"Grotesque"

That’s the word that’s been on my mind of late: grotesque.

Not because of that travesty of a performance for the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football a couple days ago (though “grotesque” would certainly go a long way towards describing the play of our offensive line). Nor was the word on my mind because of my sympathy for the St. Louis sports fans that same evening…sure, they might have been expecting a loss for the Rams, but as America’s Greatest Baseball Town (self-proclaimed), I feel for them watching the Cards lose on the same night.

[and let’s be honest, here…as a Seattle-ite, I really can’t bring myself to root for Boston. Yes, they have great beards and bats, but cheering for the Red Sox in the World Series would be almost as bad as cheering for the Yankees or the Rangers. Almost.]

Still, the word is embedded into my mind due to recent television broadcasts, even if they’re not sport-related: I’ve been watching the FX TV series American Horror Story: Coven.

Grotesque. It’s the best word I can use to describe it.

And yet, great television. I say this as a person who does not particularly like horror stories…at least not of the cinema variety (I’ve read a lot of H.P. Lovecraft but I’ve yet to watch a single “Saw” movie). Hell, I think I’ve only watched three zombie films in my life – Night of the Living Dead, The Re-Animator, and 28 Days Later – well, unless you want to count that Friday the 13th movie with the Alice Cooper soundtrack. Oh, yeah, and The Omega Man with Charlie Heston (though that’s because of my post-apocalypse fetish). I’m just not that much into “scary” type movies, let alone those designed to disgust or shock folks.

The American Horror Story franchise (can it be called such after three seasons? I guess) seems to have been created at least partially with that in mind. Made by the same folks who created Glee, the writers wanted to do something…um…a little darker. Yeah, I’ll say.

I didn’t watch any of the earlier seasons of AHS…hadn’t even heard of the show before a couple days (despite constantly referencing television programs on this blog, I don’t watch that much TV…just more than I should and a lot more than I used to). I found it while surfing around the On Demand section of the TV guide one night after I’d gotten my sick child to sleep and was suffering from coffee-induced insomnia.

[oh, yeah…hi there, people. Sorry about not blogging the last couple weeks. Life’s been crazy-hectic as usual]

ANYway…great show.  Yes, twisted and grotesque, but still great. I suppose it falls into that “dark comedy” category that I am (generally) a fan of, at least in moderate amounts. And it has great writing and performances and a horrific manic-ness highly reminiscent of some of the darker Story Now indie-games. It’s like watching a show that was based on play reports from a few sessions of Ron Edward’s Sorcerer RPG. And I really do mean that in a good way.

It’s positively inspiring. It’s given me a huge swath of ideas for a new gaming project.

Yeah, even though I haven’t been blogging (or writing at all) the last couple-three weeks, I’ve actually been immersed in gaming. I’ve been reading (and rereading) a lot of games, both old and new. Some I’ve owned for a while: Sorcerer and its supplement Sex & Sorcery, 3:16 Carnage Beyond the Stars, InSpecters, Holmes D&D…just to name the ones in my backpack at the moment.

But mostly I’ve been reading new stuff that I’ve purchased or borrowed: Polaris, Trollbabe, Mouse Guard, the short-yet-sweet Bad Attitudes, and the 7.5 edition of Tunnels & Trolls (which I’ve never before owned in any edition). Heck, just picked up a copy of Jorg Dunne’s Western City yesterday while looking for a used copy of EverWay. I’ve been looking at how games “do what they do” especially with regard to explaining/molding game play, paying special attention to rules and writing for “scene framing” (a term that I’m coming to hate, actually, though I understand the reason behind the term’s use). I’ve been reading a LOT lately…more than I have in a long time.

I’ve also been reading other blogs, outside my couple dozen that I normally scan (though I admit at this point I’m just “lurking”). I’m still hopeless when it comes to this whole “G+” thing, but I’m getting sucked in to some of the conversations going on in that realm of Ye Old Internet. It’s a tad disappointing how much I still need to learn about 21^st century technology.

Grotesque.

Did I mention I’ve been gaming with a pair of complete newbies? I had four players at the bar the last time I got out (two Thursdays ago), two of which had never played an RPG ever. Ever. Hell, they’ve had barely any exposure to computer RPGs…the barest basics were absolute mysteries to them. Fortunately, my latest rework of D&D (designed at new people) seemed to draw them right in and “worked.” But man-o-man, it sure has given me a lot of food for thought on how to meet my objectives of game design (i.e. designing for the non-gamer). I’ve spent so many years playing with people who had at least SOME background in gaming (at least the slightest of inklings) that I just have a huge blindside when it comes to the total novice. Hell, even when I was introducing B/X D&D to my teenage nephews for the 1^st time, they had some ideas of class and level and “ability scores” from video games they’d played.

The new RPG gamer needs something better than Pathfinder. I’m sorry, they do. Grotesque.

All right, I’ve got to go…lots of breaking news stuff on the home-front which I’ll blog about later (in the next couple days). Have a good evening, folks.

Oh, yeah…good luck St. Louis!

: )

Need more beard?

A Real Horror Show

You might think I'm talking about the absolute beatdown the Seahawks sustained at the hands of Pittsburgh this week...yeah, I watched it till the bitter kneel-downs at the end and then numbed my pain by watching excellent football the rest of the day (dammit, why can't Seattle play like New England or San Diego or Philadelphia or Atlanta or even Detroit? Oh, yeah...because we decided to sign Tavaris Jackson instead of Matthew Hasselbeck. Congrats, Tennessee...nice having a pr-bowl QB, huh?).

No, that wasn't horrifying...it was both disgusting and expected. Instead, I'm talking about the Horror Rules RPG by Chris Weedin. Finished reading it today, and wow, color me impressed.

I should probably preface this post with a bit of my personal background with "horror RPGs:" not much. Mainly because I'm not very good at it. Or not very comfortable. Or both.

I own Call of Cthulhu (I don't remember the edition...3rd? 4th?) but I've never had the players that really wanted to play it. And honestly, the system never worked that well for me...folks I know who run CoC regularly have always played it fast-and-loose, and chargen seems a little long for a game where character deterioration is an inevitable given. Don't get me wrong, I love HPL and own several books compiling his stories...but I'd rather read about it then play it.

I also own Pelgrane's Trail of Cthulhu, which I think is a better game (for its theme) than CoC but I've never found anyone willing to play it. It sits gathering dust on my shelf.

I own the indie game InSpectres, a terror-comedy game that combines Ghostbusters slapstick with reality TV sensibilities, and have played quite a bit of it, but only with kids/teens. We've had some "scary" games, but mostly they've been weird-silly rather than horror. It's a nice beer & pretzels game, but the rules don't really lend themselves to serious stories.

I've attempted to run Vampire the Masquerade (1st and 2nd edition) in a "horror-style," especially with the 1st Hunters Hunted supplement (waaaay before "Hunter the Reckoning" was its own superhero-esque game), but again, my players at the time really weren't into it. Specifically, I only ever had one player willing to try a hunter session (and afterward he said he wanted to "play a vampire the next time" instead. No, I did not kill his character off in some gruesome fashion). The other players, well...they were pansies, what can I say?

[to be fair, these latter fellows had some challenges playing blood-suckers in general, not just blood-suckers being menaced by even worse demons]

And anyway, VtM isn't much of a horror game, no matter how spooky of music you play (following the mood setting directions of the game authors).

So, yeah...not a great track record with horror games. Part of it may be that I'm not a huge horror fan myself. Oh, I've seen a few of the classic films: the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a couple each of the Jason's and Michael's and Freddy's, Carpenter's Thing and Ridley's Alien, several zombie/mutant movies. Heck, I've even watched the first couple Rob Zombie flicks and two or three of the better terror offerings from the last decade.

But I wouldn't call myself a "fan." I'm not really into being scared...I like interesting stories, and films like 48 Hours Later and The Ring and The Descent have interesting premises in my opinion. Films like the Saw series (of which I've seen not a single installment) do NOT. But that's just me.

And because I'm not a huge fan (and because my wife is REALLY not into scary movies, having been subjected to nightmarish features like The Exorcist as a small child) I don't really hang out with other people who are into horror films; i.e. other non-horror fans. And if you're not hanging with like-minded folks, it's hard to get a game going where people are on the same page.

Horror Rules makes me wish I did know a few horror fans.

This is a great game, and really goes to show why unique games, designed with a specific objective in mind, is so much better than generic RPGs like "GURPS Horror" or well, whatever. Weedin has written a game that captures the tropes and conceits and (dare I say?) the humor inherent in the monster/slasher genre.

Because horror movies are often ridiculous, filled with crazy premises and glaring plot holes, as well as obtuse characterizations. That doesn't stop 'em from being scary and suspenseful or fun...it just is what it is. A vehicle designed to give the viewer an adrenaline high through fright and clever pacing. Humor is often purposefully present in these films to offset the terror or rope-a-dope the audience or just because the filmmakers are, well, whimsical folks with a playful sense of humor (yes, it takes a playful imagination to find unique methods of killing characters in a movie). Horror Rules captures this through a variety of rule mechanics designed to both emulate the genre AND entertain the players of the game. It's pretty darn cool.

This RPG has the goods to do cinematic horror better than any other RPG I've seen, including AFMBE and more recent zombie apocalypse games. It has character classifications (not classes) which direct character concept and provide (one-time) bonus abilities true to their archetype without using "suites" of powers or levels/experience systems. It has a minimal skill system and a finite method of task resolution in direct opposition to the "open-ended" dice systems found in similar skill-centric games (like World of Darkness, Shadowrun, D20, etc.). It has metagame mechanics (like 2nd Thought, Luck, and Stupid Thing Points) that can be used in multiple ways depending on the chosen style of play (the book outlines several) and that really help emulate the genre. And I think Horror Rules' "sanity loss" mechanics are both better and more interesting than those found in Call of Cthulhu. Really.

While the game is roughly 100 pages in length, much of this is full page illustrations, or the sample adventure script; there's about 70 pages of actual rules and almost a quarter of those pages are devoted to actual GM instruction (real, practical information, not "mood setting" suggestions) and adventure creation (two separate chapters, nice!).

From my perspective, that's awesome...I want information on how to run this type of game. Not every RPG needs to be (or should be!) run the same way. And while killing off player characters in an adversarial way is kind of my raison d'etre (at least in B/X play), there's a way to do it in the horror genre that, all kidding aside, has the potential to sink the game if not done right. After all, if your players are going to buy off on the "fun" of horror gaming (including the high probability of being killed in an agonizing, traumatic fashion), then they deserve to be treated to the expected tropes of the genre.

This game tells you how to do that.

Anyway, it's very impressive, and I'd love to try it out (especially with Halloween coming up soon), if only to see if it works as well in practice as it looks on paper. Turns out Gary's Games does stock Horror Rules, though I don't think they plan on doing an "annual tournament" like in Yakima. Too bad, though...playing Horror Rules on Halloween would be just as fun as renting scary movies for the occasion (something I've been known to do).

; )

Yakima Gold

So we spent most of the day in Yakima today (that's in Yakima County, Washington...named for the Yakima nation, which was the largest American Indian population west of the Mississippi prior to several bloody massacres at the hands of the U.S. Army). It poured rain, which didn't stop me and the boy from heading out on foot to explore the town. Nice as the hotel was (fantastic biscuits and gravy!) it was boring to hang around and the baby just did NOT want to nap. Something about the excitement of being alive and all, I guess.

However, the rain DID stop our (my) initial plans to hit up a few used book stores that I found on line...they were just too far from our base o operations and I did NOT want the boy to get pneumonia. Fortunately, we stumbled across a little collectibles shop called Ron's Mini-Mall and found a couple nice pieces of swag for the collection.

First up was a copy of the collected issues of DC's The War that Time Forgot...another 1960s piece of weird extravaganza featuring WWII soldiers in a Lost World (i.e. dinosaur) setting, reminiscent of the Turok Son of Stone comics I remember from my youth. Although the collection is black & white, printed on cheap pulp, and hopelessly dated, it is EXACTLY the kind of thing I am in the mood for right now with my recent dinosaur fetish. I'm going to have to clear some shelf space next to Xenozoic tales for this bad boy. Apparently, another comic company is putting together a similar-themed "re-boot" using 21st century soldiers of a Special Forces type, to be issued later this year. Whatever...I just need to know how many Thompson machine guns it takes to bring down an allosaurus.

[my Out of Time micro-game has been downloaded more than 120 times, by the way...still intend to get back to answering the questions/concerns certain readers brought up]

The second thing I picked up, though, was even MORE interesting. In one locked shelf, I found something that looked suspiciously like role-playing games (they were next to a big bowl or two of dice), but that I'd never heard of. Turns out it WAS a role-playing game I've never heard of: Chris Weedin's Horror Rules: The Simply Horrible Role-Playing Game. After some inquiries I was able to discover Mr. Weedin is a local author (well, he lives in Selah, just outside of Yakima) and he writes/designs RPGs for his own (indie) company. Horror Rules has been around the Yakima area for a few years (the copyright is 2003) and they have an annual Horror Rules tournament over Halloween, no less. The little old lady who was giving me the low-down said it was "quite different but a lot of fun." If she was a regular participant, she is definitely the oldest RPG gamer I have ever met.

Anyway, I picked up a copy of the basic game (Weedin has another nine or so supplements for HoR that adds on various genres and such), and I'm about halfway through it. And so far, it ain't half bad. I'm not much into horror role-playing, though I have a bit of experience with both Call of Cthulhu and InSpecters. Horror Rules seems about halfway between the two in terms of tone and technicality.

And it's barely 100 pages long (including a sample adventure). Nice.

: )

Anyhoo, I'm sure all be posting more on that later...if you're interested in Weedin's stuff you can check out his (very nice) web site, which has buttons to browse and order. Considering the quality of the book, his prices are pretty low...I don't know if he's nutty or if printing costs are cheaper in Eastern Washington, but I should probably find out as it might be worth the gas to get out there for my next print run.

So, yeah...back in Sea-Town now, safe and sound after a nice little visit over the mountains. Books to read and wine to drink (visited a couple wineries on the way out of town and picked up some good stuff). It is pouring rain in Seattle which means autumn has officially started in the Pacific Northwest. Personally, I love it. But I'm kinda' weird.

; )