Not A Board Game

Staring out at my dining and living room areas, I see a lot of board games that have been played in the last week or so: Axis & Allies, Life, Clue, Cranium, Monopoly, Chess. This is a bit unusual for the fam, but we've had a lack of external obligations and a heaping pile of rain...plus, I've just wanted the kids to do something besides fire up some sort of portable screen device. I'm a curmudgeon that way. 

Board games are not Dungeons & Dragons. I've seen a lot of "board game" posts and discussions around the blogs the last couple-three days...various angles, no one particular thread or thought...and I thought I might take a moment to belabor the point for a moment. Just because. 

Because I think it's important. 

Because, these days we often draw a line between "tabletop games" and "computer games" and while D&D is often (or potentially) played at/on a table, it's not the same thing as a tabletop game. Role-playing games of the "table-top" variety are NOT the same thing as common board or parlor games. 

I think we forget that. We talk about "un-plugging" from our phones or Switches or consoles (or whatever) to play an analog game and we lump RPGs in the same category as backgammon. They aren't the same...they're not even close. Sure, B/X was purchased in a box. So, too, are fancy cigars. 

Not. The. Same. Thing.

Consequently (and this is my point...as much as I ever have one), it's hardly any use judging RPGs by the same standards as other games. Yes, they have rules. Yes, they are played for enjoyment. The same could be said of a musical instrument. A saxophone is not the same as Chinese Checkers. Neither is an RPG.

RPGs need to be examined by their own standard. How well do they do the "RPG thing?" It's the only standard by which it makes sense to examine and analyze them. 

[*sigh* I don't know why I bother writing this since I'm sure it will either elicit cries of "duh" or deliberate and hard-headed denial. I suppose I just want to record my thoughts of the moment]

People choose to play RPGs for a variety of reasons. People choose to play golf or baseball for a variety of reasons. Pleasure, challenge, camaraderie, stimulation (mental, emotional, whatever), escapism. The "whys" of play is less concerning, less interesting to me at this moment than the hows and whats: What is an RPG? How does its design facilitate play? 

And of the hundreds or so RPGs I have owned, read, and/or played over the years, there is one RPG that stands head-and-shoulders over the entirety of the others with the way in which its HOW delivers on the promise of its WHAT. 

RPGs provide rules for participants to explore an imaginary environment. There's the WHAT.

That's "all" they do (yeah, it's a bit of a large "all"). But it's certainly different from what a board or computer game provides, namely a fixed structure of finite possibility. There may be exploration that takes place in a computer/board game, but it is always...ALWAYS...a limited potentiality.

RPGs are not structurally limited. Their environs...the imaginary realm in which games are played...are limitless. The rules provide procedure and (some) structure, but the potential for infinite possibility exists in every single RPG, even a game as constrained by procedure as, say, My Life With Master or Dogs in the Vineyard. 

The game of chess has a finite number of possible moves or combinations of play, just as does Tic-Tac Toe. Unlike the latter, those possible combinations number so many as to be...for practical purposes...uncountable. But given enough time (or enough computer memory) one could map out every possible sequence of plays given a board with a limited number of spaces and a limited number of pieces. 

That's not possible with an RPG.

SO...now that I've defined the "what," we can look at the "how" and for the vast majority of RPGs, we can observe that designers tend to include some sort of conflict or "drama" to help drive the game or (at least) instill action in the game's participants.

Recognize that such conflict isn't necessary to the play of most RPGs (depending on how structurally tight their rules/procedures are). What if I said my fighter wanted to give up the mercenary work and start a farm? What if I decided I wanted to find a local village woman to woo and start a family with? What if the only "role-playing" interaction I wanted was with my neighboring villagers, discussing their issues and petty soap operas?

If the Dungeon Master and other players are on board with this type of game, nothing precludes the campaign from following this road. Maybe the magic-user wishes to start a school for the village children. Maybe the cleric wants to help the local pastor put a new roof on the church. Maybe the party thief decides he's done with his life of crime and decides to be the town sheriff, using his abilities to do "detective work," while being pleasant and sociable and atoning for his past pickpocketing and housebreaking. 

Certainly, the rules provided in the PHB and DMG support (and encourage) a different style of play from this, but nothing prevents the group from going this route. Nothing stops the Dungeon Master from having an alien spaceship land in the village green one day, either...perhaps with friendly extraterrestrials that wish the village to board their ship and travel to a distant star to build a new colony or help terraform a planet that's atmosphere is conducive to humans (but not the e.b.s). 

Endless possibilities with RPGs. Because the only (stated) objectives of play are "have fun" and "don't die" ...and the latter objective is secondary due to players' capability of creating replacement characters as necessary.

All that being said, the design of an RPG (the "HOW") is what provides the basis of comparison between different RPGs effectiveness of delivering an RPG experience. And in reviewing various RPGs and their designs, I cannot find a design more satisfying than that of Dungeons & Dragons. The premise of the game and the asymmetry of available player options combine to create a unique cooperative experience with modulated levels of adrenaline/stress/satisfaction that is a function of both GM creativity and players' own comfort level with regard to risk-reward.

It is (to me) unfortunate that later iterations of the D&D game have sought to limit and depress these elements.

But most RPGs aren't nearly so pointed or well-designed (at least in concept...all editions of D&D fall down at times in execution of the concept). And, yes, I write that knowing full well that the soundness of D&D's design is due as much to "happy accident" as to any real design chops. Regardless, of the RPGs that I've had the pleasure of playing over the years, there is really only one that comes to delivering, conceptually, as well as (and in as like fashion as) Dungeons & Dragons does. And I'm kind of surprised by the answer:

Shadowrun.

All the more surprising, because A) I didn't come to that conclusion before just now (when, while coming to this point of my writing, I stopped to review a mental list of all the RPGs I've owned, read, and played over the years), and B) I've been doing some....mmm..."stuff" with Cry Dark Future the last couple days.

[more on that later]

Okay, enough blathering. I've said my piece. Hopefully I'll have a thing or two to say on campaigns and treasure in the next few days. Hasta pronto.

Cry Dark Future: Re-Visiting Chargen

What I really want to write about today is race and racism (especially as it pertains to American politics), despite knowing how well that type of conversation tends to go over. However, I've been fighting a cold for the last couple-three days so my brain isn't putting thoughts together all that well at the moment.

Let's talk game design instead!

Cry Dark Future (CDF) sets up chargen much the same as Shadowrun 3E: assign a number of priorities (abilities, skills, resources, metatype, and magic) and build your character. It does use random dice roll for abilities, but these get adjusted depending on A) priority assigned to abilities, and B) metatype (character race). Very standard Shadowrun-y though skills are quite different (and far more limited in number), seeing as how we're using a B/X chassis and not SR's "dice pool" system.

Yes, player characters earn "levels" through the accumulation of experience points, just as in D&D; these influence things like hit points, attack ability, saving throws, and skill use. No, there are no "character classes" as CDF attempts to adhere to the "open build" format of chargen found in all editions of SR (a list of pre-built "archetypes" are included in an appendix).

Magicians in CDF are a bit of a divergence from standard SR: although spell-casting ("theurgy") uses a SR-style "pain for play" format, instead of D&D's Vancian "fire and forget" system, the Hermetic/Shamanic dichotomy has been junked in favor of a Sorcerer/Witch system heavily inspired by David Chandler's Ancient Blades trilogy. However, since the spells are still of a Build-Your-Own variety these (mostly) comes down to setting color: a sorcerer might throw a fireball while a witch causes someone's explosive ammo to have a disastrous "malfunction." Sample spells are provided (in yet another appendix), but it's still more "open" than the kinds of spell lists found in D&D and its ilk (Palladium, DCC, etc.).

Other than some simplification (and B/X system-appropriate modification), cyberware is, more-or-less, similar in nature and use to SR. No, there is no essence loss; characters instead lose charisma as they become more inhuman monster and less flesh-n-blood (shout out to Cyberpunk 2020 and cyber-psychosis!). Works great in practice, but for chargen it's still the arduous math exercise, balancing resource expenditure with CHA limits with character effectiveness and "theme." That is to say, it takes a while if you're wanting to "build your own 'borg" (as opposed to using a pre-gen). Of course, the equipment section itself isn't much lighter than a standard SR manual, so just selecting gear for a character with high priority resources is going to take a while regardless of how "cybered" she is.

SO, just continuing where I left off, here's some of the changes I was thinking about making:

• Drop the Shadowrun "priority system" completely. 
• Institute a class system...probably something closer to X-Plorers or Holmes then B/X, but I could do  "metatype as class" similar to B/X (in which case all trolls and dwarves, etc. would look...roughly...the same). Random rolled abilities would lead players to consider a particular class over another.
• Roll skills into classes (similar to X-Plorers).
• Adopt either a Vancian or "pseudo-Vancian" magic system, advancing spell power with level of experience. Different magician types would have different spell lists (true Vancian), or might keep a slightly more open approach (or incorporate parts of SR's "open" design...such as with regard to conjuration and astral projection). Might still keep "pain for play" because I like the whole concept of "everything costs something."
• Reduce available gear/weapons/cyberware that can be purchased at the beginning of the game; probably based on a random roll (similar to "starting gold" in D&D) though modified based on class selected. This probably means no helicopter gunships for starting characters, unfortunately, but it will give them something to work for.
• Possibly change cyberware to increase in effectiveness depending on level...though as I write this I intensely dislike the idea. Cyberware (especially the potent stuff) should be equivalent to a magic item in D&D. A low level character with a +3 sword gets a lot more benefit from the item than a high level character, even though the effect remains the same...but the low level character probably isn't going to be able to access the type of adventure where such an item would be found.  I prefer simply limiting starting cyberware to off-the-shelf basic models rather than SOTA (state of the art) stuff.

Doing these things wouldn't alter much of the game, or require substantial re-writing (well, except in the Character Creation and Magic chapters), and I think it would give me a game a much more D&D-flavored spin: characters would start more gritty and have a reason to "adventure" (to improve), while providing an easier method of generating new characters to replace the casualties of the setting.

What do folks think (especially people who are interested in the game)? Would this be straying too far from what folks hope for or want out of such a game? Should I be snorting less effective cold medicine? Let me know!

Thanks.
; )

Cry Dark Future: Shadowrun or B/X?

Where to start, where to start...hmm....

I believe (a bit) in signs. Omens. Not excessively, mind you (I'm not reading my fortune in the coffee grounds at the bottom of my cup), but probably more than the average person. I take a lot of non-rational things on faith, of course...like my religion...but sometimes I look at the way my brain formulates thoughts and consider it downright superstitious. Like not allowing a black cat to cross my path. Or refusing to drink a beer until the Seahawks have scored a touchdown.

Anyway, I don't see everything as a "sign" but sometimes I do.  And the other day, a couple long-forgotten Shadowrun books emerged from a dusty hiding place, just when I was getting all gung ho about trying to finish up a writing project or two. Regardless of whether it was some sort of omen, it triggered something in my mind to say, hey, let's go and revisit Cry Dark Future. I mean, I did finish the text (a couple drafts anyway), and I did have a couple people go through it with the editor's pen, and I did get a lot of positive feedback in play testing...maybe it's time to just call it a day and get it published. I know there's still some interest floating around out there.

[yes, DMWieg, you're one of those people...]

But I also know I've written that before and gone down that same mental road before and something's stopped me...more than once. So let's take yet (another) hard look at the thing. A new look, if you will. And what it'd take to salvage this thing.

First thing's first: there already exists a game called Shadowrun. Lots of people have played it. Lots of people like it. Lots of people like the ideas in it but not the system. The first edition of the game was probably the tightest, in terms of execution and design, but the third edition was probably the best. When I wrote CDF I took the game and (with minimal thematic changes) used these two editions as my main base. I wanted a B/X system that played like SR1 and SR3, even though it didn't use dice pools and health tracks.

And it does.

But hold on a second. Let's look at some of the things that make B/X a great game.

It's simple to learn. Character creation is easy. The magic system is easy. The combat system is easy. Designing adventures is easy. And the built-in advancement scheme is not only thematically appropriate, it also evolves the game in such a way that allows for steady growth of content (through accessibility) coupled with increased power that matches the learning curve.

In other words: you start as a low-level shmuck facing shmucky challenges and graduate to a bonafide hero facing heroic challenges. And you learn more about the game (whether we're talking tactics or spell lists) over time, just as your character gains "imaginary" experience.

That's not really Shadowrun's bag. In Shadowrun you create a character that is competent in one or more areas. You face challenges that might be big or small, usually with commensurate reward. Over time, you might gain power (especially magician characters), but really all the content is on the table from the get-go. Do you want a character to have the best military armor, cyberware, and heavy machine guns in the game? You can start with that. Do you want your magicians to be able to summon giant elementals, turn opponents to stone, throw fireballs, astrally project, and mask an entire adventuring party with a single spell of invisibility? You can start with that, too. The only question is which role do you want to play in the party (the samurai, the decker, the shamanic mage) and min-max your build appropriately. Or heck, just take one of the character write-ups already provided in the rulebook and "add name."

More than D&D, Shadowrun's GM is tasked with producing entertainment for the table...because there's nothing that's really pushing the players to DO anything. It's not really in "the spirit" of the game, but nothing prevents you from, say, assigning your top priority in chargen to resources and spending the whole bundle on a decade of "high lifestyle." Dude...I just retired my character! I win!

Sure, players can create individual backstories that provide motivation and impetus for adventuring...but leaving aside for the moment that sticky wicket (and explain again why you're not just spending your free time writing fiction?)...how is the GM supposed to coordinate multiple "storylines" that may be at odds with each other? And what about the players not interested in coming up with these backstories? Or the difference in quality between backstories? Or the fact that a GM might prefer one set of stories to another (and thus favor it in scenario design)?

D&D starts adventurers at the beginning of their careers...players are, in fact, creating their own "origin/backstories" in their adventures (if you want to think about it in those terms). They are pushed to grow by the very career path they've chosen for themselves. Over time...should they survive...they will achieve a kind of ascendancy, a leg up on all newbie adventurers that (later) join the campaign. Sure, in real life the old and worn down eventually get pushed aside by the young and ambitious...but D&D is still heroic fantasy. I mean, we're fighting dragons here people!

Shadowrun (and CDF by extension, since it was built to emulate that RPG), is about covert operatives in a (fantasy) dystopian future using their nefarious skills to achieve...what? A comfortable life? But why not just get on the payroll for some megacorp security team? Get your benefits and your stock options and whatnot?

Do you folks get what I'm saying? Unless you decide to play one of the "ugly" mutant meta types (or decide your character has some sort of "anti-corporation" backstory), it's not like your character is even fighting for respectability; she's already respectably competent and utterly employable!

I guess I just don't believe it anymore: the Shadowrun concept. I can live with the weird fantasy and the cyber-tech and the "Sixth World" stuff...the setting is fine, even if a little cheesy. But if I'm going to push characters to do dangerous jobs and pull reckless stunts I need some better carrot than the one the game is dangling. Because just being able to shoot fantasy dragons with fantasy automatic weapons isn't really good enough to sustain a long-term campaign. It's not enough to sustain my interest anyway.

So that's what I'm ruminating on now: how to make CDF more like B/X. How to make characters less competent and more needy to fire up their ambition to play...and continue playing.

Without making the game into some sort of post-apocalyptic cyberpunk setting.

More later (though helpful suggestions/comments are, of course, welcome!).

"With Great Power Comes Great Mental Illness..."

Apologies, apologies. Yes, I disappeared for a damn long time there...it's been a pretty busy month and a half. So sorry.

[what happened to the Middle Earth "guide?" Um...let me get back to you on that]

I gave up drinking (alcohol) for Lent this year and it's been a fairly tough go. Not (just) because I'm a (functioning) alcoholic...going without doesn't give me the shakes or anything like that. It's just that I'm so used to having a drink or three just in the course of doing stuff...cooking, watching a game, going out, streaming some show. Not to mention I've been mainlining NPR since the end of the football season and alcohol really helps take the edge off of whatever the Trump administration is doing these days...

(*sigh*)

Caught myself actually thinking about wanting a smoke the other day, and it's been nearly two decades since I last had a cigarette. Crazy. Instead I pounded a box of Girl Scout cookies ("thin" mints) over the course of three days (my daughter did help). Obviously, I'm a man who needs his vices.

So hear I sit, drinking yet another can of LaCroix (because it's cold and bubbly and, no, I don't know why I don't just drink water, dammit). But at least I'm blogging something, which is a start. Got to start somewhere. Even after you've started, sometimes it's necessary to start again.

And again. And again.

I'm going to talk about Shadowrun in a minute, but I just need to get a couple things out there first. I have been gaming a lot lately, but it's been almost exclusively Axis and Allies, which was a Christmas gift to my son, and which we've been playing non-stop for three or four weeks. We're using the 1941 rules, which are wonderful...the game is short and streamlined compared to other versions, and you can get through a game in about an evening and a half. We've played probably a dozen times, my son resetting the board after every defeat (no, he hasn't won yet, but he loves the thing and he's stubborn as hell...kind of like his old man).

We're even experimenting with our own rules. We wanted to add giant diesel-powered mecha to the board (inspired by the Japanime/manga Kishin Corps, as well as Pacific Rim), but haven't been able to decide on rules for the things. Instead our most recent game has introduced kaiju (giant monsters, a la Godzilla or...again...Pacific Rim), to act as a neutral, third party "spoiler." Jury's still out on their inclusion (we're in the middle of our first game using them), but we'll see if they'll swing the tide of the war one way or another...or if they simply devastate civilization while world's powers burn each other to the ground.

Something like this...

So, yes, I am doing "tabletop gaming" (of a sort), and A&A isn't the only one, though it's the only one worth mentioning. I was really, really looking hard at rewriting Heroes Unlimited to my own specs...and I may still do so...but when I open the book and start hacking through jungle I find it Just...So...Daunting. Hats off to Mr. Siembieda for actually putting together this thing...I mean, I couldn't (certainly wouldn't) put together these lists of gadgets for hardware characters and implants for bionic character and this system of magic, and All These Random Tables, and...and...

(*double sigh*) It's actually kind of hard deciding what exactly to keep.

But I did get a little inspired watching the new season of Jessica Jones this last week; at least, binging it added fuel to the smoldering blaze. I've decided I LOVE Jessica Jones (the show, not the character). Unlike prior Marvel Netflix shows, the new season of JJ is awesome right out of the gate, rather than waiting 2-3 episodes to find its feet. It does hit its peak about three episodes from the end season, resulting in a looooong denouement but...whatever. The show is filled with such bitterness and sadness and melancholy, you KNOW how it's all going to end, even if you're not sure the exact path the plot takes to get there. And you're already bought in, so...yeah. Tears and booze. And regrets and recriminations. Jessica Jones.

She really reminds me of a girl or two I used to know.

Even added the Whizzer!
With mongoose!

Anyhoo, the thing about JJ (and ALL the Marvel Netflix series) is how "small time" the superhero world is in the setting. And Heroes Unlimited may be...hmmm, I'm not exactly sure what I want to say.

...may be the only supers RPG that does small time(?)

...may be the "best" supers RPG at doing small time(?)

Probably something like "may be my personal favorite RPG for doing small time." And yet every revision, every supplement has seen increases in the power level of the game. Never mind Rifts and its (wholly compatible) madness. But if you dial that power creep way down, you can really start to see a good system for modeling the likes of Jessica Jones and her associates (not to mention antagonists). It's just that looking at the words "good system" makes me want to guffaw aloud as I consider Palladium's systems. So, so sorry.

SO...Shadowrun. I picked up a copy of the 4th edition the other day (I think it's the 4th...it says "20th Anniversary Core Rulebook" on the cover). I did this for a couple reasons: first, it was dirt cheap ($9.99, used). Second, I wanted to see what was new and great  and "happening" with Shadowrun, thinking maybe it would galvanize me to take action with my long unpublished Cry Dark Future manuscript. However, I've yet to read page one of the tome (it's sitting in bed next to me as I type this) because...well, because I've been busy. And maybe because I'm lacking the heart (or stomach) to look betwixt its covers.

This one...pretty sure it's
the fourth edition.

HOWEVER (still with me folks? Okay, almost done)...however, even though I've been lugging this thing around in my backpack, NOT reading it, it's been on my mind a bit. And so, when I was in a local game shop Wednesday, making the acquaintance of the 23 year old store manager and found out her RPG experience was mainly with Shadowrun, I found myself not only talking about my own experience with the SR game, but about my own, unpublished, SR-knockoff. And I ended up giving her an old manuscript Thursday, and picking up her feedback Friday. AND, as was the case SIX YEARS AGO (jumping Jesus on a pogo stick!), the comments were universally positive. There is, apparently, still a market for Shadowrun (who'd have thunk it?), and one that has serious complaints about the RPG's current level of accessibility (low), and that might find real enjoyment in something a little more "lightweight" while keeping the same Shadow-isms.

In other words, publish the damn thing already.

Now for those of you who have followed this blog for...Christ, years!...for those who've been following the saga of this thing, you might recall that I basically started rewriting the whole damn book from scratch, making it much more of a post-apocalyptic fantasy game. Something like Appleseed (at least the cinematic version) with elves and dwarves. Ralph Bakshi's Wizards meets Thundarr meets Heavy Metal meets Ghost in the Shell. With pointy ears. And VERY different game systems (especially pertaining to character creation, advancement/development, and material resources). A complete frigging overhaul might be a good way to describe it. An overhaul that I have never completed.

Here's the thing I've just realized in the last couple days (as I dug up and reread both my original manuscript and the current, unfinished rewrite): the overhaul is a different game. It has the same name, and a few of the systems but the setting and theme are completely different. Hell, the name "Cry Dark Future" doesn't even fit. Dark future? Whose future? Tolkien's? It's post-apocalyptic fantasy, it's not "future" anything. Hell, even the guns are about the same as current (real world) technology...the only thing "futuristic" is the cybernetics, and those could just as easily be skinned as magical or steampunk or whatever.

What I really have on my hand are two different books. One finished and one not. Two games, not one. The finished one is even playable.

It is, though, in need of a lot of polishing. Rereading it really made me cringe in places. I kind of hate how I wrote it: my style, my wording. It does need an overhaul, but mainly in phrasing. It needs to be clearer, more succinct and useful in conveying its rules. And it needs to be more creative in how it models certain in-game systems.

So, yeah. Looks like I'm back to finishing Cry Dark Future. Just to put it to bed...finally.

Expect the blogging to be light and sporadic for the near future. Again: apologies.

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.

The Kitchen Sink

AKA Taking a Hard Look at the State of a Project

Just as a quick aside...can I just mention how much I hate the current version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise? I'd guess that it is now more popular than ever and that it's creators (or whomever they sold out to) is making money hand-over-fist, but...ugh...so gross compared its charming/dark/satirical origins. Just reading through the current version of the origin story and...Splinter was once human? And he mutated into some sort of wererat? How is that an improvement (or even more sensical) than the original story? April is caucasian now (and seems to get younger with every iteration of the franchise). The turtles themselves are incredibly hammy in personality while...

You know what? It really doesn't matter. Really. The only reason I'm even thinking about it is that there's a TMNT coloring book next to me and the tagline along the bottom says: "Mutants Rule!"

[does  such a phrase even make sense to a child of the 21st century? Do kids these days still say things like "that rules!" like my friends and I did in the mid-80s? It seems like the kind of colloquialism that would have gone out of style 20 years ago...but then, I suppose this is something the turtles might say in their faux-surfer/skater slang, like "kowabunga." Does that mean anything to children these days besides "something a turtle says?" Just...gross]

[of course, given a chance my child likes to talk in something resembling "Minion-speak" (see Despicable Me films for reference)...but then he's four and I cut him some slack...even though he knows that three of a kind is better than two pair]

Now, I'd guess that the "Mutants Rule!" line is a throwback reference to the colloquialism of the 80's...even if the children don't grok the meaning (I just asked my son what he thinks that line means...he said he doesn't know because the Turtles don't "rule" anything. Maybe pizza, he suggested...) *ahem* Even If the consumer child doesn't grok the meaning, the current writer/creator of the coloring book/marketing is probably some dude in his late 30's-40's who is referencing it as typical "Turtle Slang." Then again, maybe it's clever tongue-in-cheek...maybe the franchise owners are saying that these particular "Mutants" have "rulership" over the current marketplace for its demographic. 

Just as D&D, regardless of its current flaws continues to "rule" over the RPG marketplace (via name/brand recognition). Regardless of whether or not a particular edition is outsold by Pathfinder, I'd guess most folks playing PF still consider themselves to be "D&D players." I mean, Pathfinder is just D&D 3.5, right? Hasbro could certainly feel a little justified in writing "D&D Rules!" across the bottom of their weighty tomes.

[yes, I realize this "quick aside" is running long...again...sorry]

But what if we cut off "Mutants Rule!" tag-line and divorced it from all this context? What if we just used it for the basis of an RPG, without reference to turtles or toy-lines or snarky marketers? Sounds like a tasty little premise for some post-apocalyptic action, no? It could certainly be worked to fit (with a little effort) into the most recent premise/changes of Cry Dark Future.

[dunh-dunh-dunh...see? I circled back!]

CDF is in a bit of a dark place at the moment. I don't mean that in the sense of tone, but rather like "in the dark." The real future of the game Cry Dark Future is dark, as in obscured. I don't know if this thing is ever going to see the light of day (i.e. "publication").

It doesn't help that I simply can't bring myself to re-open the document.

The thing is, once I started re-vamping it, I realized just how much damn work it needs. No, I'm not talking layout or editing or artwork, though all that is needed, too (and will be a bitch to do, especially the artwork part). No, I'm talking about wholesale revisions and rewrites and pruning of extraneous crap while finding NON-extraneous crap...er, "fluff"...to plug in the holes. The problem is that, right now, the thing is a bit too "kitchen sinky"...but if you pull that sink out, you're going to find ourself standing knee-deep in a flooded cocina. 

[just to take an analogy a bit too far]

The original idea with CDF (for those not in the know) was that it was an attempt to do the Shadowrun game with a B/X chassis. Such a task is a lot easier than one might think...despite its point-buy, skill-based, D6 dice pool system, Shadowrun is just D&D with guns. You're still playing scurrilous rogues operating in parties sporting a mixed bag of different character types that operate outside the local law/authority structure. You're still invading dungeons/installations with objectives to rob/loot and/or make a buck from some shady contact person (wizard in a tavern). You're still fighting "monsters" with weapons, magic, and (hopefully) some sort of cleverness, and upgrading your characters with new gear/equipment. Gunbunnies meet folks who like elves.

Thematically, it's not a very big jump from D&D to Shadowrun...and so tweaking the D&D system to allow the kind of madness found in the cyber-punkish setting of Shadowrun is a piece of easy. It took longer to write it all up then it took to work out the specific system issues (a Shadowrun-style magic system instead of Vance; rules for "decking" and vehicle combat, etc.). In all honesty, the most difficult part was coming up with new names for SR setting-specific features ("filing the numbers off" things like cyberdecks, for example). Even the point-buy system of the 3rd edition was easy to model...after all, D&D's done "point-buy" chargen in the past (see Advanced Player Options for 2nd Edition).

However, play-testing showed CDF still suffered from several problems:

• no really cares much about tracking ammunition ("bullet counting")...and even if they did, that's the kind of thing quickly lost in a fast-paced combat system.
• several character types felt a bit over-powered. The physical adept for sure (actually had to remove this option from the game; didn't make much sense cosmologically either), but any kind of character with "enhanced reflexes" tended to upstage those without in a way that was not-fun for most of the folks at the table.
• even cut down to B/X (cutting almost all skills, for example, and adding random attributes), chargen is slooooow and looooong. When you're dealing with point-buys and (especially) purchasing cyberware (and recording modifications) and 'running gear from a number of lists, making a character can take a session in and of itself. And you really don't want slow chargen when characters are prone to getting killed by hails of bullets and manabolts. Even writing up pre-gen "equipment packages" was little help (takes a long time to copy all that stuff, plus figure out what it means for your PC). Tooooo sloooooow...
• the magic system is a bit of a mess combining elements of Shadowrun and 1st edition Stormbringer while thematically stealing heavily from David Chandler's Ancient Blades Trilogy. And it's too abstract in the spell department.
• the actual setting of the Shadowrun game is just...ugh. Suffice is to say, a person's tastes as an adult of 30-40+ years is different from his tastes as a kid of 13-15 (when I first played the game). And no matter how "mature" you make the content of a game session it's hard to justify a lot of the 'punkisms that, quite frankly, our world has grown beyond.

[which isn't to say that playing an RPG in a dystopian future ain't possible, or even fun. I look at the recent Robocop reboot and Dread films...just to name two...and see how the idea of a terrible future Earth, full of adventure, still holds water. I guess it's just the dwarves and orcs...]

Anyhoo...I've managed to revamp/update...what? four?...yeah, four out of these five issues (the magic one is the main canker still festering...ye Lord, another "new" magic system needed). But doing so has opened a bunch of other worm cans, as the game has moved farther and farther away from its SR-meets-B/X roots. Much more post-apocalyptic now for one thing, but without the mutant superpowers so often found in PA role playing games. 

Still has mutants, though. 'Cause mutants rule, right?

But dread is what I feel every time I think about working on the game. I don't know why. Maybe because I like it (the idea of it) a lot? And I want it to be better? And because better takes a lot of time and work and effort? Maybe. 

Maybe it's because I'm stuck for ideas. Maybe I just don't want to make lazy design choices to expedite the thing's completion (like throwing in a Vancian magic system with an appropriately themed spell list).

Or maybe it's just that the game has so many things now (the kitchen sink, too) and the real issue is that manuscript needs extensive pruning and I don't want to lose so many of my "favorite things" that I worked up, even though they no longer fit in a game that's a bit more than B/X Shadowrun. 

Dread...and distraction. These are my main stumbling blocks at the moment. When I can find the time to do anything (currently after 2:30 in the AM here). All right...enough for now.

Free RPG Day - The Haul

Happy Father's Day to all the dads, step-dads, grandfathers, etc. out there! Without our fathers...um, pretty much none of us would be here. We should all feel grateful for that.

On the other hand, being as this is my second Father's Day as a father, I feel most grateful for my own son, who allows me to celebrate the day as a "dude of honor." He's just such a joy!

Taking a break from my magical musings for the nonce...yesterday was Free RPG Day and I was down at Gary's Games bright and early (9am) to pick up the latest-greatest. Skipped the Pathfinder and 4E offerings as I'm totally uninterested in those games (to put it mildly). Here's what I DID get:

ConspiracyX Introductory Game Kit (think of a mash-up between Men In Black and the X-Files): if you're into alien conspiracies as entertainment, this might be an RPG to check out. If you're not whole hog on the idea, the pedestrian plot and fairly boring mechanics might not be enough to juice you on it. I found the ESP mechanics/concept to be the most noteworthy think in the kit; definitely an interesting and cool design choice.

Battletech: A Time of War Quick-Start Rules: This appears to be Catalyst Games' attempt at remaking Mechwarrior (the original outside-the-mech RPG of the BT universe. As far as I'm aware, this would be the first official remake of MW since FASA's original went out-of-print. The mechanics are a little jazzed up (i.e. "more complex") as might be expected as they are based on the latest version of BT: Total War, and yet some things (like the damage monitor) seems stream-lined (no hit locations) even as they add a separate "fatigue track" (something I've always found problematic in practice with multiple RPGs). I don't know...I liked MW but could never get around to playing it because, well, if you're playing BattleTech then you generally want to be stomping around in giant robots. However, I will say A) the mechanics are fairly close to the original (which is a plus), B) the "Edge" mechanic (an additional attribute that acts as a drainable "luck" resource pool) is cool, and C) all the sample characters are neat and look like fun to play, i.e. role-play. The adventure's kind of neat, too, as a one-off.

Shadowrun Quick-Start Rules (on the reverse side of the Battletech QSR): Since I've heard nothing about Shadowrun coming out with yet another edition, all I can figure is this a promotion for the current (4th Edition) game from Catalyst...something to get the word out, and get people to come on board. So it's pretty much the same-old-same-old with the addition of "complex actions" versus "simple actions" and yadda-yadda with a lot of recycled art (all stuff from the basic book or prior adventure supplements). For me, the most interesting thing about the QSR is its length: 19 pages (not counting a 6-page adventure and 8 pages of pre-gen archetypes). I wrote whole game dealing with a lot of the same subject matter with little more than 3x that many pages.

Cosmic Patrol Quick-Start Rules: The Kahn Protocol (also, surprisingly, from Catalyst): Cosmic Patrol actually has all the look and flavor of an indie-game, in that it is whimsical (1930-60s pulp sci-fi...you know, bubble helmets, rocketships, Martian axe-women, etc.) and story oriented. Traditional GM duties are shared between all players in a rotating "Lead Narrator" role, the game works in rounds (my term) where everyone contributes to the story at hand while attempting to hit plot points and accomplish mission objectives to create a coherent narrative. At the same time, the game can't get away from "standard" RPG tropes: each player has a character, with standard attributes (brawn, brains, fighting, luck), health points, weapons, armor points, and equipment (though that last one is actually more of a metagame mechanic than actual "gear").

The funny thing about Cosmic Patrol is it is extremely similar to my first attempts at a "story now" game, even down to the subject matter (spaceship crew), when I was first introduced to the concept a few years back. As with so many of my projects, this one never quite achieved "lift-off" and part of the reason was difficulty finding a way to reconcile a narratavist agenda with typical RPG systems. I'm not sure Cosmic Patrol pulls this off (in many ways, it reminds me more of a story-telling game say, like Once Upon A Time, than an actual RPG), but it's pretty ambitious that they'd put this together, and I wouldn't mind giving it a whirl and seeing how it works.

Only War: Eleventh Hour (an intro to Fantasy Flight's latest WH40K-themed RPG): This appears to be the game I thought Deathwatch was supposed to be...basically, the 40K version of WHFRP but with non-space marines. I don't know...maybe that's what it is. The pre-gens are Catachan Jungle Fighters and Ogryn (i.e. Imperial Guard troop types for those who know WH40K) with all the usual ability scores (including Fellowship) plus skills. Yay, skills. In all seriousness, I know I have a hard time being impartial with games like this because I love the idea of playing military sci-fi RPGs...but I could only wish the character profiles looked a little simpler to put together, as I would hope that any 40K RPG makes it exceptionally easy for PCs to meet horrifying, messy, and/or grimly amusing death. Look, the armies of the 40K universe are terrifying warmongers...as individuals, they're even less "heroic" than an old school D&D adventurer. That doesn't mean they can't attempt...or even succeed...at missions of "heroic" proportion. But let there be no tears shed for the fallen members of the Imperial Guard...and certainly no tears shed by players forced to go through a drawn-out chargen process to create a new Guardsman.

Dungeon Crawl Classics (that's the title of the Free RPG Day offering, but it's not the RPG itself): This is a pair of single-session adventures for use with the DCC system, plus an adventure design competition (and a chance to win some money). The adventures are titled The Undulating Corruption and The Jeweler that Dealt in Stardust and I've yet to read either (my playtesting of the DCC Beta convinced me that DCC isn't a game I'm interested in playing). So why bother picking up a copy? Actually, I picked up TWO - first because, though I don't like the DCC system, I love the game's style and themes (very pulp sword & sorcery) and want to see if anything here could or should be translated into my D&D Mine system (which I hope to run in a very S&S fashion myself...once it's at the point of running anything). Secondly, a buddy who was in Eastern Washington over the weekend asked me to pick him up a copy since he wasn't able to make it to the shop.

Aaaaand that's about it. Gary's took the opportunity of Free RPG Day to clear some shelf space and so I was able to pick up a copies of Agent X (free) and Coyote Trail (half price), but those are full RPGs that I haven't had the chance to read; if I have anything useful to say about 'em later I will, though I believe both are out-of-print as of this date. It was quite a pile of goodies I brought back from the store Saturday...a good way to kick off the weekend and Solstice.

Have a good week, folks!

; )

Dave Ruins Things for EVERYone

So it's Saturday night, and I've been a lot of thought to some serious edits of my fantasy-punk game since Thursday night's play-test session..

Thursday's game saw the continuation of the assault that started the week before, but with the missing players (four of 'em) arriving late to the scene and joining the raid, mid-firefight. That all worked out fine (still digging the team leader mechanic...it works great for split parties and maintaining order overall)...though much like B/X Dungeons & Dragons, a skirmish level combat system has the tendency to bog down once you get more than a dozen combatants involved.

Not that things were all that much back with Shadowrun...

ANYway, that wasn't la problema. The problem was, some folks were disgruntled by the way things were going down, specifically by their own lack of effectiveness compared to other characters' "ultra-effectiveness."

Actually, "disgruntled" is too strong a word. Definitely, there was some acknowledged poor dice rolling on the parts of some individuals (which ultimately led to a number of folks being killed/taken out). But other characters certainly seemed to have more than a leg up on others in combat...receiving multiple attacks, striking first, and being nearly impossible to hit due to their low armor class (natural 20s needed).

Which kind of sucked considering other players had prioritized specifically for combat...and were weaker in combat than the guy who had assigned 0 priority to combat.

The problem folks, is physical adepts.

I've been starting to think that I may have made the game a bit too close to Shadowrun over all. Not surprising really, because my initial thought was,

"Shadowrun has a terrible game system...I could do better just converting the whole thing to B/X."

Voila...I end up with what might as well be called B/X Shadowrun (go figure). And yet I've borrowed and stolen and spliced pieces of other games (Cyberpunk 2020, Twilight 2000, Advanced Recon, Rifts) along with different genre movies (Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed, Strange Days, RoboCop) to give it the stuff I want.

However, there is a TON of recognizably Shadowrun stuff in the game, especially with regard to the magic system, and I'm starting to wonder...do I really WANT a Shadowrun-style magic system?

Do I?

Definitely the physical adepts are problematic. Sorry, Dave...but after thinking about it for three days we may have to ret-con your character into something entirely different. See, I don't mind a player prioritizing RESOURCES and blowing their money on cyberware that makes them into a combat badass (with wired reflexes and bionic parts). In MY game, the trade-off results in Charisma loss, rather than some abstract, do-nothing stat like "Essence." Turning your character into a killing machine makes him/her a lot less likable a person.

So what, you say. Charisma is a "dump stat" anyway, right? Nope...at least, not if you want to do things like use your Contacts...which is important to folks who want to, say, purchase or repair damaged cyberware. Not if you want to interact with folks on a level besides "waving gun under nose."

But while cyborgs have to contend with their own loss of humanity and alienation, the "physical adept" (a kind of "magic cyborg") takes no penalties for becoming a "super-soldier."

• It doesn't matter if they lower the priority on resources; they only need a little cash for a few basic weapons and they can have as many of the advantages a million credit cyborg does.
• It doesn't matter if they lower the priority on skills; their adept abilities can make them highly effective artificially ESPECIALLY with combat.
• And because "adept status" is only priority B (as opposed to a priority A full magician), the character can have fat ability scores (at priority A) that simply get pumped into the stratosphere with their adept powers.

The end result is a character who's just a little too perfect. Steve-O may have been a walking cyborg nightmare, but he was still a nightmare...relegated to waiting in the car (or in back alleys) while the "grown ups" were having conversations with NPCs. His job was to walk point and take that first bullet.

But the adept? He makes the snipers and bruisers look redundant when he can dance around and shrug off gunfire and still "stealth" and "computer hack" and use that 18 charisma to negotiate with fixers.

Even in Shadowrun, the physical adept seems a bit of a sink for min-maxing madness...and yet, it's been included as an option in every edition beginning with the 2nd edition. After play-testing a few weeks, I'm about 90% certain I'm dumping it from my book. Hey, it's just more room for illustrations, really.

But now that I've opened this can of worms, I'm thinking about starting from scratch on the ENTIRE magic system and making it something that doesn't even resemble Shadowrun. I like the whole Shaman versus Sorcerer thang...and I LIKE the idea of minor magic-users (with lower magic priority). And I REALLY like the non-Vancian magic system.

BUT there are other magical traditions that I'd like to include...like witches, for example. Dammit, I blame Tim Brannan in part for this. I started reading his Other Side blog due to this A-Z thing and his hardcore witch-blogging has completely reinvigorated my own interest in the subject. I, too, have at least one half-written witch RPG on the drawing board (and a 2nd with witchy over-tones), as well as a B/X witch character class in an incomplete supplement and at least one (also incomplete) B/X adventure module in which "witches" feature prominently. Ugh...shouldn't witchery be a part of any "dark fantasy" game?

Or is that too much like The Dresden Files?

Point is, I feel like my game it is FARTHER AWAY from completion than when I started, even though I've nearly finished writing the damn thing. Writing's been nearly finished, sure...but now rewriting (and re-conceptualizing!) may be necessary on a major scale.

Plus all this A-Z blogging is giving me the itch to play Dungeons & Dragons again.

(*sigh*)

Cooperation and Your Own Objectives (Part 3)

[please refer to post 1 and post 2 to see what the heck I'm talking about]

***EXAMPLES OF THE DISCONNECT***

Example #1

As a DM running a "sand boxy campaign" like, say, the Goblin Wars, I outline a broad overview of the campaign setting and throw out some "teasers," possible adventure ideas players might explore. One PC states he's interested in reclaiming his ancestral dwarvish home, lost in the war (specific objective). Another PC is intrigued by the possibility of discovering ancient ruins from pre-recorded history, possibly to uncover lore that will make him a powerful magic-user (semi-specific objective). A third wants to make some quick cash doing bodyguard work (weak objective). The other PCs are just "along for the ride" at this point, waiting to see what the DM is going to throw at them. How do we reconcile the separate objectives with the standard "party-up-and-adventure" assumption/imperative?

Possible Resolutions of Example #1

• DM ignores party objectives ("putting them off till later," whenever that might be) in favor of an adventure he's crafted for the party.
• DM chooses one PC's objective and crafts an adventure specific to it (whichever one grabs his interest/appears easiest); other PC objectives are ignored or "put off till later."
• DM attempts to craft an adventure that addresses ALL party objectives at once. Tricky to do (and cumbersome as well).

None of these possible resolutions are particularly satisfying. When I encountered this example, I chose to go with the first resolution (i.e. ignoring everyone). Which raises the follow-up question: why bother crafting a sandbox with options at all? See also my recent Traveller experience at last summer's Dragonflight Convention for a similar scenario.

Example #2

Party is exploring a site-based (dungeon) adventure. Characters are engaged in defeating monsters, avoiding traps, and acquiring treasure. Party consists of a mixed bag of individuals including mostly chaotic neutrals and goods (there is a drow character that is lawful neutral). One player, a newbie to the table-top game is playing a thief. The thief is out-classed by the other PCs in the party in both the fighting and magic departments, and so turns to what she knows: stealing (newbie playing a thief? Perfect sense). Character palms and pockets choice treasures from hordes while the other PCs engage monsters in combat. Later, players are upset with the PC's actions, and "rough up" her character, including strip-searching her making her turn over everything that looks like it might have been "suspiciously pocketed." The player was role-playing in character, but has compromised the "cooperative spirit" of the group. As a DM, how do you handle this situation?

Possible Resolutions of Example #2

• DM allows the extortion/humiliation of the thief to occur (PC pays the price for going against the group); newbie learns to "get along" with the cooperative spirit or go back to video RPGs.
• DM institutes a "note passing" policy (or something similar) so players don't know what actions are being taken by other party members (though when the thief starts passing notes or calling for "out-of-room conferences" they still know what's going on and force the thief to cough up the loot).
• DM exercises "DM force" to preclude PCs from acting against each other unless a character is caught "red-handed;" breeding resentment in players.

All of these resolutions suck...they all seem to be enabling the overall immaturity at the table rather than addressing it, and none of these possible resolutions encourage a character to engage in role-playing, should their character be a scurrilous rogue and thief. Honestly, I haven't encountered this kind of situation since I was a kid, but this specific one is taken from an actual play post taken from the blog of an adult role-player.

Example #3

Players are playing Shadowrun; their run involves kidnapping a celebrity movie starlet (or the Shadowrun equivalent), and holding her for three days so she misses her scheduled commercial appearances. One PC is a sleazy, low-life mage (you know the type...), who decides to have some "fun" with their captive while the group waits for their payday; he has spells that can control the celeb's mind and she has a weak will anyway so he makes her fall hopelessly in lust with him so he can have his way with her in the sleazy motel where they're held up. While this opens all sorts of interesting possibilities, the whole situation makes the other players incredibly uncomfortable...and yet none of them do anything about it, as they don't want to start an intra-party conflict. And it's not like the mage is "hurting her," right? Clearly, the objectives of the player is having a distressing effect but this time it is the PCs with more "wholesome objectives" (um...kidnapping people for pay?) that are being subjugated by the "cooperative spirit." How should the GM address something like this...especially considering there are no mechanical consequences from just being an outright bastard?

Possible Resolutions of Example #3

• GM lets the game play out as the most natural thing in the world...no harm, no foul and the other players aren't saying "boo;" screw 'em.
• GM draws the line on what lines can and can't be crossed in the game world, instituting a morality that isn't present within the game text for the peace of mind of the other players.
• GM takes the player aside and asks him to refrain from indulging his sick fantasies in this particular instance, if only for the good of the "group spirit;" considers not inviting the player to future games.

As usual, I'm not a fan of any of these resolutions. In this instance, the problem is (for me) a lack of morality or rules of conduct within the game system. Certainly, if this were D&D and a chaotic wizard was pulling these shenanigans, the party paladin would step in and clean his clock; here, there are no alignments. In a world where everything is permitted...well, you get the idea.

In reality, this particular scenario happened in a game of Shadowrun I was running, and the "sleaze mage" in question was an NPC the other PCs had hired. I had the NPC engage in his lewd behavior and questionable conduct specifically to force a reaction from the players...but their only reaction was to be turned off by the whole thing. They had no interest in intervening or worrying about ethical questions. Bunch o' pansies, if you ask me...however, I place it here as an example of disconnect between "cooperative play" and "individual objectives" because I can see myself doing this as a player, given the right set of circumstances. Why not? Cyberpunk (even fantasy cyberpunk) IS sleazy...sex, drugs, and chrome. But some folks just want to shoot imaginary guns I guess...

Example #4

The game is Vampire the Masquerade, there are eight players besides the GM. All characters reside in the same city, which has a small group of NPC vamps in addition to the PC. Each player creates their own character the "White Wolf way:" character concept, backstory, some ties or connections to the city. Characters are not expected to be a "party;" they are expected to be interesting characters and get involved in the drama of undead life. The players are all smart, hip college students...they all are able to come up with fairly specific concepts for their characters if not outright objectives. For example, the sewer-living Nosferatu wants to dig up dirt on all the vampires of the city so that he can blackmail them all as a way to power. The Ventrue club owner just wants to own a really cool bar that is popular with kindred and kine alike (and, in fact, already has the bar as part of his backstory and background points "spent" during character creation). You, as the Storyteller (GM), have some ideas for possible conflicts but the group seems hopelessly disparate...how do you get them all involved in a scenario or plot and still provide them with in-roads for meeting their objectives?

Possible Resolutions for Example #4

• Storyteller ignores the player objectives in favor of his own plot, railroading as necessary to get PCs involved (such as blowing up the Ventrue's bar in the opening scene).
• Storyteller offers his conflict/plot without railroading, possibly "throwing bones" here or there for PCs to pick up or not (like allowing the Nosferatu to find useful pieces of blackmail material during the session).
• Storyteller takes all the character sheets home with him after session #1 and attempts to craft a scenario that addresses all stated objectives in some coherent fashion...and then throws his hands up in disgust and walks away from the game.

Once again, these are all pretty awful ideas, even the 2nd one which is immensely difficult to do in practice (it requires both specificity of objective AND a clever player to pick up the clues/indicators laid down...unless you're just rubbing it in his face).

In actuality, I (the GM in this story) did kind of a combo of these ideas, though mostly number one and number three. It's just damn hard to craft an open-ended scenario for this many players...though in my defense, I played in other White Wolf games run by other storytellers (including both Ars Magica and Mage the Awakening) that had FEWER players and yet still completely failed (and for pretty much the exact same reason). At least my game got to session 3 before I bailed...

Now I can hear certain game designers reading through these examples and my last two posts and yelling, "Who the f-- cares, JB?!" They may offer suggestions like:

a) cut down on the number of players (to better manage individual player's objectives better), OR

b) choose the players that sit at your table carefully so that they don't get any "funny ideas" in their heads and "roll off the rails," OR

c) play a game where the object isn't anything more than using your abilities tactically (and in cooperation) to beat up monsters and take their loot. Who needs the other silly drama stuff?

Ugh, people! That's defeating the whole point of my posts!

Here's what I'd like to see happen:

[oh, wait...it's 2:14am...I am going to bed, folks...we'll continue this tomorrow...]

zzzzz...

Friday Morning Assessment

Yesterday wasn't nearly as productive as I'd hoped it would be...it is a constant surprise to me how distracting a beautiful baby can be, especially as I grow to love him more every day.

However, I got several more pages written (page count is now officially at 26 of 64), including much of the "gear" chapter (including all cybernetic enhancements and weapons) and a page of combat rules. Once I add the actual equipment and combat tables (currently residing in Excel format) the page count will probably spike another 2 or 3.

ALSO, finally figured out how I want full-auto fire to work in the game. Unlike the space opera game, resource management IS a small part of the new book, harkening back to it's D&D roots. However, I needed to make ammo counting as simple as possible.

In addition to writing, managed to FINALLY pick up a used copy of 1st edition Shadowrun down at Gary's...I now have 1st through 3rd edition. And you know what? The 1st edition book is more impressive than I remember. For a 1st edition game, it is surprisingly complete, well laid out, thoughtful, and (wow!) beautifully illustrated. It is also MUCH MORE "D&D cyberpunk" than the later books...really dark fantasy stuff. There's not a whole lot of attempt to shoehorn every metahuman critter as being a different strain of the HMHVV virus, for example. Ghouls are just ghouls, man!

It's still a bit more fiddly than I'd like, even as it tries to be generic. And it screws up its own math in the character archetypes. But all in all, this was an excellent game. I've written too much of my own not to finish it now (I think...plus, it's coming out pretty fast)...but as I said before, if you have the 1st edition rules and 1st edition Grimoire, Samurai Catalogue, and Sprawl Sites, you really have a fine game on your hands. Maybe the Seattle Source Book for flavor, though it's a little out-o-date (the Sonics are still playing here? Did the NBA award us a new franchise? What about the stupid, deep bore tunnel we're going to be payig off for 20 years?).

Oh, yeah...I also made it down to the Baranof where I played a round of 4th Edition Light in the form of the WotC board game Wrath of Ashadalorn (or something). For a board game it was pretty, "meh." In many ways it reminded me of the superior Siege of the Citadel, crossed with DungeonQuest; however, with everyone playing "against the board" it was a fairly one-sided (i.e. "too easy") game...I was trying to maneuver monsters to kill the other players just to spice the thing up, but with multiple "healing surges" (and healing abilities) there really wasn't a chance of "losing."

Mostly the game consisted of drawing cards in the correct order and following instructions. Hell, one could probably just write a D100 table for each card deck and roll percentile dice, in order, every round.

However, I will say the plastic figurines were fantastic...I wanted to pocket a cave bear and take it home for painting (I did not, though). And I REALLY wanted to see the otyugh or dragon come out of the monster deck (they did not). I was confused by the creature that looked like a Michael Moorcock "Hunting Dog of Dharzi;" what the heck was that supposed to be?

Luke assures me WoA bears only a passing similarity to 4E. Well, it bears a passing similarity to real D&D, too (otyughs and duergar)...however, it's pretty "meh." I'll stick with my own game, thank you...maybe try to get a set of the plastic figures off eBay or something.

; )

Character Exploration in D&D

A while back I started writing an essay with a title like "the Many Ways to Play D&D," or something equally pretentious. Pretentious and ridiculous...in trying to list all the categories of D&D player I'd come across over the years, I realized the whole mental exercise was a fool's errand. After all, who am I to criticize (or judge) someone for playing D&D the "wrong" way. Come to think of it, I'm not sure there's a "right way" to play D&D at all.

I mean, really...is there an absolute correct way to play a game of D&D? Gygax didn't run his campaign with the AD&D "rules as written;" in the end, I think most role-playing games in general, and D&D in particular, have rules sacrificed for brevity and "fun" at some point during play.

[I don't even know how one might run a D&D "tournament" game...wow, what a cluster f*** those old Gen Con tourneys must have been! It ain't Magic cards, that's for sure!]

All this is my preamble-y way of saying, of course you can play D&D any way you damn well please.

Now let's talk about character exploration.

In the past, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned how much I dislike the way character generation has exploded over the last couple editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Even back to the latter days of 2nd edition...even before the Players Options book was published those damn kit books and non-weapon proficiencies and yadda-yadda-yadda. Giving players MORE options during chargen makes the chargen process LONGER unless players have 1) a solid concept of what they want as a character, AND 2) extensive knowledge of the system (usually gleaned from practice making characters).

However, few players would meet both these requirements, causing chargen to be a rather long, drawn-out process...and thus making the death of a character more cumbersome, more of a penalty (you have to sit out longer to make a new character). The usual fix? Make sure characters don't die as readily in the game. Go easy on players, fudge dice rolls, or institute new rules that ensure character death is a thing of the past. Ugh.

Of course, none of that has to do with character exploration.

I think most would agree that playing an RPG is about a little something more than figuring out the best way to tweak your character. That particular "metagame" is nothing more than exploring the game system...and exploring the system should be secondary to, well, playing the game right?

Let's just agree on that for the sake of argument.

So getting that out of the way, what exactly is "character exploration?" Well, it's about exploring one's character, right? Seeing what makes him or her tick?

And how exactly do we know that? By observing what the character does over time.

Does such a thing have a place in the D&D game? Yeah, I think it does...even in short-term game play.

Consider the literary tradition from which D&D comes. Sure, sure a lot of us "younger kids" (like myself) bring a more "cinematic" mindset to our action-adventure, but those bibliographies in Moldvay and the DMG aren't listing movies to go see for inspiration...they're books. And books, in general, have more opportunity for "character exploration" than film just due to the narrative structure.

At least in the action genre. Howard's Conan may not be an incredibly introspective guy, but you get a greater idea of his values and ideas on "the wickedness of civilization" than you get from a screening of Conan the Destroyer.

And I know that's a poor example...there IS character exploration in cinema, even action cinema, but most film is not of a serialized medium. And Dungeons & Dragons, at least as initially designed IS a serialized medium...characters and the game world are supposed to have some continuity over time, a series of adventures like Ffafhrd and Mouser, or that Assistant Pig-Keeper Taran and his buddies.

Personally, if the only exploration done in an RPG is "exploring the dungeon," well, that might get a bit boring...couldn't I just be spending my Thursdays logging into the World of Warcraft? For me, a great part of the fun of role-playing is seeing what the players do with their characters...not just how they get out of some fiendish trap, but how they interact with each other and the various NPCs of the game world. THAT's what makes D&D such an interesting game.

Recently, I was comparing Dungeons & Dragons to Shadowrun, in that the latter game seems like some crazy kook asked "how can I get machine guns and cyborgs into my D&D game...or 'port elves and dwarves into the cyberpunk genre?" But for all its extra cool rules and sourcebooks and "skills," D&D is STILL a leg up on Shadowrun in character exploration...because Shadowrun is a big fat caricature in a lot of ways.

At least in D&D, there's an idea of some sort of strange world "out there" that characters will interact with, eventually at a ruler-vassal level some day. No such maturation process exists in Shadowrun...every session could simply be another "Meet Mr. Johnson at the club, run the mission, get paid" and you would be "doing Shadowrun" the way the game is designed and presented.

Fun as a novelty, sure? But long term? Eh...that's simply "exploring the dungeon"...over and over again.

D&D CAN be played this way, of course. Why not..."meet the wizard at the tavern, delve the dungeon, get paid." But it does (at least in earlier editions) have rules built in for a more interesting bit of character development. And many other RPGs do not...making it possible for long term game play to stagnate after awhile.

More on this later...it is early, early in the morning.

Answered My Own Question (Shadowrun)...

...and apparently I am crazy. Resistance tests have always been a part of Shadowrun from the 1st edition.

The main difference between 1st and 3rd (1st and 2nd appears to be the same) is that one's "spell pool" is equal to his or her sorcery skill in the 1st edition and that 3rd edition makes an actual sorcery test as opposed to a test based on the Force of the spell.

For example, a 1st edition mage can cast a power bolt 5 with a sorcery skill of 6 and roll 5 dice for success (for the force of the spell), plus any dice in his spell pool (six, based on sorcery) for a possible 11 dice. A 3rd edition mage rolls dice equal to his sorcery skill (regardless of spell force) and augments with spell pool (the average of the magician's intelligence, will, and magic rating); the force of the spell only matters for the difficulty of the target's resistance test.

What is the practical effect of this? Well:

- if you plan on allocating your spell dice to beat the drain, 1st (and 2nd) edition is a better deal. Why? Your character can be wired up with boosted cyber-reflexes and still throw mean fireballs, saving your (sorcery-based) spell pool for resisting drain.

- in 3rd edition, dwarves are the best spell-casters (Will bonus), and cybernetic enhancement has terrible downside to one's magic pool.

Oh, yeah...after 1st edition, you can still use bound elementals to augment magic pool (and thus aid in spell defense)...however, I only find the "burn your elemental for auto-successes" rule in 1st edition (which REALLY ups the power level of mages over anyone).

And they took out the spell "turn to goo!" What the f---?!

1st Edition Shadowrun Experts?

I just have NOT been able to locate a copy of the first edition SR rules, nor the 1st edition Grimoire, and I'm beginning to think my memory is completely off the rails: did magic get hugely nerfed between first and second edition??

Here is how I remember the old 1st edition rules:

- Magic pool was equal to the caster's sorcery skill rating

- The number of buddies that could be protected by spell defense was limited (either to the number of the defender's sorcery skill or magic attribute...I don't remember)

- There were no "target resistance" tests: magician's rolled versus a target number and if the magician's successes weren't offset by a defending mage's spell defense, the target took the full brunt of the caster's success

If I AM remembering correctly, this made magic a very potent weapon, as opponents with no magical support could be quickly and easily hosed.

I also remember bound elementals could be "burned" (at least one service) for spell defense...another good reason to go through the cost and hours of summoning an elemental for a magical "bodyguard."

Am I off my rocker? Have targets always received a saving throw...um, "resistance test" to offset the success of the magical spell-caster?

Thanks for your help folks!

Ahh...Priorities

I’m not sure if I was clear before with regard to chargen in Shadowrun, but I LIKE the old priority system. No, it is NOT as quick and easy as B/X (or even my space opera game), but it is very easy to master as evidenced by the 100 archetypes I was able to scratch up using the 3rd edition rules.

[and for those wondering about the difference between “Borgs” and standard chromed up “Street Samurai,” the former is my term for characters that make extensive use of cyberlimb and skull replacement with extra armor and whatnot…essentially becoming mechanical monsters; see Man & Machine for these kinds of goodies]

Now I’ve never used the 4th edition version of Shadowrun, but my understanding is Catalyst did away with the old priority system in favor of an overall point-buy package (a la GURPS or Champions). This is the kind of thing I stay as far away from as possible, so I’m sure the Catalyst folks will regard me as yet another silly grognard in this respect “clinging to my obsolete editions.”

Whatever, chummers.

In considering a little project we’ll call “B/X Fantasy-Punk,” I find that the old SR priority system is the kind of foundation on which I’D want to build a chargen system. Why? Well:

- The fantasy-punk setting isn’t particularly conducive to a “class-based” system; mixing magic and techware and big guns seems to work best (i.e. “with maximum flavor”) when there’s a LOT of over-lap. Part of being “punk” is NOT being “pigeon-holed;” it is antithetical to the rebel attitude to force characters to conform to particular classifications.

- I’m not interested in creating a “universal system” so why would I ever want to go through the trouble of creating a point-buy, universal tally sheet. I mean, isn’t there already a GURPS Cyberpunk? Doesn’t HERO System have supplements that would work for this kind of thing? Not sure why Catalyst decided to go that route.

- Without a class-based system or a point-buy system the usual method of character creation would be to create some sort of “skill-based” system…a hybrid system like Basic Role-Playing or a “prioritized point-buy” like White Wolf. I detest “skill systems” for a variety of reasons, and want to keep chargen FAST, so skill choice (if any) will be extremely limited by necessity.

Oh, yeah, there are other ways to do character generation, of course…something like Risus or Fudge or whatnot. But in some ways, “conceptualizing one’s character” can be just as drawn out and/or tricky as fiddling points to their maximum potential…and if any game setting is screaming to be based on an “old school wargame” design foundation, it’s one where characters are fantasy black-ops teams invading mega-corporation bases. Know what I mean?

SO…back to priorities.

Yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to properly juggle the priorities to get the same “flavor” as old edition Shadowrun, while maintaining B/X-style integrity. The good news? I got it done. The bad news? I was working on B/X Fantasy-Punk instead of my space opera game.

Ugh, ugh, ugh…actually, the fantasy-punk setting is even EASIER to do in a B/X style than the space opera thang. Let’s face it: we’re talking “site based adventure,” folks…break into the ginormous corp headquarters, snatch the objective, get out and get paid. The monster section is small. Treasure is taken up with future-gear (chromeware and such). Magic is easy (though non-Vancian…sorry). Combat is pretty much the same as B/X. Inter-web infiltration is abstract and easy (ICE patrols are little different from wandering monsters). Advancement is still accomplished through killing things and collecting loot.

The only real question is: can the basic rules fit into 64 pages?

And THAT's a tough question. In an age of “boxed” games, one might be tempted to create a couple booklets…say one with rules and one with the cyber- and spell stuff. Or a GM and Player’s guide. Even the original Little Brown Books of OD&D came in a 3-pack (and B/X is a two-book set…three counting my B/X Companion).

But how would such a thing be packaged in today’s market? I already have people screaming at me to provide the B/X Companion in an electronic format for ease of use on the old IPad. And wouldn’t a double-book set require twice the illustrations?

Ugh…priorities indeed! Finish one game or start another? Paper or electronic? 64 pages or 96 divided into two (or three!) booklets?

For that matter, does one need three types of machine gun? Should I be including a micro-gun instead of a mini-gun?

Ah, well…I suppose these are all ridiculous hypotheticals…guess it’s a Thursday morning. Maybe instead of reading my worries and misgivings, folks would rather hear about my priority system for B/X Fantasy-Punk? Right now it looks like this:

Prioritize A through E for the following categories:

• Abilities
• Race
• Magic
• Skills (!!)
• Resources

Abilities
A – Add 3 to all ability scores (maximum 18)
B – Add 2 to all ability scores (max 18)
C – Add 1 to all ability scores (max 18)
D – NO adjustment
E – Subtract 2 from all ability scores (minimum 3)

Race
A – Any
B – Any
C – Elf or Troll
D – Dwarf or Ork
E – Norm only

Magic
A – Full Magi
B – Partially Active
C – Mundane
D – Mundane
E – Mundane

Skills
A – 4 points of skills
B – 3 points of skills
C – 2 points of skills
D – 1 point of skill
E – 0 skill points

Resources (in World Credits)
A – 1,000,000cr
B – 400,000cr
C – 90,000cr
D –20,000cr
E – 5,000cr

[The resources may well end up being adjusted based on prices of gear and hardware…I haven’t created the equipment list yet, so those numbers are just place-holders]

: )