Monthly Archives: August 2014

#RPGaDAY 25: Favorite RPG No One Else Wants to Play

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#RPGaDAY prompts.

The #RPGaDAY prompt was concocted by Dave Chapman of Autocratik. Grab the list and join in!

Four people seated at a table, in the middle of a role-playing session.

“Role playing gamers” by Diacritica – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

There are days when it feels like no one wants to play my favorite games. Part of that is self-fulfilling prophecy, in that I haven’t tried to run a game in several years now, so there’s been no opportunity for someone to decide one way or another whether they would like to play. Further, I and my fellow players have been deeply embedded in Pathfinder adventure paths for years now, so the prospect of yet another on-going game doesn’t really come up.

In the past, I feel I had a hard time selling people on the prospect of most games that swerved outside d20 fantasy: Mage, Northern Crown, WitchCraft and Trinity are a few that come to mind. Only a few people ever said “Nah, you’re crazy!”, but there was never the kind of “Yes, I am on board!” enthusiasm that we all hope for in pitching an idea. It was more the polite “Ah, I understand what you are proposing” that doesn’t do a whole lot for convincing oneself that they’ve got a viable idea.

Some games I still would like to pitch, if the opportunity arose:

  • A periodic on-going Ghostbusters campaign with a regular group of players who can slip into their own characters.
  • A Cthulhu mythos campaign, something like Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man or Eternal Lies or even returning to Masks of Nyarlathotep.
  • A street level super powers game using Mutants & Masterminds and a healthy serving of elements from the Paragons toolbox.

#RPGaDAY 24: Most Complicated RPG Owned

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#RPGaDAY prompts.

The #RPGaDAY prompt was concocted by Dave Chapman of Autocratik. Grab the list and join in!

A long row of GURPS books receding into the distance.GURPS. The generic universal role-playing system. How it tasks me! The core of GURPS is simple: roll 3d6, compare the sum of the dice to a relevant ability score or skill rating. Low is good, high is bad. You may, if the mood strikes you, shout — before or after determining your success or failure.

And yet, with as simple a core as that, the complexity of GURPS boggles me. There are many, many optional modifiers, sub-systems, especially complex advantages, specific skills with rules of their own and more to consider when setting parameters for a campaign or figuring out how to create the character you envision. GURPS enthusiasts will remind you all that complexity is optional. You can pick and choose whether to bring in social engineering, or range modifiers.

And that is perfectly true. The challenge is determining what to include in your particular game, and knowing when to say “enough.” For instance, when I ran GURPS Ghostbusters, I went in with the initial intention of using only the barest of bones of the rules. Characters would have their attributes, some interesting advantages, and skills. But once I began building one character with a particularly interesting hook, it spiraled out of control. “Oh, clearly they would have this complementary ability, too!” So spending points became an ongoing struggle.

And then figuring out how proton packs worked mechanically drew in more complexity. As written, they’re beam weapons, but they have a kind of kick to firing, so there’s a base penalty just to shoot the thing, and there’s a malfunction roll, and firing to blast a ghost is different from restraining it, and then you must do X, Y and Z to get it in the trap.

And that’s just for a game where there’s one piece of wonder-technology. I cringe at the thought of managing a campaign where the players have ready access to the kind of stuff you find in GURPS Ultra-Tech, or even express interest in using deeper combat options. That’s never happened to me, but the thought would give me the heebie jeebies, if I thought I’d ever find myself running the game again.

Honorable Mention

A special shout-out to HERO, which easily would have taken this plaudit if I still owned the core rule book. Somehow, for some reason, I’ve hung on a dozen plus source and settings books for a game whose core rules I don’t own and whose world books are notoriously “one with everything, so there’s something for everyone!”

#RPGaDAY 23: Coolest Looking RPG Product/Book

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#RPGaDAY prompts.

The #RPGaDAY prompt was concocted by Dave Chapman of Autocratik. Grab the list and join in!

Night's Black Agents cover. A vampire poses exultant in the background, while an agent appears in the crosshairs of a firearm in the foreground.Night’s Black Agents gets the nod for coolest looking role-playing book. Nobilis‘ second edition is the stately white palace of role-playing books, but it’s not in my library anymore, so I’m putting Night’s Black Agents forth.

I wish there were more pages in the preview PDF on DriveThruRPG to demonstrate why this game deserves title of coolest looking book, because the interior is where it shines. The layout is minimalist, almost austere. Sleek sans serif fonts head up sections of text. Chapters are color-coded, to aid in flipping through the book looking for your favorite firearm’s details. Sidebars and inset text use iconography to help the reader figure out which options are relevant to the vampires with which they’re working. Are your vampires extraterrestrial in nature? Check out the items bulleted with the big-eyed grey alien. Is your campaign running in the gritty, low-power Dust mode? Look for that little heap of ashes that might have once been your character.

Night’s Black Agents is one of the coolest looking books I own because half the time, you never notice how cool it is. You’re too busy finding the information you want.

No Soul Left Behind’s Full Color Victory

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Kudos to No Soul Left Behind for making their crowning stretch goal of a full color hardback! After the campaign launched last month, they had a strong start. As GenCon approached, it seemed that the energy of backers and the campaign organizers got diverted toward the convention. It was only in the last couple days that communication picked up and I realized the final stretch goal was significantly closer than I had estimated it would be.

So congratulations to Caleb at Hebanon Games and Shane at Arc Dream Publishing. Now please hustle that book through the final stages of creation. 🙂

#RPGaDAY 22: Best Secondhand RPG Purchase

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#RPGaDAY prompts.

The #RPGaDAY prompt was concocted by Dave Chapman of Autocratik. Grab the list and join in!

Changeling: the Dreaming cover art. A heraldic griffin holds a sword, rendered in stained glass.The same used section at Barnes & Noble that introduced me to Feng Shui also held a battered, heavily dog-eared copy of the first edition of Changeling: the Dreaming. Someone used or read that book a lot, and then decided it wasn’t for them anymore — or maybe they moved up to the second edition.

Changeling was a super muddled game. Science was generally evil, except when nockers abused it to build stupendous gadgets. Changelings were parasites who commandeered human bodies, except it was okay. And changelings were really fae muses, anyway, inspiring humans to dream big. Growing up was awful and a kind of small death — the first edition of Changeling has an amazing opening story/art piece about a changeling progressing through the stages of childing, wilder and grump — but no, it was really about losing the ability to dream and be creative, rather than simple age.

But anyway, I loved the game because it mashed together fantasy and the modern world, and did it in a relatively lighter tone than the rest of the World of Darkness, which I had been studiously avoiding prior to finding this rough gem. The reason it’s my best second hand purchase is because it drove me to find more books in the game line. Quarterstaff Games had an impressive selection of Changeling titles, which slowly became mine over time. Unlike many of my role-playing purchases in that era, I got to use a fair bit of Changeling material in a short-lived game, too.

And once I was visiting Quarterstaff regularly, it was a short hop to getting to know more people, trying more role-playing games and branching out into board games. I never stood a chance. And it was all because someone didn’t want that beat up core book anymore.

Honorable Mention

One day, I found three or four Planescape box sets for sale used at Quarterstaff Games. I forget what the prices were, but trying to be clever, I figured I could buy all of them, sell those I didn’t want on eBay — Planes of Law, Planes of Chaos and maybe a third one — and come out ahead, if not break even and basically have a free Planescape core box. In the end, after eBay fees, estimated shipping versus actual and the hassle of getting to the post office, I would have loved to say I broke even. At the most, it worked out to a heavily discounted core box, and one that I still have not gotten around to reading.

#RPGaDAY 21: Favorite Licensed RPG

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#RPGaDAY prompts.

The #RPGaDAY prompt was concocted by Dave Chapman of Autocratik. Grab the list and join in!

The Day After Ragnarok cover. A muscled man wielding an automatic firearm and knife poses aggressively in front of a rearing serpent.We’ve gone over the prime candidates for favorite RPG license in previous #RPGaDAY posts: Ghostbusters and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Allow me, then, to split hairs and introduce The Day After Ragnarok, HERO edition. Yes, it’s an original setting by Kenneth Hite licensed to use the HERO system in this particular printing. Systemistas can also find it in savage and fated flavors.

When the Nazis summoned the world-spanning Midgard Serpent and it began devouring Atlantic convoys whole, President Truman ordered the Trinity device flown into the serpent’s maw. The colossal thing died, crashing across Europe. The far-reaching consequences of Serpentfall wrought havoc with the global climate, atmosphere and more.

Basically, it’s post-apocalyptic fantasy in 1948, and the apocalypse is only a few years behind. America and Europe have been trashed. There are holdouts of western society trying to keep on as before, but the infrastructure just isn’t there anymore. Sorcery is on the rise, as well as ultra-weird science as the adventurous mine the Midgard Serpent for unearthly materials with bizarre properties.

Regardless of your rules preferences, Day After Ragnarok is a very cool setting for mixing up the modern day with sword and sorcery fantasy. I talked more about the game with my friend Joe on Carnagecast.

#RPGaDAY 20: Will Still Play in 20 Years Time

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#RPGaDAY prompts.

The #RPGaDAY prompt was concocted by Dave Chapman of Autocratik. Grab the list and join in!

Carrion Crown: The Haunting of Harrowstone coverThis is a no-brainer. In the circles in which I currently move, the game we’ll still be playing in 20 years is Pathfinder, if only because Paizo pumps out campaigns far faster than we can play through them. Carrion Crown took two-plus years meeting almost every week. At every other week with the occasional side diversion, Mummy’s Mask could easily take double that to play out. If Paizo stopped publishing adventure paths with the end of Iron Gods, that would leave thirteen for me to play through, including resuming Skull & Shackles. Look at the math, if you estimate 2.5 years per playthrough:

13 campaigns * 2.5 years per campaign = 32.5

I’m not saying that’s a goal of mine. Pathfinder is an extremely accessible game, and the local area has a wealth of options to play. All things being equal, it will always be a safe fallback.

#RPGaDAY 19: Favorite Published Adventure

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#RPGaDAY prompts.

The #RPGaDAY prompt was concocted by Dave Chapman of Autocratik. Grab the list and join in!

A fast food restaurant worker floats cross-legged over the counter. Glowing french fries are piled in her open palms.

Mak Attax serves it up right.

The adventure I would most like to have run or played in has got to be To Go, an Unknown Armies campaign book in which the main characters are caught up in the creation of a mystical creature from the unconscious mind of the American population. Surprisingly or not, the creation of this entity begins in a meat-packing plant with a sacrificial beast. From there, frozen beef patties are delivered all over the country by a single trucker. The players embroil themselves in catching up with those deliveries, trying to shape the way the creature forms, while other interested factions do the same.

It’s been a while since I read the book — and I since sold off, so I have the double whammy of having spoiled myself and am unable to run it — but I recall a Tim Powers-style poker game where characters can wager intangibles like their memories and abilities, but an encounter with a modern avatar of Dionysus and the bacchae (all referred to as “Becky”).

Man, now I really want to rustle up a copy of To Go and Unknown Armies to break up the Pathfinder marathon going on these days in my circles. To Go was the companion work to Break Today, which detailed Mak Attax, a mystical conspiracy embedded in a fast food restaurant chain. I hadn’t paid them much mind until I read the book, and then the reach of their organization and their potential for positive change amazed me. Often Mak Attax gets written off as uninformed losers, but then they pulled off the safe and happy new year in 1999, and no one blinked.

#RPGaDAY 18: Favorite Game System

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#RPGaDAY prompts.

The #RPGaDAY prompt was concocted by Dave Chapman of Autocratik. Grab the list and join in!

Adventure! cover art.When it comes to running role-playing games, I like a fairly low complexity. I’ve got enough going on talking to everyone at the table in turn that addressing as many different questions and decision points that something as complex as Pathfinder raises is way more than I want to take on.

The Storyteller system’s always been wonderfully easy to run. There are attributes and skills, you can mix and match those to address whatever a character is trying to achieve, and then you roll some dice and check for how many made the target number.

Adventure!, and its cousins in the Aeon Continuum, Aberrant and Trinity, uses a variant on the Storyteller rules. There’s a constant target number of 7 now, and additional difficulty is represented by requiring more than one success, or gaining more successes than whomever the character is working against in a contested task.

So it’s really easy to adjudicate Adventure! and it’s crammed with flavorful pulp action abilities and is one of my first encounters with a meta resource for players to ameliorate dice results, Inspiration and Dramatic Editing. Player characters have a small pool of points to temporarily boost their abilities, and nudge the narrative. Depending on the GM, “Of course there are enough parachutes in this crashing plane for all of us” might just be the way things go even without Inspiration, but digging yourself out of a narrative dead end on your own abilities is almost always preferable to the GM handwaving it at the last minute because the players didn’t catch on to what they originally envisioned.

Daurogs

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Ludlow Green Man carving. Photo by SiGarb.

Ludlow Green Man carving. Photo by SiGarb.

In Robert Holdstock’s Lavondyss, a daurog is a Mesolithic green man. It’s an agglomeration of man, wolf, owl and vole bones, with seeds germinating within the vole remains and shooting up through the layers of remains to festoon the entire body. As the seasons progress, the daurog’s foliage follows the cycle of flowering and shedding. To Ice Age hunters, a daurog might be a tormenting force of nature, an oracle offering cryptic wisdom, their own antecedents and who knows what else.