I is for Icons

When it comes to super hero role playing games, none are dearer to my heart than the classic Mayfair DC Heroes role playing game. The game's mechanics, designed by Greg Gorden and Ray Winninger, are elegant. They are easy to learn, quick to play, and versatile enough to handle a world where both Batman and Superman fight villains side by side.

Sadly, this game is out of print and many gamers refuse to play the games we "old fogeys" love so dearly. So what are those of use who love quick and easy super hero action, that also rewards narrative subplots, to do? We could play the excellent Mutants & Masterminds role playing game by Green Ronin written by Steve Kenson. The game took the mechanics of 3rd edition D&D, put them through a laser filter, and refined them into a fine super hero game. But that game -- prior to its recent 3rd edition release -- had fallen under the spell of the mechanical rather than the narrative as its audience grew to include former Champions players in addition to former DC Heroes players. It's still a great game, as is Champions, but it is more mechanical and "wargamy" than the old DC Heroes game was (this is less true of the new 3rd edition).

Those of us who want a more purely narrative game can be thankful that last year Steve Kenson -- there is that name again -- designed exactly such a game for Adamant Entertainment. The game is called Icons and it is a small piece of heaven.

The game's graphic design is inspired by the Bruce Timm cartoons of the 90s. The game takes the easy to play FATE system and makes it even easier. Since it is based on the FATE system, the game is heavily narrative and Kenson has manage to combine some of what is best from both the old DC Heroes and the old Marvel Super Heroes role playing games to make this gem. The system is good for the one shot, or for campaign play. The system is versatile enough to handle both Batman and Superman style characters...without having to create different "power levels" that have different "game balance" math. It's just pure fun in book form. In the grand tradition of super hero role playing games, it is filled with concise -- but useful -- information on how to run games in an entertaining fashion.

There are quite a few super hero systems out there, and most of them are quite good, but few of them can be picked up and played as quickly as Icons.

Adamant has released some excellent adventures in support of the game, and their big villain book comes out next week. Give it a shot.

H is for Hero System

Champions, the first Hero System role playing game, was released in 1981 at the Origins Game Fair. One of the first individuals to purchase the game was game designer and magazine editor Aaron Allston who quickly reviewed the game for The Space Gamer magazine in issue 43. By issue 48, The Space Gamer was featuring articles about Allston's Champions campaign, as he became one of its biggest advocates. His review was very positive, but it also contained a fair amount of constructive criticism. In particular he criticized the overly combat oriented nature of the rules set:

There is nothing on "extracurricular" characteristics of the superheroes -- there is no way to determine professional skills or wealth, for example. In the comics, Dr. Mid-Nite can use his medical skills to aid a badly wounded comrade, but in CHAMPIONS the injured soul must be rushed to the hospital, as there is no way for characters to be doctors. There is no way to see if the character is a playboy millionaire or a struggling science student. In short, within the scope of the rules, you can create Iron Man, but not Tony Stark, The Huntress, but not Helena Wayne.

To a certain degree, Allston was perfectly correct in his criticism. The skill list of the first edition of Champions, on pages 10-12, was sparse. It included only the following skills: Acrobatics, Climbing, Computer Programming, Detective Work, Disguise, Find Weakness, Lack of Weakness, Luck, Martial Arts, Missile Deflection, Security Systems, Skill Levels, Stealth, and Swinging. There is a complete and utter lack of professional skills in this list. This is also true of the second edition of the game. While the second edition improved the layout of the rules, clarified many rules descriptions, provided sample characters, and eliminated the sub-par Vic Dal Chele artwork from the product, Allston's critique could still stand.

Hero Games quickly released a series of related role playing games -- Espionage and Justice Inc. -- which had a more "street level focus" and thus had more "granular" skill and "perk" lists. Since these games dealt with Spy Stories and Pulp Adventure, and the heroes were more "human" than the superheroes depicted in Champions, these games included rules for knowledge skills, science skills, and the like.

The third edition of Champions still neglected these "secondary" skills, but most GMs had already begun to incorporate them into their games as the "Hero System" released more and more products. Eventually Hero Games released Danger International -- a serious update of Espionage -- Fantasy Hero and Star Hero proving that the underlying Hero mechanics could be used with any genre.

With the fourth edition of Champions -- the edition I believe is the best -- the skills and perks systems from the various offshoot Hero System games were incorporated fully into the Champions rules and the Hero System became truly universal.

But there were still players who -- like Allston early on -- wanted more granularity in the rules set. It wasn't enough to have rules for medical skills, there needed to be rules for flash light illumination, or the ability to moderately adjust the temperature in the room for heat/cold based characters. Some fans wanted every little minute detail to be codified in some purely mechanical system -- and thus the Hero System 5th Edition was born...and eventually a 6th edition.

All of the rules sets are good. I don't think any are sub par. I do think that they level of granularity and the ever increasing pressure to mechanically represent every last detail of the character has become a bit of an obsession for the rules and for some Hero players. I remember when the Hero players began to post on the Green Ronin boards about the Mutants and Masterminds skill system. Steve Kenson wanted the "ultra-skilled" characters like Batman or Mr. Fantastic to buy "Super Attributes" that implied that the character was equally proficient in all skills related to that attribute. I thought Kenson's proposal was magnificent, the former Hero players -- and some d20 players -- dissented. They wanted each skill to be purchased separately and the level of proficiency to be paid incrementally.

The fans of the granular won out, but ought they have. Is it really necessary for a rules set to have specific representation of knowledge skills and/or professional skills? Can't a character write a robust background for he character and have the GM rule, using judgment and common sense, how that background affects a situation?

Do we really need to have players roll dice to see if their Nobel Prize winning Physicist character understands string theory? Or is it better to have that be an improved/acted out scene that the GM can plan for and leave clues using the assumption of player proficiency rather than leaving it to arbitrary die rolls?

Table top role playing games aren't computer games after all. The reason we have mechanics for combat is to avoid "I shot you...no you didn't" Cops n' Robbers situations. They prevent arguments by providing a buffer between the player and the Game Master. They minimize the perception that the GM is just out to get you.

With non-combat/non-contested attributes, like wealth or education, are those things to be quantified or things to be incorporated into narrative?

For me, they are best things left incorporated into narrative -- unless someone is trying to outperform someone else. One might need mechanics for a duel of wits, but one doesn't need mechanics for "training."

All that aside, and the Hero System can easily be run without the skill system bogging things down, the Hero System is one of the great additions to the gaming hobby. It was one of the first games to use point build characters. It incorporated war game techniques and role playing game mechanics in a wonderful fashion, and was the first system to fully emulate the superhero genre while allowing full design control to the players.

Some of the best Hero System products are (in no particular order):
1) Champions -- 4th Edition
2) Danger International
3) Justice Inc. -- partly written by Aaron Allston
4) Fantasy Hero -- for 5th Edition Hero

37th Annual Origins Award Nominees Announced

The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design Announces 37th Annual Origins Awards Nominees

COLUMBUS, OH (April 13, 2011) The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design is proud to announce the nominees for the 37th Annual Origins Awards.

The Origins Awards are presented annually by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design to recognize outstanding achievement in design and production of games and game related products.

The nominees were voted on by hobby game retailers at the GAMA Trade Show in March 2011 from a short list in each category determined by a jury of hobby game professionals and knowledgeable enthusiasts. The winner of each category will be determined by the votes of attendees at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus OH, June 22nd-26th. The winners will be announced and the coveted Calliope statues presented at the Origins Awards Ceremony on the evening of Saturday June 25th. Submitted games that were not nominated will be available to play in the Open Gaming Area at the Origins Game Fair.

In the next couple of days, I'll be providing descriptions and reviews of the products that received nominations this year as well as making some comments regarding those who opted not to submit their products for consideration. For example...Black Gate Magazine has published media tie-in stories and regularly publishes reviews. Why didn't they submit for game related publication? Let the retailers decide if you warrant a nomination, but submit for goodness' sake.

This year's nominees are quite strong. For the first time ever, I think that every nominee in the best RPG category deserves to win an award. As I wrote earlier, there will be more praise lavished upon the nominees in the days to come. For now, let's just have a look at that list.

BEST ROLEPLAYING GAME

DC Adventures - Green Ronin Publishing
Designer: Steve Kenson

Dragon Age, Set 1 - Green Ronin Publishing
Designer: Chris Pramas

The Dresden Files RPG: Your Story - Evil Hat Productions
Designers: Leonard Balsera, Jim Butcher, Genevieve Cogman, Robert Donoghue, Fred Hicks, Kenneth Hite, Ryan Macklin, Chad Underkoffler, Clark Valentine

Fiasco - Bully Pulpit Games
Designer: Jason Morningstar

Gamma World RPG - Wizards of the Coast
Designers: Rich Baker, Bruce Cordell

BEST ROLEPLAYING SUPPLEMENT

A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide (A Song of Ice and Fire RPG) - Green Ronin Publishing
Designers: David Chart, Joshua Frost, Brian Kirby, Jon Leitheusser, Anthony Pryor, Robert J. Schwalb, Owen K.C. Stephens

Our World (The Dresden Files RPG) - Evil Hat Productions
Designers: Leonard Balsera, Jim Butcher, Genevieve Cogman, Robert Donoghue, Fred Hicks, Kenneth Hite, Ryan Macklin, Chad Underkoffler, Clark Valentine

Advanced Player's Guide (Pathfinder RPG) - Paizo Publishing
Designers: Judy Bauer, Jason Bulmahn, Christopher Carey, James Jacobs, Steve Kenson, Hal Maclean, Rob McCreary, Erik Mona, Jason Nelson, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Sean K. Reynolds, F. Wesley Schneider, Owen K.C. Stephens, Lisa Stevens, James L. Sutter, Russ Taylor, Vic Wertz

Sixth World Almanac (Shadowrun RPG)- Catalyst Game Labs
Designers: Jason Hardy, John Heifers, John Dunn

Sunward: The Inner System (Eclipse Phase RPG) - Posthuman Studios
Designers: Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, Adam Jury

BEST BOARD GAME

Castle Ravenloft - Wizards of the Coast
Designer: Bill Slaviciek, Mike Mearls

Defenders of the Realm - Eagle Games
Designer: Richard Launius

Fresco - Queen Games
Designer: Wolfgang Panning, Marco Ruskowski, Marcel Süßelbeck

Lords of Vegas - Mayfair Games
Designer: James Ernest, Mike Selinker

Nuns on the Run - Mayfair Games
Designer: Fréderic Moyersoen

BEST TRADITIONAL CARD GAME

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer - Gary Games
Designer: Justin Gary

Back to the Future: The Card Game - Looney Labs, Inc.
Designer: Andrew Looney

Hecho - Glowfly Games
Designers: Brian Knudsen, Brent Knudsen

Hex Hex XL - Smirk & Dagger Games
Designers: Curt Covert, Justin Brunetto

Railways of the World: The Card Game - Eagle Games
Designer: James Eastham, Steve Ellis

BEST FAMILY, PARTY, OR CHILDREN'S GAME

Ligretto Dice - Playroom Entertainment
Designers: Inka Brand, Markus Brand

Telestrations - USAopoly, Inc.
Designer: USAopoly

Wits and Wagers Family Edition - North Star Games
Designer: Dominic Crapuchettes

Word on the Street Junior - Out of the Box Publishing
Designer: Jack Degnan

Zombie Dice - Steve Jackson Games
Designer: Steve Jackson

BEST GAMING ACCESSORY

Color Primer: Dragon Red - The Army Painter
Designer: Bo Penstoft, Jonas Faering

Adventurers Tiles - Battle Bunker Games
Designer: Tony Ironmonger, Daniel Hinkle

Battlefield XP Swamp Tufts - The Army Painter
Designer: Bo Penstoft, Jonas Faering

Cthulhu Dice Bag - Steve Jackson Games
Designer: Alex Fernandez

BattleTech Hex Pack: Lakes & Rivers - Catalyst Game Labs
Designer: Randall N. Bills

BEST MINIATURES RULES

Adventures in the Lost Lands - Two Hour Wargames
Designer: Ed Teixeira

BattleTech Technical Readout: 3085 - Catalyst Game Labs
Designer: Joel Bancroft-Conners

DC HeroClix Blackest Knight Starter Game - WizKids/NECA
Designers: Eric Engelhard, Jake Theis, Norman Barth, Drew Nolosco

Hordes: Primal MK2 - Privateer Press
Designer: Matt Wilson

MERCS Games Rule - MERCS Miniatures, LLC
Designer: Brian Shotton

BEST HISTORICAL BOARD GAME

Warlords of Europe - GameBuilders
Designers: Ken Griffin, Kyle Battle, Russ Rupe

Conflict of Heroes: Price of Honour Poland 1939 - Academy Games
Designer: Uwe Eickect

Catan Histories - Settlers of America: Trails to Rails - Mayfair Games
Designer: Klaus Teuber

Panzer General: Allied Assault - Petroglyph Games, Inc.
Designers: Chuck Kroegel, George Chastain

BEST GAME-RELATED PUBLICATION

No Quarter Magazine - Privateer Press
Editors: Matt Wilson, Aeryn Rudel, Privateer Press

Hamlet's Hit Points - Gameplaywright
Author: Robin Laws

Family Games: The 100 Best - Green Ronin Publishing
Editor: James Lowder

Shadowrun: Spells and Chrome - Catalyst Game Labs
Editor: John Helfers

World at War: Revelation - Lock ‘n Load Publishing
Author: Mark H. Walker

G is for Gamut -- A Gamut of Games

Originally published in 1969, Sid Sackson's A Gamut of Games is a "must own" publication for any serious game collector/game hobbyist. Sid Sackson was one of the great game design geniuses of the history of the gaming hobby and many of his designs -- especially Acquire -- helped to fuel an explosion of gaming in Europe and set the standard for the modern Euro or Designer game.

Sackson wrote A Gamut of Games to provide game enthusiasts with a book that could be used as an alternative or supplement to all the "Hoyle" books that cluttered the shelves of book stores. As Sackson put it in his preface, "The purpose of this book is to present a selection of games, thirty-eight it turns out, that will not be found in the "Hoyles," either because they were invented by my friends and me, or because they are old -- but good -- games that somehow got lost in the shuffle."

What a list of games it is as well. There are card games like HEKATON, board games like LINES OF ACTION and CROSSINGS. The game CROSSINGS has since been released as the game EPAMINONDAS. Gamut also includes the rules for playing Sackson's excellent game FOCUS. The tome is a veritable treasure trove for the game enthusiast. If you have the core supplies needed for the "Cheap Ass Games" catalog, then you have everything you need to play every game in this book.

Someday, I'd love to see a publisher release a boxed set that includes a copy of the book and all the pieces necessary for all the games.

F is for Fantasy

Fantasy is arguably the most ancient genre of storytelling. One can imagine that some ancient storyteller regaled his fellow hut dwellers with a tale of the day's hunt, but one can also imagine that the "one that got away" was unbelievably big and had fantastic powers. Fantasy is as old as civilization and encompasses all forms of imaginative storytelling -- even the plausible/possible. Everything from Tolkien's "Middle Earth" to the New York of ABC's Castle is a fantasy world where a storyteller engages an audience in an attempt to educate and delight them.

Yet for all its ubiquity, Fantasy that typically brings to mind a vary narrow set of tales. These are stories of Feudal societies where valiant knights slay evil demons/trolls/dragons and where the writing is "uninspired," "lacks seriousness," "is for children," or "isn't literature." What is it about fantasy, the progenitor of all fiction, that makes some rebuff it and seek to separate their own favored fiction as somehow superior to "mere fantasy"?

Recently, David Brin of all people, wrote a blog post claiming that Science Fiction differed from Fantasy in that SF stories believed in the "perfectibility of man," while Fantasy seemed steeped in an almost authoritarian desire to ensure that "the social order stays the same." The thrust of his argument, though he might disagree, appears to be that SF is superior to Fantasy because it breaks free from the "reactionary" notion that we are doomed to repeat our past or that human nature is a fixed thing. SF assumes we can learn and overcome the sins of our fathers, and if we don't accomplish this very possible thing then we are tragic figures. For Brin it is the cautionary tale that makes SF superior.

There are too many ways in which Brin's essay fails to make its case for me to itemize here -- to be fair this and it were only blog posts and one could/should spend an entire semester in a lit genre class discussing this very question.

Brin isn't the first, nor even the best at making this argument.

Michael Moorcock's seminal essay on Tolkien's "trilogy," Epic Pooh, cuts right to the core of Brin's argument. In that piece, Moorcock argues:

"The sort of prose most often identified with 'high' fantasy is the prose of the nursery-room. It is a lullaby; it is meant to soothe and console. It is mouth music...It coddles; it makes friends with you; it tells comforting lies..."

"Like Chesterton, and other markedly Christian writers who substituted faith for artistic rigour, he sees the petite bourgeoisie, the honest artisans and peasants, as the bulwark against Chaos. These people are always sentimentalised in such fiction because, traditionally, they are always the last to complain about any deficiencies in the status quo."

"In many ways, The Lord of the Rings is, if not exactly anti-romantic, an anti-romance."

"I find this sort of consolatory Christianity as distasteful as any other fundamentally misathropic doctrine."

"I sometimes think that as Britain declines, dreaming of a sweeter past, entertaining few hopes of a finer future, her middle classes turn increasingly to the fantasy of the rural life and talking animals, the safety of the woods that are the pattern of the paper on the nursery-room wall."

There is so much more that the brief quotes above to Moorcock's essay, which is available in both Monkey Brain Book's Wizardry and Wild Romance and in Savoy Books' invaluable Michael Moorcock: Into the Media Web. Needless to say, Moorcock views a certain vein of fantasy storytelling as misanthropic -- due to its sentiments regarding human nature and the need of a heavenly protector/father to comfort us -- and as inferior to fantasy that is truly romantic and humanistic.

Brin is more reductive in his post, implying that Fantasy is regressive/reactionary while SF is progressive and positive, but his main point is the same. Type of fiction A is superior to type of fiction B because of type of fiction B's superior understanding of humanity. In the case of Moorcock there is an argument for what it means to be human -- and that it means facing terrors -- that is clearly articulated and compelling. In Brin, it seems that there is a kind of equally misanthropic Post-Human/Trans-Human/Singularity argument going on. I find much transhuman, post-singularity, fiction to be as misanthropic as anything Moorcock accuses Tolkien of writing.

To be fair, Brin's own novels aren't misanthropic and feature interesting tales of human struggle. Equally though, there are moments when he demonstrates that mankind can fall back to those feudal tendencies if they aren't continually reminded of the lessons of the past and provided the connections with the past necessary to learn from it. In his novel The Postman human society collapses back to feudal principles, only to be saved by communication and connection to others. That book has a powerful argument, but underlying it is a sort of assumption to the fixed nature of man. The society may improve, but the people don't -- nor do their motives.

In fact, there are whole genres of SF that are obsessed with the lack of perfectibility in man. The cyberpunk genre may have people who are physically improved through technology, but the societies created by these people are mere mercantilist nightmares. Dystopic SF isn't always a "cautionary tale," it is often a lamenting screed of "if only we could, but we can't."

Where I do agree with Brin is that Fantasy "ought" to have stories where the old order can be overcome, where people can learn from the past to make better societies, and humans are completely doomed by human nature to be flawed creatures for eternity.

There are many books and essays about what Fantasy is or isn't, where it fails or doesn't fail, what genre is superior to what other genre, how modern Fantasy is immoral, how old fantasy is reactionary and lame, how SF is fascist...the list is nigh infinite. I highly recommend Moorcock's Epic Pooh, Tolkien's On Fairy Stories,, The Language of the Night by Ursula LeGuin, and HP Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature. Each of these essays approach the topic from a different perspective, but all are worth while -- as is Brin's post for that matter.

I like all the forms of Fantasy. I love the nursery stories of Winnie the Pooh, the tragic tale of Achilles, the tale of the everyman hero Frodo, the tales of the super heroic and noble John Carter, the complex politics of The Culture, the wide eyed optimism of the Golden Age SF, the cynical and depressing pessimism of cyberpunk, the progressive and the reactionary. They all have a place on my bookshelf with none holding a moral high ground over the other. Fantasy and SF each have reactionary and progressive tales.

The fantasies I love the most though, are those created by my twin daughters. In their world, they are Jungle Junction (what my daughters call Ellyvan) and Iron Man battling the Grabbing Goblin and the Mandarin in order to save Uniqua and Captain D'Amedicada.

E is for Encounters

When the 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons was released, Wizards of the Coast attempted a dual strategy of organized play. The first was to continue their Living Forgotten Realms campaign, while getting rid of Living Greyhawk and the Mark of Heroes Eberron games. The second was to run a series of "Game Day" adventures that coincided with individual products that were soon to be released. Most of these adventures were meant to be played in a single sitting of 4 hours. Many people enjoy the Living Forgotten Realms format, but the "Game Day" format was one of the things that contributed to my initial misunderstanding of the 4th Edition system.

The "Game Day" adventures weren't very complex. Designing an adventure that is supposed to tell a story in four encounters -- approximately four hours of play -- isn't easy and these adventures largely suffered from this major flaw. These adventures also suffered from the fact that they were geared entirely to promoting a singular product that was being released within a week or so of the adventure. This meant that the adventures were only being written when products were scheduled for release -- and we are talking major "Players Handbook" type products not regular products. Thus these "Game Days" weren't frequent occurrences, or at least not frequent enough to build a real following.

Last year, Wizards combined the regular game play experience of the Living Forgotten Realms games with the market driven adventure design of the "Game Day" adventures to create their Encounters Program. One thing that differentiated the Encounters program from other organized play events was that the individual sessions were designed to be played in 2 hours, and that each sitting was only one Encounter in a larger tale. The first two Encounters "Seasons" -- what Wizards calls the individual Adventures which last for 8 to 20 weeks of play -- were a bit of a mixed bag.

The first season took place in the popular Undermountain environment, and the second took place in the fan favorite Dark Sun world, but both of these adventures missed the mark in execution -- either for story or game balance reasons. By the third season -- Keep on the Borderlands -- the Wizards staff was really beginning to hit stride. The adventure was an ambitious 20 chapter storyline that was the first adventure in the series to incorporate a robust narrative. It still contained a predictable storyline, but it was an adventure that prompted role playing more so than prior adventures and the scenes were well designed with some interesting challenges like Dragons on rooftops and using Trebuchet against mobs of attackers. The current season, March of the Phantom Brigade, is even more role play oriented than Keep and the adventure hooks for the story are fairly unique.

In the most recent season, the players take the role of Pioneers seeking to create a new settlement in Nentir Vale. That's right...Pioneers...Settlers. No mere mercenary band these characters. No avenging champions seeking wrongs to right. Those may be the motivations of individuals, sure, but the tone of the adventure is open to social interaction as the players might choose sides in the leadership. Do they favor the priest founding the new "city on the hill," the ever vigilant Ranger who is there to provide protection and create the law enforcement/militia for the new society, or do they side with the historian/archeologist who wishes to study the location to learn of its past. They can befriend them all, but there are role playing hooks a plenty.

Each adventure in the series has been better than the last, and each has shown a growth in the way that adventures are written for the 4th edition rules. Gone are the feelings of pure combat emulation, and in are feelings of storytelling and narrative.

My hope is that Wizards will mimic the old days of TSR. In the 70s, TSR used to have adventures that they only ran at conventions. These adventures included Rahasia, the "Slave Lords" series, "Against the Giants," and "Tomb of Horrors" -- all classics in the field. These adventures gained interest through word of mouth. They were playtested by gamers at cons, then they were released for sale. Not everyone has a game store in their local community, so it would be wonderful if Wizards released these adventures -- edited based on playtesting -- some six to eight months after the seasons were over.

Regardless, my local store has seen growing interest in 4th Edition since I have begun running games for them every week. Our group has a wide range of ages -- it's the first time I've gamed with high school students in quite some time.

Find a store near you running the Encounters program and give 4e a try...even if you have been resisting up until now.

D is for DragonQuest

In 1977, Simulations Publications Inc. (SPI) published a booked entitled Wargame Design: The History, Production, and Use of Conflict Simulation Games. This book is one of the great artifacts of the wargaming hobby and is an invaluable resource that provides accurate historical information about the state of the wargaming industry up to 1977. At that time, SPI had unit sales of 420,000 games a year to an audience of approximately 100,000-150,000 active gamers (Dunnigan, 140). The average cost of a war game at the time was $8 (in 1977 dollars), meaning that SPI had approximately $3.36 million in annual sales. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this is about $12,272,400 in 2011 dollars.

By any standard, SPI was a big business in a small market -- they held a 50% market share by units sold and a 43% market share in percentage of cash spent by gamers. But 1977 was a time of massive transitions in the industry. At that time 10% of wargamers were "miniature" gamers -- in addition to being general wargamers -- though given the cost of miniatures and supplies, these individuals made up 30% of the money spent on war games. This was also the time of the rise of a new kind of game, the fantasy role playing game. 1974 had seen the publication of the first printed role playing game, Dungeons and Dragons, and that game was altering the gaming landscape forever.

Roleplaying games expanded the gaming market from the small community of 100,000-150,000 gamers, to a community of millions of gamers. By 2000, there were over 2 million people playing table top role playing games on a monthly basis. Modern sales figures for individual role playing game companies are nigh impossible to find. The revenues are either unpublished -- because the majority of the companies are privately owned -- or they are buried in consolidated reports like Hasbro's annual report. Chris Pramas estimated that the RPG industry had annual sales in the $30 million range in 2008. That number seems off by a wide margin for a couple of reasons. First, that would mean that the RPG industry is about the size of the wargame industry in 1977, which means that all the growth in the market since 1977 has collapsed -- assuming inflation adjusted dollars the market in 1977 was approximately $25 million. Second, according to their financials, Games Workshop -- a major fantasy miniatures gaming company -- reported £126.5 million in revenue in 2010. This signals that miniatures gaming has exploded since 1977 as a part of the market. One imagines that role playing games lag behind the miniatures market by a significant margin, but this hints that the market may be larger than Pramas fears. There are currently 49,983 members of Wizards of the Coast's "DDI Subscriber Group" which is a good estimate of the number of people who are subscribers to the site's functions. These subscriptions alone provide somewhere around $5 million in revenue. It is likely that the majority of these subscribers have purchased physical products in the year as well. I would guess that the entire rpg market is somewhere skyward of $50 million -- a little better than Pramas' guess. At least, I hopes so because a lower figure would mean that his company Green Ronin -- who publish a number of the best games in the market -- are tragically under appreciated by the market. Needless to say, the market has expanded as these figures don't include the modern war game market -- which is probably similar in size to the 1977 market -- the board game market (Settlers of Catan alone has sold more than 18 million copies), trading card games, or computer rpgs. All of these are descendants of the old wargaming market place.

For the most part, SPI was a smart company and realized that the market was in flux and that these newfangled role playing games and miniatures games were where the market was headed. They gathered together some of their best and brightest game designers (Eric Goldberg, David James Ritchie, Edward J. Woods, Greg Costikyan, and Redmond A. Simonsen) and produced their own role playing game. The resulting product, DragonQuest was published in 1980 with much fanfare, but less than stellar reviews.

[15.2]A character who is adjacent to, but not in the Attack Zone of, a Hostile character may employ actions A, B, C, D, E, F, H, J, L, M, P, Q, R, S, T, or X.
He could not implement Action G or W. Further, while he could Fire, he could not Fire at an adjacent character. He could also Hurl a weapon, but, again, not at an adjacent character. -- DragonQuest First Edition pg. 20 Rule 15.2

Forrest Johnson reviewing the game for in Space Gamer magazine, had the following to say:

"1.784 DESIGN IN HASTE, REPENT AT LEISURE. With all its talented staff, SPI has managed to do what companies like TSR and Metagaming did with lesser resources -- mess up a promising new system...DRAGONQUEST is not your dream game, And appearing in 1980, it is at a competitive disadvantage. But it was put together by professionals. Despite its faults, it still presents a pleasing contrast to the sloppiness of TFT, the illogic of D&D, the incoherence of C&S. It borrows good ideas liberally from the older systems, and offers some new innovatiosn of its own. Furthermore, the planned supplements, if only half of them see print, will make this an incredibly rich game."

The Chaosium affiliated magazine Different Worlds in its 11th issue wrote that the game, "functions as a FRP game the same way a sledge hammer functions as a mousetrap. Both get the job done, but the effort involved in getting it to work is not worth the end result." This review prompted a response from designer Eric Goldberg which stated, "while mice have escaped from conventional mousetraps, none have survived being spattered about by a sledgehammer."

SPI published the combat rules for DragonQuest as a stand alone game entitled Arena of Death in SPI's in house Ares magazine in its 4th issue and later as a stand alone boxed game. The first edition combat rules were bogged down by the fact that the rules structure and design was modeled after traditional war game presentations and not on the more narrative presentation of role playing games. As such, the combat rules were difficult to understand and very mechanical in play. DragonQuest included many innovations in its magic system and its skill system, as well as its universal attribute test system, but the combat system of the first edition was arcane and overly complex. SPI quickly responded to the need to improve the game and released a second edition in 1981 -- one year after the original. One name stands out among those added to the list of "Game Testing and Advice," that I believe made all the difference in the world. That name is Greg Gorden. Gorden is one of the best designers in the business, and the changes between the two editions -- in addition to seeing Gorden's later work -- lead me to believe he was a major influence in the second edition.

[15.2]Figures with a modified Agility of 22 through 25 are allowed one extra hex of movement when executing any of the following actions: Melee attack, Evade, Withdraw, Pass, and Retreat.
Thus Eaglewing the Elf, whose modified Agility is 25 due to the lack of weight he carried, his natural Agility and his bonus due to being an Elf can move three hexes while preparing his Tulwar instead of two. -- DragonQuest 2nd Edition page 16 rule [15.2]

The second edition of the game kept all of the interesting quirks of the first edition, but cleaned up the play of the combat system -- and made some other minor tweaks as well. It also added images of miniatures in use during play and clearer examples of game play. The game seemed ready to take the market by storm. But then TSR -- the publishers of D&D -- purchased SPI on March 31, 1982. With that purchase support for DragonQuest was minimal at best as TSR focused on their own games instead of the old SPI games. There were about 6 articles supporting DragonQuest published in Dragon magazine, but the "rumored" 4th rule book for the game Arcane Wisdom never hit the stands. It wasn't just TSR's lack of interest in DragonQuest that led to the lack of support. It was also the fact that when TSR bought SPI, most of the key SPI designers left the company to work for a new company called Victory Games. Gerard Klug, John Butterfield, and Greg Gorden all went to work for the new company. Within a year of their leaving TSR/SPI for Victory Games, these designers created the James Bond 007 role playing game which built on some concepts presented in DragonQuest, but completely abandoned the old school war game rules presentation.

TSR eventually published a cleaned up and revised 3rd edition of DragonQuest in 1989, but for all of the improvements it made to the mechanics of the game it lost some of the flair of the original. Gone was the "College of Greater Summonings" with its demon bound magicians, and in was a lighter tone similar to many of the "Culture Wars scared" products TSR was publishing at the time. The 3rd edition is a good rules set, but if you're going to play the game you should also have a copy of the 2nd edition. The rich feel of the game's magical colleges is one of the best features of the game.

DragonQuest isn't without a literary legacy either. James Barclay's "Raven" stories are based on his own DragonQuest campaign.

Thundercats Ho!

I am overjoyed that I live in a world where I will be able to share new episodes of Thundercats with my twin daughters.

C is for Chill

You are about to enter the world of CHILL, where unknown things sneak, and crawl, and creep, and slither in the darkness of a moonless night. This is the world of horror, the world of the vampire, ghost, and ghoul, the world of things not know, and best not dreamt of. CHILL is a role-playing game of adventure into the Unknown and your first adventure is about to begin -- CHILL Introductory Folder

In 1984 a group of former TSR Employees -- including Mark Acres, Troy Denning, and Stephen Sullivan -- formed Pacesetter Ltd. Games and released the Chill role playing game. Chill wasn't the first horror role playing game, nor was it the best, but it has long held a place as a "cult" favorite in the role playing game world. Where other horror role playing games sought to capture the dark nihilistic material horror of H.P. Lovecraft, or the gruesome horror of many films, Chill tried to capture the tone of Hammer and AIP productions.

Because of its focus, and because its creators were former TSR employees, Rick Swan reviewed the game quite negatively in Dragon magazine and in his Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games. He described the game as, "A horror game for the easily frightened...While most of Chill's vampires, werewolves, and other B-movie refugees wouldn't scare a ten-year-old, they're appropriate to the modest ambitions of the game...Chill is too shallow for extended campaigns, and lacks the depth to please anyone but the most undemanding players. For beginners only."

Swan was correct that the game was simple, and appropriate for beginners, but he was far from the mark when he claimed that it lacked depth that could appeal to demanding players who want extended campaigns. The game has solid underlying mechanics that encourage a loose style of play that encourages storytelling over combat and reduces the dependency on die rolls that so many role playing games often overly promote. Like many Pacesetter games, Chill is innovative and slightly ahead of its time -- nowhere is this more the case than with their Chill: Black Morn Manor board game -- but like many things ahead of their time there are some flaws to the mechanics. Nothing too big, but definitely things that might make some gamers reject it out of hand. The game is simple enough that a group of players can pick up the rules and start to play within 15 minutes...from scratch.

Let me repeat that. This game, made in 1984, is easy enough to learn that a group can open the box and begin playing within fifteen minutes. Given how complex rpgs seem to the non-gamer, this is quite a marvelous achievement in and of itself.

The most comprehensive review of Chill -- during its era -- was the review in Space Gamer 75 by Warren Spector. In the article, Spector provided a balanced review -- not all of it positive -- but described the game as follows:

You won't find better, more consistently entertaining writing in any set of game rules...
Chill is the first to include an introductory folder advising players to begin playing that adventure before they've read the rules of the game! To begin, players have only to read a four page READ-ME-FIRST! introduction to the rules, pick up the 16-page adventure booklet and begin playing! And, sure enough, the cockamamie scheme works!

Spector's final word on the game is that it "falls somewhat short of the mark," but his analysis is clear and he seems to understand that he is looking at something new here.

There are many games from the 80s that -- mechanically and tonally -- seem extremely dated by modern gaming standards. Chill -- the first Pacesetter edition -- isn't one of them. It has a kind of classic feel to it, just like all the Hammer and AIP movies it was inspired by. It isn't a dark and serious horror game, but it is an adventurous one. If you want to experience existential horror, you can do no better than Call of Cthulhu, but if you want to pretend to be Peter Cushing's Van Helsing hunting Christopher Lee's Dracula you want Chill.

A hand touched his face, but he felt no warmth of human reassurance in that other hand, no sense of comradeship against the dark foes of the night. Boulton shrank from the touch. Then scrambled back. Then shouted. For now he could see the hand, rising like a pale, icy plant, from the churning soil of a grave. -- Chill Campaign Book

B is for Boardgames

It's good to see that the board game industry has become successful enough to warrant a Mo Rocca feature for CBS News highlighting game play -- and GenCon one of America's largest Hobby Gaming conventions. In the piece, Rocca rightly points out that Eurogames like Settlers of Catan helped to revive the board game industry, but his focus misrepresents some of the industry. Many of the games featured in the piece aren't European games, though they are Euro Designer Game influence, instead there are a number of American games in the mix as well.

One does not expect Rocca to talk about how the bookshelf games of 3M -- in particular those of Sid Sackson -- went on to influence European game design and were partly responsible for a board game book in Europe that has lasted into the present. I would just have liked the piece to make these designer games seem a little less exotic. That is often what makes them so accessible to a wide audience.



Enough complaining though. I'm really happy with the piece as it shows a broad array of gamers who attended GenCon and makes the games it feature look fun...and that is the important thing from my gamevangelization standpoint. Rocca's doing a nice piece of gamevangelization here.

I hope some of my non-gamer friends saw it and will ask if they can come over to play a game of Power Grid or Settlers. I just might be able to talk them into playing a game of Mansions of Madness or Castle Ravenloft afterward, and once that happens...it's only two steps to D&D.

A is for Armor -- Simulating Armor in Role Playing Games

In the almost 40 years that role playing games have been around, a number of traditional mechanics have evolved in order to simulate how armor protects individuals in combat situations. For decades people have debated the merits of the various systems and which more realistically emulates the underlying "physics" that ought be emulated by a rules set -- the important word being "ought." The mechanical preferences of players and systems is in part due to the fact that different games not only represent different time periods, they also represent different genre that often have very different levels of lethality when it comes to the combats being simulated.

Though there are countless ways that armor can be emulated, I have found that there are four basic mechanical structures that have been used to simulate the effectiveness of armor in combat.

1) Armor Class systems. The first role playing game to utilize an Armor Class system was the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game -- the first role playing game. In a "pure" Armor Class system, the armor the character is using affects how difficult the individual character is to hit in combat. In these systems, characters in better armor are harder to hit than characters in "worse" armor. Also factored into a character's Armor Class is how agile a character is, and thus how adept they are at physically avoiding damage. The system used in Dungeons & Dragons has its roots in the combat resolution matrices used in classic wargames like Gettysburg -- the so called traditional CRT. These tables compare an offensive skill value to an opponents defensive value and provide a numerical value representing the probability of scoring damage on an opponent. Just as a tank in Panzerblitz might have a defensive value of 6, a warrior in an Armor Class system might have an Armor Class of 6.

The average damage that any character receives during any given combat round can defined by the following linear equation:

Damage = (Probability of an attack hitting)*[average weapon damage + damage bonus] + 0

2) Damage Reduction systems. For many, the abstract nature of an Armor Class system seems less than intuitive and is less than satisfactory. To some, it doesn't seem intuitive that armor "makes you harder to hit," instead in can be viewed as reducing the amount of damage that a particular attack does when it hits. The first role playing game to use a Damage Reduction system was Tunnels & Trolls -- the second role playing game published. Damage Reduction systems vary in their complexity and end results. In some systems like The Fantasy Trip or Dragonquest, armor not only reduces the amount of damage your character takes from a blow, but it might actually decrease your own combat effectiveness as the system emulates how much a bulky suit of armor might affect your own combat capabilities. In these systems, there can be certain suits of armor that render certain weapons entirely ineffective as the maximum damage they can cause is less than the Damage Reduction value of certain suits of armor. This was not the case with Tunnels & Trolls, but has been for others.

The damage that any character receives during any given combat round can defined by the following linear equation:

Damage = (Probability of an attack hitting)*[average weapon damage + damage bonus] - Damage Reduction

3) Armor Penetration systems -- A modification of Damage Reductions systems are those systems where armors have an Armor Value that must be exceeded by a roll of a weapon's Penetration die. The innovative RPG Dragon Warriors uses this system for its damage determination. In this system while the value of the protective value of the armor, and the damage rating for any weapon, is static, the chance that the armor prevents damage is a variable number. In this case, the armor doesn't prevent the character from being "hit," nor does it reduce the amount of damage done. Instead, the armor acts as a barrier that either blocks all the damage of a "hit" or none. Like the earlier Damage Reduction system, there are circumstances where a given armor might be impossible to penetrate with certain weapons.

The damage that any character receives during any given combat round can defined by the following linear equation:

Damage = ((Probability of an attack hitting)*[Probability of weapon bypassing armor's Armor Value])*[Weapon Damage].

For example, Sir Hereward has a 50% chance of hitting Ambassador Vyle with his longsword. Sir Hereward is attacking with a longsword (d8 penetration and 4 damage), and Vyle is wearing chainmail (AV = 4). Assuming that Sir Hereward has no bonus to his penetration roll from Strength or magic, his longsword would penetrate Vyle's chainmail on a roll of 5,6,7, or 8 on an eight sided die (50% of the time)his average damage to Vyle would be:

Damage = ([.5]*[.5])*[4] or an average of 1 point of damage per attempted attack. Any successful attack would automatically do 4 points of damage.

4) Combination Systems -- the majority of the remaining systems appear to be combinations of the above mechanics. The Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game uses a variation of the Armor Class system with the addition of the damage armor blocks being absorbed by the armor which can be destroyed if it takes enough damage. The GURPS game uses a Damage Reduction system that also includes a "Passive Defense" system that allows for armor to make an opponent miss outright. The Hero series of games -- because of its effects based nature -- actually uses both systems. One could represent Armor in Hero as either reducing the chance to hit, or reducing the amount of damage done -- though the system always includes some element of a Damage Reduction system. This is also true of Green Ronin's excellent Mutants & Masterminds game system (and their True 20 system as well), which uses both an Armor Class system and a Damage Reduction system and can have armor simulated either way. Games like Mayfair's sadly out of print DC Heroes role playing game have armor work in a modified Penetration system.

From the above discussion, you can see that regardless of the expressed preferences of those who use Armor Class Systems, Damage Reduction Systems, or Armor Penetration Systems, the average damage per attempted attack can be expressed in a similar linear equation for each. That equation being:

Damage = [chance of doing any damage]*[average damage] - Damage Reduction. Even D&D uses this equation, it's just that the Damage Reduction is always equal to zero. The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game did attempt to add some granularity to this linear equation through the use of a weapon vs. armor modification chart which added or subtracted from the probability to hit based on which weapon was being used against which specific armor. This system wasn't widely used for a number of reasons, not the least of which were that it was unduly complex and that it didn't include sufficient modifications for weapon use against monsters.

As an aside, one could argue that DC Heroes is one of the few games that breaks completely free of the simple linear damage equation I gave above. It still can be represented in a linear equation, but the variables are modified based on a hit and damage resolution tables that aren't purely linear in its expressions.

Which is your preferred Armor simulation system?

Are there any simulation methods I left out that you admire?

Buy Dragon Warriors Before It's Too Late

At the end of March, the Dragon Warriors role playing game license currently held by Magnum Opus Press will expire. This means that one of the best fantasy role playing games to hit the market in decades will -- temporarily at least -- be unavailable.

Dragon Warrriors is a reprinting/reworking of the classic 1980s fantasy role playing game of the same name originally published as a series of standard sized paperback rule books. James Wallis, and his crew at Magnum Opus, did a wonderful job creating an aesthetically appealing set of rule books that contained easy to read text and presented robust game mechanics. The game was originally written by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson, and some of the products feature work by the famous Undercover Economist Tim Harford, in an attempt to better capture the feel of Sword & Sorcery tales in a role playing system.

The game features an interesting setting and some of the best adventures written for any role playing game.

You can currently -- through tomorrow -- buy the printed rule books from Mongoose Publishing and the pdf versions at RPG Now. The rights will be returning to the Morris and Johnson, which is a good thing, but there are no immediate plans for a republication of the game. Morris and Johnson are currently promoting products related to Morris' -- also highly recommended -- Fabled Lands line of products. Sadly, Dragon Warriors has been overlooked by the larger fantasy role playing game community who have possibly been spending so much time with edition wars -- and have been missing out on some gems because of it.

Morris and Johnson are talented game designers and storytellers, and James Wallis has yet to make a bad product. Do your self a favor and pick these up now.

Atari's Warlords -- Then and Now

This summer Atari will be releasing a new version of the classic Arcade/Atari 2600 "Pong variant" game Warlords -- a game that was programmed for the Atari 2600 by Carla Meninsky who was one of the few women game designers of the era. The game is an example of Atari's ability to build upon the game play of prior designs and how one's perception of a game can be changed merely through the application of thematic elements.

If one were presented the graphics of the original game without the introduction of thematic/narrative elements, one might enjoy the game purely for its play but one would likely have very little emotional stake invested in success. By adding the narrative them of competing warlords destroying each others' castles, it provides the player with emotional stakes in succeeding and allows the player to project themselves into the role of a character. It also makes the player think about the computer opponents as if they have personalities. Listen to the voice over in the video describing how to succeed at Warlords, the reviewer discusses the computer opponents as if they were real opponents based on their AI behavior. This is only really possible due to the background and art provided in the instruction manual. Given the limited graphics capabilities of early Atari games, the packaging and instructions were often as important as the video game's visuals.

Now take a look at the modern variation of the game. While the inter-cutting of game play and interstitial makes it difficult to get a firm grip of game play at first, one can readily see that this is essentially a prettied up version of the original game -- with the addition that the number of players is variable. One also sees how advances in the graphics capabilities of games has added the ability to show players what they could only imagine in the past. The "floating warlord shield" of the original is purely abstract, while the newer shield is literally a shield attached to the walls of the fortress.

There is much to be said about the aesthetic appeal of the graphics for the upcoming game, they look humorous and fun, but there is also something lacking. The original graphics, while primitive from an artistic point of view, had a clean presentation that allowed for non-distracted game play. You don't have a lot of surplus imagery distracting you from the task at hand. Your mind is still imagining all of the chaos of war between you and your fellow warlords, but you don't have the very real visual distraction.

It is interesting how often modern games can forget that sometimes simpler is better and that we don't need HD cartoons for every game we play. Games like Uncharted and Assassin's Creed use increased graphics capabilities to create interactive movie experiences, and they are wonderful, but there are other kinds of playing experience that are equally fun. The new Warlords looks fun, but it also makes me long for the original. Much in the same way that modern Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games make me appreciate the Table Top Role Playing Game experience.

Do We Really Need Airships in Our Three Musketeers?

Today I asked my inner 12 year old the following question, "We aren't really so jaded that we need Eberron-esque Airship/Zeppelins and Clockwork Assassination Weapons in our Swashbuckling Adventures...are we?"

He responded, "No, but c'mon! How awesome is that?!"

I had to concede that the Micheal York, Oliver Reed, Christopher Lee, Richard Chamberlain film almost perfectly captured the spirit of the books -- save for a few moments of slapstick -- and that Airships are indeed awesome.

Sucker Punch: Just What is Going on Here?

Many of the reviews for Sucker Punch have been scathing in their disgust for Zack Snyder's film. High on the list of many of the reviewers complaints is how the film promises to be a violent "sexploitation" film, and fails to deliver. Many of these critics accuse Snyder of presenting the audience with "near-rape fantasies and violent revenge scenarios disguised as a female-empowerment fairy tale wasn’t going to satisfy anyone but himself" or similar accusations. In a way, it is as if these critics' expectations have been "sucker punched" by what they witnessed in the theater. They expected a high concept tale of "kick ass chicks" killing Samurai, steam powered Nazi zombies, Orcs, Robots, and Dragons. They expected Buffy/Nikita/Project A-ko/Blood: The Last Vampire meets Gundam/Castle Falkenstein.

That isn't what they got, and it isn't what you should expect should you choose to go to watch this film. The movie is visually stunning, but it shares more with Scorsese's Shutter Island and del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth than it does with the expectations its advertisements create. It is a film of sorrow, hopelessness, loss, despair and the role that fantasy plays in dealing with these powerful emotions. The movie's tagline is "you will be unprepared" and I have never read a more apropos movie tagline. Most people think a tagline like that hints at a narrative twist in the movie, and there is one, but in this case the tagline is telling the viewer that the film's trailer isn't truly preparing the viewer for the experience.

So...if Sucker Punch isn't a high concept kick ass chick movie, and is instead a film of despair and fantasy, just what is going on here?


Sucker Punch is quite brave. In a world where critics, continually complain that no one is making "original" films. Snyder did exactly that with Sucker Punch. It is wholly his own creation, even with its obvious inspirations.

The film transitions between "dream" sequences and "reality" in a way that is unnerving and odd, but when one sees the end of the film one realizes that one watched something they didn't come in to see. The film has voice over bookends that tell viewers that angels watch over us and can be found even in the most horrific of places, and that these angels don't fight for us rather they inspire us to be able to fight even in hopeless situations. Given that despair can be viewed as the gravest of all sins, it seems justifiable that the role of angels would be to encourage us to fight rather than despair.

Sucker Punch opens with the death of "Baby Doll's" mother, an event that leaves "Baby Doll" and her sister in the care of their sinister step-father. This step-father finds out that his wife has left her not insubstantial wealth to her two daughters. The step-father responds to this news with rage and decides to take control of that wealth by physically, psychologically, and sexually abusing the girls into submission. "Baby Doll" responds by breaking out of her room, finding a gun, and arriving in time to prevent her sister from being abused. She shoots at the step-father...misses...and kills her sister by accident. She is quickly institutionalized in an asylum, where the father bribes an orderly to arrange a lobotomy for the girl. The psychiatrist who runs the asylum doesn't support the use of lobotomies, but in five days someone who does perform them will be at the asylum and the orderly will forge the psychiatrist's signature and arrange for the deal to be done.

Though Snyder spends an entire act developing this backstory, it is possible "Baby Doll" is not the "protagonist" of the film -- if the film's one twist is to be believed. I say "if the one twist is to be believed" because one could argue whether the film's "angels can be anywhere" message is the real message or whether the film is all a fantasy world created after after the lobotomy takes place.

There is something in this film, it is as brave as "Pan's Labyrinth" and shares many of the same themes, but Sucker Punch is not as good as del Toro's masterpiece.

Sucker Punch is a weird piece, and the more I contemplate the film the more I come to think that it is a strongly tragic piece. The more I analyze the structure of the film, and visual clues, the more I believe that any vengeance fantasy aspect of the film is exactly that...fantasy.

It's funny. In Pan's Labyrinth, I chose to accept the fantasy ending at the end as reality. I wanted so badly for the girl to be safe and to have succeeded in her tasks. In Sucker Punch, it doesn't matter whether the fantasy is the reality or mere fantasy, because the girl is "safe" either way.

The message is very much the same as Shutter Island. In Shutter Island a the protagonist has to deal with the twin horrors that his wife murdered his children and that her murdered her for it. He creates a fantasy world to deal with these tragedies. In the end, he despairs choosing to be lobotomized instead of facing cold reality. He asks the question, "would you rather live life a monster, or "die" a hero?" Sucker Punch asks the same question. "Baby Doll" killed her sister while trying to save her. She doesn't want this memory. She would rather be a savior that helps someone else escape a horrible situation. She has five days to do this very task and the film is about that journey...or is it?

It is possible that the film could have better met Snyder's honest intentions if it had been rated R, but I wonder if it would have reached the audience that should be watching this film.

There's something tragically humanist about this film that I think needs discussing. There is something there. I don't know that Snyder quite captured it, but I do know that one could have some genuinely interesting discussions about this picture akin to discussions I have had after Shutter Island.

It's a strange film that needs the idyllic fantasy segments to work, and I don't think the film would be better if the audience where shown Baby Doll's dances -- these dances seem to be the obsession of many critics. This is because the dances are only happening in one of the fantasy layers of the film. We never see the actual dancing because there aren't really any dances to see in the first place.

Snyder has layered his fantasy world in the following way:

Act 1 takes place in the real world and presents the back story that shows viewers why "Baby Doll" has been institutionalized, establishes the hopelessness of the asylum, and introduces the other characters in the film -- the orderly, the doctor, and the fellow inmates. This act ends just as a doctor is about to perform a lobotomy on "Baby Doll."

The baseline "reality" of acts 2 - 4 take place in "The Club," a combination burlesque and brothel run by the orderly, where the girls are all prostitutes and dancers. This is where "Baby Doll" works with the other dancers to create an escape plan, and this is where "Baby Doll" dances

Every time "Baby Doll" dances in acts 2 -4, the viewer is transported into "The Dream within the Dance." This is the world of the visually fantastic sequences we have all seen in the previews. This is also where "Baby Doll" meets Scott Glenn who, in a nod to his role in The Challenge, provides "Baby Doll" with weapons and tells her she needs to fight to survive. Glenn is the first glimpse of a possible angel we receive in the film, and he is introduced in a dream within a dream.

The final act of the film "returns" us to "reality." Return and reality are in quotes because this reality may or may be nothing more than the inner thoughts of a lobotomized mind. What happens in act 5 is entirely dependent on how you choose to read of the film.

I'd like to reiterate that acts 2 - 4 alternate between "The Club" and "The Dream within the Dance" depending on what is happening at that moment. The dances are used to signify when we are transitioning from one fantasy world to the next. All dances happen at the level of "The Club" and at no time does "Baby Doll" dance in the real world. The only reality we can be certain of is that "Baby Doll" is institutionalized, that she sees a possible way to escape, she attends therapy sessions, and then she ends up in a chair about to be lobotomized. What happens after that is up to interpretation.

My interpretation is a tragic one. In my view the final act is entirely fantasy because of the use of the word Paradise and the appearance of Scott Glenn in the act. This interpretation makes the film a tragedy that, far from being exploitative of young women, shows us how the power of the human mind to create fantasy can help us deal with the greatest horrors. The fantasy world is preferable to the real world, it is a better world, it is a world where we can fight for the survival of others and succeed.

Snyder should be admired for his effort and I think this will be a film that will be watched for stylistic and visual skills for years to come. I had fun during parts of Sucker Punch, but other times I felt distinctly uncomfortable. Snyder took me far out of my comfort zone by luring me in with one kind of tale and giving me another. I expected an action fantasy and received Shutter Island. I had expected a "kick ass chick" movie, but instead got a deconstruction of the genre. I found the film to be disturbing and thought provoking, a feeling very similar to how I felt after my first viewing of The Straw Dogs.

Over the course of his career so far, I have found Snyder to be a brave and wonderful film maker. He has made everything from 300 to Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole without the slightest sense of irony.

It's Official! Steve Jackson Games to Release Ogre 6th Edition This Year!

Every gamer has a game, or 12, for which he or she feels a certain nostalgia. These games have likely been out of print for some time and may not have the market cache to justify a new release. The nostalgic gamer wishes that the publisher would release a version that "gets it all right," but understands that game publishers must make profits in order to continue and thus these wonderful -- but niche -- games get left behind. It should be noted that many of these now niche games were once huge successes that launched vibrant companies -- Gettysburg, Broadsides & Boarding Parties, The Fantasy Trip, and Ogre are fine examples of this phenomenon.

And at the top of that list -- for me -- lies Ogre. The game was released in 1977 and sold a very reasonable 8000 copies at he extremely reasonable price of $2.95. The game has gone on to sell well over 100,000 copies in various editions -- with continually higher quality components and prices scaled to match the increase in component quality. My favorite two editions of the game are the Deluxe Ogre edition printed in 1987 -- a 10,000 game print run -- which featured a traditional hard mounted map and large easy to read/play with counters and the 2000 combined Ogre/GEV which included these two fantastic games in a sturdy VHS like case. These were the game at its non-miniature aesthetic pinnacle.

Ogre's game play is simple and fun. It was the game that introduced me to the Wargaming hobby with its tiny chits and arcane rules formulations (e.g. rule 1.1.9 "Set Up") and showed me that abstract images on small pieces of cardboard could represent epic struggles against extreme odds.

Earlier this Month, Steve Jackson announced that a 6th edition of the game would be released this year -- even though market forces don't demand it -- and that the edition would be the game that players always dreamed of playing. Steve Jackson promises this new edition will include well designed counters and constructable Ogre miniatures. To quote the man himself:

Why? Because I want to. Ogre was my first design, and the boardgame version hasn’t been available for years. And people keep asking me for it. So some of our Munchkin money is going back to support the people who bought my very first game, by bringing them an edition with the best possible components.

It won’t be “Euro” style. No meeples, no plastic. This will be the kind of hex wargame that we dreamed about 30 years ago, back when our heroes were SPI and Avalon Hill. HUGE double-sided map boards. HUGE full-color counters with HUGE type. A HUGE box to hold them in. And giant constructible Ogres!

The first images of the prototypes were very impressive, but looking at the sales package that SJG put together for the GAMA Trade show are mind-blowing to me.

The unit counters are intuitive and elegant in their design.

But the Ogres...oh, the Ogres...

They are beautiful.

I must have this game!

Captain America: First Avenger...In Context

There are going to be those in the interwebs who watch the preview below with something less than excitement. They will bemoan how cheezy the special effects and the lighting look, or complain that Chris Evans isn't right for the part. They are wrong on all counts, and they likely need to be reminded of the history of the Captain America franchise when it comes to visual entertainment.

Take a few seconds to watch the most recent preview.



Now...compare this to moments from the 1990 Columbia Tri-Star production.



And...the 1979 television movie.


Captain America (1979) - Opening by Internapse

Given the history of the franchise, the new version looks like it was crafted by the hand of God. My inner child, my nostalgic gen-Xer subconscious, and my hyper critical comic geek super-ego are all in agreement. We will love the new movie, because it will be the best Captain America film produced to date.

Coming Soon -- Villains and Vigilantes Customizable Card Game

Superhuman Games will be releasing the Villains and Vigilantes Card Game this summer -- likely coinciding with the convention season. Superhuman Games entered into a licensing agreement with Monkey House Games to use the iconic cast of characters from Jeff Dee and Jack Herman's classic super hero role playing game. Superhuman games claims that the game will feature "the full comic book experience" in game play.

Based on the description of their market plan, Superhuman Games will be following the example of Fantasy Flight Games and offering the game as a customizable and "living" card game that features regular updates which allow players to create new decks with new strategies.

It's an intriguing concept. V&V has a rich catalog of characters to draw from, and the role playing game is gaining popularity since it was re-released in the past year.

My only concern is with the art work. In the modern card game marketplace, consumers will punish artwork that they deal to be amateurish. Dee's artwork has a nice cartoony style, and if they are able to replicate that then they will be able to appeal to the core fanbase. The company is looking for artists, let's hope they connect with the right ones. Companies like Fantasy Flight are successful partly because of the depth of their artist bullpen and the strength of their graphic designers.