Like a Dog with a Bone

...I just can't help/stop thinking about this thing.

I should probably have noted that I'm not all that familiar with the vast array of DragonLance novels that have been cranked out over the years. I've read the first two trilogies (more than once even) and the first short story compilation that followed those (The Magic of Krynn). For the most part, my interest in DL literature died circa 1987, very close to the time when I quit playing AD&D.

[that hiatus has lasted pretty much till this day, though I've returned to fantasy adventure gaming, i general]

So, I'm not really "caught up" on the latest stories to come out of the Krynn-network. I left off when everyone was pretty much dead or retired from adventuring. You know...like the end of any old school style campaign.

[I write "old school" here to distinguish from what the current gamer generation refers to as "campaign play," i.e. just the completion of a multi-session/adventure story arc]

And so I've spent a little time (very little) reading through a bit of the stuff that's been created for DL since 1988: a couple decades worth of material. And most of it just bores the crap out of me. At least, the summaries and premises I'm reading...who knows, maybe if I actually picked up one of these novels, I'd find it a thrilling read. But most of it just looks like recycled fantasy. It's like the "expanded universe" of Star Wars (which I find fairly irritating)...just name-dropping the same surnames, repeating the same tropes, scraping the same plots for some last bit of hidden flavor. Oh, no! The Queen of Darkness is at it again!

*sigh* That's me: Mr. Jaded. Though, as I said, perhaps if I read one of these new series I'd find myself excited and enthralled. But I just can't muster much enthusiasm for a story about the kids of the protagonists in the stories that once enthralled me...and even less enthusiasm for stories about the kids of the antagonists!

But having said that, I still find myself drawn to the original setting, the original premise, and the original conflicts of the creators. Hell, I even spent the last couple days skim-reading both War of the Twins and Test of the Twins, mainly to try to get a handle on the timeline of Krynn from Cataclysm to the "War of the Lance" (that's The Fourth Dragon War for all you DL scholars/nerds out there). I was thinking of writing-up a B/X conversion of one or three of the old TSR adventure modules, but just looking through the encounter charts of DL1 is just...ugh. It's such a crap-sandwich, it needs a huge overhaul just to scale it appropriately for B/X play.

[please, please, please....someone explain to me the rhyme or reason for the numbering scheme in Xak-Tsaroth? Please? Why do we have 46a through 46g followed by 47a through 47j followed by 48, 49, 50, then 51a through 51e, then 52, then 53a and 53b, then 54a and 54b, then 56, 57a and 57b,, 58a through 58c, 59a and b, etc. etc.? Did the authors figure they were going to run out of 2-digit numbers for encounters or something? So start the dungeon at 1 instead of 44! It doesn't bear any resemblance to the wilderness encounters...unless you simply want to designate it the next stop on the DL railroad. Just re-numbering the bloody maps would be a serious chore]

I do agree with GusL's assessment that a lot of the encounters are pretty weak-sauce for a party of 4th to 6th level characters, even (or especially) given these particular pre-gens. But actually, some of the wandering monster encounters are pretty beefy. 2-8 trolls? 2-12 wraiths? Sure, these guys have magical weapons, but an encounter with 12 wraiths is probably going to leave the party shy a few levels. Remember, this is AD&D (no saves for energy drain)...and also a setting where high level clerics (and restoration spells) don't exist!

I have to admit, the sadism makes me a grin a bit.

The black dragon is about the only thing right, though it may be statted a little too strong for straight B/X play. Heck, it's a little strong for these AD&D characters, except that the blue crystal staff is usable by any Lawful Good character (there are four in the party). Still, if the thing is low on charges (maybe because it's been restoring level drained characters) and Khisanth shows up before they get back to the staff's charging station (the black dragon has a 3% chance of appearing per day spent in hills/mountains or a 7% chance per day spent wandering the marsh), I can see this train jumping the track.

That tiny jet of acid does 64 damage.

Which is...well, that's not ideal, right? It's nice to know the railroad can be derailed as designed, but not cool that it's just a matter of random chance (and DM intervention) whether or not that happens. A little more player agency (and the consequences thereof) would be nice. Duh.

HOWEVER, doing the conversion (or, rather, the overhaul) is really step two. First step is converting the setting of Krynn to B/X in a way that doesn't leave me despising it. I am just so busy right now with the holidays that I don't know if I'm going to get around to posting anything. Probably I shouldn't even BE working on this...but right now I'm like a dog with a bone. Just worrying at it.

Me and the DL (DragonLance)

I have to admit: I kind of love DragonLance.

There, I said it. Reading through Ye Old Blog, I can see I've got more than few posts carrying the label "DL" where Weiss and Hickman's work/world gets mentioned, and you can kind of (maybe) read between the lines to read my thoughts as complimentary. But I don't think I've ever just come out and declared my feelings on DragonLance which are, admittedly, far more positive than negative.

[by the way...some folks might be wondering if this has something to do with this series of posts I started back in July that I never finished. The short answer: NO. While I discussed The Forest Oracle and how, as a product, it was conducive/indicative to a particular style of play, the other two products were NOT DragonLance-related. For the curious they are the 1981 Chaosium source box Thieves World and the (2018?) book Operation Unfathomable by Jason Sholtis. I still plan on discussing these at some later date, as I still have a lot to say...both about the products and the style of play they promote]

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's first DL novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight was published (late) in 1984...which means it would have come out midway through my 6th grade year of elementary school. This was a seminal year for me in gaming. I'd finally managed to get a copy of the AD&D Players Handbook (with the 1983 Easley cover), allowing us to take our game "fully advanced" (previously, we'd been playing B/X with only the DMG and MM). The Marvel Superheroes RPG came out (my younger brother got a copy for Christmas), and several of us were playing that. We'd acquired and experimented a bit with the James Bond 007 role-playing game (none of us had Top Secret). One of my longtime friends (and earliest gamer buddies) was drifting away, especially as his family got deeply into their (new) Born Again Christian faith (which also ended up introducing me to Dragon Raid, another game I have to blog about some time). It was also this year that I would start feeling a bit of ennui regarding Dungeons & Dragons and would turn over the DMing reins to Jocelyn, my best friend outside of school (back in those days).

Man, I love the cover art, too.

Jocelyn was actually the person who introduced me to DL...she was the one who picked up the novels (and loaned them to me to devour). They were the first outright gaming stories (i.e. published novels based on RPGs) we'd ever read, and they greatly informed our gaming of the time, showing us the potential of Dungeons & Dragons...in terms of world building, character development, and melodrama. Sure, we had (what would become) Mystara (from our Expert books), but it was just geography back in those days...a wilderness to explore in search of dungeons. We had no sense of history or politics back then (insert snarky comments about elementary school curriculums); statements like "their culture is similar to medieval Iceland" or "the Central Asian city-states of Palmyra, Damascus, or Samarkand" meant nothing to us, and went straight in one ear and out the other.

[to be fair, these were pre-internet days. If kids today picked up a copy of X1 and read that the Republic of Darokin's culture "resembles that of Venice or Genoa in medieval Italy," it would be a piece of easy to open up wikipedia and read all about that period and place of world history. Back in those days, if you weren't already knowledgable (perhaps because of your undergrad major?), you'd be needing to trek to the local library and HOPE you could find a reference text or two that could give you a good overview. Good luck with that! We're talking about 10 and 12 year olds...we just wanted to get to that dragon's hoard!]

Reading a book that provided a D&D setting...a world with its own geography, history, politics, and conflicts...wrapped around an exciting adventure story, was a great way to open our eyes to the possibility of the Dungeons & Dragons game. None of those beloved adventure modules we were playing back then (Tomb of Horrors, Keep on the Borderlands, etc.) were doing that. Weis/Hickman's Dragons of an Autumn Twilight and its sequels were the perfect gateway fiction to a wider role-playing perspective. Gygax's first Greyhawk book (Saga of Old City publishing in 1985), helped cement the concept.

So I give DL credit for that. I realize there are some folks out there who probably read and used Tolkien's LotR and Silmarillion to achieve the same end, but we (my friends and I) never got to those books till high school. We liked the animated Hobbit features, of course (and were inspired by them), but it's hard to get a real sense of Middle Earth's millenniums-old conflict just from watching the Rankin-Bass Return of the King.

Now, the actual adventure modules/gaming product TSR published for DragonLance back in those days was a bit of a crap sandwich; we owned a couple-three of the modules, but we never ran any of them, nor did we use the DL setting for any of our games. We used the map of the High Clerist's Tower as a design for one of our high level character's strongholds, and the kender race became the more-or-less default model for the halfling race in our games (as opposed to Bilbo Baggins) as far as temperament. That's about it. Most of the best stuff from DL (from our point of view) was already in AD&D...dragons and death knights and whatnot. Even as pre-teens, none of us were interested in playing or running railroad-y adventures; certainly none of us wanted to "play the novels" with Tanis and Caramon and all those dudes. We'd already read the books...we wanted to play our own characters and create our own melodrama!

I loves me some acid-wash.

Even so, as said, there's a lot I kind of love about DragonLance: I see a lot of potential in the DL-setting, both pre- and post-War. I really like the idea of false clerics (characters that advance and adventure as clerics but who have no spell-casting ability). I dig on the whole Tower of High Sorcery and color-coded sorcery-thing. Ruined, post-Cataclysm cities make great excuses for dungeons. Dragon High Lords are great (anyone who scoffs at a dragon-mounted, dragon-scale clad bad guy has no soul for fantasy)...heck, having a justification for higher-than-usual dragon-density is pretty cool. And draconians are just about the only type of "dragon-born" creature I can stomach in a fantasy adventure game (as creatures to be expunged with extreme prejudice).

I do find the steel-piece currency kind of dumb...more of a "grim statement of a grim world" just for the sake of...um, grim-ness.  This kind of thing might work on a metal-poor world (like Darkover or Athas), but while I can see a post-apocalypse fantasy world turning from gold to a barter system, I'm not buying a wholesale currency conversion to a metal that's (presumably) available in every bandit-adventurer's scabbard.

Likewise, I'm also not a fan of kender as a system-supported concept. I could enumerate the problematic aspects of such a species, but just...no. I do like the idea of re-skinning traditional Tolkien-tropes to fit the setting, but I'm going to do halflings differently. I'd take 3rd edition's halfling over DL's kender.

[I have similar problems with gnomes...they're just a little too whimsical within the setting as written. "Gully dwarves" are okay, but as a pathetic race to be pitied rather than unrelenting comic relief]

Even the titular dragon lances are cool (folks probably noticed the knock-offs I included in my B/X Companion). Many of the magical items in DL are nice, as they've taken rather standard items and made them unique: there is only ONE staff of the magi, there is only ONE dragon slaying sword (Wyrmslayer), there is only ONE staff of healing (the Blue Crystal staff), etc. Yes, I know that in the adventure modules there are plenty of +1 and +2 blah-blah-blahs floating around...but there doesn't have to be. I really like the idea of a setting that's so magic poor (with regard to enchanted items) that Raistlin can bribe Astinus for the location of the Portal to the Abyss with a crystal ball (the "Globe of Present Time Passing"). That's pretty cool.

I know that GusL isn't blogging these days, but his posts on the DragonLance modules (found here and here) are still two of the best, inspirations for how one might make good use of the DL setting and its (otherwise worthless) adventure modules. I find myself tempted to do some B/X conversions for DL, more for the fun of it then out of hope of someday running a Krynn-based campaign. However, it would probably be easier to simply poach ideas from DL than to re-do the entire world. I don't know.

That's just one of the (many) things I'm thinking about this morning.

Kids on Bikes

So I was down at Cafe Mox yesterday, AKA Card Kingdom, AKA what passes for the WotC retail store in Seattle these days. After my last post, I thought I'd just take a quick look at what RPGs were out on display, and it wasn't a terrible selection (though not all of the books were recent releases) spanning a variety of genres, game companies, and layout style. A couple even caught my eye enough to make a purchase (a semi-regular occurrence, given my penchant for a) collecting RPGs, and b) supporting independent and small-press game publishers), and while I came close to picking Tiny Frontiers: Revised, it ultimately remained on table. After all, I've got my own micro-space opera game, right?

[maybe I should polish that up one of these days]

Instead I picked up Kids on Bikes.

[as I started digging into the background of this game, I found a lot to pique my interest...enough that I'm considering a sequel, biz-related post. No promises]

I picked up Kids on Bikes for a number of reasons. It is a beautiful book, first and foremost. Small, 80 pages, soft cover, and beautifully illustrated by Heather Vaughan (really...fabulous stuff). Just about the perfect shape and size for a game of this type with the scope of what I expected/hoped from it.

Which is why I am so frustrated by the actual game itself.

Yeah, it appears I'm going to be that guy this week: Mister Cranky. Ah, well...no such thing as bad publicity, right? Besides, it's not like they didn't get my money.

The game is weak. I guess that's my final, pithy analysis of it. It's a lot weaker than it could have been. And I'm not talking about the system (which is of the "rules-light" variety)...character and setting creation is actually fairly robust for a story-telling game of this type. And the resolution system, while simple, uses failure and adversity in a nice way that I don't remember seeing before (though there are certainly shades of it in games like Capes and With Great Power...). No, it's the execution of the concept that comes up short for me.

Mm. Let me just go through the thing and give a capsule review.

Here's the description from the back cover (repeated on the first page):

In Kids on Bikes, you'll take on the roles of everyday people grappling with strange, terrifying, and very, very powerful forces that they cannot defeat, control, or even fully understand. The only way to face them is to work together, use your strengths, and know when you just have to run as fast as you can.

In their kickstarter video, the creators explain the game is their "homage to all the really great stories about young kids going on big adventures...things like Goonies, or Stranger Things, or E.T., or Paper Girls." From the kickstarter, it appears the game may have originally carried the subtitle Strange Adventure in the '80s, but that has been dropped and the game's scope widened to pretty much "any point in history before everyone had a video camera in their pockets." Indeed, nothing stops you from setting the game in an urban environment (as opposed to rural small town) or in our cell phone-equipped present day...the game simply suggests that might not yield the type of game you want.

Okay...so, great. It's a role-playing game that's trying to capture all the magic of the Stranger Things series from Netflix. Totally understandable...after all, Stranger Things achieved a huge degree of success, not only for its rich story-telling, wonderful ensemble cast, and trope subversion, but also for the nostalgia being mined from its setting, style, and subject matter. Tales from the Loop has attempted to capitalize on Stranger Things as well (I've had multiple people pitch me TftL as a "Stranger Things RPG"), even though it was developed separately, and from the paintings of a concept artist, and that it's premise bears more resemblance to the old SciFy show Eureka than anything Stranger Things draws from.

[heck, Tales from the Loop might make a good inspiration for a Kids on Bikes game...if you didn't dig the TftL system, I mean]

But broadening the scope of Kids on Bikes beyond Stranger Things gets you plenty of grist for the mill, especially just diving into the genre stories that inspired Stranger Things. Personally, I think the heart of these stories...and what makes them so powerful and entertaining...is that we're talking about kids. Being a kid can be awful, even for the most fortunate of us.

My childhood was pretty damn idyllic. My family was stable and "nuclear" up until age 17. My father was always employed; my mother stayed at home till I and my brother were older, then went back to work. There were no instances of death or tragedy in our family or immediate social circle; there was no substance abuse, or domestic abuse, or sexual abuse, bouts of homelessness, or mental health issues, or even bad blood with the relatives or neighbors. We went to good schools, where we did pretty good; we had active social lives and friends and a non-crazy church and team sports and Boy Scouts and family vacations and bikes and books and TV and movies and (of course) role-playing games like D&D. And, of course, I grew up white and straight and Christian and male in the United States...doesn't get much more privileged than that.

And yet even with all those blessings, there were dark times for me in adolescence...times I considered the idea of killing myself. Just sadness...or depression. Or being overwhelmed by shit. Or...I don't know, probably hormonal imbalances (I never exhibited behavior that would cause me to get taken to a shrink so I was never diagnosed or analyzed, so who knows). I can remember thinking of ways to commit suicide that would be quick and easy and...well, whatever. I never actually got around to doing it, and I eventually grew up and became a bit better adjusted to handling life: both its rigors and its sadness. I think most folks do.

So...childhood can suck. And many of these "adventure shows" feature the sucky-ness of childhood: the bullies, the broken homes, the unfortunate "adult issues" that end up spilling down to (and greatly impacting) the child protagonists. The "strange," "terrifying," and "powerful" forces that conflict child protagonists are an additional complication in their already complicated lives..something that causes them to (momentarily) transcend their mundane issues to confront a more pressing, menacing one.

And in a way this is wonderful: it helps us lose ourselves in the escapism, identifying with the young protagonist (for whom we have sympathy due to the character's brutalized innocence) who can momentarily forget dad's out of work or mom's drinking problem or the classroom bullies or the handsy uncle or whatever is the trauma they were dealing with in order to deal with a REALLY BAD PROBLEM and perhaps, maybe get a win for once. And if not...well, at least it was a diversion (hopefully the kid doesn't get eaten or maimed too badly).

So, I was expecting something of THIS kind of thing in Kids on Bikes...something of the darkness. Something to help tell cathartic stories, build a little inter-player empathy, pull out these nasty parts of childhood and explore them in the safe environment that is tabletop role-playing.

Nah. They don't do that.

The designers' choice was to deliberately shy away from anything sticky or messy or painful. The first page is devoted to "setting boundaries;" it is, in fact the first true part of play (immediately preceding the collaborative world building and character building), and while I'm a fan of Ron Edwards's "lines and veils" (and think the whole idea of an "x-card" is generally a good thing), for a game of this type I find it all...well, inappropriate. A game of this type should be pushing boundaries, not setting them. Carry a "trigger warning" label or something on the front cover ("this game carries the possibility of Very Bad Things happening to humans, especially children") rather than requiring the game be played  "in a way that will be comfortable for everyone." I want the game to make me uncomfortable...to me that's part of the genre.

[I understand about not throwing terrible stuff at children, by the way...this, to me, isn't really a kid's game. I have met very few kids (none, off the top of my head) that ever wanted to play children in RPGs, not even teens. Not even something bizarre like Teenagers from Outer Space ("Why would I want to play that I'm in high school? I AM in high school!"). I realize there are RPGs (like No Thank You Evil) designed for kids where the PCs are kids, but I've never played with children who this kind of role-playing appealed to]

The designers might say that I am welcome to play the game however I want, but that some people have limits they want to respect and honor. The text discusses setting the tone of the game from dark to "lighthearted." To which I say: okay. But if I wanted lighthearted, I'd probably be playing Bubblegumshoe; I thought I was getting an RPG designed to model Steven King's IT.

[you just can't do Steven King with Nicotine Girls]

It is fine...it's just a little weak (as said); I'd prefer stronger design choices. The "tropes" (character classes) of the game are fairly "eh." The Plastic Beauty. The Wannabe. The Bully. The Popular Kid. The Brilliant Mathlete. These don't do much for me. I would have liked to see you forced to play as outcasts types...where's The Gimp? The Fat Kid? The Delinquent? The Tramp? The Foster Kid? Etc.

The system already thrives on adversity (and, for my money, it looks like these characters are a little too competent, though it's hard to judge without playing) and I would have like to see a razor-focus on "building the failure" so that the players could have bigger (more dramatic) successes later on.

ANYway...the game is weak in other ways, too. Despite its collaborative world building, Kids on Bikes does have a game master who facilitates play and, presumably, sets the conflict and runs the antagonists. I say "presumably" because the game advises the GM to cede narrative control, at times, to the players. It doesn't give specifics as to when or why this done, just that it is "typical" of the way the game is played and that the GM should "whenever possible, try to encourage players to create the story with you, not just react to what's going on around them." Again, I find this to be weak design, not because of the shared narrative control, but because of the utter lack of guidelines and loosey-goosey-ness of it. The game points out that dice rolls DO take the narrative control out of the hands of all parties (players and GM)...but as dice results are negotiated (especially in combat/opposed rolls) and target numbers are set by the usual GM fiat, well...

Kind of weak.

Then there's the fact that the rules actually provides little in the way of ideas, and nothing at all for pre-generated antagonists (no examples of those "very, very powerful forces" from the introduction). Unlike a game like, say InSpectres, where only the players are rolling dice, the PCs here are making opposed rolls every time they are in a combat situation, rolling their stats against an opponent's opposing stats...but no such stats are provided, and no guidelines as to what would be appropriate for modeling a government spook versus a bumbling thief versus some Demogorgan-like creature. There are no sample adventures in the game (which makes sense due to the collaborative nature of the setting creation), and while there are many, many examples of how the few systems in the game are executed (I reckon about 25% of the rules text proper is taken up with example text), there are no examples of how to actually run a session, introduce conflict or twists, or bring a session to a close (other than "work together as a group to find a suitable coda")...just some faint advice about paying attention to what interests your players and riffing off it.

That's real weak.

There's also the bit about introducing and playing a "powered character" that just pops up in the middle of the book (page 41...right before the beginning of the GM section proper). The gist is such a character becomes a shared character with each player getting to control various aspects. There are pretty specific rules regarding control and use of the character's powers and aspects, but no information about how such a character is created, let alone why, how, or when to introduce such a character into one's game. Presumably these six pages of rules (and seven pages of appendices! Appendix B, C, and D all relate to powered characters) were added to account for characters like Eleven, E.T., and Sloth showing up in one's adventure.

"Baby Ruth!"

[again, I say "presumably" because it's not really explained why this section suddenly appears, and there's certainly no examples provided (I just pulled those three from my knowledge of the films the creators cite as inspiration). The book could sure use a bit of a "suggested reading/watching" list...I think that in many sections the authors are simply making assumptions that the reader is going to grok what all this is about]

It's not a bad way to handle such a character, and it's a versatile enough that I can see it working to model everything from the aforementioned characters to, say, The Iron Giant, or that witch-lady in Troll. I'm making an assumption here that the "powered character" is always an ally/companion/friend of the player characters, though the text isn't explicit about this. All it says is:

Players cannot create a character with powers to play throughout the campaign. But, early in the first session, the GM will introduce a powered character that will then be co-controlled by all of the players.

Which aspect covers "floating?"

I don't imagine the authors intend the powered character to be a villain (like the monstrous Pennywise in IT) that is co-controlled by the players (rather than the GM)...though I find that thought somewhat amusing. There are no rules as to how to run a powered villain (no examples, remember?), certainly nothing like the Psychic Energy Token system found in this section. Nor are there any rules given for introducing an additional powered character (like Eleven's "sister," Kali) who might become another companion.

I'm also not sure I dig the choice to not allow players to run powered characters. While I don't think Kids on Bikes is the proper vehicle for a "young X-men" style campaign, something like the film Chronicle wouldn't be a terrible fit, and I can certainly see using it for something like the new Netflix series Sabrina, which has a mix of witches and muggles (er, "mortals").

SO...yeah, overall I'm pretty frustrated with this game. Mainly because it's so damn beautiful. I can think of a lot of ways that I would re-design it, but I can't see how my poor publishing ability could match the sheer quality of the book. And, yes, there are a couple-four nice system pieces here. But even if you dig its overall aesthetic and "safe" play, Kids on Bikes as presented doesn't have quite enough meat on the bones. I understand the publisher has an "adventure book" for sale that may provide a bit more guideline to actually running the game (in addition to "20 unique towns?" What about the whole collaborative-setting-building thing?). However, since it's advertised as "non-core" and I can't imagine my self playing this sucker anytime soon, I'll probably hold off on buying.

All right, that's enough.

The Bubble

The other day I was re-reading this old (2009) blog post from James Mishler entitled The Doom of RPGs: The Rambling. It was a good post (and still is) about the general economics of publishing in the RPG industry (spoiler alert: don't expect to make much money), but the more interesting part, in my opinion, is the second half of the post and some of his predictions for the future of the industry (spoiler alert: not great). Here's what James was saying (in part) almost ten years ago:

Of course, there is another way to improve publisher and thus editor/author income… increase the number of gamers, and thus the gross number of sales; this lowers the per unit cost and increases the gross margin. But I do not mention this, because this is the Holy Grail of gaming. More companies have fallen tilting at this windmill than any other. The mythical “introductory boxed set” that will ignite consumer imagination and sales has broken more game companies than I can recall.  

The problem is, everyone (well, all the oldsters) remembers the great success of the Moldvay Basic Set for Dungeons & Dragons, and seek to recreate that feel and success; the latest in this long line is of course HackMaster Basic from Kenzer & Company, who have gone so far as to hire the original cover artist, Erol Otus, to create a cover in homage to that legendary king of starter sets. Some of this is out of a desire to evoke the feel of the original for the OSR crowd, but I’m sure there is an element of hope with HMB that it can somehow catch fire, just like its hoary predecessor. 

The problem is that when Moldvay Basic Dungeons & Dragons released back in 1981, the market was very, very different. There was no Internet, and there were no computer games; heck, D&D is the granddaddy of World of Warcraft, after all. There was then in the United States a larger group of moderately well-educated semi-curious young men with more leisure time and more discretionary income and an interest in reading and in fantasy than at any other time in world history, who had nothing better to do than to sit around and play a table-top role-playing game with their friends. I would argue that the vast majority of today’s youth are not remotely as well read (hours spend on the Internet notwithstanding), utterly incurious, have less leisure time, less discretionary income, no interest in reading other than what’s up with Britney Spears and Megan Fox, no interest in fantasy save for watching LotR on DVD and checking out hot dark-elf-chick ass on WoW, and little or no interest with actually physically hanging out with friends (after all, that’s what Facebook is for, right?) And that’s not counting the amazing push D&D got with the whole “D&D is Evil” campaign, which proved the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity. The advertising and marketing required today to crack into this current market is simply cost prohibitive for the return gained, as Wizards of the Coast has discovered much to its chagrin.  

And I should note, a repeat of the Third Edition miracle is impossible. Third Edition did not succeed based on new acquisitions in the youth market; the bulk of their market was in gamers returning to the fold. Third Edition hit just as all those gamers who started playing back in the early ‘80s were once again looking around for something to do; they had started their families, were well into their careers, and wanted something to do with friends once a week that would not get them in trouble with their wives. Gaming was a perfect solution… and when they went around seeking new products for AD&D (some not having played since 1E or even OD&D), they discovered that there was a whole new edition! And so D&D struck gold a second time, as the same generation that had such extensive leisure time and discretionary income in their youth now had more of the same in their 30-something stage… and often vastly greater discretionary income than in their youth, even if they may have had slightly less leisure time. And so they fueled the Third Edition miracle and the d20 OGL boom and eventual bust. There is no “third time’s the charm” for D&D; it has run its course. Even with Wizards pulling out all the stops with transforming the D&D experience into a table-top replica of the World of Warcraft experience did not draw in remotely as many new consumers as had been hoped; and D&D is the primary mode of acquisition of new role-playing game consumers, likely by an order of magnitude over all other role-playing games combined.

Pretty sharp, as might be expected from a person with 15 or so years of perspective from inside the industry. Mishler doesn't mention the multiple game companies that ended up folding after hitching their wagons to the D20 boom (converting their systems and going "all in"), but I think he had a solid take on the industry's potential, or lack thereof. So how is it that the Dungeons & Dragons brand is now doing better than ever before? What did James miss in his 2009 analysis?

Celebrity.

It's not enough to just blame a proliferation of gaming on the popularity of fantasy fiction (like Game of Thrones or whatever the latest Tolkien-based blockbuster is). Interest in fantasy can be met in ways besides tabletop gaming (licensed video game tie-ins, novels, and comics, for example). The only thing that has changed in the last decade or so is the willingness of name brand celebrities to talk about their own play and enjoyment of the game. Folks like Stephen Colbert, Vin Diesel, Sherman Alexie, and Jon Favreau have all lauded the game, and have credited the game with helping to build their imaginations (thus leading to their success in their current professions). Web shows that display celebrities playing and enjoying the game have encouraged curious-but-reluctant folks to give the game a try, even as fictional portrayals of the game (from Community to Stranger Things) may have piqued initial interest.

It doesn't hurt that Hasbro seems to have gone into "marketing overdrive" to get the word out about just how cool Dungeons & Dragons is, capitalizing on the moment's buzz to generate more buzz...as well they should (they are a business, right?). Still, I was surprised by just how much D&D was on display at the local Barnes & Noble when I stopped by last Saturday. No, it wasn't quite as prominent as the Harry Potter stuff, but it still featured on aisle caps, included children's books (and A, B, C's and 1, 2, 3's plus several new "Endless Quest" titles), rather than just being filed away with the (comic) graphic novels. Box sets, starter sets, giant coffee-table-art books, novels...hell, even an erotic short story collection "inspired by Dungeons & Dragons." Clearly, the Corporate Overlords are doing their best to strike while the iron's hot.

Something for the 4-year old's stocking.

This is in stark contrast to the way the game was displayed back in 2015. Remember this grumpy post? Same edition of D&D, same time of year, same store. Books weren't even displaying their front cover on the shelves.

Something's changed since then. Did Hasbro hire a new marketing department? Is it the advent of Critical Role (which first debuted on Geek & Sundry in 2015)?  I think that's more likely than the attempted proliferation of WotC's "Adventurer's League" (of the half dozen local shops, I contacted...several of which were listed in WotC's "game finder"...only ONE runs AL. And I live in Seattle!). But whatever it is that's growing the game to the point that "8.6 million Americans played" D&D in 2017, I'm inclined to worry it's less a stable, growing industry and more of a false front...a bubble, ready to pop.

But that's probably just more Negative Nelly-isms from JB, right? Just me pissing in everyone's cornflakes. Sure, fine...I can see how my years of disappointment in and (somewhat justified) skepticism of certain game companies may have colored my perception of their otherwise profoundly encouraging numbers. I mean, am I not the guy who has long complained that the industry leaders haven't been doing enough to grow the hobby? And here they are: growing it huger than ever before, yeah? That's awesome...if it's accurate.

Here's the worrying thought that keeps creeping into my head: back when the RPG hobby was in its first "boom days" (circa 1981) people talked a lot about "D&D," but any and all tabletop RPGs were labeled as "D&D" by folks. The boom was in role-playing in general, not Dungeons & Dragons specifically. Just checking Ye Old Wikipedia's list of RPGs by release date, I see there were 15 new RPGs published in 1980, 13 in 1981, 20 in 1982, and 21 in 1983. The list is somewhat incomplete as new editions aren't included...for instance, the Moldvay/Cook B/X (1981) is not listed, nor Frank Mentzer's BECMI (1983).

What about the "second boom" that coincided with 3rd edition D&D? Well, we have 17 in the year 2000 (3E's release), another 17 in 2001, and 32 (!!) in 2002...many of these games being OGL-approved D20 derivations (like Spycraft and Mutants & Masterminds).

[there were also quite a few indie RPGs published in that period, the heyday of The Forge]

Contrast these booms with the drop-off that occurred around the same time as TSR nose-dived (and before White Wolf struck gold with Vampire): 1988 saw only nine new RPGs. 1989 has eleven listed (one of them a German RPG I've never heard of). 1990 had 13, of which four are definitely non-American, and one was the Lorraine Williams "special order," Buck Rogers XXVC. These were dry years for RPG publishing, unless you're talking supplements for games established in the early/mid-80s that were still getting plenty of play.

[yes, I see that Cyberpunk 2013, Shadowrun, and Rifts...all games that became huge lines...came out during these years. They were exceptions with regard to both their success and popularity]

So what about now? Is the new "boom" in D&D sales (and millions of people playing) indicative of a growing RPG industry? Well...I see 2015 had ten new RPGs. 2016 had another ten. 2017 had eight including Zweihander (a retroclone of the old Warhammer Fantasy RPG). 2018 lists only four, though I'm sure that will be updated (didn't Mutant Crawl Classics come out this year? I know I picked up my copy just a couple months back...). It would appear that Hasbro's claim of heightened interest in D&D is simply that: an interest in Dungeons & Dragons alone. But then again, maybe I simply missed the glowing press releases from Paizo announcing their record sales of Pathfinder last year (I know there was a lot of excitement and anticipation for the new Starfinder RPG).

Anyway...I know a rising tide lifts all boats (or whatever that phrase is), and maybe that's what this is and that's what it will do. Maybe this isn't the boom of the early 1980s, but the blossoming of a new phenomenon (like the mid-70s) and the start of a true "second wave" of the role-playing hobby. Maybe this newfound interest (respectability?) in Dungeons & Dragons will usher in a new era of role-playing and an entirely new community of enthusiasts. Heck, you can find Ted Talks (now) on the virtues of tabletop gaming...maybe this IS the real deal, and not simply a lot of splash and noise being used to drum up sales for the Christmas season. I suppose I could choose to optimistic for a change.

Yeah, right.
; )

Aw, Jeez...

[sorry...contracted a bit of a cough and my wife made me sleep today; this should have been up in the morning]

So, as I spent some time going through the Palladium hand-to-hand combat tables the other day in anticipation of re-working them to function a little better. Unfortunately, I found that...despite Palladium's well-established reputation for cut-n-paste rules text...there was no universality to the tables. Yes, each system I checked (and I compared all three editions of Heroes Unlimited, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1st ed.), and Ninjas & Superspies) included the standard four HTH systems (basic, expert, martial arts, and assassin), but each edition tweaks the individual entries on the table.

What a cluster.

I don't say that simply due to irritation with my inability to come up with a stable operating baseline for streamlining the system. I say that because it's a goddamn cluster for anyone who plays in the Palladium multiverse and who has bridged the gap between editions and systems, which (I suspect) is one of the main draws to keeping fans of this rot. I mean, what the actual f***?!  Consider:

• Characters created/advanced in one system will have their combat stats (kind of a big deal in these games) out-of-whack for any other system (or edition!) they're 'ported into.
• NPC write-ups in various games and supplements...who knows which system/edition is being used to generate their stat blocks and whether or not they're even correct for the specific system/edition they're supposed to represent.
• When actually sitting down to play a session, folks are going to need to decide which particular system/edition is the actual one that's going to stand as the house rules of the game...never mind "taking the show on the road" (bringing characters in from other campaigns, allowing characters to migrate, convention play, etc.).

'Oh, JB! You're just pissing and moaning again! Who cares whether a roll with punch bonus if off by +1 or +2? Who cares if one character's write-up gives her a critical strike on a 17+ and this other character needs to roll a 19+ despite having the same level and HTH style? Who cares if there's an extra melee attack gained or lost or if a character's kick attack does 1D6 or 1D8 damage? Isn't all your bitching and moaning just nit-picking?'

Hey, pal, how about I just write some fucking random numbers down for my own character's (or my NPC's) stat block without even looking at the rulebook? What? You object? I mean, it's just all arbitrary, subjective yada-yadda, right? Let's not nit-pick rules...just throw 'em out the window, yeah? I mean, it's all just about having fun, after all, so why stress about getting stuff right?

Riiiight.

Folks, rules matter. They're not the end-all-be-all of RPGs, but they still matter. There are games that have too few, there are games that have too many, and there are individuals who have subjective tastes on where exactly the poles are for those two extremes. Regardless, though, rules still matter. It's why we are playing a game rather than just sitting around telling stories or "playing pretend" without the benefit of textual instructions.

Anyway...fact of the matter is I never actually noticed this about the Palladium systems. I (like many others I'm sure) simply assumed all the HTH tables were simple cut-n-paste jobs, just like the experience section or the alignment section or the SDC/HP section or all the other stuff that IS simply copied from one rulebook to another. They're not...which unfortunately makes my idea a little tough to execute.

Or perhaps it makes it easier...since now I know I just need to scrap the whole HTH concept and come up with something different so as to make the game work in a nice, logical, streamlined fashion.

All right...cough medicine is starting to kick in. Will post something other than Palladium thoughts tomorrow (if I have a chance).

Streamlining Palladium Combat

There are three levels of "informed opinion" when it comes to Palladium's combat system (and here I'm writing about the multiversal system found in such games as Rifts, 2nd Edition Heroes Unlimited,  Nightbane, etc.):

- Folks who've been played through the evolution of the game (a bit more than three decades worth)
- Folks who've come "late to the game" (circa 1990 or later)
- Folks who haven't played but know the system solely by reputation or cursory reading

[I suppose the latter category might include folks who listen to podcasts and such, though I've found few of those on the 'net, and many of those are already...mmm...100% "by the book"]

Here's the thing to understand: Palladium combat has never been all that different from old edition D&D with A) added complexity, and B) active defense. Wrap your head around those two things and its not that hard to get a handle on it...nor deconstruct the system. Complexity isn't all that big a deal...crunch (what some might call clunkiness) is largely a matter of taste. Furthermore, the evolution of the game....development of, say, robot piloting and missiles (Robotech), supernatural strength and knock-backs (Rifts), MDC (Robotech/Rifts), vehicle combat (HU Revised), etc....has necessitated the addition of complexity over the years the system has been around.

So let's talk about "active defense."

The basic sequence of Palladium combat works like this: attacker rolls to strike against a target number of 5 or better (8 in ranged combat, post-Rifts), using a D20. Defender than chooses a defensive action, most often a parry or dodge, and rolls a D20. If the defensive roll equals or exceeds the roll to strike, the defender avoids damage.

[the additional wrinkle of rolling with damage...basically a saving throw to resist non-lethal-types of damage (punches) for half damage...helps draw out and emulate slugfests of the superhero or martial arts genre, or (in the case of rolling with "missile strikes") the giant robot anime genre]

One melee round =
45 minutes actual play

D&D uses a passive defense for resolving attack actions in melee: the D20 roll is compared to a target number determined by a defender's "armor class." While this has the advantage of being simple and streamlined, plenty of folks have argued for a system that takes into account a defender's "combat ability" with regard to defense, hence the creation of systems like Palladium or BRP (which, while %-based, still has the strike roll followed by defense roll). D20 actually provided a system of accounting for "combat ability" that did not involve armor (or rather, de-emphasized armor) with their Saga edition of Star Wars RPG, where character level created the "defensive class" target number for attacks, and something similar can be done with Palladium.

I look to the old White Wolf World of Darkness RPGs for an idea of how to handle this. In some of WW's games (I'm thinking the original VtM and WtA, but I'm too lazy to pull the books at the moment), the system provided the option of using an "active" or "passive" version of defense. In the case of Palladium (with its D20 base), you simply provide a defensive class ("DC") of 10 + bonuses. Bonuses can come from ability scores (physical prowess), certain classes (maybe), and choice of HTH skill (the real determination of combat differential between characters, rather than class ("OCC") as it is in D&D). In a game like Heroes Unlimited, certain superpowers (super speed, extraordinary prowess, heightened senses, etc.) might factor as well.

There's really no need to have separate parry and dodge skills...the only practical difference between the two defenses is that A) parry cannot be used against bullets and energy attacks, and B) dodge uses up one of a character's melee attacks (see below) to execute. Since the bonuses for both tend to be about the same (pre-1987 this wasn't the case as the Speed attribute could add a hefty bonus to dodge in 1st edition TMNT and HU), folks almost always opt to parry unless they can't (because of the type of attack).

Now about those melee attacks: one of the defining complexities of Palladium's system is that nearly all characters receive a number of multiple actions per combat turn as determined by their level, HTH type, and character class (and don't forget the +1 if you're smart enough to take the boxing skill!). Depending on the specific game, it's not unusual for a 1st level character to have three or four actions (called "melee attacks") per round. Just like 3E (and later) D&D, Palladium uses individual initiative (uses a D20, too!) but a strict rotation to utilize those actions (so you don't get your second action till everyone's had a turn, in other words). Actions may be used up in defensive maneuvers prior to their number in the turn order (for example, when executing a dodge), but one is only allowed to execute an attack when their number comes up (unless executing a "simultaneous attack" maneuver). Initiative order does not change from round to round.

[while that may seem cut-n-dry, there are some sticky places. For example, first edition HU has a bit more info on melee attacks, describing them as actions taken in one 15 second round, everything from lacing one's shoes to disarming an explosive device; from page 124:

"Example: the hero unhooks his grappling hook from his belt (one action), throws it across the neighboring roof top (second action), tests the line to see if it's secure (3rd action), and then leaps off his building swinging down to the other (4th action) in an attempt to smash through a window in that building. To determine if he successfully hits and smashes through the window the player must roll twenty sided die to strike his target."

(I laugh a bit knowing that the most fragile glass window in the book is 20 SDC and the player is likely to go "splat" against it, rather than breaking it...but I digress)

How this would actually take place (assuming the character is executing such a complex maneuver in the midst of combat...the only reason to be concerned with actions/melee) is a little wonky. Does the player have to forgo defense to conserve actions while attempting this course? I'd assume so. Would successful (damaging) attacks distract the character to the point that he can't 'test the line,' (or makes an inaccurate assessment) or whatever? Probably. Probably it all comes down to a lot of GM rulings, but that's what you get with such a system]

I think I'm on record (multiple times) with my disdain for systems like this that attempt to model specific "blow-by-blow" actions in a role-playing game. Give me an abstract system that allows me add "narrative color" (making an exciting combat) based on success of attack rolls and amount of damage rolls. So what exactly is it that we stand to lose if we forgo the melee actions? Better yet, how can we try to model the same things while losing this (IMO) silly attempt to objectively quantify time and action in the subjective chaos of a combat encounter?

Well, if we eliminate the idea of "attacks per melee" completely (might as well if we've eliminated active defense from the equation and combined both parrying and dodging into a single "passive" target number), we can still give our player's some options with regard to combat maneuvers during their opponent's turn (which is really what most of those actions are being used for). For example, in addition to their one attack action per turn, each player is allowed to:

- perform an entangle move on a melee attacker
- execute a simultaneous attack while allowing the attacker to automatically hit
- take no action because the character was dodging (i.e. using her passive defense against bullets or ranged energy attacks)

But what about the character with the multiple attacks and the auto-parry who is engaged in hand-to-hand fighting who would normally make three or four strike attacks? I hear your concern, but this is a matter of balancing bonuses attack and damage rolls based on level and ability. Having the ability to make multiple attacks means having multiple opportunities to inflict damage, i.e. an IMPROVED chance to inflict MORE damage. This is a matter of re-writing the hand-to-hand tables to reflect bonuses to both (to hit and damage) at levels where extra melee attack actions would normally be gained. If I have a chance, I'll try to mock up a couple of examples for folks (in a later post).

Things like modern (firearm) combat (aimed, short burst, long burst, etc.) can likewise be streamlined to simple attack/damage adjustments based on ammo expenditure. Similarly with rocket/missile attacks.

What about robot pilot combat (and the extra attacks afforded the martial artist robot pilot), i.e. the Max Sterling Emulator gambit? Look, there's a lot of problems with using the Palladium system (or other "old school" type RPGs) to attempt to model manga-style anime. Trying to accomplish that and then reverse-grafting said model onto other Palladium systems that utilize dudes wearing mech-suits in combat (see Heroes Unlimited 2E and Rifts) is doubling-down on the clunk. Personally, I'd treat a heroic dude (or dudette) in a robot chassis as no different from any non-pilot hero, simply providing augmented stats based on the power suit being sported. I mean, this whole post is about streamlining, right?

All right, that's enough for now. Might need a follow-up post or two on the subject.

First Edition (Heroes Unlimited)

Happy Thanksgiving! Yes, I'm still alive (cue the usual apologies and excuses for dropping off the face of blog-o-sphere). In fact, I just had my 45th birthday which is...wow...so old, man. Too old to be working on re-imagining myself but, well, that's what I'm doing these days.

[it's going okay, just in case anyone is wondering]

As usual, there are plenty of thinks in my think-box that I should be emptying onto the internet, but this particular one is a beaut (short for "beauty") that I've just got to share it: 1st edition Heroes Unlimited. Wow.

But first: some quick background. I've related before that I was introduced to HU by some buddies who I met my first year in high school, namely Michael, Mike, and Ben. I don't know how they got into Paladium games, but they were longtime fans of comic books and anime (they also played Robotech) and Kevin Siembieda's comic book-based sensibilities probably appealed to them (they were all artists as well...Ben continues to persists as a starving artist-illustrator to this day).

I, on the other hand, had used TSR's Marvel Superheroes as my go-to supers RPG from 1984-1988, including both the original and "Advanced" editions. Moving to HU was more about finding a new group to play with than any especial interest in the system...despite the appeal of HU's granularity (which I've blogged about before) my actual experiences with the game were fairly mediocre. I did love (and hate) Rifts...but we're not talking about that today.

Anyway, I was able to borrow my buddies' copies of HU (and Robotech and Ninjas & Superspies, etc.), and the system seemed straightforward enough, but it wasn't exactly new to me. After all, I'd owned a copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness for a couple years (at least), though I hadn't done much more than make characters and run a couple encounters with my brother.

Many decades later, I picked up a copy of the 2nd edition of Heroes Unlimited and, somewhat surprisingly found myself disappointed with it. Not because of the failure to overhaul the system, nor because of the recycled art, nor even the substantial bloat on display (understandable in light of the rules additions that have occurred over the years of Paladium publications). No, mainly I was irritated that despite the increased page count (352 pages compared to the prior edition's 248 pages), the new HU failed to contain the sample adventure scenarios I'd enjoyed running for new players as a way of introducing the game. A few years later (circa 2012) I would purchase a copy of Heroes Unlimited Revised...the game I had owned and played as a teen...mainly to have access to these adventures.

Both of these are available as PDFs on DriveThruRPG, by the way. But there's an even earlier version of Heroes Unlimited that's not available for sale...the original, un-Revised version, which I've been trying to track down for the last year or so. I was intrigued, you see, by the snippets in the Revised edition's introduction that described the "original" version; the version that had started selling in 1984 and (three years later) was one of the few supers RPGs really "cornering" the market. This month, I finally decided to pull the trigger on a $13 eBay copy. It only arrived in my mailbox a couple days ago.

Wow.

At 155 pages, the original Heroes Unlimited is only two-thirds the age count of the 1987 Revised edition...and yet, in many ways it's a superior product. The layout is different...different from the cut-n-paste jobs of your usual Paladium product. Combat procedures come after character creation (including class write-ups). Insanity rules are at the end of the book...like an appendix or optional section...instead of being right up front. There's an index...how many Paladium products have an index?!

Sure there's some weirdness...character classes (i.e. "power types") aren't listed in alphabetical order, for example. And while I understand aliens being listed last (because they borrow powers from the types that come before them), why should robotics be listed first? And all the equipment being listed in the hardware character's section makes some sense, I suppose, but I prefer it in a "neutral" section of the book (since other characters use equipment, duh).

Still, there's an index (this fact cannot be overstated). And there are other thing the game gets very right. Siembieda's notes and explanations make more sense in this particular layout. Reasons...valid, insightful reasons, are provided for the use of random generation in chargen, and other aspects of the game, including the "one superpower per character" system. Have folks seen The Incredibles? There was a time when the majority of comic characters had but a single superpower (like the original X-Men) rather than a suite of superpowers (like Wolverine). But a "single power" can include a host of benefits (for example, "underwater abilities" or "stretching")...and HU does this, in its original format.

The power creep is extremely apparent when one compares the various editions. A physical training character in HU Revised has the ability to do a "power punch" for extra damage (though doing so uses one of the character's multiple attacks). In HU 2E the character actually possesses superhuman strength, doing incredible damage even with normal punches and throwing around cars and such. In the original HU? The physical training character simply benefits from having a few extra physical skills (like hockey!) to help increase his/her ability scores...nothing superhuman about it.

Batman in this edition of HU would simply be a  rich dude with a bunch of skills and a high level of experience...no genius with preternatural wit and vast repository of knowledge; no special ability to anticipate a foe's weakness or next move. You can do Batman with this game, but he'd be a very human vigilante. I find that I like this a lot.

Notice: no "Revised" on the title page.

Here, too, are Siembieda's notes on building characters using the notorious Paladium skill sets. Longtime players of Paladium games know which physical skills to take to gain bonuses to abilities, SDC, and combat (everyone takes "boxing," for example, because it gives an extra melee attack, in addition to its other bonuses). It's a twink-player's dream...and yet, Mr. Siembieda lays out this is the exact correct path to take: of course, crime-fighting heroes are going to study as many physical skills as possible, in order to boost their abilities! It goes hand-in-hand with the random dicing of attributes: not everyone is born with a fantastic set of genetic traits. Heroes are made, not born, and the smart hero will pursue rigorous courses to improve their body/shape before embarking on a career as a vigilante. Makes perfect sense!

Then there's the adventure. Did you catch the whiff of nostalgia earlier when I talked about the starter scenario in HU Revised? Okay, it's pretty dumb. The "Crime Masters" (a trio of super-crooks) have kidnapped a bunch of civilians in an adventure aptly titled The Mall of Terror. All things considered, it's pretty silly: they want $3 million or they'll blow up the mall (and the hostages), and it's up to the players to do something. The scenario is all of three pages, including the villain write-ups and illustrations (which consume most of the space).

Welp, in the original first edition HU the Crime Masters are also present, but the adventure scenario has changed completely. It is called Betrayal and comprises ten pages plus a three-page comic that acts as a "prelude" to the adventure. It's no mindless slugfest in a mall or shoot-up in a stuffer shack; instead there's complex machinations, multiple factions (including an organized crime syndicate, a police force faced with internal strife, the general public and PR complications of a "licensing" super-types, plus the Crime Masters), multiple "missions" (a jewel theft/heist, an elaborate ambush, and a potential hideout siege scenario), as well as numerous NPC personalities (not just villains to punch) all of whom have their own backstory and motivations PLUS the seeds to grow a long-term campaign.  It's pretty darn cool and utterly missing from later editions.
                                 
Look, I realize I'm foaming a bit at the mouth here. Original Heroes Unlimited is not a perfect game, nor even one I'd be willing to play without modification (there were good reasons for revising some parts of HU). But it's far more complete and far less cringe-worthy than most Paladium games. And the style in which it's written and laid out is just so much more methodical and logical and coherent than later Siembieda games. For me, it adds another piece of evidence to the thought that has been recurring in my brain lately: 2nd (and later) editions of games are mainly...if not only...of use to people who are already familiar with the first edition. Most first edition RPGs I've come across are simply better...in terms of design, focus, and coherence...than their descendant games. I'm sure there are outliers, but I just think it's very difficult to re-write a game without incorporating a bunch of conceits and assumptions inherited from its original format...which limits the accessibility of second (and later) revisions to the new player/reader.

Anyhoo, I'd certainly judge that to be the case with regard to Heroes Unlimited. There are so many interesting tidbits to it, I'd really like to do a "deep dive," multi-post series exploring its various pieces and moving parts. Don't know if that'll happen any time soon (it's the holiday season, which means lots of traveling for Yours Truly), but I think it would be fun to look at...perhaps post notes on how I'd clean up the messier bits.

[despite the fact such a series would be, I suppose, an "unauthorized derivative work" of Palladium's copyrighted material, my reading of copyright law is that it would still fall under the "fair use" doctrine...thus shielding me from potential litigation (something that, previously, has always made me hesitant to do serious analysis of Palladium books here at Ye Old Blog)]

All right, that's enough blather for now. Hope everyone's having a happy one!

[yes, I know Thanksgiving was yesterday...I only got around to finishing my post this morning]