Gaming

More hot White Wolf vs. Sony action! The plaintiff mandatory disclosures have been filed; I’m not going to further disseminate the PDF because, well, there are home addresses in there and I don’t see any reason to make ‘em more public than they already are. I’ll do a fuller transcription later if I have the chance. In the meantime, here’s a no doubt inadequate summary of the bits which are interesting to non-lawyerly me — i.e., what’s White Wolf asking for? ...

One of my rules of thumb for evaluating RPG combat systems is the number of times you have to roll to resolve an attempt to hit, on average. For example, in D&D, you have to roll twice — once to hit, and once for damage. In Vampire, you roll at least three and often four times — once to hit, maybe once to dodge, once for damage, and once for soak. In Feng Shui, you roll once — the roll to hit is also the roll for damage. ...

I was gonna do a long review of Gamma World, but, well, here. I liked the design of the book much more than that guy, but his comments on the mechanics are right on target. The community rules are both really inspiring and kind of disappointing. The idea of using PC stats to represent a group of people is great; I can’t remember where I first saw it (might have been Vampire, actually) but this is a really good implementation of it. Except that several of the stats have no game effect, and there’s no meat behind most of the ratings — no explication of what they mean. ...

There is always more White Wolf v. Sony. Here’s Danny McBride’s declaration (original), as promised (the third screenwriter). I also have White Wolf’s interrogatory of 9/18 (original) for you. The relevant bit seems to be the five questions asked, which I will reproduce for those who scorn PDFs: Identify all sources for the items listed for Underworld on the comparison chart attached hereto as Exhibit “A.” Identify all documents read, references or used at any time by anyone with any involvement in creating or contributing to the script, screenplay, treatments, character studies, script or production notes, movie, comic book or novel for Underworld. ...

The schedule for discovery in the White Wolf v. Sony case is currently as follows: Each party can serve 5 interrogatories and 4 document requests. Responses are due within 15 days of the services. Following that, White Wolf can take depositions from Wiseman, Grevioux, and McBride; Sony can take depositions from authors of the copyrighted works. Depositions have to be completed by 10/24/03. (Perhaps the cause of the recent subpoenas on White Wolf authors?) ...

The White Wolf Underworld lawsuit has involved Ken Hite (original). Fresh from his bi-weekly column comes the news: Or, in my case, with a subpoena, subcompetently served on my wife while I was out running my GURPS game. I’d like to thank everyone involved in the White Wolf-Sony lawsuit for that. Having seen Underworld (and thoroughly enjoyed it, in a cheap and tawdry fashion), and keeping in mind that I’m not a lawyer, I don’t think it was worth pestering my wife over. ...

I’m ready to reassert my position as the foremost White Wolf v. Sony blogger, if it please the court. I got myself a login for the federal court system, and soon thereafter procured a copy of Sony’s response (original) to the complaint. (Thanks to Chris for hosting.) I don’t speak lawyer, but I think it mostly says “We have no idea what your game says vampires and werewolves do, and we did not copy our ideas from you.” ...

Mike Tinney’s deposition in the White Wolf v. Sony case is mildly interesting, if only for the following paragraph: White Wolf has been in discussions with Sony Online about it creating a massively multi-player Internet game based on White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse and World of Darkness. It also sets out the course of events which led to the lawsuit. On April 21st, 2003, Tinney sent Andy Zaffron (a contact of his over at Sony, presumably for the EverQuest pen and paper adaptation) email asking for help getting in touch with Sony Pictures: ...

It’s Chris’s fault, really. After a pulse-pounding conclusion to his Morrisonian supers campaign, I have a yen to run Champions. Maybe it’ll pass. I’m probably safe, since I don’t think anyone in my current gaming group is a Hero fan. (“The chargen! It burns my eyes!”) (The UNTIL Superpowers Database makes it easy! Really!) Champions Universe? Maybe. Millenium City is a nice piece of work, and there’s a ton of background available. Or I could do my own universe and just reuse all the interesting super writeups from the CU; with novice Hero players, it wouldn’t matter. ...

Phil Brucato turned up at Gen Con this year with a game called Deleria (original), which was pretty clearly his vision of what Changeling should have been. And I’m a mark for shiny things, so you can tell where this is going. I pre-ordered. The book came in the other day. It’s a big hardcover with really shoddy binding. The inside is glossy and full cover and more or less a design mishmash that actually works fairly well. It’s got a hodge-podge feel to it that makes sense given the subject matter, and the art (lots of Photoshop manipulations) is OK. ...