[Book Review] GIANT THIEF -- Where's the Likeable Rogue?

Easie Demasco is a character with whom I am conflicted. On the one hand, he is a witty character who has a well developed sense of humor. One the other hand, he's a jerk -- one who never really becomes more than a jerk. He's also the strongest and most compelling feature of David Tallerman's novel GIANT THIEF (published by Angry Robot Books).

GIANT THIEF is a fairly straight forward tale of:

1) Thief acquires MacGuffin not understanding it's value.
2) Thief meets people who understand value of MacGuffin and seek to use thief in battle against evil.
3) Well...you kind of know the rest.

Often these tales include a heroic journey or follow a bildungsroman format in which our Thief undergoes some major transformation or grows in some way -- usually evolving morally. Not so with GIANT THIEF.   Easie begins the story as a selfish and greedy rogue, and he ends the story as a selfish and greedy rogue with more grandiose plans than before.

Technically,  that does count as some kind of character development, but it lacks the moral evolution that often occurs in these tales.  Easie goes from a petty thief to an individual who seeks to become a master thief. He goes from pick pocket to one who wants to become a Thomas Crown-esque figure, but he lacks the sophisticated charm of a Thomas Crown and has instead a clownish sense of humor.  If one were to cast Easie for a film, one would look more to comedic talent than to cool sexuality.  He's more Daffy Duck than Han Solo.

There are quite a few clumsy moments in the book and the chapters establish and follow a  predictable rhythm. One is tempted to say that the book is one that isn't to be recommended based on these flaws, as they are often fatal to good storytelling. And yet...

I keep finding myself wanting to throttle Easie Damasco, or watch him get caned, or at least have a long talk with him to wake him up and set him on a more moral path. I keep finding myself imagining conversations with him.

All of which means that Tallerman has achieved something that is often rare within a novel, he's created a realistic character who lingers in ones mind weeks after a book has been read. That is a good thing indeed. If only Easie were more likeable. He's a rogue and a scoundrel...and that's it. He's not loveable. He's not nice. He doesn't harbor a hidden heroic heart. But he is interesting and I want to know more about him

[Gaming Notes -- Contains a minor Spoiler]

The book's MacGuffin and interpretation of Giants are perfectly suited for adaptation to the gaming table.  The MacGuffin is a non-magical stone sacred to the Giants that signifies who is the Giant's chief.  In Giant society the orders of the chief must be followed without question, even if they violate the morality of the tribe members.  The Giants in this case are gentle pacifist vegetarians, but they are asked to do some terrible things.  All of which could make for a compelling and morally complex D&D adventure.

You can play with PC preconceptions regarding Giants and slowly introduce them to the moral complexity of the situation.  How many Giants will the players defeat, or even kill, before they discover the secret of the stone?  How will they feel about their actions later.

These are good questions, that can make for a rewarding adventure as well.

[Gaming Library] Aaron Allston's STRIKE FORCE: A Must Own GM Resource

At the Origins convention in 1981 Hero Games released what would become one of the best selling super hero role playing games of all time, a game that is still around and which has served as the IP behind a  computer MMORPG.  That game is CHAMPIONSand it is one of the great games that the hobby has produced. 

CHAMPIONS has a large and active fan base, though it does seem to have dwindled a little between the 5th and 6th edition of the rules.  That dwindling may soon find itself reversed with the recent release of CHAMPIONS: LIVE ACTION and upcoming release of CHAMPIONS COMPLETE.  I've been of the opinion the past couple of editions of CHAMPIONS and the HERO rules have become a little bloated, and it seems that the designers behind CHAMPIONS COMPLETE agree as their upcoming rulebook is only 240 pages in total.  While much can be, and has been, written about the CHAMPIONS game, there is one supplement for the game that transcends the game itself and is one of the best "how to run a campaign" supplements ever produced...for any game system.

When CHAMPIONS was released in 1981, Aaron Allston worked for The Space Gamer magazine which was then a publication of Steve Jackson Games.  Steve Jackson returned from the Origins convention with news of the game and asked Aaron to review the game for the magazine.  Aaron did so and his positive review appears in issue 43 of The Space Gamer.  This article was quickly followed by a "proto-Strike Force" article entitled "Look Up in the sky..." in issue 48. 

In the article in issue 48, Allston describes how he came to be a CHAMPIONS player and game master -- he would later become one of its premiere contributors.

The superhero campaign of CHAMPIONS which I run, which is successful enough that it's been thrown out of TSG playtest sessions (it was crowding out all the other games), began as an irritation. Steve Jackson came back from Origins with the news that some new company in California had nabbed the name CHAMPIONS; I'd hoped to use CHAMPIONS on a personal game project.  I could review the Hero Games offering if I wished.  Wonderful.

 Looking over the rulebook, though, I was impressed.  The game appeared clear and coherent after a single read-through and seemed to faithfully simulated the four-color stuff of comic books.  Extensive solo playtesting ensured almost immediately, with the heroic Lightbearers waging a running war with the criminal mastermind Overlord.

In the end, Overlord's munitions-running scheme was wrecked; the Lightbearers disbanded, with one member dead and two others unwillingly allied with the villain; and I had chosen to run CHAMPIONS on a regular basis.

 There is a good deal more to the article in which Allston shares with potential players and game masters some guidelines and some pratfalls that might happen as one plays a super hero campaign.  How does one exactly acquire a super hero secret headquarters anyway?  One can see the foundations for the book STRIKE FORCE in the article, and Allston provides a nice glimpse into what can contribute to the running of a successful game.  As good as the article is, it pales in comparison to the CHAMPIONS sourcebook that Allston wrote based upon that early -- initially merely a playtest -- campaign.

Aaron Allston's STRIKE FORCE is one of the better campaign sourcebooks ever written.  It has a very simple arrangement.  It begins with a section on campaign use.  This section is not a how to plot an adventure section, as by 3rd edition CHAMPIONS had a pretty good chapter on that, rather it was advice for dealing with very specific problems.  This chapter covers the following:

• The "Character Story" -- discusses how to help players develop the character stories that they dreamed up when they initially created the character.
• Simulating the Comics -- discussed how to keep the players behaving in a four-color fashion.
• The New Player
• Aging the Hunteds -- How to make "Hunted" behave like real world constant interactions rather than as a mere random roll done each week.
• Listening to Your Players
• Ground Rules
• Translation Follies
• Types of CHAMPIONS Players -- The Builder, The Buddy, The Combat Monster, The Genre Fiend, The Copier, The Mad Slasher, The Mad Thinker, The Plumber, The Pro from Dover, The Romantic, The Rules Rapist, The Showoff, and The Tragedian.
• Character Conception Checklist
• How to Ruin Your Campaign

If Allston had written no other sections than the "types of players" and "how to ruin your campaign" sections of the sourcebook, this would be an invaluable resource.  Allston's breakdown of player types builds upon some of the discussions which had been going on in Different Worlds magazine and other places in the game-verse, but his clear description of the varied motivations of players is spot on and extremely useful.  Between STRIKE FORCE and Robin Law's book on Game Mastering Rules, you have almost everything you need to run any game successfully...if you follow the advice that is.

In addition to the overview on Campaign advice -- generic campaign advice -- Allston then continues providing an invaluable tool by giving us a look into his own campaign in the subsequent chapters of the book.  We are given an "Abbreviated History" of the STRIKE FORCE campaign, which can be used as an example or as an outline for one's own campaign.  He provides the full roll call of the STRIKE FORCE and SHADOW WARRIORS teams as well as Independent heroes and a number of Villains from the campaign.  This is followed by a detailed history of the campaign -- both his real world work and the in game history.  In the history, Allston shares some of the storytelling challenges he faced and how he overcame them in play.

If you can find a copy of the book, I highly recommend it.

Being a Parent Can Be Heartbreaking

Last night I spent a wonderful evening with my lovely 4 year old daughters History and Mystery.  They had spent part of the day coloring with Jody and had shifted from one creative activity to another, namely dancing.  Both of the girls had turned on their electric keyboards to play pre-recorded songs, neither in sync with the other, and had begun dancing with the free and unselfconscious joy that only young children can truly manage.

It was a beautiful scene to watch, and was one of those glowing moments when as a parent you feel on top of the world.  That natural high was about to take a severe drop...as you might have guessed from the title of the post.

As happens every night, and too quickly every night, the clock ticked past seven and thus initiated parenting subroutine 8.(e).D.7.1.(m).3.  That's right, it was bedtime.  It was time to take a quick bath, brush teeth, read stories, and sing a bed time song.  None of this was out of the ordinary.  There was also what appeared to be the typical groaning about how either History or Mystery had yet to finish some entertaining task, which usually amounts to "but Dad...Ironman needs to go defend the castle" or some similar activity.  This evening though, History was upset that she hadn't been able to finish coloring the pictures she had been working on earlier in the day.  Jody and I assured her that there would be plenty of time to color them tomorrow, maybe even when mom was working on some drawings of her own.

That's when it happened.  Mystery looked right at Jody and then at me and asked, "Why am I not an artist like mom?  I want to be an artist like mom."  I immediately felt as if, Mola Ram had reached into my chest, pulled out my heart, and left it burning in his hands laughing maniacally.  I was stunned for a moment as I tried to find a way to tell a 4 year old that:

1) Yes you can be an artist like mom.  You can be anything you want to be.
2) That some things take time to learn, and show her how she was more comfortable drawing and coloring now than she was a year ago.
        a) I'm not one to tell History or Mystery that they are now "better" at a task like drawing and       
            coloring at an age when they should be experimenting and feeling free. 

The books on parenting provide wonderful advice, but they don't do anything for the sinking feeling one feels in ones chest when a child expresses disillusionment at a perceived limitation.

Ugh.

Cubicle 7's Yggdrasill -- Gaming in the Norse Epics

As a fantasy fan and a gaming fan, I am always on the lookout for fresh ideas in both areas.  It never ceases to amaze me how often the freshest ideas come from looking back and returning to "primary sources" instead of using only the most recent works for inspiration.  For example, I have found reading the "The Bonestealer's Mirror" by John C. Hocking in a recent issue of Black Gate Magazine to be far more entertaining Sword and Sorcery fare than the staid stacks of post-Conan "Thud and Blunder."  This kind of looking back is why I find the stories of C.L. Moore or Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions (even with its total cop out of an ending) so refreshing while I find a good deal of modern fantasy to be played out.

This isn't to say that "older is always better," far from it.  It is only to say that when writing in a tradition, it is often useful to go back to a font closer to the origin as the water of ideas there is often cleaner and has more room for the writer to invent new ideas.  It is easier to adapt Beowulf into a Western than it is to do the same to The 13th Warrior for example -- due to the added commentary that 13th Warrior is making regarding the time in which the story takes place.

It is often said that the fantasy role playing of role playing games is Tolkienesque, that all fantasy rpg campaigns are to some degree adaptations of The Lord of the Rings.  There is some truth to the statement, though plenty of exceptions, as most fantasy rpgs have their elves, dwarves, and halflings.  They have their Rangers and their Thieves.  They have their dragons and magical rings.  At least enough of them do that the argument isn't entirely an insane one to make.  It also means that many games that could otherwise be great -- due to interesting mechanics -- fail to succeed and become Fantasy Heartbreakers.  Fantasy Heartbreaker is too often a term used with derision, and it oughtn't be.  Fantasy Heartbreakers are "heartbreaking" after all, they are the underdogs that we root for that ultimately failed in their goals.  Too often those goals were to incrementally improve on the existing state of gaming, too often they are just making a "better version of game x that came out last year."  They have too often forgotten the truism that I began this post with, "often the freshest ideas come from looking back and returning to "primary sources" instead of using only the most recent works for inspiration."

Cubicle 7's Yggdrasill does what these other works often fail to do, it reaches back into the annals, into the very things that inspired Tolkien himself, to create a rich milieu for fantasy role playing.  To say that Yggdrasill is a beautiful product is an understatement.  Like Cubicle 7's excellent Tolkien licensed rpg The One Ring, the graphic components of the game are top notch.  So too is the writing, the translation, and the structure of the book.  The game knows where to begin.  If you want to create a game about the world of the Sagas, then you had better set the tone quickly, and this game certainly does that.  It begins with an original piece of fiction, and follows with numerous quotations from the Völuspa.  The game captures the feel of its setting very well.  By looking to back to the Eddas, the game has created a rich milieu for storytelling and game play. 

As for the rules themselves, they are simple to explain and easy to understand.  They are also informed by a couple of different eras of gaming -- they seem to have a touch of Greg Gorden-esque (Deadlands, DC Heroes, James Bond 007, and others) elegance to them.  How much?  I cannot say yet, I want to see these rules in action.  One can review the physical and narrative quality of a game merely by reading it, but one can only truly review the rules after extensive play.  I will say this for Yggdrasill, it makes me want to play it and the information on the world is enough that even if the rules fail the book itself is still an asset.

History, Mystery, Orcus, and Cthulhu Greeting Cards

Today has been a crazy day, but from the moment it began I knew that it was the day that I would have to launch my new Kickstarter project even though I haven't finished editing the pitch video.  Don't worry, I will finish that soon and I'll be adding a couple of rewards.

I knew I had to launch the project when my daughter Mystery who was cheerfully playing with one of my Balor D&D pre-painted miniatures ran over to the shelf where my limited edition D&D mini Orcus was lying and brought him to the breakfast table to "play with his friend."  I don't know exactly what kind of games that Orcus and his pal "little Balor" play together, but I do know they include Aurora from Sleeping Beauty and Silvermist from the Tinkerbell series among their closest friends an playmates.

Who knew that Aurora and Silvermist went for the "bad boy" type. Watch out Prince Phillip.

It was the perfect combination of cute and terrifying and I took that as the sign that the time was right.

You see, I've been planning to release a Cthulhu Claus Holiday Card project for some time now as one of the offerings of the business my friends Wes and Joel formed with me last year.  Our goal is to create a number of gaming and gaming related products with an overarching aim of building community and expanding the scope of the hobby.  I think that the Cthulhu Claus Holiday Card project fits that mold perfectly.

I hope that its mix of Lovecraftian imagery adapted by the humorous hand of my wife Jody Lindke -- the first woman to win the prestigious Charles Schulz Cartooning Award -- with the spirit of the Holiday Season will make a great gift for gamers and for non-gamer pulp fans alike.  Ever since I first saw "All I want for Solstice is my Sanity" video and read through Tor's December belongs to Lovecraft blog entries, I've wanted to do a Lovecraft themed Christmas product.  The only thing I lacked was the funds to launch such a project, and now with Kickstarter I have that opportunity.

Of course, that also means that the success or failure of this project is up to you.  If you want this product, please back my project.  I promise that there will be more rewards coming -- original artwork anyone? -- and that we will have stretch goals.  Help me make this happen.

Jackie Chan + Street Luge Suit + 101st Film = Win?

It looks like Jackie Chan's 101st film CHINESE ZODIAC is a return to classic Chan-esque action.  The trailer from the film features Jackie Chan performing a series of stunts wearing what can only be called a Street Luge Suit.  While the concept is interesting, and hearkens back to JC classics like ARMOR OF GOD, Chan does seem to be showing his age in the sequence.  I'm excited to see the film, but I think I'll be spending more time than usual worrying if Jackie Chan is going to be seriously injured than I did when he was younger.  Given that he fractured his skull in ARMOR OF GOD, maybe I should have worried more then too.

Reason I Love LA #3,227 -- The San Gabriel Valley

Among the things I do in my day job as a non-profit director, I work with students at 8 high schools in the San Gabriel Valley who participate in civic engagement clubs on their respective high school campuses.  To coordinate activities between the various clubs, we have executive board meetings with leaders from each school every other week.  These often take place at one of the wonderful restaurants in the SGV.

I came across this video the other day and it captured a couple of things I love about working with these kids.

1) Their sense of humor.
2) The many interesting restaurants where we have held meetings at, like Cha Cafe. (Yes those are Chorizo Wontons on their menu).

Skip past the initial skit and enjoy the catchy tune and look out for a lot of restaurants worth visiting.  Oh...and some of the high schools that the student I work with attend are featured as well.

A New Fanlema -- STAR WARS DETOURS

Like the crew over at Tor books, I'm of two minds regarding the new Seth Green (and the Robot Chicken Crew) animated series STAR WARS DETOURS.  Basing my opinion solely on the trailer below, this show is either a humorous tangent from regular STAR WARS that I can share with History and Mystery or it will be yet another disappointing attempt at humor related to a franchise I have adored since childhood.

The people working on the project give one hope that the cartoons will be funny and entertaining.  Green, Matt Senreich, and Todd Grimes have a good track record, but I keep getting this nagging feeling that comedians who work well together when "edgy" might not quite click when doing more "kiddie" fare.  Just watching the preview, I have noticed quite a few pop culture references that are supposed to have comedic impact.  Most of them will have either History or Mystery turning to a chuckling father and asking questions like, "Dad...why are you laughing?  Is it funny that Han Solo put on a hat?  Are hats funny?"

We are currently in a golden age of entertainment for kids my daughters' age -- they are both 4 btw -- and this might be a great addition to a long list of great shows.  A long list that includes DOC MCSTUFFINS, GRAVITY FALLS, PHINEAS AND FERB, IRON MAN: ARMORED ADVENTURES, AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES, SUPER HERO SQUAD, and MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC to name but a few.  To pull two of the shows out for special consideration GRAVITY FALLS and MY LITTLE PONY manage to insert pop culture references for the adults while crafting interesting and entertaining narratives for kids, but STAR WARS: DETOURS seems -- once again just based on the preview -- that it will be closer in tone to SUPER HERO SQUAD.  This isn't a bad thing as the twins enjoy SHS, but what really gets them excited is EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES.  They like the real drama and real emotion of that show.

When I examine why I feel any trepidation to this show at all, it seems to stem from something hinted at in that last sentence.  I'm torn between whether I think the next STAR WARS project should be comedic or serious, and I think I might be leaning toward serious.  Though I am always ready for well done humor, and adore shows I can watch with my twins...

You see the fanlema I'm facing?

THE AVENGERS (1952) -- Pre-Make Trailer

I've been a fan of the "Premake" series of You Tube videos for some time.  They display a nice combination of deep knowledge of older pop culture with a genuine desire to show that awesomeness to a younger generation of viewers.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of watching old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials at my Oma and Opa's house on the weekends.  My Opa loved these old serials and he instilled in me nostalgia for stories that had been filmed before my parents had been born.  I still love these tales, and they have shaped the types of genre fiction I still enjoy today.  I blame these old serials for my seeking out of Edgar Rice Burroughs and that led to a discovery of Leigh Brackett, and the rest is as they say "history."

I cannot wait to share the old serials with my lovely twin daughters History and Mystery.  They already love super heroes and Star Wars -- even if they think that Yoda is Darth Vader's personal Goblin.  It won't be long before they are watching Buck, Flash, and Emma Peel.  Speaking of Emma, I hope that I can give my daughters enough knowledge of the show THE AVENGERS that they will appreciate how awesome a Diana Rigg version of Black Widow would have been.

For your viewing pleasure...THE AVENGERS 1952.

D&D Keynote -- A Focus on Vision Rather than Hype

In prior years, the Gen Con presentations by Wizards of the Coast have focused on selling consumers on an upcoming product. The staff of wizards would present the upcoming year's product line up, or try to sell the audience that the latest edition or product line was the best invention since the dawn of role playing. This tendency hit its peak with the launch of 4th Edition in 2008. The prior year's presentation was filled with advertising buzzwords and alienated some gamers.

This year, Wizards of the Coast decided to try an entirely different tactic. They still provided presentations about product lines that gave gamers a look at what was coming out in the near future, but they also sponsored their first Keynote Address. During the address, Wizards of the Coast CEO Greg Leeds discussed the company's vision as it faced the challenge of providing consumers with "D&D Next." That vision was to ensure that Wizards worked with the most talented designers possible, and to make sure that the D&D brand was controlled by the most important individuals. Who are the most important individuals to D&D and the brand? The fans. The vision of D&D Next and the Future of D&D is to let the fans make D&D the game they want it to be.

Leeds' comments were brief and to the point.  He wasn't selling a line of products or attempting to build hype for D&D Next.  In fact, his portion of the presentation was very low key.  He was focusing on the vision of the "Future of D&D."

After his initial presentation, Kevin Kulp of EN World came onto the stage to talk with three people heavily involved with the production of what will be the next edition of D&D, an edition that according to Mike Mearls still faces 2 years of playtesting.  Mike Mearls -- the head of the design team -- was joined by Ed Greenwood and Jon Schindehette who are involved with the creative side of the development of the next edition of the game.  Ed is working on the literary elements and Jon on the visual elements, and both are working with the design team to ensure that the next edition will work for a broader number of fans than the last edition.

As can be discerned from the above commentary, the focus of Wizards' vision is on fan involvement.  This includes more than having the fans participate in a two and a half year open playtest, it also involves letting the fans influence the direction that future content evolves.

Mearls described D&D as "more than a game, it is a shared experience.  It is about drama, the table, the thrill of victory, and the agony of a natural one."  He also stressed that the point of D&D is the people, the DM and the Players.  D&D -- at least in earlier editions -- is the one game where the rulebook tells you to break the rules.  D&D Next will be about putting the rules behind us and letting the players tell the stories they want to tell.

As an example, the Forgotten Realms will be the first setting released for the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons and like in previous edition changes there will be a major event that shakes the world -- an event called "The Sundering."

The highlight of the event will be a series of six books by many of the big Realms authors:

R.A. Salvatore will write the first book in the series, THE COMPANIONS
Paul Kemp will write THE GODBORN
Erin M. Evans writes THE ADVERSARY
Richard Lee Byers writes THE REAVER
Troy Denning writes THE SENTINEL
Ed Greenwood writes THE HERALD

These books will give points of view of the events that make up "The Sundering," but unlike in  previous editions, the players and the results of the adventures they play in the Realms will now shape the future of the setting.

You read that correctly, no longer will the "Giants of the Realms" like Elminster, Drizzt, Khelben Blackstaff be the ones who shape the world.  Instead the campaigns that people play in -- at least those who use published adventures -- will shape the future of the official world.  Let's hope that Wizards is able to use the skills they gained from the old Living City experience, as well as by watching the development of Legend of the Five Rings, to make this work fluidly.

Additionally, and most excitingly, Wizards will be rolling out their full back catalog of D&D products in digital form.  Starting early next year, Wizards will release the first wave of digital products.  They are using the lessons they learned from producing the collector's editions of the AD&D books to inform the production of these digital offerings.  Good news indeed, as the old scans often seemed rushed.  Wizards won't release all the products in one lump sum, rather they will release them in waves.  This ensures quality and means that Wizards will officially be supporting all editions of D&D.  They will truly be supporting all fans, even those who won't play D&D Next.

I for one am excited about the "Future of D&D."

Gen Con:The Finest Four Days in Gaming Have Begun

Gen Con, one of the longest running hobby gaming conventions, celebrates its 45th anniversary this year and continues to provide its trademarked BEST FOUR DAYS IN GAMING.  The event opened to the public yesterday August 16 and will continue through Sunday, August 19.

If you've never been to Gen Con, it might surprise you to find out that it is as much a collection of creative workshops as it is a fan convention.  This stems from the fact that Gen Con has been deeply involved with the role playing game hobby since the very beginnings of role playing as a hobby, and as James Wallis wrote quoting the now famous game designer Greg Costikyan in Interactive Fantasy (IF) issue #2 back in 1994,  "gaming is a democratic form of entertainment, placing the audience and the creator on more or less equal footing."  This is true of most gaming, but it is especially true of role playing games where an expected part of play is the creation of new content -- either mechanical or narrative.  Since the early days of the hobby designers like Greg Stafford have been arguing that role playing games themselves are art, "Role-playing games are a new form of art, as legitimate as sculpture, drama, or prose fiction."  Gen Con is filled with events for those gamers who wish to become artists.

The Writer's Symposium contains over 70 events focused on the creation and marketing of genre fiction.

The Gen Con film festival -- and supporting "how to" panels -- keeps growing every year due to the democratization of film making tools. 

There are game design workshops a plenty, and a vibrant artist's gallery where new artists and established names share their work and their expertise.  The Miniature Hobby Events feature skilled miniature painting and provide over 60 workshops from those who want to learn more about painting, building terrain, and pursuing this artistic avenue.

In addition to the artistic and creative events, this year's event has a couple of highlights.

• As mentioned above, Gen Con is celebrating its 45th anniversary.
• The convention is also celebrating its 10th year in Indianapolis.
• Last year's event saw four-day turnstile attendance of more than 120,000 and this year's event is even bigger than last year.
• Thursday night featured a Keynote speech discussing the Future of Dungeons & Dragons.  It was the first time that Wizards of the Coast has provided a visionary Keynote address.
• More than 45 brand new games will be on sale at the convention -- form family games to card games and rpgs Gen Con is hobby gaming's version of E3.

There is something for everyone to do at this year's convention.  If you are in town, you definitely want to stop by.  If you aren't here this year, you might want to visit www.gencon.com and consider attending next year's event.

In Preparation for Gen Con, I Have Joined the BDCA Network

That's right, I am a certified member of the the Dungeon Bastard's own Badass Dungeon Crushers Association.

Unlike the many who have been Judged Unworthy due to caring about things like "acting" and "plot" and "fair-play," I am one of the elite!

As an Official Member, I am now entitled to:

• Smack talk any character at the table who is shorter than your character.
• Invoke your Badass Aura of Awesome which gives you 10 temporary hit points and a +2 to attack and damage for the next 2d4 rounds.
• Once per combat, declare any dice result you don’t care for to be a “cocked dice” and immediately re-roll.
• Ignore any phrase the DM says that does not include the words “initiative,” “armor class,” “damage,” or “treasure.”
• Respond to any inquiry about your health, well-being, or mental state with the simple, muttered rejoinder of: “I’m crushing it.”

Barbarian Rage!

You Got Your TWILIGHT in My Fighting Fantasy Style Gamebook, and I'm Glad.

When I purchased An Assassin in Orlandes, the first of Tin Man Games Gamebook Adventures, I did so out of a nostalgia for the old Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson and other excellent books in that genre.  I had recently acquired my first smart phone and was impressed that many of the old Fighting Fantasy books were available for purchase.  It was nice to revisit the books that along with Tunnels and Trolls solos had been my proxy game group during my middle and early high school years.  During that time, I was only able to play role playing games sporadically and the game books were a great substitute.  The smart phone versions brought back fond memories, even if it was harder to finish an adventure where one couldn't "accidentally" read future entries for clues.

The Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, and their eventual competitors, became a huge phenomenon.  One thing they never managed to do was expand their audience beyond certain market sectors which were mostly male readers.  TSR made a brief attempt at expanding the demographic with their Heart Quest books, but they didn't catch on for various reasons.

With the smart phone and the transition to ebooks, the gamebook has seen a resurgence.  One of the leading publishers in this resurgence is Tin Man Games, and with good reason.  When I began playing An Assassin in Orlandes, just to see how this "small upstart's Fighting Fantasy competitor" would fare, I was impressed with the thoughtfulness that went into the production. The book had a compelling narrative, a fun little game system (that also allows for a little "tilting" of die rolls which is a nice touch), and even had "Achievements" that could be earned by successful and unsuccessful play.  In short, it was clear that Tin Man was going to be big.  Their success continued with the acquisition of the license to produce future Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, taking them from competitor to partner, and the acquisition of the Judge Dredd license.  I've been playing around with their Judge Dredd gamebook app, and it is quite fun -- more on that later. 

Tin Man really seems to know what they are doing, and they are also doing what publishers should have been doing during the first boom.  They are expanding the pool of potential gamebook players.  While we geeks might be precious to protect our hobbies from "fakes," "hipsters," or "sparkly vampires," as John Scalzi points out -- we shouldn't be.  Whoever wants to be a geek should be allowed to be, and they should be welcomed into our hobbies with open arms.  One of the things that I've learned from living in Southern California is that everyone is a geek.  That's right...everyone.  Disneyland's profits are based on the premise, and have been working for years.  Walk around Disneyland one day as an observer of people.  What do you see?  People from all walks of life joyously expressing their love and affection for fantasy, science fiction, and cartoons.  It is a place where they let down their pretentious guard and allow themselves to have fun.  And that is what being a geek is about.  It is about never loosing the "Golden Age of Science Fiction is 14" attitude and making the Golden Age of Science Fiction right now.  The same is true for comic books, role playing games, or whatever else you geek out about.  When Vampire the Masquerade hit the gaming hobby, I remember those who wrong-mindedly poo pooed Goths coming into our hobby playing their "weepy Goth Anne Rice game."  While others were doing that, I was meeting some great friends who it eventually turned out happened to be willing to try playing Warhammer 40k and Globbo.  Trust me, if you can get someone to play Globbo you've won the pop-culture wars and I credit White Wolf with getting Vampire fans who would never think of playing Globbo in the first place to try it out.  VtM was the gateway game that lead to more gaming for a lot of people.

It appears that Tin Man Games is trying to give fans of the Twilight books and Vampire Diaries a gateway gamebook into my favorite hobby with Strange Loves: Vampire Boyfriends.  This is something we should be praising.  After all, how far is it from Vampire Boyfriends -- a book with game mechanics -- to Vampire the Masquerade?  And as I've mentioned already, Vampire the Masquerade can lead to Twilight Imperium play.

Check out Tin Man's book trailer for their new book Vampire Boyfriends, the first in the Strange Loves series.

 

You know what?  I think I might just pick up a copy of this book/game.

Nintendo and Why I Love Minor League Baseball

Bull Durham is one of the best baseball films ever made.  It's one of the classics like Major League, Bang the Drum Slowly, For the Love of the Game, Fear Strikes Out, and Pride of the Yankees (not a complete list by any means).  One of the things that separates it from those other films is that it is a story about Minor League baseball players who play for the Durham Bulls.  The Bulls are currently Tampa Bay's Triple A affiliate, but were an Atlanta Braves Single-A team at the time of the film.  The film's protagonist "Crash" Davis is a long time minor league veteran who had been playing AAA and is sent down to Single-A to season a pitching phenom.

"Crash" may be the protagonist, but the Minor Leagues are the spotlight character of the film.  If you follow the background dialogue, you get to hear about many of the unique events and promotions that happen in the minors.  Taco nights, Little League Nights, "Clowns of Baseball," hot dog eating contests, and a lot of other classic small town activities abound in their mentions.  Add to that baseball that is played at a level much better than most of us ever played the game, but clumsy in comparison to the play in "the show" and you have a perfect demonstration of why baseball continues to capture the American imagination.  Yes, home runs in the Majors and phenoms like Mike Trout are awe inspiring to watch, but games played by the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes which open with FUNTAINMENT are Americana at its best.  They are filled with hope, inspiration, and the delusion that if we'd only listened to our High School coaches a little more often, that we too might have a fun career.  As Willie Stargell said,  "It's supposed to be fun, the man says 'Play Ball' not 'Work Ball' you know.

And fun is what it looks like the players of the Dunedin Blue Jays are having.  They recently qualified for the playoffs, and have taken this as an opportunity to create a unique season highlight video.  They have created a fictional Nintendo Entertainment System baseball game that depicts their recent accomplishment.  The video is a good deal of fun, and shows once more why I love Minor League Baseball.

It brings back memories of the 8-Bit version of the infamous Bill Buckner World Series moment.

13 Game Books You Must Own

A couple of years ago, I blogged about how every gamer should own a copy of Rick Swan's Complete Guide to Role Playing Games.  I still agree with this sentiment, but I would like to share another 13 books that every gamer should add to their library.  I'll be blogging about these books over the next few weeks, but I thought it would be good to point them out as a group now.  That way, we can hopefully talk more specifics later as I hope some of you will add a couple of these titles to your library if you haven't already.  These will by no means be the last books I mention, they just happen to be the handful that I grabbed off the shelf today.

Every gamer has an aspiration to design, and to design one must know what has gone before and get some sense of place within the hobby.  The following books are a great place to start:

1. Thirty Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons: If you want a good glimpse of the game that launched our hobby, or at least the market for our hobby, this is a great place to start.  It is a "propaganda" piece, but it's still quite good.  I'll talk more about the strengths and weaknesses of this book when I get around to its post.
2. 40 Years of Gen Con: Robin Laws and Michelle Nephew give us a good collection that discusses the biggest gaming con in America.
3. The Complete Book of Wargames: Jon Freeman (aka John Jackson) gives an excellent overview of the War Game hobby at a time when that hobby was in an early transition.  By the late 80s, this hobby was nearly dead.  Today?  It likely has more players than ever, but its marketplace is very different.
4. The Fantasy Role Playing Gamer's Bible: Sean Patrick Fannon's excellent entry into the "so this is role playing and you should love it" library.  Try to get the purple 1st edition, the stick figure cartoons make the book.
5. Game Design -- Theory and Practice vol. 1:  There is no volume 2 to this book by Steve Jackson Games, but this is an essential addition to anyone's library.
6. Wargame Design: If you want to know the history of the gaming hobby, from its early Wargaming roots, this is a must own book.  The staff of SPI give a great overview of the hobby's founding, and present some good design guidelines.
7. A Player's Guide to Table Games: This is a great book to get your friends to bridge the gap from "mass market" games into "hobby games."  John Jackson (aka Jon Freeman) reviews and discusses everything from Monopoly to Sniper and the Sid Sackson revolution.  This book helps to demonstrate the Sackson/Euro link. 
8. Family Games -- The 100 Best:  This is one of two books that end up with 200 recommendations that every gamer should have in their library.  Trust me, these books provide a great "core" collection.
9. Hobby Games -- The 100 Best:  This is the second of the 100 Best books, and it contains titles that are less mainstream than in Family.  You should own every game in this book.
10. Heroic Worlds:  This book is a very good overview of the role playing game hobby as of the early 90s.  It is a vital research resource, and a good checklist for completists.
11. The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming: Nicholas Palmer's essential introduction to the war game hobby.  It includes an overview of systems, and some puzzles to work out.
12. The Best of Board Wargaming:  A second book by Palmer.  This one contains more detailed reviews of games, and a good discussion of Simulation vs. Playability.
13. The Playboy Winner's Guide to Boardgames: Jon Freeman's reprint of John Jackson's book, and why I believe they are the same person.  You'll definitely read this one for the prose, as there are no pictures.  This book extends the discussion in Player's Guide to include RPGs and Squad Leader -- thus includes essay regarding Playability vs. Simulation.

Fear, Dread, Imagination, and Pennies

One of the first lessons that I learned as the father of twins is that parenting is largely comprised of two emotional states, fear and dread.  The sense of dread at the nigh infinite array of terrible events that can befall vulnerable babies and toddlers is a constant.  It is the background music of parenting.  Fear is the musical stings, the cat scream in horror movies if you will, that jumps out at you and gets your adrenaline pumping.  Fear is what parents experience when their toddlers, who have just barely begun to walk, meander toward sharp objects and stairways.

In short, being a parent is exhausting.  Surprisingly so, even during moments in which not much really seems to be happening.  Fear and dread find a way to sap whatever energy you thought you might have.  I can't imagine how parents coped before caffeine.

All of that might make it seem like being a parent is a joyless chore.  Quite the contrary.  Much like a great horror film, one finds oneself almost inexplicably finding the fear and dread to be the most enjoyable emotions possible.  Only two things seem more pleasurable.  The joy a parent shares with his/her partner when the toddlers do something completely silly, being the first.  The second?  I think this picture is all that is needed to explain the second extremely pleasurable part of being a parent.

There are also moments which combine fear/dread with completely silly activities.  Jody and I recently encountered one of these.  Our daughters History and Mystery (shown above) are wonderfully creative young girls.  I have written before of how they have adapted Candy Land into a gingerbread man's journey to visit Hello Kitty and Boxie for some tea.  They have also recently turned bath time into Water Bending practice.  I'm sure that they'll be giving Korra a run for her money very soon.

Recently, History and Mystery decided that they wanted to develop superpowers like their brothers Superman and Iron Man.  They decided that a key to acquiring superpowers was to suck on a penny.  Doing so, they assured us much later after things went very awry, would give them stronger teeth and aid them in battling "sugar bugs."  To advance their plan, they scrounged a penny and began alternating who was allowed to suck on it.  First Mystery and then History, hand off, repeat.  They did all of this while they were playing "quietly" in their room.  Which should have given Jody and me suspicions that something was going horribly wrong, as quiet signals a rule #1 violation.

Parenting rule #1:  If play time is actually quiet, then something is going horribly wrong.

In this case, the something wrong was History swallowing a penny.  I think by the description of the twins' master plan to create an origin story, you probably guessed this is what happened.  Needless to say, History's throat hurt.  Jody commanded me to immediately go online to find which of the local hospitals was on our insurance plan, and began collecting as much information as possible regarding how History felt.

A trip to the hospital and three X-rays later, History acquired Wolverine-esque Copper and Zinc laced bones as the penny reacted with the X-ray machines photonic emanations...

Oh, wait.  That's not what happened.  The X-rays happened, all three of them, and they located the penny.  It had already wandered down to her stomach, which meant a couple of days of waiting before we located the penny during one of History's potty breaks.  She kept expecting to "pee" it out, but it came out in a more conventional manner -- which I won't attempt to describe.

Thankfully, nothing terrible happened.  There was no permanent damage.  But as Jody and I would rather not experience anything like this ever again, we had a long conversation with History and Mystery regarding not eating things that mommy and daddy don't say are okay to eat.  The girls aren't Matter Eater Lasses, after all.

It's a joy raising highly imaginative twins, but it does make for quite a roller coaster.  The film Parenthood was correct about parenting being a roller coaster, thankfully Jody and I were coaster junkies when we were younger.

Real Battlemechs Have Arrived. Can the Succession Wars Be Far Behind?

I would appear that House Kurita of the Draconis Combine is not named for Shiro Kurita, but is the 23rd century's adaptation of artist Kogoru Kurata the designer of Terra's first real world Battlemech.

Kurata has parntered with Japanese robotics expert Wataru Yoshizaki of Suidobashi Heavy Industry to create a robot that people can ride and battle in. 

The robot has been named KURATAS after the artist who designed the vehicle, but any Battletech fan knows that this is really the first Kurita mech.  It weighs about 4,500kg (4-tons), making it an ultra-light mech. The vehicle measures 4m-high (13 feet), 3m-wide and 4m-long, and one can be yours for a mere $2.37 million. 

Mechwarriors can control the vehicle in one of two ways.  They can sit in the cockpit like proper warriors, or they can use their iPhones.

It seems that FASA was wrong about the date of the invention of the Battlemech. We won't have to wait until 2439, the predecessor is already here.  We can see by the wheels of the vehicle that this is a first stage Battlemech, but can the "upright" mech be far behind?


The Successor Wars may exist in the far future, but the how long until the first of the Predecessor Wars?  I am officially changing the name of Draconis Combine in by Battletech games to Suidobashi Heavy Industry.

Hat Tip: Design Taxi

Fanzines, Blogs, and Circuses

I just received the copy of Alarums & Excursions #236 that I won in the recent auction of some of Gary Gygax's personal game collection.  This issue contains a 'zine from Gary discussing a letter he had written to A&E for their second issue many years in the past.  It's an interesting letter to read for a couple of reasons, but I'll save that discussion for a later post. 

In reading through this issue of A&E to find Gary's letter, I have been having a great time reading the individual 'zines by the various contributors. Though it was alarming to read references to "Christian" Pramas being attacked.  I wonder how he was attacked and was pleasantly surprised to see that a certain Green Ronin and I share a first name...if that is the same C. Pramas.  What struck me strongest about these 'zines were the comments referencing earlier entries by contributors.  Most of the new 'zines featured a section discussing points of agreement/disagreement (often about Alignment in this issue) at the end of a contribution that might have been regarding a completely different topic.   Let me give you an example, purely for illustrative purposes.

In a 'zine by Spike Y. Jones which contains 101 Uses for a Wet Blanket and a review of Shattered Dreams, Spike includes the following:

NICOLE LINDROOS FREIN: Re How Loud And Crowded The White Wolf Party At GenCon Was: But you can remember when WW's party was only loud and crowded because it was being held in a hotel room instead of a ballroom.

I chose this comment at random for demonstrative purposes.  These comments are the conversational part of the 'zine and one of the joys of A&E is reading them.  In many ways they seem a bit like a good blog's comments section.  With one major difference.

As I mentioned before, these are all within other 'zines.  Rather than being like comments sections, they are more akin to post-scripts on a blog with hyperlinks to other blogs.
 
When I started this blog in March of 2004 (it was called Cinerati in those days), the blogosphere was a pretty young place.  And in some ways it behaved more like the 'zines of A&E than the internet does today.  Certainly, there are great places for rpg conversations on the internet (RPG.net, Kobold Quarterly, the Paizo and Wizards forums, Grognardia), but they often seem more isolated from each other than the early blogs and A&E.  Earlier blogs seemed to be in conversation with each other more so in the past than today, and that is something that I miss.  I fondly remember writing posts in response to other posts and linking them in my blog.  I also remember joining a couple of opt in social media-esque services that would track your blog and categorize it so that you could see other blogs in your "ecosystem."  It was this kind of activity that led me to meeting several very interesting people in the Los Angeles area.  There was a kind of fanzine communal quality to the blogosphere.  Now there seems to be more of a "major network" feel to the whole endeavor.  I am happy with the number of people who read my blog, and very grateful for those few who comment, but I miss the blog to blog interchange of the earlier days.  They were more community and 'zinish.  In writing my own blog posts now, I'll often delete or postpone something I've written because it has just been touched upon by Grognardia or another blog I follow because I don't want to be seen as a copy cat.

It seems that we are a victim of our own success, by which I mean gamers as a creative force who are able to create so many blogs worth reading that some have become brands.  But I lament the iO9-ing of the internet, though I like iO9. 

There was a time, not too long ago, when people participated in "circuses" or memes like "get your geek on" (which was very recent) with some regularity.  I understand that there are too many blogs to return to them being a small tight knit community akin to 'zines, but I would like to see more circuses about RPG subjects and more "get your geek on" blog marathons.

Let's get together and do this.  And I'm no longer going to let seeing that one of my favorite blogs has blogged about something I've just been thinking about dissuade me from blogging about the very same thing.

Remembering Gary Gygax

For geeks like me, today is a day of memorial celebration. E Gary Gygax, co-creator with Dave Arneson of the Dungeons and Dragons game, was born on this day in 1938.

Gary Gygax and Arneson created a game that provided me with untold hours of entertainment, a game that introduced me to great literature (and horrible drivel), a game that helped me form life long friendships. Because of this man's creation, my life (and many others) were made better and more enjoyable. I am extremely grateful to Gary.

Gary Gygax Memorial Day seems the perfect time to share Gary stories of gaming goodness and fun.  It seems that every gamer worth his or her salt has a Gary Gygax story, and I envy those that do their stories. I have no "when I met Gary story." Instead, I have a when I "almost" met Gary story.

You see...in April of 2007 I was on a trip for work in eastern Wisconsin -- Racine to be specific, and I decided I wanted to do two things. First, I wanted to watch a baseball game in Wrigley field. I am a huge Cubs fan, and there is no better place to watch baseball. Second, I wanted to tour Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, the birthplace of gaming in America. Trust me. Whether you play modern boardgames, video games, collectible card games, or role playing games, the game you are playing likely has some connection to the gaming movement started in that small Wisconsin town.

So I drove to Lake Geneva and toured all of the locations that once housed the offices of TSR, the company that published D&D. Then finally, I stood in front of what I believed to be Gary's house and took about 10 pictures from across the street. It was relatively early in the evening and I contemplated walking up to the door and knocking, just to tell Gary how much entertainment his game has provided me over the past three decades. I walked up to the cars parked in front of the house (pictured below), but then I thought..."what if it is the wrong house?"


What if I walk up to the door, knock and ask for Gary and it's the wrong house? What if it's the right house? What kind of crazy stalker gamer knocks on a game designer's door uninvited?

So...I walked to the library, took a couple of pictures of the beautiful lake, walked around the small downtown area, and left. I was angry at myself for not emailing/message boarding Gary earlier, or later, and I promised myself that I would do so when I next traveled to the Wisconsin or Chicago area.

That day cannot come now.

While I am sad about that, today is not a day of sadness.  It is a day of remembrance and celebration.  So let me share with you a couple of pictures from a D&D Encounters session I ran last night at Emerald Knights Comics and Games.  These pictures show the real gift that Gary and Dave gave to the world.  They gave us  a tool with which to build community and have a good time.  Gary might not have liked the 4th Edition of the D&D game, but I think he would be happy to see the enjoyment these gamers had last night.

A little pre-game discussion.

Did Christian actually bring a character sheet for Miles Edgeworth?

It looks like the Kobold Wizard Speelock is in a bit of trouble.

Can his companions help him out, or will the Drow win the day?

Later this month, I'll make my group endure a small reading from one of the books Gygax wrote. We all need to push through a little Gygaxian prose every now and then. Maybe I'll open up "Master of the Game," or read the introduction to the Player's Handbook (1st edition) one more time. That introduction made me feel like I was part of something special, even before I rolled my first die.

It also seems like a good time to make a donation to the Gygax Memorial Fund.

[Gamebooks] As they say, "Drokk! Here comes Dredd!" New Judge Dredd Gamebook App Coming Soon

Tin Man Games, publisher of the Gamebook Adventures line of smart phone and tablet based narrative solo gamebooks, have announced that they will be releasing a gamebook based on the popular 2000 A.D. character Judge Dredd.  The app should be available next week.  As is typical of Tin Man Games productions, the aesthetic qualities of the app look to be fantastic.

I have been a fan of Tin Man Games since their initial offering An Assassin in Orlandes.  Tin Man Games designed their own combat and skill resolutions system for the Gamebook Adventures line and it plays quickly while adding drama to the potential combats in their tales.  In the next month or so, I'll do an "Adventure Gamebooks as RPGs" entry for the line -- though that will have to wait until after I finish the Swordquest Table Top adaptation I'm working on.  The AGs as RPGs entries are conversations of how one can adapt the systems within gamebooks to table top play.  I was inspired to attempt them by the old Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG which converted the Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks system into a full rpg.  It was workable, but I like to tinker.

Do yourself a favor and pick up a couple of the Tin Man apps.  Their consistent quality was likely one of the reasons that the company was given the license to do future Fighting Fantasy Gamebook apps starting with the upcoming Blood of the Zombies.

Color me excited.

[Gaming] Dungeon Crawl Classics Play Session Report

I was one of the earlier gamers to preorder the Dungeon Crawl Classics roleplaying game.  The entire premise of a role playing game that captured the feel of Appendix N source material without being a retro clone of older rules sets appealed to me.  When my copies -- one regular and one limited -- arrived, I immediately set about the task of reading the rules.  They were clear and captured the feel of the game play I enjoyed as a younger gamer. 

While it is true that DCC captures the feel of games of past generations, it is also true that they are quite innovative.  The game's use of a dice chain to represent the affects of bonuses and penalties is fun in theory and in practice.  It's spell system for Wizards and Clerics, as well as its "Mighty Deeds" system for Fighters, are exciting.  For the first time in a d20 based RPG there is a solid spell duel system that manages to incorporate the normal magic rules while feeling like the magic of fiction.  The ability to invoke patrons, and the mercurial nature of spells add a nice spice to the overall system.  I think that this is a very strong game, and want to play it more and more...

I was very excited to play and began the campaign to convince my players to give the game a try.   This last weekend, I finally got that opportunity.  The only thing missing was a "thematic" ally in keeping the game's tone on target...ah Nick...how we needed you.

What follows in this blog post isn't a glowing example of joy, instead it's a demonstration of how a well written game can lead to a less than fun time.  This is even when the players knew pretty well what to expect. 

I told my regular players to be prepared for a possible TPK, and that they shouldn't get attached to their characters.  I also told them that they would have to make 4 characters each due to the high lethality of the adventure. Four of the players rolled their characters up in person, and one used the online character generator.  It was an interesting band of characters  made up of farmers, jewelers, glovemakers, and coopers.  Most of them were human, but there were a couple of Dwarves and a Halfling.  On the "attribute" side, and interesting thing happened.  Every player had one character who was significantly above average.  Not with multiple "18s," but with a couple of 16s an no bad attributes.  I could tell right away that the players had begun to build an attachment to their more competent characters.  One player went so far as to call his extraordinary cooper Lord "Spivak" and created a back story that the other 3 characters were accompanying this self-important barrel and chest maker on an adventure.

As an aside, Spivak wasn't his name.  I have forgotten the specific name at the time of this writing, but it should be noted that the player had already become attached to the character and that attachment was only set to grow.

At the beginning of the adventure, I warned the players that this would be a lethal adventure and that their characters would likely die.  They each looked at their characters and began to sort them out as fodder and potential hero in their mind.  Fodder would open doors and heroes would be cautious in the hopes of becoming 1st level characters -- who have a significantly higher chance to stay alive than these beginning characters.

The party heard of a mystic gate that opened between the stones of a neolithic structure when the stars were right...and the stars were right tonight.  They journeyed to the top of a hill that contained the structure in question, only to see the mysterious constellation above them and a mystic gate between worlds before them.

The players were quite impressive in their caution and use of reason and restraint.  They solved the riddle of the constellation, and lost no party members trying to enter the complex.  The next room went as they planned.  They had fodder risk the danger, and the heroes followed behind.  They also came up with and interesting solution to the third room's dangerous trap.  Through an ingenious application of levers, they were able to not only neutralize the trap but to almost turn it into a weapon against their foes.

This is where the fun begins, and where some of the characters began to shine.   You see, the party behaved in a highly efficient tactical manner and Lord Spivak's crowbar seemed to be the weapon that kept dealing the final blow.  He was a wonder to behold, as he split the skull of a giant demonic serpent.  Also a wonder to behold was the Halfling Glovemaker who used all of his small but "unhuman" strength to hold a door closed long enough to create a plan to deal with the dangers behind the door.

After three major combats, a couple of defeated traps, the now smaller party encountered what would be their last fight.  Their foes weren't particularly impressive.  In fact, even with the low hit points starting characters begin with it was likely that a blow from one of these foes would be non-lethal.  When one struck Lord Spivak, I wasn't too worried.  He had a good chance of survival.  Sadly, he was struck down.  I could see the disappointment in the player.  This was his noble character, far better than his surviving character Friar Sloth (actual name) a character with stats suited to becoming a Cleric.  It was almost as upsetting for me as it was for the player.  The heroism of the character, and his great story were darkened by one quick roll of the die.  It was a truly chaotic situation, and a disappointing one for the player.

This was something that I hadn't prepared the group for.  I had prepared them to have a group of characters who were all extremely incompetent.  I hadn't prepared them for the whimsical and almost meaningless loss of a valiant one.  I don't know that my group will want to return to the world of DCC, though I certainly do.  The death of Lord Spivak is one of the best gaming moments I can remember for some time -- as was the amazing bravery of the "unhumanly" strong Halfling Glovemaker.  We even started having quick in jokes, like how all Jewelers start with a 20gp gem we like to call Leather Armor.

While this was a problem with my group, it isn't something that the designers of the game didn't predict.  They have even provided advice for groups to help players get in the mindset.  I'd prepared the group for some character loss, but I couldn't prepare them for the loss of characters who had been so awesome in the past 3 encounters.  In addition to the potential for lethality, I should have warned them to Embrace the Chaos.

Embrace the Chaos
The DCC RPG is unpredictable. Really unpredictable. One moment, the PCs are losing a battle against a Rat God and thousands of his furry minions, and the next, the dwarf has won a strength check against the god, ripped free his bejeweled scepter of death and is hammering that Rat God back through time and space to whatever pit that spawned him.

And the opposite happens as well: When that glorious natural 1 rolls up, the entire table howls with agony, and you get the chance to add another notch in your judge-screen.

It isn’t pretty. It isn’t predictable. But it is a fundamental feature of the game. No battle is truly lost until the last PC gives up, and death is never more than a heartbeat away. With judicious use of Luck, spellburn and piety, the PCs can turn the odds in their favors. But stare too long into the abyss, and at some point the abyss will look back.

Image by Jody Lindke

[Gaming History] Ace of Aces Seeks a Triumphant Return

I have always had warm feelings for Rick Loomis' game company Flying Buffalo.  When I was a young gamer whose pool of friends included few other rpg/wargame players, I spent many an enjoyable hour playing the solo adventures for Tunnels and Trolls that Flying Buffalo published.  I watched as their product lines improved in quality with the addition of the Blade subdivision and its line of well designed and attractive supplements.  I have always believed that a part of this improvement should be credited to Dave Arneson who may have provided some underwriting for this project, as he did many others after his settlement with TSR.  At a minimum Arneson wrote one of the better supplements for their Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes games.

To me Flying Buffalo is the Oakland A's of the Adventure Gaming hobby.  Loomis has been innovative in many of his ideas, and has used his vision to purchase the rights to some excellent games, but he has never had the budget to bring his vision to full light.  After all, Flying Buffalo were at the forefront of the Play By Mail hobby (essentially creating the genre post-Diplomacy), the rpg hobby itself (with the release of Tunnels and Trolls), the creation of the solo game book hobby, and their purchase of the rights to publish the innovative flip book games like Ace of Aces designed by Alfred Leonardi and published by Nova Games.

Nova Games itself has heavily influenced hobby gaming.  In addition to the excellent Ace of Aces game, and the Lost Worlds combat book spin offs, Nova was responsible for the first edition of the now classic Axis & Allies game.  The Nova edition of Axis and Allies received a less than sterling review in Fire and Movement issue 27, which stated that the game would be better as a beer & pretzels game by a publisher like Milton Bradley.  That review couldn't have been more prescient, as by 1984 Axis & Allies became one of the "big" three Milton Bradley "Gamemaster" series board games.  The "Gamemaster" series of games essentially created what we now refer to as the "Ameritrash" game.  These are highly thematic games that have a complexity that falls somewhere in the middle of Risk and the easier "chit and token" games of a publisher like Avalon Hill or SPI.  When the Mildotn Bradly version came out, the reviews were quite different than the early F&M review.  To quote Warren Spector in The Space Gamer 72, "WOW! Make that double WOW! ...If any adventure/wargame company had released Axis & Allies it would probably sell for three times what it costs from Milton Bradley.  As it is, it can be yours for a measly 15 bucks if you shop around. So what are you waiting for?"

Like Axis & Allies, the Ace of Aces game seeks to provide game play that satisfies what was a new kind of gamer, and a demographic that makes up a large number of gamers today, the gamer who wants an easy to play game that is deep and has high replay value.  Where Axis provides game play at the most abstract of levels and covers all of WWII on one map, Ace of Aces provides game play at the most granular level.  It is a battle of one German biplane against one British biplane.  It is Rickenbacker versus Richtofen, Snoopy versus the Red Baron -- and it plays in about 15 minutes. When Nick Schuessler, Steve Jackson Games' resident war game guru in the 80s, reviewed the game he wrote, "All of the praise for this unique gaming system has been well deserved.  Simply put, AofA is the most innovative thing to happen to the hobby since Tactics II."  Given that Tactics II effectively created the war board game hobby, that is high praise indeed.


It is a magnificent game, that is sadly out of print and that would make a great iPad/iPhone app.

Do you hear that Rick?  This game is perfect for the iPad/iPhone without any alteration.  None.  Make it now.

As I mentioned, the game is out of print, but it doesn't have to be that way.  Rick Loomis is attempting to print a new edition of the game through a Kickstarter that is pretty close to meeting its funding goal.  The KS doesn't have a video attached to it, but the game's creator Alfred Leonardi has released a tutorial video.  As you can see by watching the video, it is more of a play through video than a tutorial.  But it does provide an excellent primer for how quickly the game plays.  In the video, two total neophytes play a full game in under 10 minutes.

Unlike other recent videos by more tech savvy companies, this tutorial is a bit crude.  But it does have it's charm.  The Ace of Aces game was also given a stellar review and recommendation in the most recent issue of Battles Magazine (number 8).  Would that the Flying Buffalo Kickstarter had the graphic design of that magazine, the game would certainly already be funded.  

Go! Now! Back this project!  Let's play an Ace of Aces tournament at Gen Con 2013.