Fantasy Humor

One of my favorite features of the old Dragon magazine was the DragonMirth cartoons section. Jody and I were discussing them a while back, and she kindly drew a couple of DragonMirth-esque single panel cartoons of her own.

Fightin' Dragons in My Mind -- Roll a D6

I'm thinking about adding this to my mp3 player playlists.

K is for Kung Fu 2100

For its first 26 issues, the storied Space Gamer magazine was a house organ owned and published by Metagaming Concepts. Metagaming used the magazine to promote their upcoming products, and included some -- but not much -- coverage of products by other companies. This all changed after the magazine changed publishers. Starting with issue 27, The Space Gamer was published by the upstart Steve Jackson Games and continued to be published by them for another five years. The Steve Jackson Games run of The Space Gamer is one of the best runs of any gaming magazine in the history of the hobby. James Maliszewski has recently waxed nostalgic about the title and by I talked about the magazine here when SJG started offering their issues as pdfs for sale at their e23 webstore (they are a steal at $2.99 each).

In addition to publishing news and articles reviewing/supporting existing games on the market, the Steve Jackson era of the magazine included a number of classic minigames. Some -- like Allen Varney's Globbo where humorous in nature -- and others -- like Battlesuit -- were games that were inspired by other Steve Jackson products. Most of these games were quite good, but one struck a particular chord with me when I first encountered it as a wee tyke. That game was Dennis Sustare's Kung Fu 2100. The game had everything -- martial artists, secret laboratories run by evil scientists, and transhuman clones.

Dennis Sustare is not a well known game designer today, but he designed some very good micro-games in the 80s. His Star Smuggler game is an entertaining solo game where the player takes on the role of a Han Solo-esque freetrader, and his Intruder is a playful combination of A.E. Van Vogt's Black Destroyer and Ridley Scott's Alien that plays like Star Trek meets John Carpenter's: The Thing. This is likely because both Alien and Star Trek were inspired by the adventures of Van Vogt's Space Beagle, and Sustare's game captures the anxiety of a crew of scientists dealing with an otherworldly threat.

Kung Fu 2100 was inspired by this illustration in the first SJG issue of The Space Gamer:

Issue 27 asked readers to describe what was going on in the above image. Readers could present a game idea or write a short piece of fiction. Sustare did both and the his winning submission became the complete game insert for issue 30.

Kung Fu 2100 was eventually published in three different formats. The first was as the insert game in issue 30 of The Space Gamer for which you will need issue 31 to get the errata to the game -- there are a couple of errors. The second version was a minigame enclosed in a ziplock bag, and the final version was identical to the second except that it was now packaged in SJG's signature minigame box. In the end, the game got nice packaging and provided hours of fun at an inexpensive price.

The premise of Kung Fu 2100 was a combination Logan's Run and James Ryan's Kill or Be Killed. To quote the copy on the game:

IRON FISTS...

For years the CloneMasters have ruled the world. Their only foes are the Terminators -- trained from birth in the martial arts. Now you are a Terminator. Your mission: smash your way into the CloneMaster's fortress...chop through his defenses...and destroy him forever.

But his guards are many and loyal. Like you, they can kill with a single blow. And time is against you...

The game features an interesting combat system where kung fu maneuvers are selected in secret and later revealed as combat occurs simultaneously. The game uses an interesting alternating movement system in order to maintain game balance. The Terminators are tougher than their opponents, but they are badly outnumbered and only the right combination of stealth and skill selection will help them defeat the dreaded CloneMaster.

The components of the game have never been nothing special, you have to hand cut out the counters, but I have always wanted to make a project of making a "home play edition" of the game. I'd replace the small counters used to represent maneuvers and replace them with small eurogame sized cards. The Terminators, Jellies, and CloneMaster would be represented by stand up paper minis -- likely from the Cardboard Heroes line by SJG. I'd also make a more modern looking map. I'll get around to it some day, but that day will have to wait.

As it is now, you can get a copy of the game for $2.99 by buying issue 30 of The Space Gamer, printing out the proper pages, and getting down to having a good time. You might want to buy that copy of issue 31 for the errata, but that issue is worth the purchase for the reviews alone.

Before I forget, one of the most interesting things about the game is that the Terminators are a part of the Cult of Thanatos. The reason they despise the CloneMasters so much isn't entirely due to the tyranny of CloneMaster rule. The Terminators are far more upset that the CloneMasters seek immortality. The Terminators are part of a cult that glorifies death, and seeks to bring destruction to those who are avoiding the inevitability of death.

What If...Actors of Oscar Wilde's Plays Performed "The Jersey Shore?"

S is for Steampunk

Yes, I know I skipped a couple of letters -- I will get to them -- but I just wanted to share this small piece of joy my wife drew up for me.

J is for Justice Inc. and James Bond

Two of the -- about 6 -- game designers that I credit with helping to lift role playing games out of the ghetto of the dungeon crawl and into the world of narrative play are Aaron Allston and Greg Gorden. To this day, I still love a good dungeon crawl, but it was designers like Allston and Gorden who showed me that role playing games could be an immersive, interactive, narrative experience that would last for years. They did this by designing games that provided excellent advice for game masters and designing mechanics that fostered/supported narrative play.

I mentioned that Allston was one of the first people to review the Champions role playing game in my H is for Hero System entry. Allston was a quick convert to the system, but he also became one of its biggest promoters and one of Hero Games' better freelance game designers. His Strike Force sourcebook is one of the best super hero game campaign guides ever written, and its advice for running gaming sessions/campaigns are valuable for game masters running any gaming system. In 1984, Aaron Allston and Mike Stackpole (who had also worked on Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes) joined the staff at Hero Games to design a role playing game that would allow players to experience the pulse pounding action of the pulp stories of the early 20th century. The book is nearly flawless in its presentation and design. The mechanics are clearly presented and are able to simulate the wide array of stories that were featured in the pulps.

But the greatest asset of Justice Inc. isn't the rules, it is the Justice Inc. Campaign Book. This booklet is a fantastic collection of essays that discuss how to run a role playing game campaign. The book covers everything from Crimefighting, Espionage, Action and Horror to Spicy Stories and Science Fiction. It truly covers the pulps as a whole and doesn't get caught up in the erroneous mindset that pulp only equals "The Shadow" or "The Spider." Those are great characters, to be sure, but the pulps include Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore, H.P. Lovecraft and others. The stories run the gamut of genre, and Allston and Stackpole know their stuff. The advice in this 80 page book belongs in any game master's library.

Especially useful are the "Secrets of Successful Gamemastering" listed on pages 6 and 7. The list is short, but it cuts right to the point. The list is as follows:

1) A Gamemaster is an entertainer.
2) Be fair.
3) Be firm and consistent.
4) Be flexible.
5) Use dramatic license.

It was the first rule on that list which was mind-blowing to me when I first read it. It was a direct argument against the "DM is God" mentality that was prevalent during the early era of role playing games. It put the onus on the GM not to just "challenge" the players, or to crush them at a whim, but instead to make sure that the players are having fun. To quote the discussion after the rule, "The thrill of discover, the heart-pounding moments of suspense, and the laughs from humor beat the hell out of the drudgeries of constant warfare and treasure harvesting." It is a mantra that I have tried to live up to for years. Sometimes -- as is the case with some of my 4e sessions -- I fail, but I think that my Eberron players have had some pretty good times and have some stories to share.

Rising up from the ashes of the acquisition of SPI by TSR in the early 1980s, Victory Games -- made up of former SPI employees -- released the James Bond 007 role playing game in 1983. After TSR had purchased SPI, TSR largely ignored SPI titles and it seemed that the acquisition had more to do with limiting competition than acquiring useful IP. Ironically, it was the Lorraine Williams era of TSR that re-released a lot of the neglected SPI titles. But if TSR had never purchased SPI, then Victory Games would never have been created and it is possible -- just possible -- that the James Bond 007 game would never have been designed and that would be a shame.

Gerard Christopher Klug is credited with "Game Design, Development, and Project Coordination," but anyone who is familiar with the old SPI/Avalon Hill system of designing games knows that it is likely Gregory Gorden and Neil Randall (credited as "system development") who did the bulk of the innovative work on this project. Those who are familiar with Greg Gorden's other work -- DC Heroes, Deadlands, Torg, Star Wars and a host of other games -- can see his influence all over the place.

There is a lot to like in James Bond 007. It has an easy to use rules system and some of the best adventures ever written for any game, but the contribution that altered the way that I viewed role playing games -- and informs my sentiments against "roll a skill check for everything" or "If the player doesn't know/ask it then they don't know/can't find out" mentalities of many GMs -- was their Fields of Experience mechanic. You see, in the world of James Bond, there are some things that the characters just know, and Gorden and crew came up with a system to emulate it. It isn't anything fancy, but it was revolutionary then -- and is still revolutionary as Robin Laws' Gumshoe system demonstrates for modern gamers. Put briefly, "There are no dice rolls involved when a character uses a Field of Expertise in play. He either knows the information required or how to perform the task, or he does not. A Field of Expertise will always fall into one of two categories -- information and performance." The GM notes go into even greater detail about Fields of Knowledge recommending that GMs use mechanics to step in to help when players don't ask questions.

A lot of "mystery" adventures bog down in rpgs because the players fail a roll, or fail to "look under every nook and cranny of a room." In the world of James Bond, if the character had the Forensics or Cryptography Field of Knowledge that was enough to keep the ball rolling. Give the clues. Don't interpret them for the players, but let them have the information themselves. Sometimes, their own interpretations end up being better than your original idea and can take adventures down entertaining paths. This was the kind of play recommended by James Bond 007, and it was so different from the puzzle-deathtraps -- like Tomb of Horrors -- of other games that it changed the way I play forever.

Both of these games are sadly out of print, but you can find them at fairly affordable prices on eBay. I cannot praise them highly enough.

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.