The Problem With Cry Dark Future

Over at Save Vs. Poison, DM Wieg has been working up his own version of Cyberpunk 2020 using Sword & Wizardry as a base. Which is hip and all, but not really my cup-o-tea. I lost interest in CP2020 about the same time as I actually had a chance to play it. Maybe a little later (I sure did buy a lot of material for the game considering how little use I got out of it...though how could anyone pass up a supplement called The Chrome Berets?).

I love this supplement.

ANYway, he asked me to take a look at what he was doing based on my work on the as-yet-unpublished Cry Dark Future, which made me actually dig out and look at Cry Dark Future and see just why the hell it ISN'T published yet. After all, I finished the writing quite a while ago, it worked fine in play-testing (got great reviews from one game group), and was even able to attract interest at the one Con I took it to. Since I'm willing to pay for art these days, and have a printer (and the money to pay said printer), why haven't I just put it out there for the world to give me their dollars? Heck it was even edited...twice.

Because. That's why.

Because it's not great. I mean, it's just B/X Shadowrun, folks. And that's not good enough.

Part of the whole raison d'être for writing the thing was me realizing A) Shadowrun is just D&D with guns and cybernetics, and B) The B/X system is easy enough to mod, and C) why not bring a simpler, easier, friendlier system to the whole Shadowrun concept? So that's what I did...I mean, the game is STILL "Shadowrun"...you won't find Vancian spell lists for example the way the White Star folks (for example) crammed the magic-user and cleric lists into their game.

Shadowrun is a nice enough game. I've gotten some mileage out of it in the past (much more so when I was a teenager), and the recent editions have some truly excellent artwork of a kind I find particularly inspiring.

[I also very much enjoyed the first three novels set in the Shadowrun 'verse; some good stuff in there dealing with the types of issues rarely if ever seen in play at an actual SR table]

But remember that angsty post I wrote about 5 minutes before starting this one? The one in which I said I should be designing and developing games I want to run? Okay, B/X Shadowrun isn't really a game I want to run. Shadowrun isn't a game I want to run.

[sorry to Greg, of course...and all my friends in the U.S. Navy who happen to LOVE Shadowrun]

But that's a concept thing, and there's more to my dislike of my own game than the basic concept (which, by the way, should probably be enough!). There are a number of problems inherent in the design. Chargen, being based on Shadowrun, was too fiddly and took too long (there's a reason why every single edition of SR has included a list of standard archetypes for ready play, rather than making chargen a central part of play). Parts of combat (like bullet counting) are too fiddly. Magic, heavily based on Shadowrun, was too loose and grab-ass for my taste. And, if memory serves me right, there were some problems with the whole "random-monetary-reward-for-job-generator." Though truth be told, any game in which you're playing for money and the money allows you to buy all "system upgrades" (bigger weapons, better cyberware) has some inherent flaws of "game currency" built into the long-term play of the game. I know I found that in my days of playing ACTUAL Shadowrun, too.

[in D&D, for example, no paladin just goes into a shop, plops down his money, and purchases a +5 Holy Avenger. Even if you find a mage willing to create one for you...and you have the money...the DM can make the finding of the magical ingredients exceptionally difficult or challenging; it may even be easier to simply search out legends of an existing holy avenger (no doubt guarded by a host of fierce creatures). But in Shadowrun, the right contacts coupled with the proper credstick will get you anything you need with regard to gear, weapons, and cyberware...heck, even spells and magic items]

So, yeah...there are/were some inherent "system failures" in the game as written, mainly due to me adhering too closely to the structure and system of Shadowrun.

But the whole SR concept is...well, it's fairly unappealing to me at this time. It's dated, sure...the whole "Cyberpunk" thang is pretty dated. But just because a genre is dated doesn't mean it's bad, or lacks value. Many genres over the years have been considered "dead" only to make startling comebacks (the western, the space opera, '30s pulp adventure all come to mind). Many concepts considered "traditional cyberpunk" may be dated, but the idea of a dystopian future ruled by soulless corporations is still a pertinent subject of fiction and role-playing.

Does this illo really suggest "cyberpunk?"

No, it's the introduction/overlay of fantasy tropes/species into an existing structure (i.e. "the real (future) world") and the assumed outcome ("adventurers") that bugs me. It's the idea of going on "missions" for those same soulless corporations...the same way a party of D&D characters get hired by some mysterious figure in a smoky tavern...that bugs me. Scurrilous rogues trying to make a living in a largely lawless fantasy world is more believable to me than the SINless squatting abandoned warehouses filled with stashes of high-tech gear. Are you really stuck eating nutria-soy glop while sporting state-o-the-art combat enhancements? Who pays for the WD40 when your bionic blades get squeaky?

Fact is, there are cooler ways to structure a mash-up of fantasy and futuristic, which is why I started rewriting the whole damn game. The problem is, even though I was doing so (re-conceptualizing the setting as something more post-apocalyptic...kind of a Dark Sun meets Bakshi's Wizards meets Heavy Metal meets Appleseed meets the Deathlands novels)...AND fixing the other problems (the reward system, the fiddly chargen, the magic system, the bullet-counting, etc.)...even though I was doing that I found:

A) I wasn't terribly excited about the prospect of running such a game, and
B) The re-writes were taking a LOT of work.

[and would require even more work for a book worth publication...more play-testing, more editing, etc.]

And so the thing got back-burnered, and I just haven't gotten back to it. THAT is the problem with Cry Dark Future. It wasn't good enough as originally conceived/written, and I my dwindling interest in rewriting a post-apocalyptic fantasy game just to make use of a handful of B/X-based guns/cyberborg systems wasn't enough to sustain my writing/design stamina. That's why CDF may very well NEVER see the light of publication in any format.

Which is kind of depressing when I consider how much work I put into the thing originally (and later) and how I dismantled my old D&D campaign to do a bunch of play-testing for something that just ended up scrapped.

Like I said, I'm feeling a little angsty at the moment.

I'm sure this isn't the final word on CDF, by the way. I have hope that someday, something called "Cry Dark Future" will be published by Yours Truly in some format or other. It might even be before I get back from Paraguay (which for the interested means "before August"). But it's really not one of my priority projects at the moment. Just so folks know.

Metal Ever After (EDITED)

[nothing to do with rock music]

So…a couple-three days ago I wrote about being drawn in again to the idea of playing/running/designing a “war” RPG, by which I mean “a game where PCs are members of a small military or para-military unit” and adventure sessions being composed of “missions” of a military nature.  Done on a small scale, I think such a venture gives you:

a)     Good setting for deep/dramatic role-playing, AND

b)     Good setting in which to kick some (imaginary) ass.

I’ve owned and/or played a lot of “war” type role-playing games over the years, including Albedo, Revised Recon, Twilight 2000, Godlike, 3.16, Grey Ranks, and Carry…and probably a few others I’m forgetting at the moment. Even Mekton Zeta had some aspects of “military” to it (if only “military light”…see also Palladium’s Robotech). Most of these focus only on one of those two things, though, with the second part being mostly “incidental” depending on the GM running the thing…which ends up meaning they fail for me (personally) as “games I want to play.”

Of course, it’s quite possible that I’m being too hard on the designers. In fact, I know I am…I’ve written before about the goodness of both Revised Recon (the best, most complete game Palladium has ever published…and I mean EVER) and Twilight 2000. Still, most of these games are either to crunchy mechanically (GURPS War? No, not interested) or two “soft and squishy” (hey, I liked Enemy at the Gates, too, but I don’t want to run the same scenario every week!).

And then the other thing is that I really want cyborgs in my game.

So round about Wednesday, I hit on a great idea for a series of blog posts…basically an inside look at my “design process” (such as it is) as I create, from scratch, my own World War III RPG. I could put my “talents” (ugh!) on display, entertain my readers, and (hopefully) end up with a little game to show for it. Kind of like my Land of Ice supplement series (I’ll finish it someday, really!)  except with a lot of sidebars explaining my reasons. Actually, I guess the whole thing would be a sidebar of “thinking out loud” with snippets of chapters pasted onto the end of each thoughtful post. I went so far as to write a few paragraphs that afternoon, but then (day job) work got in the way, and nothing got posted to the blog.

Next day (Thursday, AKA “yesterday”), I decided that my mental design process and my “thoughtful writing” process aren’t really on the same page…so I scrapped the "series of posts" goal in favor of just doing the game. I spent my free time yesterday crafting the rules, and by the end of the day I had a new one-page micro-game (haven’t done that in a while!), with a pretty silly working title (“Asian Land War,” if I remember correctly). We play-tested last night, and today I figured out a better name for the thing:

Metal Ever After

A few random notes for those interested:

-        Micro-games are notoriously short on explanation, but try to condense and distill all the essentials. If this was expanded it would, of course, be groovier and probably include a lot more setting material and rules for mission creation and antagonists. Sorry about that.

-        There’s a reference to RULE ZERO in the game. For those who missed that blog post, you should read this. It’s something I’m using in 5AK with great results.

-        The game steals some of (what I think are) the best parts of Revised Recon and Twilight 2000 (including combining the two for character creation). In a full version, I would probably use the alignment system of RR. The squad rules are based (very, VERY roughly) off Albedo Platinum Catalyst.

-        I’m not really satisfied with the "ranking" system…we had a Lt. Colonel in a five man squad which is really too high a rank for infantrymen in the field…even a borged out recon team. For an “expanded game,” I would definitely take more time and make a better matrix, and include rules for how rank would adjust RP rolls with other soldiers. Maybe. I’d probably look at Albedo PC or 3:16 for a better way of doing rank “advancement.”

-        The terms “light” and “heavy machines” are taken from Rifts’s Warlords of Russia.

-        The inspiration for the setting is 80-90% ripped off from the Appleseed films…if you ignore the utopian cities like Olympus Complex. Basically, the world (Earth) has been in a World War for so many years, society’s mostly broken down and units are operating with little supervision or accountability. PCs get mission objectives via satellite phones (literally: if they can get their hands on a phone they call a satellite and pick up a voicemail message…totally impersonal and without much rhyme or reason). The default setting is Asia but North America would be pretty good, too (tooling around the ruins of Cleveland in an alcohol-powered, super-tank sounds like good times). The key concept is this: large continental theater (ground war) PLUS ruined dystopia. Soldiers are rebuilt as cyborgs because it’s cheaper and faster than training newbies and getting ‘em up to veteran status. “Reuse and recycle” is the phrase that pays…or maybe just “use, reuse, and use-up.”

[here's a video link to show you what I'm talking about...it's about 4.5 minutes in length]

-        There’s a derived ability score – "Cool" – that has absolutely no game mechanic/system purpose to it. I put it in because I loved it as a concept (it's from TL2K, where it works great), but as I put the system together I couldn’t really find a place for it. However, I left it on the one-sheet for "flavor" and in an “expanded version” of the game would probably use it as some sort of saving throw against long-term combat fatigue (or something). I just think it’s a good stat for “losing your shit.” Kind of like sanity in Call of Cthulhu.

Last night’s game found Greg playing in a re-skinned Vietnam-era adventure (of the “go find the charismatic dissident visiting him mother’s village” kind of thing) taken directly from Revised Recon. There was some good game play, a bit of casual brutality (zip-tying civilians and eating their lunch, for example), but we hardly had a chance to touch on combat before wrapping up (though what we did test worked the way I intended: quick & bloody). It’s definitely something in need of further play-testing…and since I’m waiting on 5AK edits to come back, I figure I have some time to kill.

Unfortunately, time to actually game will be in short supply the coming month. Next Thursday, my Dear Old Dad is in town and that’s the only day I’ll have to see him (his schedule, not mine). Following that is 4^th of July, which my son has been talking about incessantly since March. Following that, my wife’s out of town till the 12^th…and then we ALL fly down to Mexico, meaning I’ll miss the 18^th as well. I won’t be getting back to the gaming table till July 25^th which is just…crazy, man.

SO…I’m strongly considering running (or attempting to run) a play-by-post game over the internets. I’ve had good success with this in the past (at least when we’ve used simple systems) and I’m thinking that might be a way to “keep my hand in” AND get some play-testing in, even as I’m forced to do my drinking at home. If anyone’s interested, post a comment here or drop me an email at:

bxblackrazor AT gmail DOT com

Right now, the only game I’m interested in running via PBP is Metal Ever After (I don’t have a one-sheet for 5AK at the moment), so be ready to rock-n-roll with your chrome beret, pal.

[BTW: just in case I wasn't totally clear before, you can download the Metal Ever After micro-game HERE on mediafire]

Questions, comments, and criticism are (as usual) both welcome and wanted.

: )

Art by John Liew (used without permission...sorry)

 

EDIT: The game's name has been changed to WORLD WAR BORG. Links above corrected.