Ginger’s last WISH is up:

Tell me your favorite war story. Why is it your favorite? What does it show about your character or the game/campaign you were playing? What does it exemplify about why you like gaming?

My answer (from Carl’s UN PEACE game) is over at 20’ by 20’ Room.

• Posted by Bryant at 03:53 PM | Comments (0) | Followups (0)

Impending WISH deficit! But this week:

Pick three to five genres and name the best RPG for that genre. Why do you think it’s the best? What makes it better than others? What are its downsides?

Pulp: Adventure! This is a very close race, because Feng Shui has better core mechanics which are better suited to the genre. Feng Shui really gets damage and fighting and stunts right, which is important for a pulp game… but it’s an action movie game rather than a pulp game, and while the genres are similar they aren’t the same. So the detailed and comprehensive power list brings Adventure! ahead by a hair.

Action Movies: Feng Shui. That’s a freebie. Feng Shui is a really significant milestone for genre-specific rules and it’s aged (and evolved) well.

TV Adventure: Unisystem Lite, as presented in Buffy and Angel. I was watching some Alias last night and marvelling at how well Unisystem Lite would work for a campaign in that setting. You could use it for Xena. The key is a) how quickly play flows — quickly enough to make play-by-IRC viable for me, and I don’t usually like play-by-IRC — and b) the clever use of Drama Points to channel themes. It is amazing how much better Unisystem became when all the excess crap was carved away.

Conspiracy: Over the Edge. Ginger said best RPG, not best rules! Over the Edge is mostly setting, with a nice minimalistic functional set of mechanics. At first glance it’s not obvious how the mechanics support the wild surrealistic genre, but I think the pioneering lack of a skill list is absolutely perfect for the world of Al Amarja; it makes it clear how open the setting really is. And the GMing advice is superb.

• Posted by Bryant at 12:37 PM | Comments (1) | Followups (0)

I can answer these in any order I want! And I want to do WISH 93 right now.

Does joining a game with a lot of background thrill or intimidate you? What do you do to try to learn the background, or to compensate for not having it? If you GM, how do you help newcomers to a background-heavy game? What has worked for you as a player/GM, and what hasn’t?

I kind of like it as an opportunity to play supporting character. I always feel a bit of pressure, when starting a new game, to help establish group dynamics and character. As a newbie to a big game, I can play a supporting role and feel satisfied — I can be there to support someone else’s characterization happily. That’s a lot of fun for me.

It’s also convenient as a method of getting real newbie characterization. The other PCs know things which mine do not, which means I can play wide-eyed or naive effectively. “Look, there can’t possibly be UFOs.” That sort of thing. It’s a dynamic that’s hard to get in a new campaign because everyone’s on equal ground.

I guess in general I’m saying that it’s fun to leverage unequal OOC ground to provide good unequal ground roleplaying in character.

• Posted by Bryant at 04:14 PM | Comments (0) | Followups (0)

WISH #92 asks:

Have you ever gotten burned out as a gamer? What did you do to combat burnout? Which things you tried helped, and which ones didn’t? Which ones would you recommend to a gamer with burnout?

I actually feel a little burned out right now — not a lot, but a bit — so good timing. Hm.

I think that burnout is a life phenomenon for me, not a gaming-specific phenomenon. My work is keeping me too busy to think about gaming as much as I’d like, and there’re a bunch of other things swirling around, and I have trouble working up the enthusiasm to generate characters or think about GMing or anything. Which saddens me. (Yes, this is a typical symptom of depression; yes, I know.)

Mostly I just nudge myself to press on regardless. I don’t skip gaming even if I want to. I grind out character descriptions no matter how I feel about them, because I know they’re better than I give myself credit for. I read gaming material that’s given me joy in the past. I spent a while this week transcribing NPCs from Classic Organizations into Hero Designer, just to get myself back in the groove of thinking about HERO. And all that works pretty well.

• Posted by Bryant at 12:26 PM | Comments (0) | Followups (0)

WISH #90 asks:

What do you think about system updates (Paranoia XP, Amber 2.0, DnD 3.0/3.5) and conversions (d20 Silver Age Sentinels, GURPS Traveller)? What about world/setting updates that result in system reboots (the end of the Age of Darkness)? Do you buy them, run them, or use them for resources? Why or why not?

I don’t have a generic answer. I really liked the D&D 3.0 update. I didn’t much care about the D&D 3.5 update. Many of the Traveller updates sucked. The Hero 5th Edition update was great. The Vampire Revised update was quite good, for entirely different reasons. Etc.

I like it when an update is a chance to fix real rules problems or to tighten up the setting. Otherwise I don’t like them. Vampire Revised did a brilliant job at making the setting better without invalidating a lot of old play. Hero Fifth fixed several rules problems and vastly improved the presentation of the rules.

I look forward to World of Darkness 2.0, or whatever it’s officially called, because I think they will do a good rules revamp with the example of the Aeon Trinity system and because I think the new setting may rock. If the new setting doesn’t rock, I will probably not so much care about the rules revamps, though — my interest in WoD is primarily setting-driven.

• Posted by Bryant at 06:07 PM | Comments (2) | Followups (0)

Wish #87 asks:

What are three or more web sites you’ve used recently as a player or GM? Why do you use them? What do you get from them?

20’ by 20’ Room, of course!

But also:

• ThePulp.Net, which is the best source for pulp info, plus links to lots of free pulp ebooks.


• The FAS IRP, which is the Federation of American Scientists’ Intelligence Resource Program. Essential for modern-day espionage/technothriller games. And for Feng Shui.


• Incunabula, hub site for the Ong’s Hat mythos, which I sprung on my superhero players recently.

Other tricks… if you search Google Images for “party pictures,” you’ll get a lot of candid shots. Great for pictures of NPCs who aren’t supposed to look like movie stars.

Oh, yeah, speaking of photographs: the Library of Congress put its Prints and Photographs Catalog online. For Boston-specific photos, I use this site. Yale’s Beinecke Library also has a very nice digital collection.

• Posted by Bryant at 08:44 PM | Comments (0) | Followups (0)

Since I’m hopelessly behind, I’m going to combine WISH 86:

What can the GM or other players do to help “midwife” the character creation process?

And WISH 85:

What inspires you to create characters? Do you have partially-developed characters in mind for use when you get into a new campaign? Do you shop characters around, or do you come up with new characters when you get into a campaign? Why? If you GM, are you bothered by receiving a solicitation for a “generic” character, or does it enthuse you to get a solid proposal even if it’s not closely tailored to your game?

And just ramble a lot.

I tend to go in cycles for my characters. I did a couple of travel-oriented characters in Reese and Cian, which I think is finished; I have a cycle of flippant competent noble Guy Gavriel Kay-esque characters which may or may not be complete. Probably not, since I think Mr. Wellstone was drawn from that model. Geoff Heortson is a recycled version of the character I came up with for the Arcana Unearthed game. And so on.

Sometimes I come up with completely new ideas, though. The PC I have in mind for the wuxia Charnel Gods game doesn’t match anything I’ve done recently. He may be the start of a new cycle, but I don’t think so — he’s too much a product of the background for the game. Stick was unique too, although he was generated for another abortive campaign a long time ago. But I won’t likely play him again.

So yeah, it really just depends. I do what catches my interest.

I tend to try and figure out where my character will find spotlight time. Competence is not necessary; hooks are. I always throw in hooks if I can. It’s OK if the GM doesn’t abuse them — if nothing else they’re a signal that I don’t mind hooks, after all.

As a GM, I could care less if someone recycles a character. I prefer to fit my world around the characters. This is my own personal style, of course; I don’t mind making a character closely tailored to someone else’s campaign. But if someone hands me a character that’s not tailored for my world, I see that as an indication of what the player wants out of the campaign, and I like trying to provide whatever’s wanted.

One player in my DoSS campaign was leery of writing up his PC’s Disadvantages, on the grounds that it would force me to put those elements into my plots. No! That’s the whole point of Disadvantages as far as I’m concerned: telling the GM what kinds of elements you want to see. But that’s me.

This is a hint as to what I think a GM (or other players) can do to midwife character creation. It’s a matter of listening to the quirks that a player puts into the characters, and building upon them. Kill Puppies For Satan has some very good material on this: during character creation, the GM goes around the room and says, to each player in turn, “OK, how do you know so-and-so?” So-and-so being the previous player’s PC, if I recall correctly. I think that’s great advice, and I think it could be adapted and made deeper. Perhaps having the players fill out a PC relationship map, in the strict Edwards style — only relatives and lovers get connections?

• Posted by Bryant at 05:14 PM | Comments (0) | Followups (0)

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes:

WISH 84 asks:

What five games would you love to run/play if you had a willing group and a weekly time slot?

I’m going to leave out games I’m in or running now, of course (yay, Champions and Buffy), and also games I expect to be able to play in soon — I’m looking at you, Star Wars and Charnel Gods and espionage game! You can also assume that I wish I could go back and play in Carl’s games again. Those disposed of:

• Over the Edge, preferably with the dark edgy gritty aspects in full swing.


• Vampire, and stop laughing. I haven’t played enough of this to be burned out on it. I’m thinking straight up Vampire Revised here, without all the various escalation bits. Or maybe the new version, if it resonates with me.


• Dark Inheritance, which I will never ever get to play, but a guy can dream. I find the D20 Modern system to be fairly elegant and I really like the Dark Inheritance mythos. Also, it’s the best example of modular setting design ever.


• The Dying Earth, so that I might properly indulge my inner Oscar Wilde.


• Trinity, the best SF game ever, not that I’m biased or anything. Yeah, I know the political history is a bit wonky but you can fix most of that if you aren’t hampered by the need to shoehorn Aberrant in there.

Nobilis is a very strong runner-up.

• Posted by Bryant at 11:44 AM | Comments (3) | Followups (0)

This week’s Game WISH asks:

What are your characters’ mottoes, in ten words or less? Quotes and formal mottoes encouraged.

That’s fun! In no particular order:

Paul/Emoticon: For God, France, and humanity.

Reese: It’s all about the roads.

Mr. Wellstone: Fame follows fashion.

Cian: One must always journey to find wisdom.

Stick: Break dimensions, go to jail.

Clarice: Hail Britannia!

Constantine: Friends and family; blood and bone.

Jayson: Fortune follows.

(That last is a bit of a cheat, being my own family motto. But I like it.)

• Posted by Bryant at 03:03 PM | Comments (2) | Followups (0)

I have been woefully behind on WISHes lately. I blame travel, and apologize. However, I’m home now, and WISH 82 rocks:

Sum up one or more games that you GM or play in 10 words or less. (Three is best, but not everybody is that pithy.) Don’t restrict yourself to current games if you have great ones in the past.

DoSS: Dreams of heroism. (Chris is scratching his head right about now.)

Unknown USA: Driving Miss Dorothy.

Paridon: In pursuit of style.

Babes in the Woods: Traveling to wisdom.

UN PEACE: Too old too fast.

• Posted by Bryant at 01:25 PM | Comments (0) | Followups (0)

WISH 79 asks:

What do you think is the best cast size for the games you’ve played? What are the factors that go into your answer: genre, play group, gaming system, etc.?

Well, once upon a time I would have said “three, maybe four.” But the Unknown USA campaign had, what, six regular players and worked like a charm. Not all of ‘em showed up every time, of course.

Hm. Let me take cast size as meaning “the number of people who show up, on average,” and I’ll answer “three or four” with some confidence. I’m kind of a spotlight hog, so I like three players. More deadly combat oriented games sort of need four people. D&D works way better with four people; three PCs are riding the ragged line of survivability. Champions can be the same way — it’s less deadly, but you don’t want the heros getting knocked out all the time.

Interestingly, both of those games have combat systems in which PCs get knocked out of the fight but come back on a fairly regular basis. In D&D, it’s healing spells; in Champions, it’s Recovery.

• Posted by Bryant at 02:03 PM | Comments (0) | Followups (0)

WISH 78 asks:

Do you think allowing one player to play more than one character in a game is a good or bad idea? Does the style of the game make any difference? What about the format (FTF, PBeM, etc.)?

Well, you wouldn’t want multiple characters in a LARP, I imagine. (I joke!)

I think that playing two equal characters face to face is generally a bad idea. I was in a game recently in which everyone had two players, and while I enjoyed the game, I gotta say I would have enjoyed it more if I’d been able to focus on one PC. If you’re playing in a purely tactical game, it perhaps makes more sense, but I like exploring personalities.

Troupes seem to work better. I’m defining “troupe” as “one primary PC, and multiple secondary PCs,” in Ars Magica fashion, which is perhaps a little too specific but it’ll do for a working definition. I expect this is purely psychological; a troupe-style game allows me to concentrate on a single PC, with the others being adjuncts. (I really looked forward to Amelia Wellstone’s band of street kids. Alas.)

I s’pose I had multiple PCs back on AmberMUSH, come to think of it. Usually only one primary, though. There, the trick was maintaining a serious amount of separation, and occasionally going through contortions to avoid having PC interests intersect. It was really more like having separate PCs in overlapping campaigns.

• Posted by Bryant at 09:02 PM | Comments (1) | Followups (0)

In this week’s WISH, Ginger asks:

What do you think the value of contributions to a game is? Do you think it’s fair for the GM to give out experience or character points for contributions? If so, what qualifies? What about the informal value of contributions? Do they balance or unbalance a game?

I think contributions can add a lot to a game (he said modestly). They’re not essential, but they can really help set tone and feel and they definitely make players feel more of a stake in the world. That’s not always a desired effect, but it’s an effect I happen to like, so I’m all for it. It takes a certain willingness for the GM to let go control, but that’s OK.

On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of giving out extra points for them. This is more a sign of my uncertainty about experience points as a whole, I suspect — but what exactly are you rewarding? Contributions don’t much reflect additional training/learning/experience gained by the PC in an in-game sense. If you give experience points “just for showing up,” then sure, contributions are another sort of “showing up.” But then you get into the problems of lack of balance. I just think it’s a bit of a risky wicket.

• Posted by Bryant at 03:29 PM | Comments (1) | Followups (0)

WISH 76 asks:

A lot is made of the role of the GM in a game, but what is the role of the player?

I’m not really sure if I can answer that one, since so much depends on the game. The single most important trick to master can be summarized as “support interaction,” which covers a lot — sharing spotlight time, making your character sticky, and so on. Most other stuff depends on the game, I think.

Some games really are GM-driven, and I don’t actually have any problems with that. Sometimes I want to be a spectator. Not often, but sometimes. Some games, the role of the player is to be tactical opposition. Some games, the players help drive plot.

Idle question: is the GM playing the game as well? Shouldn’t we call him or her a player?

• Posted by Bryant at 01:46 PM | Comments (0) | Followups (0)

WISH 74 is all about dreams and hopes:

Name three or more supplements (or core books, for that matter) for existing game systems that you’d like to see. Why? What inspires your interest in these supplement? What existing supplements or materials are you using instead?

I’m not an Amber player anymore, but I’d still kind of like to see Rebma… no? OK, I’ll come up with three others.

First off is a two in one, since the reasons I want them are similar. I would like to see the promised Heresy RPG. The background was cool and the card art was superb and I like games that use the Christian mythos quite a bit. Heretical cyberpunk hit all my buttons. I want Anoch’s Mystick RPG for similar reasons; the cards hinted at a dense intricate background which played to my love for conspiracy.

Mind you, in both cases I expect I would have been disappointed. It’s unfair to expect game companies to live up to my inchoate dreams, and neither of the sourcebooks would have been 500 pages long.

In lieu of these sourcebooks, I hang around people who make up cool conspiratorial stuff and that scratches my itch. I also read Eco novels. It works out OK for me.

Second: Trinity. Lots more Trinity. Preferably written by me, but really, any Trinity would do. In particular, I really sorely wish I’d gotten to work on the full-size aliens supplement. I wanted to write the Coalition chapters so badly. (Pause for a moment of self-indulgence.)

Since the supplement probably isn’t happening any time soon, I make up my own Coalition material, which bears a certain resemblance to what might have been published.

Finally, I’d like to see a D20 Modern Fantasy supplement, adapting the D20 Modern rules to fantasy usage, preferably from WotC. I’m pretty sure that D20 Modern characters are a bit weaker than characters of equivalent level in D&D, but I like the D20 Modern approach to classes somewhat more than I like the D&D approach. So a supplement which presented a beefed up set of classes would be vastly appreciated. Alternatively, of course, I could just start everyone at third level. (Tip of the hat to Gamma World D20 Modern.)

• Posted by Bryant at 01:29 PM | Comments (2) | Followups (0)