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. 

[Cinerati] How Jedi are Like MLB Managers

To date, my daughters History and Mystery have had only limited Star Wars exposure.  They've seen one episode of the digital Clone Wars cartoon, a couple of the "trips" on Star Tours, and the first Star Wars movie.  No, not that first movie, the actual first Star Wars film -- the one that's called A New Hope to more recent generations of viewers.

So far, History and Mystery love the franchise.  They love Luke and Leia, but their all time favorite is Darth Vader.  They adore him and desperately want to play with him.  Jody and I have tried to get the girls picked at a couple of sessions of Jedi Training Academy during visits to Disneyland, but even dressing them in matching Stormtrooper Stand-Up to Cancer T-shirts (a gift of my dear friend Joel) hasn't prompted their selection.  Jody has observed that the selection trend by certain Jedi Masters has a noticeable gender bias, but I want more points of data before I make a decision in that regard.  If it is the case, I will definitely be sending management a stern letter.  But the Jedi "cast members" are comprised of a nice mix, so I'm willing to believe that our 4 or so attempts are too small a sample to make generalizations from -- though not too few to mention in passing.  But that is not what this post is about, so back on track.

As I stated, Mystery and History adore the Star Wars franchise and even create their own stories from time to time using their plush Darth Vaders.  Sharing Star Wars with my daughters -- and all my other quirky interests -- is one of the great joys of parenting.  But I am resistant to sharing the more recent installments of the franchise with them.

Sometimes, take The Empire Strikes Back for example, my reason for delay is tonal.  Empire is a great film, but tonally it's a bit much for 4 year old who weep uncontrollably at the end of Toy Story 3 because Andy leaves his toys behind.  I can only imagine the response that seeing Luke's hand being cut off would have on them.  Similarly, Darth Maul freaks the girls out a tad.  Darth Vader, to Mystery and History, is a cool robot who's sometimes bad and sometimes -- like when he's working at Disneyland -- a good guy.  They like to pretend to be Darth Vader.  Maul, on the other hand, genuinely freaks them out.  Which is good.  That's good character design.  I'm just not ready to show the girls this guy getting cut in half and all the resulting questions.

Other times, my resistance is entirely due to the fact that I don't want my daughters to see the "face-palmingly silly" moments that accompany many films in the franchise.  I'm not one of those who thinks that these moments ruin films -- except making Han shoot second which is ridiculous as it only makes him seem incompetent if lucky.  For the most part, I think every film in the franchise has its groan moments.  How "fast" did Han do the Kessel run?  How many years does it take the Sarlacc Pit to digest you?  Isn't that longer than you'd be alive in the first place?  Jar-Jar...  Pod races... Gambling with the lives of 8 year olds...  Okay, the newer films have more than the older films, but all the films have them.

To be honest though, some of the silly moments can be endearing as well.  Think of Han Solo shooting the comm system, or Luke leaning back after being kissed by Leia, or even C3PO as the storyteller golden god of the Ewoks.  These moments are silly, but downright charming.

Recently, Cracked did a post featuring 10 deleted scenes that would have ruined the films they were intended to be used in.  For the most part, they were correct.  When it comes to their moment from Revenge of the Sith, I disagree.  Would the moment -- in the video below -- have made me groan?  Yes, but I think I would have liked it too.  First, it shows the death of a Jedi featured in the first Clone Wars animated series.  It's kind of nice to bring her into the films.  Second, it makes Jedi look like Mike Scioscia.  All of the facial touching for a combat dialogue that looks like baseball batting/running signals has a certain appeal to me.  Not just because I'm a baseball fan, but because the thought of History and Mystery touching their cheeks and noses pretending that they are planning how to defeat Darth Vader has a certain appeal to me.  I can also see how fun this would be around the RPG table.  It might make me crazy, but I think the Jedi in my world are all going to use these kinds of hand signals.  Who knows, maybe someone will write a companion book to The Hidden Language of Baseball entitled The Hidden Language of the Jedi.  I'd buy it.

[RPGS] C.O.P.S. -- French Cyber-Noir RPG is on My White Whale List

Years ago, I saw the cover for a French RPG entitled C.O.P.S. and ever since I have had an itch to hunt down a copy of this foreign language rpg.  It has a lot of elements that appeal to me as a gamer and as a SF literature and Noir film geek.
  

Image from C.O.P.S. copyright 2003 Asmodee Games

Based on the game's cover, and some of the interior artwork I have been able to track down on the internet, C.O.P.S. looks like a mash up of DISTRICT B13, ROBOCOP, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, and TRAINING DAY.  As an action film aficionado, can one really ask for much more?  Check out some of these images.

Image Copyright 2003 Asmodee Games

Image Copyright 2003 Asmodee Games

I have yet to track down and purchase a copy of the game, though the game is available on Amazon.fr, in large part because I don't speak or read French.  That said, the game's product line has such a distinctive and evocative look that I'm tempted to do so just for the inspiration the art might bring to my gaming table.  As I wouldn't be able to understand the game system, I'd have to use Savage Worlds, Gamma World, Feng Shui, or some other system to run adventures in this setting. 

If there were ever an RPG that I'd like to see someone start a Kickstarter campaign in order to secure rights, pay for translation into English, and for release in the US, this is that game.  While I'm not sure how well the game plays, the game was designed by the French game designer Croc (Bruno Faidutti's profile of Croc is here) who has designed a couple of other games that have done well in the United States (In Nomine and Claustrophobia for example) so I think it might be possible to build some buzz for the game.

Okay internet.  Here is the challenge.  Watch the preview for District B13 below, followed by the fan video for C.O.P.S. and then tell me there shouldn't be an American Edition of this game.

District B13

C.O.P.S.

Make it happen.

Role Playing Games and Candyland

I've had many conversations with friends where I have posited that the best introductory role playing games for younger players -- ages 5 to 9 -- are The Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game by Bill Slavicsek and Stan!, A Faery's Tale by Patrick Sweeney, Sandy Antunes, Christina Stiles, Colin Chapman, and Robin D. Laws, and RPG Kids by Enrique Bertran aka NewbieDM.  Each of these games comes at introducing RPGs to younger players and their parents from a different perspective, and each is a wonderful addition to any gamer's collection.  These games aren't merely good introductory games, they are also fun games for gamers of any age.

Over the past year, I have added another game to this list and the game might surprise some hobby gamers.  The game is the much maligned Candy Land by Hasbro.  Most hobby gamers look at Candy Land as a boring exercise in which the players have no influence over the flow of play, and as a game completely devoid of any kind of play strategy.  Anyone who has played the game knows that the only actions a player takes are to draw a card and to move his/her pawn to the space signified by the drawn card.  This simple randomized movement "track" game is so disliked that it has a rating of 3.21 on BoardGame Geek.  A quick look at what a 3.2 rating means on BGG, let's us know that the BGG community thinks the game is Bad and not worth replaying.  Even adjusting for BGG's anti-children's game bias by adding a point or so doesn't put this game into recommendable territory for most gamers.

Last December I defended Candy Land as a board game, and a quick look through the internet demonstates that the game is a rich source for statistical analysis.  Dave Rusin of Northern Illinois University and Lou Scheffer a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (which I first heard about in Tim Hartford's book Adapt) have both written good analyses of the game from a statistical perspective, but it is the rigorous analysis at DataGenetics by Nick Berry which truly demonstrates just how deeply one can dig into the statistics of the game. When I defended the game back in December, I highlighted the pedagogical aspects of play in Candy Land.  It is a wonderful game for teaching young people how to play games, and also aids in educating young players that not all victories come from "being better" than your opponent which helps to teach good sportsmanship.

What I only briefly mentioned in that post, was that Candy Land is a great role playing game as well.  Back in December I stated that one of the joys of playing the game with my daughter's History and Mystery was that it engaged their imagination's in storytelling.  I'm quite surprised that I didn't associate this with role playing and role playing games in that article, even though I described the way my daughters play the game as follows:

Rather than the goal of the game being to "go home" as is written in the rules, Mystery and History are on a journey to have tea at Hello Kitty's house.  To add to the immersion, they have placed Lego Duplo "cat legos" on the board at both the home and peanut brittle house squares.  The home square represents Hello Kitty's house and the peanut brittle house is the domicile of Hello Kitty's apocryphal twin sister "Boxie." 

Re-reading the post made me realize how much like a role playing game session that sounds, but my daughters go even further than might be alluded to in the above description.  History and Mystery also engage in dialogue with the Duplo cats and have conversations with Hello Kitty and Boxie when they reach their destinations.  In fact, it is more important to Mystery that her "Ginger Man" reach the Peanut Brittle square than winning the game.  What's more is that they use the first person singular "I" when they refer to their gingerbread man pawn.  The girls are completely immersed in the fictional world of Candy Land.  Not only that, but they have expanded the fantasy world to include their own imaginary components.

As a parent it is a real joy to watch my daughters engage in this kind of imaginative play.  They also role play when they dress up in their Iron Man and Captain America costumes, when they play with their Legos and cars as well as with various stuffed animals and dolls.  They even do some role playing when they borrow my D&D and Star Wars miniatures.  It's quite magnificent to watch, and it's truly amazing to see how well Candy Land creates a Salen/Zimmerman/Huizinga "magic circle" as well.  It demonstrates it so well that like Zimmerman in his defense of the magic circle, I find criticisms like that by Darryl Woodford a little pendantic, overly literal, and odd.  What is most interesting in this demonstration is that I get to see how the "magic circle" of play that my daughters have created during a game of Candy Land extend beyond the spaces on the board itself, but that the imaginary land in which they are playing includes implied spaces in the illustrations and their own imagined Candy Land environment.  This imagining only extends until they stop playing the game.  Once the game stops, they are no longer in Candy Land and they have already had their tea parties.  They are ready to begin engaging with the real world and their foray's into "Elfland" (to borrow a phrase from Lord Dunsany) are finished and without the trauma or life changes that accompany most fictional representations of fantastic journeys.  The magic circle allows them to explore Wonderland without the risk of the Red Queen chopping off their heads.  It's a wonder to see.

I wish that I was the first person to describe Candy Land as a role playing game, but James Ernest in Family Games: The 100 Best -- and I'm sure countless others -- have beat me to it. As he described his play with his daughter Nora:

When I got "stuck on a gooey gumdrop," Nora would move her pawn back to that space and help me get unstuck.  This completely surprised me, because as a grown-up I assumed that a race game is unfriendly.  She would move back to her own space after helping me, but she always helped.  And she expected this kind of socially responsible behavior out of her parents as well....

Anyone who thinks he has seen all of Candy Land ought to play it again with a child.

Candy Land may not be the pinnacle of role playing game systems, but it seems clear to me that my own "maturity as a gamer" is what got in the way of my enjoyment of this game for many years.  Playing it with my daughters is a joy, and I will rue the day when Candy Land no longer creates a magic circle where my daughters are imagining a realistic milieu.  I hope that when that day comes, games like Pokemon Jr., A Faery's Tale, RPG Kids, and even D&D will be able to create one to replace the one that was lost.  There is a part of me that thinks it is a tragedy when adults believe that spending some time wandering the fields of Elfland is a waste of time or silly.

Advanced Dungeons & Parenting?

As you may have noticed, this week I changed the name of the blog from Cinerati to "Advanced Dungeons and Gaming." There were a number of reasons I made the change, but I thought that I would share some of them with you.

First and foremost is that the name Cinerati didn't really do a good job of conveying the kinds of posts that were most common on the blog. There are still movie related posts like this week's post featuring the trailer to RZA's upcoming Kung Fu film, but the majority of posts on this blog are game and pop culture related and I wanted the name of the blog to reflect that. Though this blog started as a response to what I thought was a poorly thought out and reactionary article by Thomas Hibbs that a friend had shared with me, time has made this blog less and less theatrical focused.

One of the main reasons that this blog has become less cinema focused is the birth of my twin daughters Mystery and History (they're the surprised girls in the upper right-hand corner of the title card).  Since they have been born, I just haven't been able to go out to the movies as much as I used to.  What was once a weekly affair -- going to see two or more films -- has become a once a quarter if I'm lucky affair.  I still watch a ton of movies, thanks to Netflix/Hulu/Amazon/Redbox but I find myself less able to get super opinionated about things I watch on the small screen months after a theatrical release.

Since the twins were born, I've been playing a wider variety of games with my gaming group.  We still play D&D -- as we have for the past 12 years -- but now there are sessions of Savage Worlds, Cyborg Commando, Marvel (many editions), and other games to fill in the gaps.  Not to mention the increase in board gaming that has been happening in recent years.  It's been quite wonderful and I love chatting about games and gaming.

I also love playing games with my twin daughters and seeing the world of pop-culture through their eyes.  I never really understood just how much I wanted to share my passions with someone until I watched my daughters playing with a Star Wars coloring book.  When History saw Yoda, she immediately described him as "Darth Vader's Goblin."  At that point, I knew I had won at life.

My daughters love the new My Little Pony, Doc McStuffins, Phineas and Ferb, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Star Wars, Captain America, and Iron Man.  History likes to dress up as Iron Man and Mystery likes to dress up as Captain America.  They both like to dress up as princesses (Aurora and Belle in case you're wondering).  It's truly magical watching my daughters express their imaginations and tell stories, and I am happy to let them tell me whatever stories they want.  I believe that a parent should set very few limits to how a child expresses its imagination.  I don't like it when some people say that "blue isn't a girl's color" or "there can only be one Captain America."  I want my daughters to find joy in whatever they find joy in.  I find it heart warming that a lot of that joy comes from "exercising their imagination show they can play with daddy and the fellas when they get bigger."

Expect to see the usual pop culture fare here at Advanced Dungeons & Parenting, but also expect to see some posts about my pop culture experiences with History and Mystery.

[Movies] The Man with the Iron Fists -- Red Band Trailer

Long time kung fu film fan -- and hip hop artist -- RZA has partnered with Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino to bring us this little bit of Hong Kong inspired goodness.



 I love it when fans get the opportunity to tinker with the things they love. Sometimes those opportunities end up nightmarish -- like any of my attempts to emulate Michael Whelan art. Other times, they can lead to great entertainment. I'm hoping that RZA's "The Man with the Iron Fists" is able to inspire a new generation to experience the joys of classic Shaw Brothers films like "5 Deadly Venoms."

[Movies] D&D 3 -- When Your Trailer is Less Exciting than a Board Game Trailer it's Pretty Bad

It is a shame that the new trailer for the Descent 2nd Edition Board Game is more engaging than the new D&D movie teaser.

Before anyone starts thinking that this is going to be a screed about how the new D&D movie looks terrible, is going to be terrible, and how lame Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro are, let me make it clear that this will not be that kind of post.  Instead, it will be a post about how the movie looks like it doesn't have a budget, that even "bad" fantasy films can be entertaining, and how this is yet another legacy of the pre-Wizards dying TSR.

Let me say that thing that leaped out at me the instant I hit the play button on the new D&D trailer was how low budget it looks.  The CGI dragon looks more CGI than the dragon in a Kickstarter project I funded, the actors stilted acting makes it clear that the budget for talent was pretty low, the make up isn't very good, and the visual effects on the spells...well...let's just say that I'm less than impressed.  By all appearances Joel Silver has closed all stops and plugged up the budget everywhere...which is to say that this film appears to be the D&D equivalent of the Roger Corman "Fantastic Four" film.  It looks like Silver and company are spending just enough money on the movie to maintain the license.

Setting that aside, some of my favorite fantasy movies were made with zero budget.  What really seems to matter in these cases is whether the people making the project are actively trying to entertain you.  From what I know, and though I know someone who worked on the project that is still remarkably little, many of the people on this project really want it to work.  One of the writers on the film is a regular D&D player, has worked on a number of good rpg products in the past, and is an all around nice guy.  My hope is that this film can rise to the quality of a "Hawk the Slayer," "Krull," "Beastmaster," "The Knights of Bloodsteel," or even the second D&D movie.  I don't have much hope that it will be as good as the "Midnight Chronicles" movie that Fantasy Flight Games made, as that is a pretty remarkable piece of work considering its budget.  I don't think it is too much to ask that if this film isn't going to feel epic, that it will at least feel fun.  My favorite "D&D" movie is Jet Li's classic "Swordsman II" -- my second is his amazing "Kung Fu Cult Master" -- and if one takes off their "Hong Kong films are awesome glasses" it becomes pretty clear that "Swordsman II" is kind of hokey.  But sword energy is still pretty awesome.

All of the problems with this D&D movie, and the earlier two, can be laid in the lap of one single transaction and that is the sale of the license to Courtney Solomon in the dying days of TSR.  Courtney was 19 at the time and eventually managed to bring the film to fruition by partnering with New Line Cinema for distribution who purchased the rights for $5 million.  This ensured Courtney a solid payday, and ensured that until someone buys the license away from Silver, we are unlikely to get the "D&D movie we want."

The Best in Fantasy Fiction -- A Reading from "The Shadow War of the Night Dragons"

Many of the best works of Science Fiction and Fantasy are meant to be read aloud.  Ursula Le Guin describes the power of prose meant to be written aloud in her description of Tolkien's narrative prose in The Lord of the Rings in her essay "Rhythmic Pattern in The Lord of the Rings."  The essay was published in the book Meditations on Middle-Earth: New Writing on the Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien, and like the book she is describing, the essay is a joy to read.  She describes such works as follows:

The narrative prose of such novelists is like poetry in that it wants the living voice to speak it, to find its full beauty and power, its subtle music, its rhythmic vitality.

It's a wonderful description, and it captures Tolkien's work perfectly.  There are places in The Lord of the Rings where my "silent reader mind" recoils from the page, but when the passages are given voice they come to life.

Some fiction was just meant to be read aloud...and that includes John Scalzi's Hugo Nominated masterwork The Shadow War of the Night Dragons Book One: The Dead City.  Like most works of sublime Fantasy, Scalzi's true genius is revealed by the voice of the reader -- in this case Mark of MarkReads.net.  As Mark reads the pages, the reader is given the pleasure of seeing how masterfully Scalzi combined Shakespeare's opening of Hamlet with one of the most endearing story openings of all time -- second only to Once Upon a Time in its familiarity to readers -- and wraps them in a stylistic bow of genius.

I dare you to watch this video and not be moved to tears.




Do you see what I mean?  What is striking about listening to this, as opposed to merely reading it as I have done before, is that it has affected the way that I read Patrick Rothfuss and Iain Banks.  Thanks to John Scalzi, the Culture Novels will never be the same again as they are surely sequels to Shadow War.

[Gaming History] Star Frontiers -- A Look Back at a Classic SF RPG

When TSR released the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game in the early 1970s, they created a new mode of gaming the role playing game.  What is interesting is that they failed to rapidly follow up the success of their "fantasy" themed role playing game with a succession of game releases in other genres.  While many of the first role playing games were shallow imitations of D&D...some were even Vacuous to use Gygax's terminology, it was other companies who first entered the marketplace with non-fantasy RPGs.

It wasn't long after the publication of D&D that Ken St. Andre drafted a set of rules for a science fiction themed role playing game entitled Starfaring, and Marc Miller published Traveller in 1977.  Where Starfaring was whimsical, and is a quintessentially 70s artifact that feels a bit like John Carpenter's Dark Star the rpg, Marc Miller's Traveller set the standard for science fiction rpgs.  In fact, Traveller truly set the standard for any rpg product line that was going to compete in the rpg marketplace.  Marc Miller's creation had a large following among the Space Gamer readership, and the publication of support materials for the game led to the growth of FASA -- one of the classic old RPG companies.  Traveller's success extends to the present, and Marc Miller currently has a Kickstarter campaign that promises a new edition that harkens to the old version.

Even though Traveller established science fiction as a viable genre for role playing games, it took TSR five years after the release of Traveller before they released their SF entry into the RPG marketplace, the Star Frontiers game.  When Star Frontiers came out, there were those who tried to compare it to Traveller, but I have always felt that the comparisons were slightly off base as they represent different kinds of SF.  Traveller's rules and back story, as well as the overwhelming influence D&D had on the early RPG market, gave the game a specific feel.  Characters created in the game are typically former military who are now retired, or as James Maliszewski has pointed out a good many were former Mercenaries.  Traveller campaigns had narratives along the lines of the Firefly television show, though it would be more chronologically accurate to say that Firefly has a Traveller feel to it.  Traveller's own backstory was heavily influenced by Asimov's Foundation series with it's dying empire.  Traveller campaigns were often gritty SF adventures filled with mercenaries and retired Imperial Officers spanning the Spinward Marches in pursuit of wealth and notoriety.

The D&D influence could also be seen in many Traveller campaigns, where players essentially wandered around the galaxy as pirates raiding Imperial space ships for their loot.  This isn't to say that all Traveller campaigns were "spacey dungeon crawls," the official adventures certainly weren't, just that some people played it that way.

The science fiction background of Star Frontiers was quite different from that of Traveller.  Where Traveller took place in a galaxy dominated by an interstellar Empire in a fairly settled area of the galaxy, Star Frontiers took place on the Frontier of civilization where a major corporation "Pan Galactic Corporation" -- later multiple corporations -- was sponsoring the exploration and attempting to profit.  The Pan Galactic Corporation had come into existence to promote exploration and trade among four major alien races -- Human, Vrusk, Dralasite, and Yazirian.  These races have only just begun to interact with one another, and have banded together on the Frontier of explored space.  At that Frontier, they soon discover a new enemy...an enemy that threatens to destroy any civilization that chooses to explore the Frontier.  That enemy is the Sathar, a wormlike race with hypnotic powers on the edge of explored space.  The exploring races have only recently completed their First Sathar War, during which they formed the United Planetary Federation, and are now having to deal with terrorist attacks and sabotage by agents of the Sathar...agents from among their own people.  In response to the Sathar's new warfare strategies -- espionage and terrorism -- the UPF has formed the Star Law Rangers who track Sathar agents and attempt to foil their plots.

The universes of the Traveller rpg and the Star Frontiers rpg have parallels in history.  One is of an empire in decline, the other is of mercantilism on the rise.  The tones of the settings are very different, but so are the rules.  Where Traveller characters are retired from former professions and already have a number of skills at which they are proficient -- especially if the characters were generated using the Mercenaries or High Guard supplements -- Star Frontiers characters are relatively inexperienced.  Even in the Expanded Star Frontiers rules, the characters have training in only two major skills -- and that training is at the lowest level.  The characters start near penniless and are in need of employment.  Players can be thankful that the Star Law Rangers are always looking for recruits, that the corporations are always looking for someone willing to risk Sathar attack while exploring planets on the Frontier, and then there's always the possibility of playing a group of Sathar agents...

Star Frontiers is a game that has a background that is rich in ideas for development...but it is also a game where one has to dig in order to find these ideas.  Trying to find out the history of the Star Frontiers universe is not an easy task.  Prior to the publication of Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space there was not a clear timeline of the development of civilization.  One had to induct heavily from the introduction in the Basic Game rule book, read and reread the racial descriptions, and scour every module for minutiae to get a sense of what was going on.  Zeb's Guide did some of the work for you, as it advanced the timeline to a point after the modules and to a point where the Sathar had developed mind controlling organisms that latch on to the victim's back to take over the nervous system (fans of Puppet Masters and Iron Empires take note).  Taking the Frontier beyond an outline and into a fleshed out campaign setting takes time, but it is worth it.

I've read the rules many time, but have never actually played the game.  It's an easy system, though I've recently come up with an even simpler version of their Basic Rule with my own Extremely Basic rules, but I might just use the setting and play the game with another game's rules set.  Maybe d20 Modern/Future, they did write a Star Frontiers setting section for the d20 Future book and had a web expansion with stats for the Sathar, maybe Alternity, or Savage Worlds.  Heck...I might just use the Traveller system for it, when I get my copy of the 5th edition.  It's a great game too.

[Trailer Review] Enthralled by Luhrmann's GATSBY

I find the trailer for Baz Luhrmann's upcoming film adaptation THE GREAT GATSBY to be entirely mesmerizing.  From the rich sense of imagery -- always a Luhrmann strength -- to the haunting quality of the score.  The early section of the score I find weaker than the haunting quality toward the end of the video.  I don't know that GATSBY should be a 3D film...the thought seems baffling...but then I see Luhrmann's Time's Square and think it might just be worth the extra $3.

[Dice Chuckers] Why I'm Having Talented People Direct the Film

It's been a dream of mine to make a documentary about role playing games and gamers. Since I was a kid, I have thought that the representations of gamers in the mass media have been denigrating.  I think that Michelle Nephew, in the excerpt of her dissertation published in Gaming As Culture: Essays on Reality, Identity And Experience in Fantasy Games, captures the presentation of gamers perfectly when she writes:

[R]ole-players are problematic for the dominant culture, because...fans can't be dismissed as intellectually inferior...In reaction to this unresolveable circumstance, fan cultures are instead interpreted by the dominant culture as being brainless consumers, cultivators of worthless knowledge, who place inappropriate importance on devalued cultural material.  They are seen as social misfits, emotionally and intellectually immature, unable to separate fantasy from reality, and are feminized or desexualized as a result.

The dominant culture's attempts to feminize and desexualize participants in the RPG fan culture can be seen in the yearly media coverage of GenCon, the United States' largest role-playing convention.  Full-page color spreads of convention-goers dressed in medieval armor or as Klingons regularly decorated the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's City pages before the convention moved to Indianapolis in 2003.  Other photos showed awkward, aging boys with Dungeons & Dragons t-shirts stretched taut across their bellies, holding up their prized custom-painted fantasy miniatures for the camera.  Year after year, the media coverage of the event took a "look at the freaks" approach that did, indeed, portray male RPG fans as de-gendered, asexual, and impotent.

She doesn't mince words, does she?

This is exactly the kind of presentation that we don't want to do with Dice Chuckers.  Yes, we want to show gamers having fun and cutting loose at conventions like Gen Con.  Cos-Play can be a great way to enjoy one's self at a con, but it isn't the sole behavior of convention attendees nor are most Cos-Players infantile in their day to day lives. We want to show subjects who play role-playing games and for whom the playing of these games has been a benefit.  Whether as a creative outlet, a place of inspiration, or a place to make and keep life long friends, hobby gaming is a wonderful hobby and I want to share my love of that hobby.

Now...if I were to make a film about the hobby by myself, it might end up looking something like the "Support Dice Chuckers" video I put together using my iPhone.  You can watch it below...needless to say, there is a reason I will be working with Wes and other professionals.  The fact that I was unable to capture the sound properly -- due to background noise -- combined with the my classic Hong Kong style dubbing are proof that my skills lie in recruiting participants and not in filming them.

Please support our humble project.  We'd love to make the film, and to make one that will make the hobby proud.

[Gaming History] Power Gaming -- Boot Hill NPCs

As a fan of Westerns, I've always wanted to play Boot Hill. I've owned a copy of the Second Edition of the game -- the one that came in the box and was published in 1979 -- for many years, but I have never had the chance to sit down and actually play a session of the game.

This isn't to say that the players I have gamed with over the years haven't been up for Western themed gaming.  I've played sessions of Avalon Hill's Gunslinger (not an rpg) and sessions of Deadlands.  We've always had a good time.  I've just never had a chance to play Boot Hill.  This being the case, it wasn't until recently that I began to read the rules to examine them for play.  The Old School Renaissance, combined with the recent release of Dungeon Crawl Classics, got me into a nostalgic mood.  So the other day, I opened up the rulebook to learn how to play so I could pitch a session to my gaming group.

The first thing I noticed was that while Boot Hill is a role playing game, it is largely a Tactical Tabletop game.  The campaign elements while "role playing" oriented also allow for players to play against one another -- but doesn't require it.  Some players will play "law men" and others "outlaws."  This isn't to say that one couldn't create a more "PCs are a team" style campaign, just that the rule book is written to allow for player dictated storylines where other players can react.  The campaign system is set up so that the individual players can play their own individual stories regardless of other players' activities. I think that this mode of campaign play is interesting and definitely echoes the style of a Braunstein game more than the D&D rules did.  

One of the things that many in the OSR community find appealing about old school games is the lethality of the systems and the lack of "superheroic player characters."  OSR players often want the characters played by players to feel some what mortal.  This sentiment likely stems from the fragility of 1st level characters in D&D, especially Magic Users who are notoriously fragile at low levels.  PCs in a 1st edition D&D game are often one small mistake away from death.  In fact, in the first D&D rules set while characters where rated for their physical and mental attributes, having highly rated attributes had little effect on game play in comparison to later games.  A Fighter with a high Strength score gained very little immediate benefit from the score, though that character would gain experience more rapidly than his/her compatriots.

It didn't take long for that to change though. It was in the Greyhawk supplement that added ability score modifiers for combat.  And once a character's strength score affected one's combat ability, every player wanted to have a higher strength score.  After all, who doesn't want to hit opponents 10-15% more often and to deal 2 to 6 more points of damage per hit?

The 1979 rules of Boot Hill definitely demonstrate the transition from ability scores being primarily a measure that influences speed of advancement to things that immediately and directly affect combat.  D&D used a bell curve that was close to a Normal Distribution with a range of 3 to18.  The bonuses roughly falling along lines of standard deviation especially in the Moldvay/Cook edition.  Boot Hill, on the other hand, has different distributions for Non-Player Characters and Player Characters based on percentile rolls.

Player Characters are far more proficient than randomly generated NPCs.  Take a look at the following two tables illustrating the probability of a character having a specific "Speed" rating.  The first illustrates the chance of a randomly generated NPC having a given modifier.  These range from - 5 to +22 and 0 is described as "average" in the descriptor.  The second illustrates a Player Character.  Once again, 0 is "average."

NPC Speed Probabilities

PC Speed Probabilities

Two things stand out to immediately.  The first is that the character generation system doesn't generate "average" characters on average.  An NPC has only a 10% chance of being "average," and has a 15% chance of being "above average" or "fast."  PCs are even more powerful than NPCs, as they are completely incapable of being "average."  Given that the -5 to +22 is a modifier to initiative, and that one sees similar though not identical distributions for Gun and Throwing Accuracy, one wonders why the game's mechanics didn't scale down toward average actually meaning average.  This could have been done by deciding that a majority of NPCs have a speed of x, and that the majority of PCs have a speed of y.  The speed of x could have been called average and have provided no bonus or penalty.  Instead, Boot Hill uses a counter intuitive system where an average roll (50.5) results in a "quick" NPC (+4) or a "Very Quick" PC (+6).

A part of me could forgive the non-intuitive use, if it wasn't for the section of the rules listing "The Fastest Guns That Ever Lived."  According to this chart, Billy the Kid has an unachievable Speed of +23 and even Ike Clanton has a +12.  All of the "Fastest Guns That Ever Lived" are extremely fast and seem to me to reflect a kind of power creep in the rules.  What is most remarkable is how many of these characters have Speeds of 18+, with many having more than 22.  One might say, "but they are the 'fastest' aren't they?"  Okay, but does the name Bob Younger really bring to mind speed with a pistol?  Besides, the point of having these gunslingers listed is for use in the game.  If all of them are so quick, then there is no real distinction among them.  The slowest of the fastest guns has a +6.  Why not set +6 as average?  It seems to be the average of the NPC distribution -- or at least close.

I can say that the first thought I had looking at these numbers was that none of my players would want to even try a character who didn't have at least a +9 in their Speed Stat.  I think that a system having bonuses that directly affect the probability of actions makes players more likely to worry that their stats aren't high enough, and to try to power game a system.  As time has gone by, I'm becoming more convinced that maybe statistics should matter less mechanically than they do.  Players might obsess a little less about what their Speed score is if they aren't worried about someone with a +25 (Wes Hardin) bringing the gun to bear.

Oh...and the list completely leaves out Bass Reeves.  How can you leave out Bass Reeves?