RPGaDay2015: The End

Favorite non-RPG thing to come out of RPGing

I'm going to go with the consensus and say all the people in my life who might not be there without gaming.  Doing a quick eyeball of my Facebook friends list, less than 10% of it is composed of people I didn't meet via gaming or the SCA (which I would never have found and joined without gaming), including my wife (and, by extension, my son). Thanks Gary, thanks Dave.

RPGaDay2015: Day Thirty

Favorite RPG playing celebrity

John Rogers.  Dude makes awesome TV shows ("Jackie Chan Adventures", "Leverage", "The Librarians").  He's a straight-up, card-carrying, proud member of the gamer nerd tribe.  He also writes funnybooks (the Blue Beetle relaunch for DC and IDW's awesome D&D comic) and occasional RPG stuff (the Feywild for D&D 4e, Crimeworld for FATE, and the forward for Feng Shui 2).

I first became aware of him on ENWorld, where he posted a long-running Dark Matter D20 actual-play called "Drunk Southern Girls With Guns."  At some point along the way, someone asked him if he was the same John Rogers that was writing "Blue Beetle," which revealed his secret identity.  Yes kids, the dude was posting on a gaming board about his personal campaign, not because he was trying to sell something, but because it's his hobby and he liked hanging out and talking about it with other hobbyists.

Dude's legitimately one of our own.

Honorable mention goes to Kurtis J. Wiebe, author of the awesome "Rat Queens" comics.  If you haven't read the Queens and you've felt a lack of foul-mouthed R-rated D&D-inspired adventure with a kickass all-female cast, then you need to catch up.  It's awesome.  Mr. Wiebe is also a gamer; he used to post on RPGnet back in the day and is currently podcasting a foul-mouthed R-rated Star Wars: Edge of the Empire game.

One more day to go.

RPGaDay 2015: Day Twenty Nine

Favorite RPG blog/website

Well, obviously this one, right?

Actually, I'm going to go off-script here and pay tribute not to a blog or a website, but to my first online home: the Red October BBS.

Back in 1992, if you wanted to get online, you used a modem and a land line to dial in to a bulletin board.  Despite having a career in IT now, at the time I was anything but a computer guy.  That changed when my girlfriend moved in with me and brought her IBM PC-AT, which was equipped with a modem.  The first BBS I logged onto was the legendary Illuminati Online, but after about twenty minute of looking around (and accruing long-distance charges), I couldn't figure out how to navigate it.  My next attempt was another Austin-based BBS, Red October, which Adventurer's Club Magazine said was the electronic home of Hero Games.

RO was a lot easier to make sense of.  The community was friendly and operated by rules of civility I now realize were hardly the norm.  Of course, the best thing was the line-up of regular posters: a veritable cornucopia of Hero writers, editors, and high-profile fans:  Aaron Allston, Allen Varney, Scott Bennie, Bruce Harlick, Wayne Shaw, even occasional visits by George MacDonald.  Later on, such luminaries as Sean Patrick Fannon, Steve Long, Steve Kenson, and Mark Arsenault became regulars.

Did I mention this was a friendly community?  I really can't stress that enough.  Folks were happy to discuss rules minutia, campaign ideas, and just shoot the breeze.  In order to keep my phone bill from killing me, I learned to use Silly Little Mail Reader and PKZIP/UNZIP to log in, grab my mail, and access it offline.  With that sense of accomplishment, I began my first forays into using word processing and spreadsheet software.  Those skills snowballed into greater knowledge and are directly responsible for my career.

But mostly, it was about talking games, particularly HERO Games. It saw the earliest "publication" of Scott Bennie's Gestalt Earth setting.  It hosted an early Fantasy Hero version of Sean Patrick Fannon's Shaintar. It was just the best community for me to find.  There are connections and friendships I made there almost 25 years ago that remain to this day.

Of course, it couldn't survive.  AOL succeed RO as the home of the online community, and AOL was surpassed by mailing lists and dedicated web forae.  I've been a part of each incarnation along the way, but none quite match Red October.

RPGaDay2015: Day Twenty Eight

Favorite game you no longer play

Probably Champions/HERO System. It's the game I've played more than any other.  It's been part of a host of terrific memories.  Almost my entire gaming career and style can be viewed through my relationship to that one game line. I still keep touch with the community, but it's not in the top three for any genre I'd run today.

Until it is.  Because I do go through phases, and it's entirely possible I'll give the old girl a try again.  But if I do, I'm far more inclined to use 4th edition than the current incarnation.

RPGaDay 2015: Day Twenty Seven

So far today, I've had to jump start my wife's car at a gas station near our house, saw a dead horse by the side of the road on my morning commute, and had a dental "deep cleaning."  How's your day?

Anyway, on to the show...

Favorite Idea for Merging Two Games into One

I have no idea.  Seriously.  That's just not my thing.  I've adapted rules to genres/settings they weren't designed for (a Harn hack for Pendragon, and using Feng Shui to run "Keep on the Borderlands" or "Heroes of the New Wave"), but I'm not one to mash two entire games together.  Boring, but true.

RPGaDay 2015: Day Twenty Six

Favorite Inspiration For Your Game

Well, it kind of depends on the genre, doesn't it?  I mean, when I'm doing a wuxia game, mainlining Power Metal videos is probably counter-intuitive, right?  Pair the inspiration with the need, says I.

Okay, that's kind of a flippant answer, but I do have a better one for the genre I do best.

When it comes to my Supers games, for many years my primary inspiration has been animated superhero shows.

While watching "Batman: the Animated Series" on a daily basis during a period of unemployment in the mid-90s, something just clicked.  Even though I'd been running successful supers games for over a decade by that point, it was like discovering an entirely new language.  I developed what I call my "Champions: the Animated Series" approach to playing the game.  Studying the show and it's successors ("The Adventures of Superman," and my beloved "JLA"), I learned the ins and outs of how they stripped characters down to their iconic core and used that to tell stories.

Since then, pretty much every supers game I run is an animated series or movie in my head.  It's how I visualize the action, it's how I describe things.  It's my GMing vocabulary.

RPGaDay2015: Day Twenty Five

Huh. I think I'm going to get through this.

Favorite Revolutionary Game Mechanic

Working from the premise that something doesn't have to be new to be revolutionary, I'm going to say Points-Based Character Creation.  The whole Hero/GURPS unholy union and their many, many spawn.

Honorable mention to Skill-Based Rules Systems.  That was a mighty big eye-opener for me, back in the day.

RPGaDay2015: Day Twenty Four

Favorite house rule

Hmmm...I've got two, both from Champions, and one was less of a house rule than just an experiment.  That was adopting a no initial points limit approach. Instead of building a starting version of the hero and trying to make everything balance out with Disads, we built the hero we wanted to play, chose the Disads that were appropriate, and got on with our lives.  The interesting side-effect of this was that we stopped worrying about character advancement, XP, etc.  Along the way, we developed some interesting ways of keeping the game engaging, and those turned into my first ever paid RPG work (an article in Digital Hero Magazine).  But it wasn't much as house rules go.

The other one is my "SPD = Spotlight" rule for Champions, which has served me well through the years.  Given its simulationist roots, it's pretty common to treat a character's Speed score as a concrete simulation of how fast he or she is.  But really, it's a measure of spotlight time and all PCs should get the same amount.  So, I lock PCs at a SPD of 4 in my supers games, 3 for non-supers.  NPCs, I leave alone.  They can almost always use the extra phases for defensive actions, and the heroes typically have numbers and plot on their side.

"But what about speedsters?" I hear you ask.  Or Bruce Lee level martial artists?  I counter by noting that Speedsters in M&M only get a single action and no one complains.  Champions is full of ways to attack multiple opponents, cover lots of ground, and go before everyone else without taking seven or eight actions in a twelve-second game turn.  Be creative!

RPGaDay2015: Day Twenty Three

Perfect game for you


There is none.  Game are like tools: there is no perfect one for every job.  Some aspire to be (Generic games), and I'm even rightly fond of a few (Hero System, Cinematic Unisystem, BRP).  But none can manage all the nuance of a finely-tuned, narrowly focused game.

It all depends on the circumstances.

Bleah

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to start moderating comments.  I have a persistent spammer who simply won't give up.  Since Blogger doesn't allow me to outright block people, my only choice is to go the moderation route.

RPGaDay2015: Day Twenty Two

Perfect gaming environment...

Man, you've got me.  I've never found it, not 100%.  I can tell you for sure it's not in my house; the dining room is too crowded and, while my living room has comfy chairs, it lacks a central focal point.

My friend Greg has a nice sized gaming table for his Master Maze 4e game.  But it's also got space issues.

Back in my apartment-dwelling days, my living room as actually pretty good, except for one corner which was occupied by what we called "the chair of despair," so named because whoever sat in it seemed to have a bad experience during game play.

My Tuesday night crew (who I'm currently on-hold with due to work conflicts) plays on-campus at Rice University.  For several years, we had a terrific space in Herring Hall, with a huge table, lots of privacy, and chalkboards.  The negatives: parking and scheduling.  We eventually got scheduled out of it by an evening class.  We've used other rooms on campus and they're generally as nice, but I miss that one in particular.

A local acquaintance who built (and sells plans for) what he calls the Ultimate Gaming Table (it is quite nice, if utilitarian) did a full conversion of his detached garage into a gaming space.  It's quite nice, but a lot more effort/money than I could put into my hobby.  Extending the air conditioning alone would be massively expensive.  And honestly, I'm not fond of those overhead light fixtures. :)

I guess my dream game table would be something like Bilbo's dining room in The Hobbit, big but cozy, with a full-service kitchen adjacent.

RPGaDay2015: Day Twenty One

Favorite RPG Setting

This is an easy one.  And it’s not Glorantha or the Young Kingdoms, or even Scott Bennie’s amazing Gestalt Earth.  It’s a setting that, like Prog Music and “The Malazan Books of the Fallen”, is almost certainly guilty of every accusation of excess laid at its feet.  But that doesn’t diminish the warm place it occupies in my heart.

That place is Faerun, the good old Forgotten Realms.

In the early 80s, I thought I’d put D&D away for good, thanks to RQ and Stormbringer.  But, in 1984, I got a job working in a bookstore that carried some RPGs (mostly TSR stuff) and got Dragon Magazine in every month.  I initially grabbed a copy to have something to read on break and soon was picking it up as it came in.  After all, there were articles for Marvel Super-Heroes in there, I told myself.  Over time, D&D wormed its way back into my heart and for Xmas of 1985, I spend all the gift certificates work gave me as a bonus on a complete set of AD&D books, to replace the ones I’d gotten rid of.

Somewhere in all of that, DragonLance came out.  I read the books and looked at the modules, but they weren’t really for me.  The novels felt like they were aimed at a slightly younger audience (I was in my 20s by this point, and reading “important” fantasy, like Katherine Kurtz and Raymond Feist. :p).

Greyhawk was kind of in its dotage, Gary Gygax having departed TSR, and to be honest, that setting wouldn’t get its hooks into me for another fifteen years or so.  So I was kind of adrift when it came to places to set a game.  I worked half-heartedly on something I thought be cool (it wasn’t) and mostly played Champions.

Fast-forward a couple of years.  Ads from TSR start appearing on the backs of comic books.  These don’t have comic strips, they show a parcel of parched ground, with a footprint that can only be from a dragon.  The ads read something like “It’s Coming”.  I couldn’t find one online.  I’m sure if I go digging in my long boxes, I can find an example, but that smacks of effort.  Each month, they revealed little more detail.  It was a great ad campaign.

I grabbed a copy of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, aka the Grey Box as soon as it came off the truck.  Hell, I might have snatched it out of the truck.  The insides remain my gold standard for a boxed set:  multiple books, multiple maps, and that cool transparent hex map overlay.

When I read the books, I saw a setting that spoke to me in ways no D&D world had before.  It simultaneously embraced the crazy of the game while making sense of it in odd ways.  It felt lived-in, in a way Krynn and Greyhawk didn’t (unsurprising, considering its history prior to publication).  It was mature without being titillating.  It had wide-open vistas and places for the PCs to matter.  A place with ancient history and epic yarns of swashbuckling adventure.

In short, it said “Play Me.”

Nearly thirty years on, a lot of those wide-open vistas have been filled in and altered by official canon.  The Realms probably have the worst examples of Pet NPCs you can find.  But back in the day, that slim grey box, packed full of stuff, was a breath of fresh air.

Even in the bad times of overpowered NPCs and goofy metaplots, I’ve loved the place.  I’ve played there many times, run there on occasion.  It’s probably the only game setting I can think of where if you told me, "OK, we’re in Faerun, you’re playing a [CLASS] from [Place]," I could make a go of it just on that information and feel comfortable doing so.  I won’t get the details right, but I know I’ll be playing to the spirit of the setting.

I could go on.  And maybe I will, later.  For now, I leave with a quote that sums the place up for me entirely:

“We face death every day,” Ferostil said with a shrug, “and treasure’s guarded the world over.”

That’s the Realms I love.

RPGaDay2015: Day Twenty

Favorite Horror RPG

It's a dark and stormy day in Houstopolis.  Probably a good one for talking about horror, a genre I have a complex relationship with.  See, I like scary stuff, but I kind of actively detest being scared.  I have to have horror movies vetted for me.  I don't go to live haunted houses.  But reading and gaming horror are usually at a sufficient remove for me to enjoy things.

A while back, I posted on Google+ about my love for Call of Cthulhu, how I defied parental mandate and good sense to undertake a 100 mile road trip to buy a copy when it first came out (I've still got it, signed by Sandy Petersen himself).  CoC was my introduction to horror RPGs, but it's not my favorite.

That would be this one:

The original Pacesetter edition of Chill.  I was working in a bookstore when it came out, so I very likely got the first copy sold in San Antonio back in the day.  The cover billed it as a "Frightfully Fun Role Playing Game," and that appealed to me.  So did the delightful Hammer-inspired cover art from James Holloway.

"Delightful" is a word I use a lot to describe this version of Chill.  It wasn't deep, the system was clunky, but the breezy approach to the rules and the all-inclusive, salad bar nature of the terrifying "Unknown" was terrific.

And the supplements were so great.  Things is still one of my favorite horror "monster manuals," ranging from the prosaic to the incredibly eclectic and horrifying.  And the Vampires guidebook did different breeds of bloodsuckers years before White Wolf.  But these were monsters, one and all.  That book actually gave me nightmares, thank you whoever wrote the Bhima Gupta chapter.

 The Mayfair edition has better rules, but a lot less charm.  I have high hopes the new one will hit the sweet spot, but I'm waiting on my copy to come before I take a deep dive into the rules.  This one's my favorite.  And the fact that I met my first serious girlfriend during a Halloween one-shot is purely incidental.

RPGaDay2015: Day Nineteen

Favorite Supers RPG

Hey, a subject right up there with "favorite kidney."

I've been playing Supers games since 1982.  I've owned most of them and played just about everything I owned. Mostly.  It remains the genre I'm best suited to GM and play on any given day.

It's also been a really long day.  I had to re-image my work computer and I don't feel like a long, detailed explanation.  Besides, my answer shouldn't surprise anyone who's paid attention over the last few months.

 Warts and all, baby.  Warts and all.

RPGaDay 2015: Day 18

Favorite SF RPG

Let's go with this one:

It'll do.

RPGaDay2015: Day 17

Favorite fantasy RPG.

Well, D&D is certainly the one I've played the most, and it utterly dominates my shelf space.  But it dominates my shelves by dint of many editions, multiple supplements, and the D20 Explosion. There are parts of the D&D experience I love (a good Forgotten Realms game, for instance).  But in the grand scheme of things, it's not my favorite.

I'm very fond of 13th Age, but more in theory than practice.  My one experience playing it was pretty terrible, to be honest, though that was on the GM as far as I'm concerned.  Also, it's brilliantly designed to handle one particular type of D&D-ish play, a weird love-child of 4e and 3x.  So, it's very difficult to hack it into something else.  Maybe if I get some long-term play out of it, but for now, it's an interesting diversion.

The simple elegance of Barbarians of Lemuria is a thing of beauty.  It doesn't try to be all games to all people.  It's a sword and sorcery game whee magic is an untrustworthy, dangerous thing, and it does that wonderfully.  Also, the simple measure of renaming Hit Points "Lifeblood" is genius.  That said, I've never played more than a one-shot of it.  It's a great game, but I need to play more before it's going to reach favorite status.

I am of the opinion that Greg Stafford's King Arthur Pendragon is among the greatest RPGs of all time. The system is simple but not unsophisticated, and it's treatment of Passions, Loyalty, and Religion was ground-breaking.  The notion that all PCs are of the same class is likewise, brilliant.  It's also a very tough sell amongst the folks I've had in my gaming groups.  That lack of actual play experience keeps it from the top spot.

So, that leaves me with a tie.  Seriously, I can't choose.  My first exposure to RuneQuest was like hearing Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" for the first time.  Everything irrevocably changed.  I dove in to RQ and played nothing else for months, making my way through the minutia of Glorantha lore.  I immersed myself in Battle Magic, Strike Ranks, and sectional armor.  It was a deep and abiding love.

Then, Stormbringer came along.  In high school, I read the DAW Elric novels more times than Tolkien.  I remember walking into the game store at Central Park Mall (yes, by that point, there was a game store in the mall, called "Expensive Toys For Big Boys," and later "Intellectrics") and seeing that Frank Brunner cover on the original boxed set.  It was everything I'd hoped for: a faster, leaner version of the rules I was used to, the potential for crazy disparate power levels, and a game that felt like the gonzo craziness of Moorcock's greatest creation.  I got so much use out of it.  So many terrific games.  But I probably wouldn't have gotten it in the first place if RQ hadn't shown me a different approach to fantasy games.

So, there you go.

RPGaDay2015: Catch Up Edition

I missed yesterday.  My wife was attending an SCA event up in the Dallas-Ft Worth area.  The Boy and I tagged along to visit some geek shops in the area, most notably Order 66 Toys in McKinney, TX (as seen in the ads in Marvel Comics).  It's a toy store devoted to nothing but Star Wars.  New stuff, old stuff, highly collectible expensive stuff.  It's amazing, and I may have spent my monthly gaming allotment on action figures. :)

So let's tackle yesterday's and today's topics:

Day 15:  Longest RPG Campaign


With my Tuesday Night Crew, I've played through two "Zeroes to Heroes" games.  The first, a Forgotten Realms 3.5 game went from 1st to 18th or 19th level.  I'm not sure about the precise chronology (sometime in the second half of 2008 until January 2010 or so, more or less weekly, with a few breaks in there).  So that's a qualifier.

We also ran a similar Pathfinder game ("Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil") which started in the fall of 2010 and ran through the spring of 2013 or so (as I recall I didn't make the grand finale).  That game was notable for one of my PCs dying.  So that was long-term and cool.

The granddaddy these days is my friend Greg's 4e game. According to my records, we started June 6, 2010, so the game is over five years old now.  It's not on a tight schedule, but we've just ticked over to Epic Tier as of our last session, so I'm betting we've got at least another year left before we hit the endgame.

Day 16:  Longest Game Session.

An eight+ hour Champions game in the summer of 1982.  We averted an alien invasion, largely through diplomacy and some pretty major bluffing.  The session was seriously roleplay heavy, and I remember we went about five hours at one stretch without rolling a die.

RPGaDay2015: Day 14

It's been two weeks and I've stayed on schedule.  Tomorrow and Sunday might be late; we've got a road trip this weekend.  We'll see.

Anyway, favorite RPG accessory.  Another easy answer.  It's this bad boy here, The World's Greatest Screen.  It's a heavy-duty four-panel GM screen with eight 8.5 x 11 pockets that you can use to insert any damned thing you want. I love it so much I've got both the portrait and landscape versions.

Seriously, this thing appeals to me on so many levels.  I am a devoted user of GM screens, but most commercial/official ones let me down in some way (sturdiness, decisions regarding information, ugly).  With TWGS, I can make my own custom everything.  And believe me, I do.

RPGaDay2015: Day 13

Favorite RPG podcast:

I'm very picky when it comes to podcasts, especially gaming podcasts.  To earn my ongoing loyalty, they need to meet the following criteria:

Length:  No more than ninety minutes per episode.  I don't care how interesting your topic is, I listen to these things on my commute and seldom feel like devoting multiple days to it.  Also, in my experience, the longer the podcast, the more likely there's a bunch of cruft due to poor editing, poor decision-making, or both.

(I will listen to a longer actual-play podcast so long as 1) it stays on topic (I don't need to hear a bunch of non-game table talk; 2) It's still edited into discrete episodes; and 3) The GM and players actually know what they're doing.  Chances are, if I'm listening to an actual play, it's because I want to get a sense of how the game plays. If I hear glaring rules errors, I'm tuning out.)

Frequency:  You've got to maintain your output if I'm going to keep listening.

Originality:  I'm not looking for you to reinvent the wheel.  But I don't want you to rehash the same topics over and over again (or, ideally, at all).  If you keep retreading the same ground over and over again, I'm going to get bored.  At least look at it from a different angle.

Every Episode Is Someone's First:  I really hate podcasts that cater to an established audience the podcasters know in some capacity.  In-jokes abound, often times schtick or comments are directed to that select group of people and it quickly becomes an impenetrable mess for a listener who isn't in on the joke.

So yeah, I'm a hard sell on most podcasts.  For a couple of years, I was a big fan of "Two GM's, One Mic," but they started getting repetitive, and then life got in the way of their schedules.  I used to listen to "Darker Days Radio" religiously when I was taking evening walks, especially their "Secret Frequency" segments.  But, I have zero prospects for playing a World of Darkness game, their expansion to covering other games I don't play, and sporadic scheduling meant I stopped listening.

The one that I have stuck with from the beginning is "Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff."  While there have been occasional clunkers (for instance, I couldn't listen to the segment on Cagliostro because of mispronunciation), the fact that each episode breezes along through multiple topics, some very gaming oriented, others less so, makes it easy to just fast-forward past a minor annoyance to get to something more to my liking.

RPGaDay2015: Day Twelve

Favorite RPG illustration.


This one:

(I may or may not have this illustration as a t-shirt)

This is Lodestone, as drawn by Dan Houser for my ICONS adventure "Sins of the Past." He's a Golden Age superhero I originally created for a Champions campaign back in the 90s.  Despite the name, his powers aren't magical.  His staff is capped with the Shining Trapezoderon, which acts as a lodestone for mystical energies.  He protects the Earth from the Many-Angled Ones.  Also, Nazis.  He's kind of like the Golden Age Green Lantern, crossed with the more Lovecraftian aspects of Dr. Fate.


(All of the Golden Agents were originally created for Champions, but only Lodestone was also a PC of mine, so he's special.)

It's not the greatest illustration or the most evocative, but it is the most mine, so I'm going to go with that.

RPGaDay2015: Day Eleven

Favorite RPG writer.

A no-brainer.  Aaron Allston.  He was my first RPG hero.  He was from Texas.  He ran, by all accounts, the most awesome Champions campaign ever.  He wrote the article in Champions II that taught me how superhero games work.  He wrote Strike Force and Lands of Mystery, two of the greatest genre guides in RPG history.  He was the first person to document "blue-booking."  Hell, his name is on the D&D Rules Cyclopedia.

That alone would be enough.  But Aaron was also a kind, generous soul.  I first met him on a shuttle bus at Origins in 1984 and talked Champions with him on the ride to the convention center.  He was unpretentious and funny and wanted to know as much about our home game as we wanted to know about what he was working on.  I next ran into him at a convention in Austin, where he noticed I was standing on the outskirts of a conversation pit and invited me over to join in whatever folks were talking about.  We ended up talking for about three hours on stuff all over the geek spectrum.

Later, when I got online, I got to know him even better via the old Red October BBS.  It was there that I was exposed to his wit and wisdom.  He was happy to share what he knew with other aspiring writers.  At this point, he was trying to move out of RPG writing and had just sold his first short story to Dragon Magazine.  Over the next few years, I saw him sell novels, first to TSR, then to a "real" publisher.  But even as he became more successful, he was still Aaron: funny, kind, and fiendishly creative.

One of my favorite gaming brags is that I actually GMed Champions for him.  I was living in San Antonio and having real problems scaring up a game. A friend in Austin was a former member of the Strike Force campaign who couldn't play with them anymore due to having a s small child.  I offered to drive up once or twice a month to run a game for him, if he could find some players.  Twenty four hours before the first session, he informed me that Aaron was among them.  Thanks, buddy!

I went in somewhat terrified.  For no reason.  Aaron was Aaron, and as a player, he was just as delightful as always.  He did have a tendency to overplan, which drove my wife crazy, but in a reasonably entertaining way.

As he found success with his novels, his gaming output understandably dropped off.  But he still kept his hand in, and I was always happy to buy whatever had his name on it, with no regrets or disappointment.

The last time I saw him was about a month before he passed away, at Chupacabracon in Austin.  On the Sunday morning of the con, I was making a final pass through the dealers room before heading home and caught him at his table with no one else around.  I came up to say hi, and got in about thirty minutes of visiting.  We talked about the state of Star Wars fiction post-Disney, gaming in general, my son the gamer (which got the biggest smile from him), and I solicited some advice on running "School Holiday," an old Champions adventure he wrote for Space Gamer Magazine (in fact, the adventure that got me interested in Champions in the first place) I was planning to run at OwlCon in a few weeks.  He was tickled I was going to run the old thing and made me promise to let him know how it turned out.

Unfortunately, I never got the chance.  Exhausted after the con, I put off writing it until the following weekend.  Sadly, that Friday night, Aaron passed away.

I miss him.

RPGaDay2015: Day Ten

Favorite RPG publisher.

I'll bypass the preamble other to admit that I'm cribbing this answer from someone else.

1980s Chaosium.  RuneQuest.  Call of Cthulhu. Stormbringer. Worlds of Wonder. Superworld. Elfquest. King Arthur Pendragon.  Most companies would be happy to turn out one such game.

I'm so happy they're getting the band back together.

RPGaDay2015: Day Nine

Favorite media you wish was an RPG

Oh, this one is a total no-brainer.  I even made a fake cover for it:

Let's see:  civilized PCs, high magic, political intrigue, five volumes of the fiction written in a style that deliberately channels Dumas and Sabatini, along with some of the best "NPCs" in fantasy fiction?  Yes, please.



(And yes, I know there's a Dragaera City expansion coming for John Harper's "Blades in the Dark" RPG, but that's just focused on the Jhereg.  I want it all!  I want the whole scope of this marvelous world.)

RPGaDay2015: Day 8

Favorite appearance of RPGs in the Media

This one will likely be an unpopular choice, because hating on the show is fairly common in nerd circles, but I'm going to say "Big Bang Theory."  Yes, they get it wrong more than they get it right, but here the thing:  my in-laws are big fans of the show.  My father-in-law is a good man, but he's a rancher who used to run a concrete business who operates an ice plant besides still running his ranch. 

(Yes, there are still people in Texas who have cattle ranches, even in the shadow of the fourth largest city in the US.)

Anyway, he likes "Big Bang Theory."  And while those D&D episodes tend to make gamers cringe, they had a very different effect on him: they led him to the realization that maybe it was OK for his intelligent, sensitive, imaginative, non-athletic grandson (my kiddo) to have a hobby that wasn't sports or being outdoors.

So, for that, TBBT gets a pass from me on their treatment of RPGs (and nerd culture at large).

The first media portrayal of an RPG that gets him to keep his room clean will surpass it though.

#RPGaDay2015 Day 7:

Favorite free RPG.

Hmmm...this is a hard one.  I've certainly gotten more use from the D20 and Pathfinder SRDs than just about any other gaming resource in the past decade.  But I'm in one of my "D20 is the opposite of fun" moods right now.  Also, I'm not really sure that "Open Content" is the same as "Free."  I've never been the guy to just download the SRD and not buy the books.  So, I'm going to avoid open systems.  Sorry, OSR dudes.

Because I'm currently in an Urban Fantasy/Horror sort of mood, I going to say Witchcraft from Eden Studios. It's a complete game with art and everything, the entire core rulebook. If you like the genre, but want something different from the World of Darkness, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

#RPGaDay2015 Day 6:

Most Recent Game Played

This one gets a straightforward answer:  the most recent RPG I've played was ICONS Assembled Edition.  We kicked off a new game a week ago Thursday and are looking to play every other week.

Why ICONS?  I'm glad you asked!  Originally, this was going to be an M&M game.  I bought the "Emerald City" book and wanted to run that campaign.  Unfortunately, that plan ran into a couple of complications:  player unfamiliarity with the system, my own worries about the level of preparation needed, and some niggling issues I have with the setting (namely, the Player's Guide to Emerald City is written as if the included campaign happened in the recent past and is full of potential spoilers).

ICONS, on the other hand, is something my potential crew were all familiar with.  It's also a very low-prep game for this busy GM.  And I love the crazy creativity the random character generation inspires.

Our current crop of heroes are Quake (a billionaire mining engineer with earth-control gauntlets), Mentasor (a CSI profiler with massive telekinetic powers), Jinx (a young woman possessed by Raven, the Native American trickster god), Pharaoh Ape (a Victorian archaeologists consciousness trapped in the body of an undead gorilla), and Fortune (a former Chinese spy on the road to redemption).  Last week, they foiled the Sidereal Schemes of Dr. Zodiac.  Who knows what evil they will face next?

RPGaDay Day Five

Most recent RPG purchase:

Dead tree:

FFG's third Star Wars RPG, the one that focuses on Force users.  It's pretty.

Digital:

Urban Shadows and Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls, a simultaneous New Style Indy and Old School purchase.

I have no idea when I'm going to make time to read any of them.  Stupid Gamer ADD.

RPGaDay2015: Day Four

Most Surprising Game:

I'm not sure how to answer this, to be honest.  Surprising good?  Surprising bad?  Surprising product? Surprising session?

I mean, I was pleased to see D&D 5e move away from the tactical tabletop game approach of 4e, but it wasn't much of a surprise to someone who actually pays attention to the "industry."

I was surprised in a bad way when my "Young Justice" DC Adventures game at Chupacabracon didn't make.  Folks don't know what they missed with that one.

Actually, I think I've figured it out.

Revelations of Mars, for Hollow Earth Expedition.  I'm not surprised that it's gorgeous - I've come to expect that from the product line.  I'm not surprised that it's chock-full of cool ideas - I've come to expect that from them as well.

I was surprised when it turned up in my mailbox.  I backed the Kickstarter and promptly forgot at what level I'd backed it.  When the PDF arrived, I thought "Oh, cool."  A few weeks later, this gorgeous book turned up in the mail and I had a moment of, "Did I order this?"

Surprise!

RPGaDay2015: Day Three

Favorite new game of the last twelve months.


Ye gods, this one is hard.  Mostly because I haven't got a clue.  With my Gamer ADD, today's favorite is tomorrow's also-ran.  Also, I don't get a chance to actually play most of the stuff I buy in a given year.  And the two "new" games I've actually played in the past twelve months are both revisions.  Also, I  really can't choose between them, so I'm going to talk about both.

First up is Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition.  I wish I could play this more often, because it really scratches my D&D itch better than any version published in the last fifteen years.  Don't get me wrong: I played the hell out of 3x/Pathfinder, and my 4e Swordmage just ticked over to Epic Tier last night, but "my" D&D is equal parts exploration, conflict, and story and 5e seems to sit in a sweet spot between all three.  Granted, 3x and 4e CAN deliver that experience, but they're not really built to deliver it and the spackle over the cracks in the system show through.  5e feels like my memories of my best 2e games, but streamlined and easier to play and run. 

(I just wish it had a set of digital tools for character building and campaign management for something other than virtual tabletop play.  Maybe we'll get something this year.)

The other is ICONS Assembled Edition.  Big surprise, huh?  Like D&D 5e, it's a revision of an existing rules set. But ICONS didn't need to be a different game, just better.  And the Assembled Edition does this beautifully.  It incorporates new ideas from later products, streamlines an already rules-light game, adds some terrific new examples and explanations, and puts it all in a beautiful little hardback package.  I've just kicked off a new campaign with it and everyone's having a blast with it.

Honorable mention:  East Texas University for Savage Worlds.  Hopefully, I'll get to play it some day.

RPGaDay2015: Day Two

Today's topic:  "Kickstarted game most pleased you backed."

This is going to be a tough one.  I Kickstart a lot of stuff, and I have a very good track record (only two items I've backed didn't fund).  Most of those I've backed have delivered in some capacity, and even the ones that haven't aren't sources of regret.

So, I'm going to cheat here, just a little and throw out a few that hit different high notes:

Biggest, Most Elaborate:  Cthulhu Wars, from Petersen Games.  I got in on one of the early bird tiers, so my core set only cost $130.  I wouldn't own the game at full retail price, so that's pretty awesome.  The minis and the production values are just tremendous.  Also, it got Sandy Petersen going back to gaming conventions, so I got to meet him and geek out over Lovecraftian horrors together.  That's pretty damned cool.

I Knew These Guys When:  Tianxia, from Vigilance Press.  I've had the good fortune to know Jack Norris for well over a decade, and I first met James Dawsey at GenCon in 2009.  Later, I made some guest appearances on James' "Vigilance Press Podcast," playing M&M for the amusement of the masses.  I'm also an enormous fan of martial arts cinema, so when they launched the kickstarter for Tianxia, Jack's FATE-based martial arts setting, backing it was a no-brainer.  I knew the material would be terrific; what I didn't expect was how incredibly beautiful the final product was.  James made the very smart move of hiring Denise Jones to to all of the artwork for the game. Her style is a perfect fit, transforming Jack's words into beautiful images that are full of life and character and movement.  The book has been a tremendous success and the folks involve deserve every bit of it.  I'm happy to have helped them get it out the door.  Now, give me an AGE conversion. :-)


Sentimental Favorite 1:  Chill.  Because I met my first serious girlfriend at an impromptu Halloween night Chill session.

Sentimental Favorite 2:  Feng Shui 2, from Atlas Games.  Apart from Champions, no other RPG has had an impact on my gaming style than Feng Shui.  I remember reading my first copy (The Daedelus first edition) in the car while my wife drove us home from the game store.  I hit the section titled "The Map Is Not Your Friend" and honestly felt like the I was seeing gaming for the first time.  Feng Shui kickstarted my love of Hong Kong action films into high gear. It's the game I folded, spindled, and (on more than one occasion) mutilated to play genres far afield of the original setting (seriously, I ran "Keep on the Borderlands" with it).  I own everything published for it, even the Ronin Publishing version of "Blood of the Valiant."  In short, I love this game.  Hell, I even Kickstarted a Shadowfist card game revival because I heard Atlas was watching it to gauge the popularity the setting it shares with FS.  And I don't even play Shadowfist.

So, when word finally got out that Feng Shui 2 was in the works, you can bet I jumped on that train.  I got my copy on Friday.  It's gorgeous, everything I could have hoped for.  Now, I need to find a way to run it.

So those four are special, I suppose.  But every game I back is special.  Every game I back is like a godchild (or maybe a niece or nephew).  Many of the projects I back are helmed by friends of mine.  And since I'm a far better consumer of than creator of gaming material, I consider myself lucky to be in a position to help the publishers with my one consistent contribution (money).

So, there ya have it.

RPGADAY 2015

I know, I haven't updated Mind Games in weeks.  I'll get back on it, I promise.

In the meantime, it August 1, so that means it's time for #RPGADAY. Here's this year's questions:

Let's get started...

1.  Forthcoming Game You're Most Looking Forward To.

Yesterday was a really good day for games I had been looking forward to. I received my Kickstarter backer copies of Feng Shui 2 and Revelations of Mars, as well as picking up a copy of Star Wars: Force and Destiny at the FLGS.  Looking at the news out of GenCon and before, there's not a lot that's got me really excited, because my opportunities to try new stuff are generally pretty limited.  There are a couple of Kickstarter items I'm looking forward to seeing at some point (Exalted 3 and 13th Age Glorantha), but I'm not waiting for them breathlessly. Chaosium announced there will be an ancient Greek version of Pendragon, which sounds really neat, but given their track record, I'll believe it when I'm holding it in my hands.

Probably, the most interesting recent announcement is a new edition of Unknown Armies.  It's one of those games I love entirely in the abstract, because I've never been able to round up a group of people willing to play it.  Early burbles from the playtest indicate they're changing it up quite a bit, but I have a lot of faith in the designers.

Or maybe the new edition of Blue Rose.  Yeah, that one.