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Category: Gaming

Wiki'd witch

“Couple of days of light posting there, huh?”

Yeah, a lot of my creative energies got sidetracked over here. It’s a wiki for the Unknown Armies game I’m in. I kind of blame John for reminding me what a cool medium wikis can be. They’re basically Web notebooks — anyone can edit a page, and it’s very easy to create a new page. Active wikis grow like ivy, twining in odd and unexpected directions, creating a hedge maze of hypertext.

Wikis make an absolutely great medium for talking about roleplaying campaigns that have conspiratorial elements, or secret history, or mysteries. Our UA wiki has shed light on quite a few previously unsuspected connections. Very useful and rewarding. I think it’d also be interesting to use a wiki to design a world.

Other gaming wikis I’ve found, in no particular order:

WISH #59: Neos

WISH 59 asks:

Name three games you might use to get someone who has never roleplayed before into roleplaying.

Well, it depends on the someone, of course. The games I’d use for my 12 year old nephew might not be the games I’d use for my mom. But, hey, here’s a shot at it.

Feng Shui is a strong first choice. Character creation is really simple, especially if you stay away from the martial artists. The genre is one that’s perfect for cutting straight to the action, and PCs are likely to succeed. The chances of a negative experience right out of the gate are pretty slim. Of course, it’s also a fairly violent game, so maybe not the best for Mom, which leads us to…

Trollbabe. Incredibly simple system that puts a lot of power in the hands of the players. A lot of more experienced players are weirded out by this, so I’m curious to see how total newbies would respond. I think it would tend to provide a sense of ownership. Also, Trollbabes only have one stat, so there’s not much to remember. But the babe factor might be a bit much for Mom, so…

Screw it, I’ll go with Everway. (Thanks to Dorathea for the reminder. I swear I thought of Trollbabe independently!) It’s visually-oriented, which would be good for Mom, and not too complicated. Despite WotC’s terrible marketing, it is nonetheless an excellent game for New Age-inclined types as well as people who just like spiritualism. In fact, I’m now really tempted to make Mom play a bit next time I go visit.

Monday Mashup #3: Narnia

Sorry about the missed week last week; Gen Con killed me. I was gonna take a suggestion from Eric McErlain this week, but it’s a little too close to the last one in theme, so I think I’m gonna save it for a little while.

Also, I put together a Monday Mashup page for your delight and amusement.

What else… oh, yeah, I need to come up with something this week. OK, let’s pick some low-hanging fruit. Your inspiration this week is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Go.

Crystal meth on the go

I’m not the only one writing IC UA journals. The Moody Reviews is by Tim Toner, and it is pretty darned good reading, cause that Tim Toner guy can write.

My name is Darryl (*HI, DARRYL!*), and I used to be a doctor. See, I was finishing my residency, when I ran afoul of a little bureaucratic bullshit. I was kicked to the curb, and just like that, I ended a glorious career as a surgeon before I even began it. Now I’m a telemarketer, but that’s not really relevant to what happened. What’s relevant is that I’m living with a drug dealer.

Oh, no, not the gangsta kind, who wants to put a cap in yo ass and all. E’s the best fucked up father figure a fucked up kid could ask for. He’s a chemist of the old school, who believed you could drop a few tabs of acid, and see through time or whatnot. I can’t really complain about the morality of what he does, because it’s meant food in my belly and a roof over my head ever since I was ten. I try to stay out of his way most of the time, and lend a hand with a few unfortunate OD’s. People live their lives before they come to E’s, and if they’re already fucked up when they pass his threshhold and don’t tell him before stepping into the shooting gallery, then that’s just really unfortunate. I’m not passing judgement in any direction. E provides a service and does it in a fair and honest manner. I can’t fault him for anything.

WISH 58: Metaplot

WISH 58 asks about metaplots:

What do you think of metaplots (plots developed in the rules and supplements published by the game company)? Are they good, bad, or indifferent? Have you played in a game with a metaplot? What was your experience?

I don’t really like ‘em. They don’t stop me from buying a game, but I don’t have a whole lot of interest in them when you get right down to it, so space used on a metaplot is space I’d like to see used elsewhere.

Now, White Wolf hasn’t devoted a whole lot of space to metaplots in the last couple of years. Sure, there are 16 page sections about the metaplot, and Vampire Revised had a chunk of metaplot in it, but it’s not been outrageous. I do think people overreact to the scent of the metaplot.

But I also think that this overreaction needs to be taken into account when doing game design. You have to be aware that putting forth a metaplot will instantly flip a lot of people into a certain mode of thinking. Some people will be paralyzed, unable to diverge from the metaplot. A lot of people think they have to follow the metaplot.

Bad roleplaying, not to mention lack of creativity? Sure. But there’s no point in trying to pin blame on the consumer; it’s better to say “OK, how can that problem be fixed?” And of course the easy answer is “eschew the metaplot.” So, yeah, if I were running a game company I’d skip ‘em.

Mind you, if I were running a company that was selling a line of fiction in the form of gamebooks, I’d metaplot all the way to the bank. It’s interesting how many people buy sourcebooks not for gaming but to further their understanding of the game world. In one light, the Vampire line is a lengthy piece of fiction exposed in the form of game sourcebooks; the plot moves slowly, but it does move, and there is a semi-coherent narrative that will come to an end next spring.

So if you’re doing that on purpose, you’d pretty much want a metaplot. It’s a tactic which, consciously or unconsciously, has worked well for White Wolf for many years.

G-con

This time, it’s stuff I did at Gen Con.

Showed up Thursday afternoon. It’s really nice to have Gen Con within a reasonable distance from where I live; much better than when I lived in California. Not losing two days to travel greatly increases the chances that I’ll go back next year. The cab from the airport to the hotel was quick, checkin was easy, etc.

I hit the dealer’s room first. Assume that filled in a lot of the excess time throughout the con, and you’ll be right. Much hellos, hiyas, good to meet you face to face, and so on. The dealer’s room was enormous, but poorly laid out. Upper Deck had a huge chunk of the room, in which they erected some kind of a mini-mountain. Absolutely nobody visited it and they cut off a third of the room, dramatically reducing traffic in that neck of the woods. Ooops.

Thursday night I played Fulminata with a very good group, including the semi-legendary Lisa Padol and Nick Wedig, who I just remembered I recognized from the UA group. In the first big coincidence of the show, Jess Banks (who I’d never met face to face) showed up to take the last slot. As always, the secret to good gaming at Gen Con is to play obscure games; the only people who show up are dedicated. Mike Miller, who wrote Fulminata, GMed an excellent humorous game. I had a blast.

Friday morning I played Buffy with Mike Grasso GMing. The plot was tres cool; 80s girl band crisscrosses the country and fights vampires. Some really nice roleplaying, a good group, and a fun time was had by all. The second big coincidence was sitting down at the Buffy table next to Jeff Wilder.

That was it for formal roleplaying, although I also got into a pickup game of D20 Modern that Mike also ran. Very Shadowrunesque, and amusing as all getout. I ran a drow who was fond of collecting family pictures from the desks of companies he, um, visited. I like quirky characters; what can I say?

I played a ton of Shadowfist. I still suck. My weekend record in tournament games was 1-6.

The recommended Indianapolis bar is the Claddagh. They treated a fairly inebriated group of gamers very well indeed. It takes a strong man not to blink when someone orders a Guinness with a shot of butterscotch schnapps. (I would also be remiss not to mention Nicky Blaine’s if you want a pricy martini bar.) The Alcatraz brewpub was merely OK.

Finally, the White Wolf end of the world party was about what it was. While waiting to get in, I did get a cynical laugh out of the guy behind me who was whining that he shouldn’t have to wait in line because he knew Steve Weick. “Dude, that’s Stewart Weick up there keeping you from getting in; why don’t you complain to him?” No coherent reply ensued.

Stuff I got

I always spend too much money at Gen Con.

Dark Inheritance totally tweaked my fondness for Christian mythos modern fantasy. It’s also a very nice piece of work; I concur with the reviews linked to on the Mythic Dreams Studios site. Probably useful for all kinds of D20 Modern games. I think the coolest aspect of the game is that it’s a D20 Modern fantasy game that blows off the D&D tropes. It goes way beyond the suddenly limited-seeming settings that come with D20 Modern.

I picked up a lot of Dying Earth books. I was quite pleased to have done so. Pelgrane was also repping the new Hogshead Publishing. Somewhat to my surprise, Hogshead’s D20 Modern Crime Scene books were really good; I’d have bought them if I hadn’t been buying so much Vancian goodness. They’re professional-looking and the material inside is good law enforcement reference material. Considering that Mark Ricketts only bought the company in February, I am deeply impressed that he got quality product out so quickly.

Time of Crisis has a superhero team made up of simians, so you know that’s good. Also in the simian category: Gorilla Warfare, which on brief readthrough is one of the better Feng Shui supplements I’ve read in a while. John Seavey is moving onto my list of RPG writers to watch.

I preordered Phil Brucato’s new game, Deliria. I may come to regret it, but it looks kind of like what I wanted Changeling to be.

Indy indies

Patchworky commentary ahoy. Um, I guess I’ll talk about indie gaming at Gen Con now. The Forge folks had a shared booth, which looked very busy every time I dropped by. Yay them! I bought some stuff and talked to some people and generally had a good time there.

I met Scott Knipe (who wrote Wyrd and Charnel Gods), and he is just about the nicest guy in the world. He insisted in pressing a printed copy of Charnel Gods on me, so I made him autograph it. We had a nice chat about fan sites and upcoming stuff and so on, and he was one of the people I met at Gen Con who I’d love to have a beer with sometime. Stupid busy schedule. Maybe next year.

Ron Edwards, ringmaster of the Forge, is gregarious, cheerful, and charismatic. Very nice guy. My favorite metaphor for the Forge is jazz; it’s a very structured discussion space and there are a lot of conversations which don’t fit into that space. However, it’s absolutely perfect for talking about critical theory of roleplaying according to the GNS model, and it’s a valuable resource in that regard. Ron is the orchestra leader. Wish I’d had more time to talk to him, too.

I picked up several games, showing my lack of self-control. My favorite purchase was My Life With Master, which rocks — I wouldn’t mind playing it but it’d require committing for a few sessions. It is funny and sad and eloquent. The players are minons of an evil master, attempting to form human connections while serving his bidding. Probably the best value of the con.

I also got Kill Puppies For Satan. Bwah hah ha.

Um… Universalis, which I have not been able to read while in a proper state to comprehend it. Dust Devils, which I liked quite a bit. I want to try using it as an engine for Hong Kong melodrama at some point.

Oh yeah, and The Riddle of Steel, because Jake Norwood demoed the combat system and it is in fact amazingly easy and slick. In fact, in terms of ease of use it’s up there with Feng Shui. You roll a big fat d10 dice pool, divided into offense and defense pools each round, and you hope that you don’t get hit because getting hit is nasty. There’re some table lookups but they don’t come often, because the average combat will not have more than one or two hits in it. I want to try it out in more depth sometime.

There’s also a cool passion system, which provides you with extra dice when you’re fighting for something you feel strongly about. It’s good flavor and encourages roleplay. Finally, the sorcery system is a functional ad hoc system which allows you to cast random effects on the fly, not entirely unlike Ars Magica in that. I always like those.

I’m not entranced by his world, but I think it would be fairly adaptable to Warhammer Fantasy, which is the ur-gritty fantasy roleplaying world in my book. It’d also make an interesting system for L5R if you wanted to replace one deadly combat system with another; but that would take more adaptation work.

So that was what the indie RPG scene was like at Gencon. Fun.