assumed to make any sense at all). Even though I would like to model Star Blazers (who wouldn’t?) or the Lensmen’s galactic planet-launchers, a role-playing game…at least THIS role-playing game…eventually boils down to individual characters and the actions of those individual characters. And if those characters can’t get close enough to get in on the action…if they’re relegated to shooting cannon-fire against foes on opposite ends of the solar system…then the game is moving from one of heroic individuals to one of tactical ship maneuvers.

And there are already games that do that.

However, here’s the problem with going the “pirate” route: the role of star fighters, specifically, and individual heroes who specialize in the “ace pilot” skill category.

If capital ships are so heavily armored that they need to get up “close and personal” to be effective against each other, then what’s the point of having fighter craft at all? In WWII (against those battleships that were shooting at each other from miles and miles of distance), fighters were a speedy option of taking the fight (in the form of a battleship-sinking torpedo) to the enemy. Dog fights were fought because defending fighters would be used to repel these dive-bombers and ship-sinkers.

But if ships are so heavily armored/shielded that it takes a broadside from another warship to make a dent, then what effect will little fighters have? And if those little fighters are ineffective, then what’s the need of repelling fighters? And if you don’t have multiple sides of fighters, then where’s the dog-fighting?

Reviewing Lucas’s films for how he reconciled this mish-mash doesn’t help too much…except for the opening battle with the Tantive IV, all of the original trilogy seems to be in the WWII style and the ship battle of the prequel trilogy are all in the pirate style.

That is to say: in the prequel trilogy, the emphasis is getting the characters on-board the ships (boarding actions, close quarters work, NOT dog-fighting). Even the “space battle” at the end of the Phantom Menace is barely battle at all…instead, it A) attempts to parallel Anakin’s actions (blowing up a space base) with that of his son (Luke blowing up the Death Star), and B) does this by getting Anakin’s ship ON-BOARD the space station. In this regard the final “battle” is more like a space “obstacle course.”

The space battle over Coruscant in Revenge of the Sith is a large scale pirate battle with broadsides and boarding actions designed to get the heroes on-board the enemy pirate ship, so they can have a few Erol Flynn style sword fights.

Whereas the battle over Endor in Return of the Jedi is like watching the space version of Pearl Harbor or something. No one’s trying to get “on-board” anything, and fighters are dog-fighting and dive-bombing while long range laser blasts are blowing ships to Kingdom Come.

[by the way, I don’t consider the asteroid “battles” in Episodes II and V to be battles at all, but rather chase sequences, a la James Bond or any modern action movie chase sequence. “Chasing” in an RPG is simple enough to do, though as it generally comes down to dice-rolling, it’s important to have a good risk-reward system in order to provide the proper in-game tension]

Ugh! Lucas! But of course, it’s no use yelling at HIM…his creation is aimed at creating good cinema and spectacle, not in making sense. It’s ME that’s trying to come up with a particular consistent RPG universe.

Hmm…maybe I DO need to ignore the damn prequel trilogy…

[and just by the way…I’ve had the damn Star Blazers theme song stuck in my head for the last two days. How annoying is that?!]

Phantom Menace = D&D 4th Edition

One of my Thursday night players recently posted a comparison between Star Wars Episode I and 4th Edition D&D on their company blog. It's fairly funny, even if I have found myself with kinder thoughts for the prequel Star Wars films of late.

You'll notice that he mentions dying a lot in my games. Jeez, Randy...you never whine like that to my face!

; )

Sorry, for the lack of posts today...I say, "sorry" because I did have time to post and have just been lazy. Well, kind of...I've been doing research today on my space opera game, mainly attempting to figure out how I'm going to do starship combat. I know what I WANT it to be like, but I just need to figure out how to do it...I've been looking at a variety of different game systems (including the old WEG Star Warriors, SW Miniature Battles, board games, and existing RPGs), and, of course, the starship "fight scenes" in the various Star Wars movies. The end result? I'm going to have to knock-off my own rules, I'm afraid.

I also spent a bit of time checking out Mr. Maliszewski's Thousand Suns RPG today, down at Gary's. Is anyone playing this game right now? Just curious on what folks think of it.

All right; hopefully I'll have a more substantive post tomorrow. Hope people weren't too grumpy to be back at work today. Hey, New Year's is just around the corner!

: )

My Star Wars is Better Than Yours

(or rather, it WILL be...)

Yes, yes, yes...I have been terribly neglectful of my blog for the last week or so (and then the first thing I post is something about the NFL and Blood Bowl which I know goes over like a led zeppelin around here).

Well, I'm sorry. Kind of, anyway. I've actually written two or three posts that went on-and-on for pages and then...well, kind of fizzled before they actually got around to saying anything. Or perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for shaping them into anything coherent. I'll see about cleaning 'em up and getting 'em up this week.

But I've been busy with stuff and NOT Christmas shopping (Lord knows I don't have the extra scratch for that!). Right now, it looks like I'll be canceling this Thurday's Baranof game due to other commitments of a holiday nature...and just when everyone rolled up new characters, ready to go! (yes, we had some...*ahem*...deaths this last session) I'm such a bastard....

What I have been doing is working out the workings of my space opera RPG. No, it's not even close to being published...the bulk of the book still needs to be written, for goodness sake! However, it turns out that I had quite a bit of, well, game design that needed to be done. You know, rules and mechanics and such?

So, well, it looks like I've gotten nearly all of the hash settled, so-to-speak. Not to be too cryptic or whatever, but I've been working on a new experience system for about...oh...the last year or so. And I finally, FINALLY got all of that settled up today. Finally. Sheesh.

Now if I can just get it written in a coherent text fashion, this thing will be money.

So having gotten that out-o-the-way, I'm early done with the "rules" stuff. Chargen, check. Psychic powers, check. Basic game mechanics (including combat rules), check. "Monsters"...well, I got a list with some basic stats typed up. Still need costs for equipment (which is kind of funny since my game doesn't have any kind of money in it...long story). And then tighten down adventure creation.

Man, that last part is (after "advancement mechanics") probably the ugliest part of the game design stew. So many games skimp on this section which (for me personally) has often led to frustration with trying to figure how to run a game. It is NOT enough to just make assumptions about that kind of thing...and yet this is often what designers do.

And because of that, I'm having to pull from a bunch of different games for info/ideas on "adventure creation." Both editions of WEG Star Wars as well as Saga Edition. Star Frontiers. The Dying Earth RPG. And I should probably take a gander at Maelstrom and Albedo (more the former than the latter for what I want).

Actually, just reading the source material is yielding good stuff. Picked up copies of Dark Empire I and II (the Dark Horse graphic novels) as well as some other Dark Horse Star Wars Compilations (a Sith "omnibus" and some big pile of goodness starring my man Count Dooku). Also picked up Children of the Lens, and am rooting around for some of my brother's old Dreadstar comics...all very excellent sources of inspiration. It's remarkable just how inspiring comic books can be. Even if the stories are bad or contrived or cheesy, the artwork can still give you plenty of ideas and fire the imagination. Really wish I could find a copy of the old Harlan Ellison Night and the Enemy graphic novel...

Anyhoo, the game is coming along, and it shouldn't be too long before I have a solid outline of the book (64 pages, one more time) and a fistful of pages. I'll try to provide more progress reports (as well as examples and excerpts) as the project continues. And I will try to blog more.

Jeez...I even lost a follower this week. It has been slow around here!

; )

Damn...Procrastination is a Bitch...

Back in August (on the 19th to be exact), I posted that I was starting a couple new projects, including a B/X reinterpretation of the old Bard Games' The Compleat Adventurer. Along with the Land of Ash campaign setting for B/X, I figured this would be a relatively simple writing project, seeing as how most of it would collecting various essays, random charts, and "new" B/X class write-ups (my "personal favorites" as commentator DHBoggs astutely noted) that have already been posted to the blog over the last year or so.

And it STILL looks like it would be a simple writing project (especially when I'm figuring it will only come in at 40 pages or so)...I just haven't gotten around to doing it.

Fact of the matter is, "real life" has been plenty crazy the last four months, and free time for writing has been astoundingly limited, often relegated to an even lower priority due to "research" considerations.

What the hell is "research?" Oh, you know...scouring used bookstores for old novels (and reading them), comic book stores for inspiring graphic novels, game shops for various games to review their design aspects, and re-watching films I've already seen a dozen times...not to mention combing blogs, web forums, and such for additional ideas.

The last two days for example, I spent quite a bit of time reviewing the old Forge articles on Narrativism and Simulationism, specifically with regard to game design principles (not so much for creative agenda stuff). Ugh...slow going to say the least; even having read the Forge essays multiple times in the past, it can be hard to wrap one's mind around specific semantics if you haven't been involved in the conversation for awhile (for example, if you've been playing and blogging about old school D&D for the last year and a half).

But it's good to read this stuff again...already it makes me reconsider a lot of the basic design choices I had for my space opera game. For example, how much do I want it to be a game of rip-roaring adventure (a la Flash Gordon or the original Star Wars) and how much do I want it to be able to address Star Wars-esque moral premises like

- Is the life of one's friends worth more than the cause for which those friends fight? (The Empire Strikes Back)

- Does love and marriage override one's loyalty to a political cause? (Revenge of the Sith)

And here's the thing: I can see multiple ways to design a space opera game (either as a rip-roarer or a premise-addresser), but trying to design a game that does both is a sure way to invite design incoherence. Why half-ass it two ways when you can go whole hog towards one?

And then, while I'm having that silly, internal debate (does anyone care besides you, JB?) the real bitch of procrastination rears its ugly head...namely, I'm being out-paced by folks with similar projects that are more focused than myself.

For example, my "simple B/X supplement" project seems to have been preempted somewhat by Joseph's (of Greyhawk Grognard) Adventures Dark & Deep project. Of course, Joseph's is a LOT more ambitious than my proposed stunt...four volumes, a re-imagined Gygax-influenced AD&D 2E...but he is including a lot of the same TCA/TCSC classes that were to be the core of my book. Similar to Goblinoid Games' Advanced Edition Companion (published shortly before my B/X Companion)...it just sometimes feels like I'm "diluting the gene pool" so to speak. Everyone has their own way of playing BX/LL and who am I to stick my nose in others' cash flow?

But aside from that (as I said, GG's project and mine are exceptionally dissimilar in scope), I see JM over at Grognardia is starting to get the mental wheels turning on the idea of a class-based space opera RPG. Again, I realize this probably sounds like me whining (um...because I am?) but I'm certainly not looking to compete with anyone, especially someone with substantially wider experience and "publishing chops" than Yours Truly.

[by the way, funny how minds think alike...I came up with a fairly similar archetypal list of space opera classes, as well as the same number, though I DID leave out the thief-type "rogue/scoundrel" on JM's list...that's just a throwback to WotC's take on West End Game's pastiche interpretation of Han Solo, one that I disagree with in general]

I suppose all I can really do is stop sharpening my axe and start whittling on the tree. Not that I haven't been... I've got 20 pages written in multiple chapters, and substantial notes for the other sections. Since I don't intend this to be more than 64 pages in length, I'm close to a third of the way there.

Ugh...then comes the artwork part. Oh, boy.

I suppose in the end I have the exact same decision to make as when I was in the middle of finishing the B/X Companion and realized Barrataria's reimagined Companion had already been published: either suck it up and finish what I'd started, or pack it up and find a different project. I decided to press on and am proud of the end result.

Huh...when I consider my prior decision, I guess I already know what I'm gonna' do.

; )

Snowed In

Old Man Winter hit Seattle a bit last night and I had a helluva' time getting out of downtown...mainly due to my bus changing its route and not telling me. Consequently I didn't get home till after 8 and when I did, I looked like a refugee from the Hoth system.

After trudging up 85th with biting snow crystals whipping my face and choking my throat (and watching three cars slide into each other and on the sidewalk), I've decided to take a "personal day" and stay the hell home from work.

Well...from the work that pays the bills anyway.

I AM going to be writing (not blogging I'm afraid) over the next couple days. In fact, that's what I've been doing the last couple. It's amazing how slow things go when you're used to doing the stream-o-consciousness thing and you're suddenly trying to write-up rules and procedures in some semblance of coherent order.

Ah, well...who am I to complain? The wind has died down this morning which means the beagles are finally ready and willing to get out in the yard and "frolic" and the cable's totally knocked out so there's no 600 channels to distract me (my wife, on the other hand, is a little more bummed...I have the Star Wars movies on DVD at least). Hope everyone's doing well and that any holiday preparation is devoid of stress for y'all!

: )

Why NOT Just Play D6 Star Wars

Despite a decided lack of posts the last few days, there’s a subject that’s been on my mind quite a bit. Enough that I’ve ended up having conversations about it (or at least mentioned it) with 3 to 4 people. Yes, it’s all about Star Wars, my usual obsession. Those uninterested in the subject matter…sorry. I’ll be blogging more about White Plume Mountain later.

The subject I want to expound on is “D6 Star Wars – Why I Hate Thee.” Of course, I don’t actually hate D6 Star Wars…it’s hard to hate the thing that revitalized an entire franchise and touched off the commercial explosion of books, film, comics, etc. What, you don’t believe me? You must not have been around back in the pre-Prequel, pre-Timothy Zahn, pre-Dark Horse days. D6 Star Wars was the biggest collection of Star Wars “codification” and “canonization” on the market, and helped fuel and inspire all the rest. Yes, at base we all have Lucas to thank for Star Wars (and for what it’s worth, criticizing GL is kind of like criticizing Gygax for any number of imagined slights…fact is, we wouldn’t have Star Wars at all without Lucas, or D&D without EGG, and what a much sadder world this would be). But West End Games helped rebuild and rekindle interest in the franchise…or at least, they kept the flame of interest alive until Lucas got back in the Star Wars game and opened it up into its next commercial phase, the “expanded universe.”

At least, that’s how I see it…and as a guy who pretended to be Luke Skywalker or Han Solo on the playground loooong before I ever picked up a D&D book, I can say West End Games did a more than admirable job converting the films to an RPG using their D6 system.

However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have real and severe issues that preclude me from ever playing D6 Star Wars.

And no, I’m not just talking about cheesy pastiche, scripted dialogue, or a skill system that makes me exceptionally cranky. Yes, D6 has all those barriers in the way to me liking it, but I might be willing to look past those…or at least work around them…if the game (both the 1st and 2nd editions) didn’t have the same unforgivable flaw: an advancement system that’s inconsistent with the films.

Now briefly, let me explain my position on “advancement systems” in role-playing games. I do NOT think it is necessary to include advancement mechanics in ALL role-playing games. An advancement system (whereby a character develops into a more effective vehicle for player interaction with the game world) is NOT a requirement of having a fun/enjoyable role-playing experience. A lot of RPG game designers get stuck in this idea that character development needs to be a large or central part of game design…because otherwise, without measurable “achievement,” players are just spinning their imaginary wheels, “playing pretend.”

What utter bullshit. All we are doing is “playing pretend” when we sit down to play an RPG. We are having the same kind of fun we did as kids at recess, albeit with a few more rules. I’ve said it before: playing RPGs is NOT curing cancer, or fighting poverty, or getting more socially conscious politicians elected to office. YES, playing RPGs has VALUE: exercising the mind, stimulating the imagination, promoting social interaction with others. But caring whether your character is 14th level or raising your skill percentage in “sword attack/parry” is an EMPTY goal in the long run.

But JB, you’ve said that there is exceptional value to playing long-term D&D campaigns! If getting one’s character to 5th or 15th or 25th level is an “empty goal” [because, for example, one can always create or pre-gen high level characters for both campaigns and one-off adventures…like we did with White Plume Mountain], then why do you expound on the “goodness” of playing long-term? Why would you bother to put out something like the “B/X Companion” if you didn’t want people to play B/X up to level 30?

Ah…I see my point about long-term play may have been unclear in the past. The “goodness” of long-term play isn’t the advancement/increase of a character’s power, or the opening of “new content” (and by the way, much of the reason for the writing of the B/X Companion was to provide new content for a specific form of play; i.e. “high level type”). The GOODNESS of long-term play comes in seeing the development of characters over time in the imaginary game world…the relationships they build (with each other and the campaign’s NPCs), the impact they have, the legends they write. In other words, the stories (or “yarns” as R.E. Howard might have said) that come about from the on-going adventures of a heroic persona in a fantasy world.

You don’t need to start at level 1 and go to 36 (or 14 or 20 or whatever the maximum “achievement” level is). And if all you’re interested in doing is collecting XP/gold, or check marks next to your skills, maybe you should be playing a different game. Like the stock market.

Having said all that…and just to reiterate, my point is simply that ADVANCEMENT SYSTEMS ARE NOT OBLIGATORY TO AN RPG (there are plenty of other “reward systems” that can be used to make a game enjoyable)…having said THAT, let me now say that in SOME genres or types of RPG, an advancement system, while not necessary, is certainly desirable AND true to the genre the game represents.

[and let me just note, I’m using the word “genre” as an expedient term; I understand it is a poor word and may end up causing some confusion]

Star Wars is one game that cries out for an advancement system and a method of character development.

Why? Because that’s what the movies are about! The protagonist starts out as a shmuck and grows up to be a badass (if still kind of a shmuck). Whether you’re looking at the original trilogy or the prequels, the Jedi (at least) are constantly comparing themselves to each other and looking at their own relative power levels, which grow and develop over time with experience.

Though even non-Jedi grow and develop during the films…certainly in the “extended universe” (see Princess Leia becoming a Jedi, as well as Amidala and, yes, Jar Jar Binks). If any RPG based on a specific IP is begging for game mechanics that model “advancement,” Star Wars is it. Compared to other serial fiction (for example, Firefly/Serenity or Michael Moorcock’s Elric) SW is probably the BEST example of heroic development over time.

Which is why D6 Star Wars is soooooo Goddamn frustrating: its development system is terrible and glacially slow…in direct contrast to its own cinematic example! If one looks at Luke Skywalker’s stat blocks between episodes…or even from the beginning of Episode IV to the climactic battle at the end…one can see the character advancing/developing a LOT faster than player characters in the game. And the game designer’s justification for that? Well, YOU aren’t Luke Skywalker.

POW. That’s me, punching the game designer in the mouth.

Why the hell do you think I’m playing a Star Wars RPG in the first place? Because I WANT to be Luke Skywalker. Or Han Solo. Or Princess Leia. Or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Or whoever! Don’t tell me I don’t get to be The Hero of the Rebellion…or of the Clone Wars for that matter. Why do I (or my players if I am the GM) have to play 2nd fiddle to the movie characters? To preserve the films’ integrity?

Or was the designer just too lazy to design an advancement scheme consistent with the rate of advancement displayed in the films?

Regardless, it chaps my hide.

So THAT (plus the excessive skill system) is the major reason why I find the D6 system completely un-satisfactory for my purposes (my “purpose” being “a Star Wars RPG that allows me to recreate the films and the types of adventure/development found in the films”). D6 can go fish up a tree.

Not that WotC and D20 is any better, of course (I hate D20 as a Star Wars vehicle…even the exemplary Saga edition…even more than D6), but it is at least a BIT more consistent with the films. Just excessively complicated and non-cinematic.

Recently, I picked up MERP, a game with a level-based advancement scheme that peaked at level 10 and it got me thinking: how many levels does one really need in a game, anyway? After all, there are other ways to instill granularity besides having dozens of levels. Why does Yoda need to be level 20? Why not level 8 or 9?

Anway, some folks may be getting tired of this conversation (or the subject matter in general), but it’s something I keep getting drawn back into…I’m about 99% sure my B/X-based space opera game will be the next project completed by Yours Truly. Why? Because I see similar patterns with my first book, the B/X Companion:

1) Obsession-compulsion for the subject matter (such that I keep returning to it).
2) Complete dissatisfaction with others’ prior attempts at the material.

I tend to be stubborn and egotistical (ask my wife), but I also tend to be lazy (again…ask my wife). If there’s anything that can keep me motivated to finish a project, it’s the two things I list here.

Okay, end Star Wars discussion (for today, anyway).

; )

Toxic Landscape

Looking back over my recent posts, I can see they haven’t been entirely negative…the only real “negative posts” this month were this and this…maybe this one, too. But it sure feels like I’ve been more negative a late.

Even my pistol post seemed to be a big fat complain (namely: why are there no guns in D&D?). And certainly some of my recent play reports have a bit of a ranty tone at times.

I don’t want to rant.

I mean, for goodness sakes, my Seattle Seahawks are still somehow perched atop their division despite being .500, and the much touted 49ers team (picked by pundits to win our division the last three seasons) is in the basement at 0 and 5.

[and to the San Francisco fans out there, there are sportscasters that still believe the Niners can win their next six in a row and end up on top of the division. I DO like Mike Singletary and appreciate him sticking with Smith rather than buckling to the crowd like some wuss; whatever his faults Smith gave the 49ers their best chance to win Sunday]

Anyway, that's all okay-to-good, PLUS I had a good time in Spain, PLUS I still have a job in this crummy economy, PLUS my family is healthy and happy, PLUS, I’ve got a decent game group going, PLUS my book’s still selling like hotcakes and I’ve gotten more offers for on-line distribution (Black Blade press most recently)…despite the 2nd print run not yet being completed (sorry, folks).

So I have a lot to be thankful and happy about and no real cause for griping/complaints. It is autumn in Seattle, my favorite time of year as oysters and Dungeness crab are back in season and I prefer my weather overcast and rainy (that means more indoor time and I’m an indoor kind of kid). Autumn does, unfortunately, suck for my beagles, who hate-hate-hate being outdoors in the rain…but they have a pretty cushy life other than that, so they can just suck it up.

So what’s the deal, JB? Why all the ranty-ness in the blog lately?

I don’t know. Stress? Anxiety that the “other shoe” might drop at any time? Or perhaps just a silly notion that things could be better than they are, especially in the areas I care about (like film and RPGs and politics). I mean, my life is pretty darn good, and I wish it could be this good for everyone. And yet people continue to vote Republican and support WotC’s “RPG” industry, even though both these things are against their own best interests.

(*sigh*)

Ah, well…frankly, I’d be willing to bet that a lot of my “toxicity” of late is due to my own irritation with myself over my lack of writing. Last year, I was working on the B/X Companion project and (if I remember correctly) I ended up losing a lot of time in the fall months, being distracted with trips and in-laws, and holidays, and…well, and ridiculous distractions. And this year is actually starting to look a bit similar. Crapola.

For example, do you folks know how damn difficult it is to avoid being completely derailed and side-tracked by the Star Wars discussions being thrown in my face by both Maliszewki and Rients? Holy God! I was looking at all this same stuff last year when I was considering writing B/X Star Wars (ripping off the best parts of Saga SW, WEG SW, and B/X)…and these guys are just giving me more fodder for my imagination! But I have managed to temper my Quixotic-ness and will be avoiding writing any space games until I’ve completed the three books I’m working on…sheesh guys!

Then, there is the whole 4E Gamma World thing…you know, people may think I’m a curmudgeonly bastard but I CAN look on the bright side of shit like this. And the bright side is, I find this particular offering to be fantastically inspirational. That is it inspires me to write my own version of Gamma World…except better.

But don’t get me started on THAT again. I’ve blogged before that I put several pages of writing into a new edition of GW (called GW7, though this was long before I got on my 64-page-or-less kick). “Doing Gamma World Right” has long been a romantic idea I’ve cherished in my heart, and one that is probably ridiculously unobtainable for a great many reasons.

Still GW4E makes me want to give it a shot. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if “inspiration motivated by anger” is a good enough motivation (it hasn’t been helping my Land of Ash writing lately). Certainly, I find nothing particularly inspiring about the artwork I’ve seen for GW4 (and some of the pieces…like the ‘roided chicken advertising the Famine in Fargo “expansion;” just makes me more irritable).

Now, the ad for the new Fallout video game I DO find inspiring (artistically) for post-apocalyptic, mutational horror…and I’d be willing to bet that FO does GW4E better than GW4E, anyway (seeing as how both are based on video game-type systems).

But, as I said, I do NOT want to get started down that particular apocalyptic road. You know, Chgowz’s recent post is a good one, and good food for thought: the end result of all this “retro-cloning” might just be to return us to our gaming origins. After all, what is Labyrinth Lord but “house ruled” Moldvay/Cook? What is OSRIC but house-ruled AD&D? I am currently playing house-ruled B/X myself and find it perfect for my purposes. What kind of benefit could there possibly be for doing a re-tread of “old school” Gamma World?

All such a thing would be (were I to write it) would be a house-ruled version of the 1st and 2nd edition game. And people interested in GW might well decide they preferred the original GW…or, at least, original GW plus their own house rules.

Anyway, the REAL stink of the thing is that GW was never really “my game,” to begin with. I love the idea of a post-apocalyptic game. I love some of the systems in the game (including prestige and the combat matrices based on weapon type). But I have never had a huge love of “humorous” RPGs, and GW is soooo cheesy, it’s hard to take it seriously at times. It is so random, that it’s hard to actually DO “serious” with it. It’s still D&D…but with mutations instead of magic and ancient tech instead of magic. A hodge-podge in serious need of editing.

Mmm-mm-mmm…okay, time to leave the conversation before this, too, devolves into toxic negativity. Next post: something upbeat and jazzy…like firearm rules!