Diving Into The Inelegance

For those who come here for the D&D posts: apologies. Until the last couple days, I’ve had a bunch of Palladium rulebooks, several sets of dice, and piles of paper and pencils covering my kitchen counter (now everything's been moved to the coffee table in the living room). Even if I hadn’t originally planned on doing a deep dive exploration of Kevin Siembieda’s work...well, it’s kind of ended up happening.

It started off...hmm, let’s see...last Friday. After taking the kids to mini-golf in Edmonds, they decided we should go to our favorite game store (“since we’re in the neighborhood”), Around the Table Games. While poking around a bit, I was somewhat amazed to find no more than TWO Palladium books gracing the shelves (not two product lines...two single rule books): a used copy of Heroes Unlimited Revised and an equally used copy of Ninjas & Superspies. While I do own both of these and have in fact had HU sitting on my bedside table the last couple weeks, my son appeared to have been oblivious to this fact, asking if we could get one or both to play.

So we've been playing Heroes Unlimited.

*ahem* Kind of. Let's back up a few hours earlier in the day when I had a chance to futz around on my computer with everyone else still asleep in bed (kind of like this morning). Having just written a post about HU a couple days prior, I decided to actually go through the chargen as written in the ORIGINAL game, and create a handful of characters. One thing I've continuously had to learn and re-learn over the years: there are reasons a game is designed the way it is, and it's best to try it out before trying to "improve it."

And of course, with a laptop it's a lot easier to generate random characters than it was back in my youth. Armed with an Excel spreadsheet and the "randbetween" function, I was able to quickly generate four PCs using original HU's near-100% random system. And guess what? It worked pretty darn good! Each character came out with enough pieces that I could form an adequate picture of the character and their backstory with relative ease. I had the bullied Australian scholar from the poor background who'd ended up working for a private company and stealing their robotic exoskeleton; the silver-spoon Frankforter who'd joined the German military at a young age and built himself into a brick outhouse; the shy professor who wears hats to hide her small horns, and prefers to use her own academic prowess over her mutant psionic abilities; and the Canadian farm boy who volunteered for experimentation and was only (grudgingly) allowed to leave only after the installation realized they had no real way to hold a person with the ability to teleport.

That's some cool stuff right there.

Of course, it all falls down when it comes to the first non-random part of chargen: skill selection. I only took the time to go through the whole process for the Physical Training character...partly because skills are the WHOLE of his "power suite;" partly because, as a guy with an enlisted military background (rolled randomly) he had a lot fewer skills to bother worrying about than the guy with the Masters degree or the lady with a Doctorate. And even knowing that I was just going to take as many physical skills as possible, it took a loooong time. As such I didn't bother finishing up the other characters, let alone spend the time buying their equipment (Palladium, unlike most supers RPGs, doesn't have an "abstract" system for modeling the economy...instead you're counting individual dollars and buying every piece of equipment (even your costume, in the original rules!) from the budget that is your character's life savings).

Anyway, it wasn't just "inelegant;" it was ugly. So I set aside the HU figuring I'd come back to it in another six months/years...and then my kid encountered the books later that same day and wanted to play.

SO...we ended up going through the entire character generation process for him (by hand). After some discussion we decided to play HU (first edition) instead of N&SS. He also ended up with a German; a mutant with the power of shrinking (no change in mass). We did all the skill selection (I provided him with no hints or nudges except to explain that didn't need more than one hand-to-hand skill), just walking him through the process. He spent his fairly ample life savings buying guns and ammo out of the equipment section. It took probably close to two hours to complete the process of making "Dave Dangerfield" AKA "DD." And while that time probably could have been cut down quite a bit with system familiarity, keep in mind that a mutant is probably the simplest of the character types to create, and that we were using the un-Revised HU rules (only one superpower, everything random, choices limited).

[my original idea was to create a character at the same time, a fellow adventurer who would act as an NPC companion; however, I gave up the idea when I rolled Hardware character with a $500K budget to spend. Even without the super-vehicle design of later editions, that's just too much work for the quickie game I wanted to run]

It really emphasized Kevin Siembieda's philosophy with regard to the game's design: HU is supposed to be a "thinking man's game." It is not supposed to be all four-color action and superhero cliches (though what's more cliche than super-powered individual's saving conflicts with their fists?). The time spent in such an elaborate chargen system represents an INVESTMENT in the character; yes, it's also a part of play, too, but in spending so much time building, your identification process (with the character) starts early in the game.

I also think that Siembieda has made very interesting (and astute) choices with what parts are random and what parts are not. A person's education CAN be effected by a host of random elements: opportunities provided by accident of birth, changes in a family's fortune, a person's approach to academic life and standardized testing and how that balances with other aspects of the character's life (social, familial, economic). Codifying that into a random table to determine one's final opportunity at skill selection is appropriate...just as allowing the player to select skill packages based on that (random) opportunity is appropriate. There are things within your control and things outside your control. It really takes the "meta" out of character generation.

[yes, I realize long-time Palladium players will say there's still "meta" involved in selecting physical skills that will optimize a character for combat. Siembieda looks at it differently, writing (in 1E) that players should OF COURSE be optimizing themselves as part of their "training" for a career in hero work. That's not "meta;" it's putting yourself in the mind of your character, deciding whether you should be learning gymnastics or how to speak Russian or how to fly a helicopter]

Yes, I am really starting to become a Palladium system apologist (if I wasn't one already), at least with regard to the HU line of games. The problem is, that such an elaborate, granular system REALLY requires some simplification in order to run the game effectively. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, for all the "fiddly" it adds to player characters, still maintains a simpler way of codifying bugbears and goblins. A DM might care about every coin of encumbrance and the location of every belt pouch for a particular PC wizard or fighter, but NOT for individual monsters. And yet HU wants me to figure out skill packages and equipment lists for every NPC the heroes might encounter? Ugh! No way!

There are other good concepts in the game that fail in execution. Combat is still kind of a mess, as well as over-emphasized in this "thinking man's game." Some of what appears to have been "corrections" to (what was originally) a D&D chassis are over-thought, convoluted, or impractical in practice. Why bother splitting Charisma into "mental affinity" and "physical beauty?" Why bother having both "hit points" and "structural damage capacity?" And the firearms combat rules are just so...aaaaaRRRGH. I understand why they were revised (and why they were later re-revised), but going more abstract just doesn't jibe great with a combat system that was already over-specific, what with counting individual strikes and parries. The whole thing needs an over-haul.

Anyway...

Adventure setting.

The boy and I did get through the whole process of creating a character and had a chance to play an adventure; I used the "One Dam Thing" introductory adventure from Revised HU. While we didn't bother worrying how his German, rifle-toting mutant had ended up in Nevada, the nice thing about having the internet these days is that it's fairly easy to pull up specs for something like Hoover Dam (where the scenario takes place). I figured I'd saw the Revised NPCs down to 1E size (limiting Golden Eagle to just "gliding," for example).

But we never got that far. Danger Dave decided to set-up a hunting blind in one of the powerhouse outlets to the Colorado River a couple days before the projected sabotage was to take place. Failing a prowl roll and encountering a security guard, the PRINCIPLED character's first reaction was to blow him away with his .44 auto-mag, and did so with a natural 20 (critical) roll. After dumping the body in the river, he set up shop to ambush the other security guards (investigating the gunshots) with his H&K sniper rifle. Eventually this led to a bunch of State Troopers from both sides of the Arizona-Nevada border being called to the dam, where a melee ensued along the top of the structure. DD managed to dispatch maybe half a dozen troopers before being thrown off the top and plunging 762' to the concrete powerhouse below (while he succeeded at his "roll with fall" attempt, he still ended up taking 110 points of damage and splattering like a bag of blood and gristle).

A fitting end to our "hero."

Which just goes to show: Palladim games end up looking much the same whether you're eight, eighteen, or twenty-eight years old (at least, mine always have).

My boy immediately wanted to play again by the way, and has since created a new character: this time a Dedicated Martial Artist (ninja) using the Ninjas & Super-Spies set. More later, perhaps.

O is for Oligarch

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, for every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic for this year's #AtoZchallenge? Revamping the Grand Duchy of Karameikos in a way that doesn't disregard its B/X roots]

O is for Oligarch. I had a few other thoughts on what "O" might stand for...things like Order of the Griffon or Offensive Stereotypes. But this one seemed like a better fit for a "revamp," thus keeping with my theme.

[going to try to make this a short post, as I've got a lot on my plate today]

In the city of Specularum, capitol of Karameikos, three Great Families struggle for power, wealth, and influence. Identified by their family name, they are Radu, Torenescu, and Vorloi.

These families, and the basic concept of their conflict, was first introduced in adventure module B6: The Veiled Society. I've owned my copy of this adventure since it was first published in 1984; it may have been the last published adventure module I ever purchased new, until 2nd edition's Return to White Plume Mountain (which is the absolute LAST Dungeons & Dragons adventure module I ever purchased new, off-the-shelf). I have an absolutely enormous collection of modules these days, but most have been picked up from used bookstores and bins, and at least a couple from eBay or similar.

B6: The Veiled Society was written by Dave Cook, co-author of the B/X Expert set and an adventure writer of whom I've spoken highly in the past. Unfortunately, B6 is not his best work; I haven't gotten nearly the mileage out of it that I have of works like Isle of Dread, Forbidden City, or even Blizzard Pass (whose small, non-solo dungeon I've used as an introductory adventure on numerous occasions).  GusL's review is pretty spot on, but as written the module may be even worse than that: take out the gimmicky cut-outs (which I've never bothered to assemble/use) and you're left with a 12 page adventure, most of which is box text or snippets of fiction. The adventure itself is next to worthless...it requires new adventurers to care about a murder mystery without providing anything in the way of motivation (neither carrot or stick). Should their consciences fail to incite them to action, the adventure is all of two-three encounters (none of which involve treasure) and a tiny stretch of underground...five combat encounters, no traps, and the only monster possessing treasure is a nonsensical, and gratuitous zombie fight. That's it...nada mas.

And why should the adventurers care about the murdered niece of a wealthy nobleman? Can't he afford to pay one of the city's (multiple) patriarchs to burn a raise dead on her? The spell is available to any 7th level cleric, and there are at least three clerics of 9th+ level residing in Specularum. Small change "murder mysteries" just don't work (or make sense) in a game where any found cadaver can be quickly (and easily) returned to life.

But I digress...despite the not-so-great adventure, the idea of competing rival factions, none of which are particularly "good" (and only one of which is outright villainous) is a good one. Three groups keeps it from being a black-white dichotomy...and the fact that all of them are (more or less) independent of the Duke gives plenty of opportunity for players to align with one or another (or none) and still get up to all sorts of hijinks and adventures.

Allston found the factions good enough to retain and embellish in GAZ1 (and gave kudos and thanks to Dave Cook for B6 in his introduction). If you want to use Karameikos (close to) as written in the gazetteer, I'd recommend keeping these Great Families. Upping Specularum's population from 5,000 (as per both B/X and module B6) to 50,000 (per GAZ1) just means more power, wealth, and influence in the hands of these ruthless rivals.

They are a tad boring though. Here are some possible ideas to "spice them up:"

Radu: I'm fairly good with the Radu as the kind of medieval Cosa Nostra. If anything, I think I'd  want to "Medici them up," getting them all involved in banking and patronizing the arts, etc. Even though the Grand Duchy of Karameikos has only existed for 30 years, it's important to remember that Marilenev was a thriving trading port even 100 years ago when Thyatis took it over, and the Radu clan (a Tralaldaran family) was probably operating even before then. The Veiled Society should be even more weird and cult-y, less like KKK clansmen and more like "The Hand" or similar fantasy ninjas/assassins. These guys should have their own weird temples, some sort of weird ancestor worship, maybe a pact with a Deep One like species made long ago, back when their ancestors were just pirates raiding coastal Traladara villages.

Gao as Anton (12th level thief);
"Come at me, Flameflicker!"

The main thing that bothers me about the Radu is the lack of female representation. Anton & Co. (his brother, his sons) and all the Veiled Society thugs are male. It would be nice to have at least some women in the mix...maybe a strong matriarch (since I brought up The Hand I now have an image of Madame Gao in my mind taking the place of Anton Radu). It's not just that I'm screaming for diversity here...part of B6 involves the attempted recruitment of player characters into the Veiled Society, and it would just be a little strange if the propositioned character(s) were female and then brought into this group of all male thugs. It would be a lot less random to depict them as equal opportunity villains from the outset.

Torenescu: So, stop me if you've heard this one before: head of family is murdered by uncle, too young son is forced to assume the mantle of leadership and figure stuff out even as evil uncle tries to wrest control of clan away from kid. Yeah? Me, too...many times.

The really dumb bit, of course, is that this isn't Narnia's Prince Caspian or Disney's The Lion King or whatever...it's D&D people! It's really hard for people to stay dead! At least if they're anyone that matters (i.e. anyone with a bit of coin in their pocket). You just can't assassinate a nobleman or woman and leave the body lying around...not if there's a even vaguely competent cleric in the vicinity. So why is it 26-year old Aleksander Torenescu is the head of the family and not his father, Christoph? Hmmm...

Making Torenescu interesting hinges on answering this question. While my Game of Thrones addled brain goes immediately to some sort of incest problem (the son with the father, the son with the uncle, the uncle with the father...your choice) that led to the clan not wanting Christoph raised from the dead, that's maybe too cut-and-dry. What if, instead of poison (also easily neutralized about raising...if not before), Christoph had been murdered in "the usual fashion" (garrote or a Charley Manson Special) and it took the loyal clan members a fortnite to find where his body had been dumped? And what if, upon finding Patriarch Aleksyev (leader of the Church of Traladara) was unable to raise Christoph (having passed the max number of days as limited by his level) they had taken the body to Patriarch Jowett, the 18th level head of the Church of Karameikos? And what if he had refused to perform the deed, on the grounds that they were outside the True Faith (being native Traladarans, natch) and had been rumored to be behind several religiously motivated attacks on the church (or at least the culprits had been members of the Torenescu controlled guilds)?

Heck, if you want to retain Jowett as the goody-good guy he's portrayed as (we'll get to him in a later post), you could say he was indisposed at the time and only his fanatical #2 (the 14th level, Traladara-hating Aldric Oderbey) had been available...and no way he was going to raise a tithing member of the rival church! Do you think maybe the Torenescu clan might (because of this) bear a bit of a grudge against the Church? Even as they already bear a grudge against the Duke for his "invasion" of 30 years prior that cost the family so much of their power? Make Torenescu the REAL Machiavallian schemers behind the scenes, not Radu.

Aleksander Torenescu:
"Vengeance is mine."

And make young Aleksander the new Lareth the Beautiful...just for fun.

Vorloi: And speaking of "forbidden worship," let's talk about the Sea Kings. Because that's what these guys are, right? Baron Vorloi as a "successful merchant prince" by the age of 30 (and in Thyatis no less). He has made his fortune (and continues to undercut his competition) by having the biggest and best fleet of merchant vessels operating out of Karameikos. And it certainly doesn't hurt that the Karameikan navy is financially beholden to his house. From whence comes this maritime power?

Reading between the lines, Vorloi is a jerk, but I don't want him to be a chaos worshipper...at least not of the mutating, Warhammer variety. But I would like him (and his family) to be secret cultists of some forbidden, "pagan" sea god (or goddess or demon...your choice). "Neutral," not chaotic, but utterly inhuman and lacking human compassion, empathy, or morality. A force of nature whose worship has long been prohibited in Thyatis (and would be in Karameikos, too, if Stefan had any inkling that the Vorloi clan were perpetuating its vile worship). The "idiot, feebleminded" son of Baron Vorloi? A necessary sacrifice to their deity, even as Phillip's older sister Michaela was similarly offered up and replaced with fey creature. Every generation's firstborn is given to their patron, receiving a strange changeling in the child's place...the weird offspring of the sea god.

Puny mortal

Thus does the Vorloi clan ensure their ships' fortune. The Baron's daughter Marianna knows that she, too, will someday need to give her own child to the Sea, if she wishes to continue the success of her clan. Will she be willing to do so? And will the father of her child acquiesce to such a tradition?

All right...that's enough for tonight.

Mirror, Mirror

In my "Star Trek nostalgia" post the other day, I mentioned (briefly) C.R. Brandon's Far Trek RPG, a fun looking thang that actually makes me want to role-play in the Trek-verse. What I failed to mention is that Brandon's game is actually a knock-off of Mike Berkey's game Where No Man Has Gone Before which can be found over here. The main difference between the two is that Berkey's game is based on MicroLite20 while Brandon's is D6 based. However, I must admit I'm a little more disposed to the Far Trek system and its presentation (the artwork is especially evocative).

ANYway...it had been awhile since I'd even checked out Fenway's Far Trek blog, so I'd missed his great link to Glenn Greenburg's blog, in which Greenburg writes about re-watching all 79 original Star Trek episodes with his eight-year old daughter, including their comments and critiques of the better shows. It's a great (and quick) read, and brought back more than a few memories for me...so much so that I ended up re-watching a couple-three of the old shows on Netflix (the entire original series is available for streaming). One of my personal favorites was the Mirror, Mirror episode from the second season, when Kirk and buddies get thrown into an alternate universe with "evil twins" of the Enterprise crew members. It's a lot of fun to watch (as I'm sure it was fun for the actors) while the cast members ham up their sleazy, bloodthirsty villainy. Plus, the re-worked costumes, Spock's beard, Sulu's nasty-ass scar (Takei really does get a juicy role in this one)...it's a classic.

The "Dagger-Thru-Earth" symbol is awesome!

And there's a lot of "food for thought" in it: I couldn't help but think that such a setting - that of an evil, warped version of the normal Trekverse - would be an excellent premise for a real cutthroat RPG. Where the players are crew members and a part of this evil Starfleet Federation, with a prime directive to see that "terror must be continued or the Empire is doomed." Where players get ahead (and promoted!) by lying and cheating and jockeying for position in the bottle environment of a (nominally) military vessel, and in which you constantly building alliances and counting on the loyalty of your personal retainers to keep you safe from assassination. Such a thing could be a knock-off from Berkey or Brandon's system, but with a play-style much more reminiscent of Paranoia (or the latter stages of 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars), and would make for a fun few game sessions. As a setting that pretty much carries a mandate of PvP conflict, I wouldn't call it suitable for "long-term" play.

I throw the idea out for someone else to develop, however. It's cool to knock-off other folks' games (and other folks' knock-offs) in this way, when inspiration strikes, but lark projects can really be distracting (even though the exercise can be worthwhile, fun, and educational). Case in point: I've spent entirely too much time fretting over the mechanics of Lord Gwydion's Flying Swordsmen RPG...so much so that I spent the last day-and-a-half writing a sprawling, rambling preamble post about Asians, Caucasians, and Hong Kong Action Theater. It was pretty ridiculous, actually, and probably offensive on a number of levels...so I deleted it in its entirety. I've already offered to provide some feedback to LG (which he accepted), but that's all stuff I can submit to him privately, rather than hashing it out on a blog with a bunch of random personal history stuff.

[just FYI: Flying Swordsmen is Dennis Laffey's own streamlined knock-off of Chris Prama's Dragon Fist supplement written for 2nd Edition AD&D. Despite being a fairly impressive looking book (available as a free download) Lord Gyd has expressed some disappointment with how the system works "in-play" and is currently looking to retool it. I've never seen Prama's game (it's no longer available on the web), but I think Flying Swordsmen has a lot of potential if it can be tightened up a little, both conceptually and rule-wise. However, like I said, I'll give the specifics to LG privately...fans of wuxia with even the slightest interest should at least take a gander at the current version of the book]

Don't Sass an Assassin (Part 3)

What does a AD&D assassin look like?


For me, this is an important question, perhaps THE most important question. Can a member of the assassin class distinguish himself (or herself) from other classifications of adventurer. And if not, why not? Better yet, if not then do you really need such a class?


After all, all adventurers are in the business of "killing folks for money," what we'd commonly call "assassination." Some get there cash by robbing their victims, some claim it as a reward (assassin's fee) from some noble or wizard that hired 'em in a tavern. Often, they get paid from BOTH ends...after all, it's not like the target will be complaining (and the party probably killed all his friends and family when they invaded his cave network lair). Adventurers kill EVERYthing...monsters, humans, demihumans...if it has loot in a locked chest and makes the mistake of living in a hole in the ground, it's simply a matter of time before someone's character comes kicking down the door.


So it's not enough (for me) that when I ask "what niche does the assassin fill in the fantasy milieu?" you say, "well, he kills people for money." They ALL do that, boy-o.


Let's step back for a moment, shall we? What is it that inspires a player to want to PLAY an assassin? Assuming, of course, that the player rolled a Charisma greater than 5 and so is not forced to play an assassin.


The idea of the hired killer is fairly ubiquitous in today's cinema. One doesn't have to stroll very far through the video isle (action section, please) to find many motion picture jewels featuring assassins and "hit men." Ninjas, of course, are popular (Ninja Assassin being perhaps the last film of this type in the theater). You can find the weird assassin movie (Wanted) or the sentimental assassin movie (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) or the Hong Kong action assassin movie (Chow Yun Fat in The Killer and others) or French assassin movies (anything with Jean Renau, naturally) or the big budget Hollywood assassin movie (Assassins with Stallone and Banderas) or the stupid direct-to-video assassin movie (Direct Hit with William Forsythe...yes, I have watched it) as well as Oscar-winning movies about assassins (No Country for Old Men).


Hell, there are even geriatric assassin films (here I'm thinking RED, though watching Tommy Lee Jones take on Benito Del Toro in The Hunted might fit the bill as well).


Hired killers, CIA hitmen (gosh, I forgot all the Bourne Identity movies!) and ninjas (the films of the early 80s and the better done 1995 Lambert film, The Hunted)...these are all over the silver screen and DVD store, and the image most folks get when they start thinking about AD&D assassins...or maybe Dwayne Johnson from the first Scorpion King movie (wasn't he supposed to be some sort of "assassin?" I think so).


Me, I get a different cinematic image in my mind: the fat poisoner in the 1994 French film Queen Margot.


Unfortunately, I couldn't find an image of the guy...he was only a minor (if important) character in the film, after all. And at that, his appearance is fairly nondescript, no more unkempt than any other 16th century Parisian, certainly not as "courtly dressed" as others in the palace, portly and middle-aged. He's no ninja, exhibits no "bad ass" attitude, nor does he appear to be any type of hand-to-hand combatant. And he's no cold-eyed sadist either...hell, he's downright jovial with the young ladies, and as interested in an illustrated text (uncommon for the time) as any hobbyist scholar.


But there is no doubt he is an assassin. He has no scruples about sending a younger girl to her death as a living weapon, doing so with total nonchalance. Likewise, it's no skin off his nose to poison a member of the nobility at the behest of his employer...and when he accidentally offs a member of royalty with his weapon of choice he doesn't bat an eye.

THIS is an assassin...not some caricarture twirling his "evil" moustache. Not some guy who talks in a Clint Eastwood whisper and perpetually buried in a shadowy corner. Certainly not some ninja with a black skimask.

A normal enough looking individual, nondescript, easy-going, friendly enough...and no scruples whatsoever when it comes to the task at hand. And that task is the murder of individuals by stealth and subterfuge, for the right price.

In a medieval society, even a fantasy one, you're talking about a person who must be able to work in social circles. Not a person living the loner lifestyle (like Jean Reneau in the Professional). A person without friends and family...without connections...is going to stick out like a sore thumb and be picked up by the local constabulary. Or lynched by the rabble if he's protected by the powers-that-be.

Better to hide in plain sight. Better to be an upstanding member of the community. Better to have people whisper about your reputation behind closed doors, but have no proof of your involvement...or be protected from on high against those who do have evidence of your deeds.

I'll make a final post on this subject later today or tomorrow, in which I'll discuss my latest character.
: )

One Badass Supers Game

I went down to Gary's today looking for a used copy of Ninjas & Superspies...that's just how bad my ninja fixation has been this last week (did I mention I spent last night watching a G4 marathon of the reality contest Ninja Warrior? Holy cow those dudes are fit!).

Unfortunately, while I must have seen the book on the shelf every day for the last...oh, six months or so...it was missing in action today. I read through the new copy just to make sure I could bear to live without it (I could), and decided the stars and cosmos had all aligned today to prevent me from making a ninja-madness induced purchase.

At the same time, the universe provided me with a bounty of gifts, as I was able to pick-up Rifts Sourcebook 1 (completing my quest for "essential-Rifts-books-in-case-I-ever-run-a-game-in-the-future"), Revised Recon (a game I've spent a few years looking), and the complete three volume set of Chaosium's Superworld.

I've mentioned before that I am a sucker for superhero games...I've also talked and brainstormed the beginnings of my own B/X-based supers game. Well, after reading Superworld front-to-back over breakfast, my quest for an excellent superhero RPG may well have come to an end.

No, it's not a perfect RPG, nor even a perfect superhero RPG. But it sure is a badass one. Simple to use (a much toned-down, stream-lined sill system compared to Chaosium's other BRP system is a Big Plus), and written in a matter-of-fact, straight-forward fashion (if I DO finish designing my own superhero game I'm going to be taking A LOT of cues from Superworld), I came away extremely impressed...and anxious to try it out.

I can see how such a system could be used for the creation of such a vibrant universe as the Wild Cards series. Really. As I said in last night's post, I've been feeling pretty "low brow" lately...like all you other cats are operating on a higher level than myself. Recently, I thought I'd contribute my two cents over at the Revolution's discussion on personality mechanics and was again slapped down by someone who considered the discussion to be operating on a "deeper level" (likewise over at Tao of D&D...I don't even know why I try butting heads with that guy).

But regarding personality mechanics for a moment...it seems to me there are three approaches one can take to incorporating them in an RPG:

- have a simple game with only minimal rules (say, D&D regarding alignment) that allow one to get pretty much exactly what one puts in

- have a game that deeply ingrains personality mechanics into the normal system (say, The Riddle of Steel and its spiritual attributes)

- have a game that pays lip-service to "in-depth role-playing" but with very little mechanical consequences (say, Vampire's "prelude questionnaire")

[yes, I'm intimately familiar with Vampire's humanity mechanics. Know what? Big whoop-dee-doo. Once your humanity has been reduced sufficiently, it has little lasting effect even on the committing of heinous crimes and atrocities...plus, with the advent of the Sabbat books, one can always take an inhuman "Path of Enlightenment" or whatever they're called, and then there's nothing to stop characters from being raging monsters. In the end, isn't that what the whole vampire fantasy/fetish is?]

Oh, yeah, there's a 4th way RPGs can go...make a game that has pretty much ZERO to do with personality mechanics, but instead make it a combat-happy video-game-on-a-table. You know, the kind of thing you find in post-2000 commercial RPGs?

ANYway...of the three approaches, I actually find option #1 to be the most competent at developing inner game personalities and actual nuanced change over time. Of course, this requires two things from the players (and I include DM/GM as player here):

1) a commitment to exploring said personality (i.e. "inner life") development, and

2) a long term time commitment.

The first is necessary because...well, because with little in the way of mechanical rules there's nothing that holds you to the development. You get out what you put in (this doesn't work with the rule heavier games in general because there's so much other extraneous stuff going...generally, combat/tactical/resource management). You have the TIME (and hopefully the extra energy) to manage your character's inner life, so take advantage.

The second is necessary because, as in "real life," changes to one's personality "matrix" generally happens over time. We as people are generally slow to change our ways and beliefs, and the integration of experience into our personalities is usually NOT a fast process. If you have never played a long term campaign of D&D, chances are you've never had a lot of personality development (and I would argue you've missed out on some of the richer potential for role-playing).

Superworld is like D&D. It has almost ZERO with regard to personality mechanics (you can claim a few extra points for certain psychological disadvantages and that's about it), but also has a fairly simple system that doesn't occupy one's time at the table with a bunch of other junk (hey, BRP is nothing if not fairly simple to use...and the earlier BRP systems are even easier than the more recent versions, in my opinion). What's more, because it's a specific "genre" or RPG (in this case, comic book superhero-ing of the early '80s) there are certain recognizable conventions (like not killing people at your mercy) that, while they don't HAVE to be followed, certainly can be if everyone at the table is on-board.

Anyway, I dig it. I'll have to throw together some characters to see if I can model everything on the "Green Spectrum" (i.e. Green Arrow to the Green Goliath, aka The Hulk). I have a feeling that it IS possible, and if so...well, I don't REALLY need to write my own game if I have one that does everything for me, right?

Badass.

: )

Forget Post-Apoc...Let's Talk Ninjas!

Seriously, I don't know if it's because I've been sick this week or what, but I've been feeling...well, kind of low-brow. Like the shit I'm writing is all just drivel compared to the high-falutin' concepts I'm reading around the blog-o-sphere. I try to be intellectual and suave but I can only take the theory-stuff so far...and even though I like to consider myself an elitist pig, it feels like I may not have the goods to back it up.

Case in point: ninjas.

For some odd reason, I've been all about the ninjas this week. Seriously. I'm certain that everyone who reads this blog already knows a thousand-and-one things about these stealthy practitioners of martial arts...the ninja is fairly ubiquitous in gaming these days. Hell, the word "ninja" doesn't even trigger my spellcheck. EVERYONE knows what a ninja is.

But do any of you remember a time BEFORE ninjas?

I do. That is to say, I remember a time before I knew what the F a ninja was.

All those poor shmuck 3rd generation gamers (the ones that came after me) probably can't remember a time before ninjas. TMNT helped flood the world with pizza-eating masters-o-stealth. But TMNT was 1985, and by the time they came around ninjas were already a pretty familiar archetype.

Trying to remember that far back is tough, but I think I've narrowed it down to circa 1982 or '83. By the time Revenge of the Ninja hits the theater, I have a good idea what a ninja is. But in 1981 when I got my first copy of Daredevil (issue #175...no I don't still have it, it took a lot of internet searching to find the familiar illustrations), I made no connection between The Hand, Elektra, shuriken, and ninja. Hell, they might have used the term "ninja" in the comic, and I skimmed right over it (in my defense I was a month shy of my 8th birthday when the comic was published, so the pictures and ass-kicking was much more important than the story).

Also in 1981 I watched much of the television mini-series Shogun (though I may have fallen asleep at some points), and it wasn't until years later that, re-watching it, I said, "shit! there are ninjas in this thing?!"

As an average American kid, I collected action figures, specifically Star Wars, Micronauts, and GI Joe (well, and Strawberry Shortcake, but dammit that's it!)...and my brother had the Snake-Eyes figure long before the character ever was revealed to be a "ninja." Snake-Eyes was first issued in 1982, and at the time was issued as an all black figure to save on paint costs! By 1984 and the Storm Shadow ninja GI Joe (incidentally, probably the last action figure I ever owned), I already knew all about ninja.

I remember the trailers for the 1981 Enter the Ninja only vaguely; I remember the previews for the 1983 Revenge of the Ninja much more (that little kid kicking ass). Being Rated R, I was never allowed to see these films as a youngster...and having watched both, plus American Ninja (1985) all this week, I can fearlessly say I didn't miss much.

[as I said, I've had ninjas on the brain]

If I had to guess, I would say it was probably the trailers for Revenge of the Ninja, later re-readings of that old Daredevil comic, and the 1984 TV series The Master (with Lee Van Cleef!) that provided the bulk of my ninja education. In 1985 I was introduced to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles through the Palladium RPG, and I may well have had my own 1st copy of the game that year, too. I'm pretty sure my buddy Scott was the one who picked up AD&D Oriental Adventures (also 1985), a book I never bothered to purchase and one we never used in any our D&D games. Ever.

And so, we come to my confession: I was never a ninja fan.

Never went out for ninja toys or action figures (the Storm Shadow was a birthday gift from someone), never wanted to play one in an RPG, never created "ninja-like" characters. I only got into martial arts in high school after being cut from the soccer team, and I never studied any oriental weapons...hell, when I went to Japan with a bunch of other 17 year olds, I was one of the few that didn't come back with some katana or nunchuck souvenir.

Not that I didn't have the potential to get my ninja-freak-on. But really, the TMNT game was nigh un-playable (the comics were much more fun to read than the game)...and the ninja-class in Oriental Adventures was just so damn lame. Besides AD&D already has a ninja class...it's called the assassin, right?

Secret society? Stealthy masters of infiltration, spying, disguise, and assassination? Proficient with the manufacture and use of poisons?

The assassin class is the ninja of AD&D...just as the fighter was the samurai and the monk was the...well, the monk. Who needed Oriental Adventures?

Okay, that's enough for tonight. I'm only still up 'cause it's like 90 degrees. But I do have things to do tomorrow.