Make Mine Savage -- What Statistics Can Tell You About Baseline Super Strength and Converting the Hulk

Sorry that it has been so long since my last post -- pretty much exactly one month -- you can blame that on my busy work and school schedule. I'm a full time Ph.D. student in Political Science at UC Riverside and work full-time as well. Add to that the fact that I actually spend time with family and game twice a month, and it leaves little time for blogging.

I'm a huge fan of Savage Worlds and the more that I play it, the more I find that the system falls into the sweet spot of where I am in my gaming life right now. I need a game that is relatively intuitive, that is flexible, that has some good tactical rules, has some good "abstract" rules, and can be played in a hurry. Savage Worlds is one of those rules sets. Recently, my group has been playtesting FENG SHUI for Atlas Games and playing around with the Accursed setting for Savage Worlds. In the near future, I hope that my group will be interested in playing a Savage Worlds based supers game. Before I ask my players to make that leap, I do want them to be more comfortable with Savage Worlds as a system. Super hero campaigns push any rules set to the limit and demand a lot of players with regard to knowledge of the rules set, so I won't likely be asking the players until early next year.

When I do run the campaign, I will likely be running a Marvel game or a Marvel/DC mashup game and so I'll be converting a number of characters as well as using some conversions I find online. As I've mentioned a couple of times in the Make Mine Savage series, one of the challenges in character conversion is avoiding "power exaggeration." This occurs when a player/GM substitutes their own power fantasy about a given character to set the assumed baseline instead of starting with the game's mechanical baseline and moving from there. The prime example of a power fantasy setting a baseline in relative power discussions often occurs when chatting about whether The Hulk or the Juggernaut is stronger. For gamers/comic fans of a certain age, one only has to wait until the second or third round of discussion before the scene from Secret Wars where The Hulk holds up a mountain range comes into play.

Let's just say that if you are setting your baseline for what The Hulk needs to be capable of at "Fifty Billion Tons" as a mechanical necessity, this is beyond even the Cosmic Level of Savage Worlds which would set d12+12 at 10,000 tons. Were I adjudicating the mountain scene above, I'd use the Dramatic Tasks rules and apply appropriate penalties with each failure on The Hulk's behalf equating to a level of fatigue.

So where would we set The Hulk within a Savage Worlds framework? What is the appropriate level for The Hulk? The old Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, as well as the old FASERIP system, place The Hulk at the 100 Tons range which is d12+9. This is useful as far as it goes, but doesn't really tell us a lot. This is especially true if the GM is using my alternate "dials" with regard to lifting or is using the following Edge:

Super-Brawny 
Requirements: Novice, Strength and Vigor d12+
     Your super-bruiser is significantly stronger than other characters in the setting. This is either because the character is large for his or her size category, or because she or he is very fit. The character is more resistant to damage than other characters (+2 to Toughness). Additionally, the character can lift or carry more that most characters with the same strength. This character can carry 10 times the amount listed on the Superhuman Strength chart. This edge may be taken multiple times where the multiplier stacks logarithmically (2xSuper-Brawny = x 1000 lift, but the character only receives the Toughness bonus once. If you wish, you can require the expenditure of a bennie and a STR roll at -6 to activate this ability. A failure on the roll equals 1 level of fatigue. Characters who become incapacitated from this fatigue must rest until they recover.

 I'm a fan of the above Edge because it allows for increased carry/lift capacity without altering the underlying damage mechanics of the game. One of the seeming truisms of comic books is that really strong characters, characters capable of lifting battleships, often punch street level heroes without turning them into paste. This emulates that aspect of the game.

A feat like the above, gives a tool that allows Savage Worlds to accommodate what The Hulk can lift, but it does little to tell us what The Hulk's combination of Strength and Damage should be. To establish this baseline, we need to ask how easy it is for the average "Brick" to destroy some very big and very impressive vehicle or piece of hardware. I think that the M1A1 Abrams serves this purpose nicely. The Abrams weighs approximately 68 tons and for all intents and purposes serves as a nice baseline for "Super Tank." According to the Savage Worlds Rulebook, the Abrams has a Toughness of 77/58/29 (60/41/12), or in "real" terms a toughness of 17. What I mean by "real" terms, is Toughness - Armor. This is because in the Savage Worlds baseline campaign it is possible for super heroes to add the "Focus" modifier to their "Attack, Melee" combat power. The Focus modifier allows attackers to ignore armor if they make a to hit roll at a penalty. One can imagine two kinds of Supers games. In the first, all "Bricks" worth their salt have the Focus modifier. In the second, none have the modifier. For the purposes of the statistical analysis here, I will assume that they do have the Focus Modifier.

This makes our question -- assuming that the "Mean" super hero can "destroy" an Abrams with one punch -- what is the right combination of Strength and Damage to achieve this task? Destroying a vehicle requires causing 4 wounds (+16 above the Toughness) and thus requires a roll of 33. We can set our bar lower to require only that the character be able to "Damage" an Abrams, but that is a setting dial. For our current dial, let's assume 33.

Using the calculator at Anydice - set to default settings -- this provides us with the following answer:

 

=31.81 σ = 7.99 min=13 max=116

If you prefer, you can make it d12+9 which makes x-bar 32.81 and increases the min and the max by 1 while having no effect on the standard deviation. In fact, at Attack, Melee 4d6 the amount of Strength above 12 provides a great dial for use with regard to punching holes in Abrams tanks and crippling them.  If you wanted to increase the spread of pluses, you could set the baseline as:

STR d12+5 with a 5d6 Attack, Melee Power with focus. 

=32.99 σ = 8.59 min=11 max=131

 Doing so would allow for some more control over where the supers fall in the distribution as influenced by the plus component rather than the d6 component. We can use the statistical information to decide where The Hulk falls within our super hero world.  First we have to decide in what percentile we want the Hulk to fall and then we can use a procedure called "Standardizing a Normal Distribution" to give us our number. We use the following formula in this case:

Z is a value that corresponds with a certain percentage of outcomes. For example, 90% of outcomes will be equal or less than z =1.645, 95% will be less than or equal to z =1.96, and 99% will be less than z =2.57. If The Hulk is stronger than 90% of really strong people in your game, you should set z to 1.645. If stronger than 95% of crazy strong people, at 1.96 etc. We would have an equation that looks something like:

1.96 = (x - 32.99)/8.59

Hmmm....the first thing that jumps out is that this tool isn't necessarily useful for our purposes. Another way to translate this is STR = d12 + z(Bonus - 5) + 4d6 attack.  What this means is that if we wanted The Hulk to be stronger than 95% of other Bricks we'd have to increase the "flat" number by 17.18 and that takes if off the chart. This tells me that the Abrams may not be the best baseline to use even if it's cool. This is largely due to the "swingy" nature of the open ended die rolls. Setting the baseline at such a high number means that we cannot use an actual distribution based on the likelihood of actual occurrence based on rolls and have it be very useful. In fact, even if we set the "average" Brick Strength at:

d12 + 2 with a 1d6 Attack, Melee

We get the following:

=13.27 σ = 5.83 min=4 max=56

Even at this level we see that The Hulk would have to be (1.96*5.83) points higher than average (11ish points) to be stronger than 95% of all other Bricks.

Does this mean that we cannot use a normal distribution to help us in our converting of characters? I don't think so. I do think it means that we cannot base our conversions on a distribution of damage, rather we have to create an arbitrary distribution and mean. Let's say we keep the mean around d12 + 6 (we can set the number of d6s of Attack based on how likely we want the character to be to damage, hurt, destroy an Abrams with each of those being an added die above 2d6). Given that a "normal" can have a strength of up to d12 without Edges (we can assume that the Edges allow for characters beyond human and in the low end of Brick like Captain America), this gives us a working range of +1 to +12. If we choose 2 (arbitrarily) as our standard deviation this gives us a distribution that looks like:

=6 σ = 2 min=1 max=12

If we use this in all of our calculations, we will get The Hulk as having a d12 + 6 + (1.96*2) Strength. In other words, a d12 + 10 Strength if we want him to have a Strength higher than 95% of other Supers. He'd have a d12 +9 at 90% and the percentage of people at d12 +8, +7, and +6 become larger until you hit 50% of your target population. Then the pattern repeats the other way with 95% of your Bricks having more than d12 +6 - (1.96*2) or d12 +2 Strength. That leaves only 5% of your Bricks with d12+2 or less. You can use this as a guideline to shape your campaign and should try to follow it as much as possible. This way if players as "How Strong is d12 +9?" You can answer that it is stronger than 90% of all other "Brick" caliber characters and be correct in saying so.

While some of this conversation may seem obscure, I think it is important to have some structured guidelines that help GMs and players when they are creating/simulating characters especially when it comes to abstract things like emulating the comics. The same player who might balk at The Hulk having "only" at d12 + 10 Strength when told it is 200 Tons might smile with joy when they find out that this is the level better than 95% of all super strong characters in the campaign universe...a campaign universe that includes Galactus and many others of the ultra-cosmic scale.

Additionally, we can see how Savage Worlds dice have a pretty big standard deviation due to the open ended nature of the rolling and the combination of several dice. The analysis was also useful for looking at what it really takes to create a character who can destroy an Abrams Tank in a single blow. It is easily possible through a number of combinations that are affordable at character creation.

For me, I wouldn't set that as the baseline for my "Bricks." I'd probably set it at around 21 which is the amount of damage it takes to do 1 wound to an Abrams, but YMMV.

Make Mine Savage -- Some Observations on Savage Worlds Probabilities Before Conversions

One of the many concerns that gamers have when playing any game is "will my character be as awesome as I imagine?" In a d20/Pathfinder game where the player wants to become the world's best dual wielding sword fighter, this is a question of optimization within some pretty well known constraints. A lot of work has been put into d20/Pathfinder and 4th Edition D&D to ensure "balance" and regular play and min/maxing gets players familiar with certain guidelines. Every gamer, no matter how RP oriented, has a little power gamer in them. This can especially be the case when the player is adapting their favorite character from fiction into a role playing game character. Have you looked at some of the stats for Conan or Elric in Gods, Demigods, and Heroes and Deities and Demigods? Let's just say that there is some game breaking wish fulfillment going on there.

I have found that this call to power game gets amped up on steroids when players start adapting their favorite super heroes to their favorite super hero system. Sometimes all thought of game balance goes out the window in the attempt to create "accurate" representations of one's favorite hero/heroine. I remember when I first started playing Champions. The first superheroes I converted to the game were the X-men -- Byrne era. It was a great exercise in design. The X-men had a broad array of powers among them and statting them up really taught me the underlying basics of character design in Champions. I built the characters with Sunburst and Crusader as my benchmark characters and had a stack of 200 point X-men (it was 2nd edition Champions). Colossus had a 55 Strength, Nightcrawler had teleportation and martial arts, Wolverine had a 2d6 killing attack (3 1/2d6 with Str added), and so on. When I showed these characters to some new friends, they told me that I had the X-men all wrong. Colossus was severely underpowered, etc.

When I designed the characters, I looked at the baseline world rules in the Champions rule book and the Guide to the Marvel Universe to feed my assumptions. To me it was perfectly clear that the Hulk with his ability to lift 100 tons had a 60 Strength which has a lifting capacity of 100 tons. Colossus < Hulk, thus 55 Strength. My baseline was a far cry from the baseline of the group who were using Grond as proxy for The Hulk and who were playing experienced characters in a campaign that had already suffered a good deal of "power proliferation." How much? People were taking "double armor piercing" as a modifier to overcome villains with "single hardened" defenses. At the time, I adjusted my next character designs and fit within the group's baseline.

As I've played more role playing games, I've come to the conclusion that my first instincts were right. That doesn't mean that I think my X-men were "correct," I'd have to look them over to see if they actually emulated the characters at the time. But it is to say that I think that the players in my group were suffering from a case of "power exaggeration" which led to power proliferation and eventually led to very long and drawn out combats as everyone had defenses too high (both villains and heroes) for the damage being done. No one wanted to get hurt...and so no one did. The group used their power fantasy to set the assumed baseline instead of starting with the game's mechanical baseline. Instead of asking how high a strength do you need to have to punch through a brick wall, they asked how they compared to Grond or Eurostar.

I don't mean to point them out as "playing wrong" because I don't think they were. I do mean to say that had they viewed the baseline as lower, then there would have been more room for character growth horizontally and less power proliferation. I think that the power exaggeration tendency is one of the reasons why many gamers think that game X or game Y cannot properly emulate super heroes or that the game can only do street level heroes and I noticed a bit of this discussion in my recent post on how Savage Worlds has these wonderful switches that GMs can use in game to have the same characters interact at different scales without ever needing to change the stats of the character.

Let me put it another way. How high a Shooting skill do you think Hawkeye needs to have?

1) d12
2) d12 +2
3) d12 +4
4) d12 +8

The power gamer might say d12 + 8 because "Hawkeye Never Misses." This isn't quite true, but it is true most of the time and we all know that Hawkeye can do some ridiculous things with his bow and arrows.

I would ask to start with the system's baseline assumptions. In Savage Worlds, the base difficulty for any skill and for all ranged attacks is 4. In order to get a "raise" on the action (and only 1 raise matters for the purpose of damage), the player must get a total of 8 or higher. With that in mind, we can see that at d12+8 Hawkeye will never miss, but is that really what Hawkeye is? Let's look at his probabilities at the different levels.

d12

What we can see here is that Hawkeye has an 87.50% chance of rolling a 4 or better with a d12 and a 49.77% chance of rolling an 8 and thus getting a raise. This gives Hawkeye a pretty amazing chance to hit his opponent and that he will likely only miss opponents with Superspeed or Deflection or at long range (-2 modifier). If you want to make it so that he hits 98.61% of the time and gets a raise 65.28% of the time then give him d12+2. At +4 he hits all of the time and gets a raise 87.50% of the time. I think a case can be made for any of these power levels depending on whether you are starting Hawkeye at Novice or at Legendary. I don't know that I would ever worry about d12+8, but if everyone in your game has Superspeed at -6 (the max) Deflection you might need that.

Just in case you are wondering what the probabilities for die values other than d12 are, I am providing them below. I think understanding the probability of a skill/attribute achieving a certain target number is one of the keys to creating a balanced Savage Worlds campaign. The game is a little "looser" in the balancing math than other games and requires GMs to be able to "eye" it out more than other systems. Note that all of these graphs are for Wild Card characters and include the possibility of choosing either the main or the wild die. I want to thank Any Dice for making this easy (all rolls assume a choice between exploding d6 and exploding dX with an expode depth of 3).

d10

 

 d8

 d6

 d4

As you can see by the above Wild Card probabilities, even a d4 Wild Card has a 62.50% chance to succeed at a basic difficulty task. The "GMs Best Friend" in Savage Worlds is supposed to be a +/-2 modifier with +/-4 modifier representing a significant advantage or disadvantage like hiding in heavy cover (+4) or shooting at Long range (-4).

All of these a significantly better than the chances of a d4 or d5 "Normal" who has a 25% or 50% chance of rolling a 4 or higher.

When I provide my character conversions and conversion guidelines, I want you to know where I am coming from. I will be coming from a position that a Novice Hawkeye probably has either a d12 or d12 +2 Shooting skill. At d12 he would have an 11% chance of shooting someone at Long Range who was in Complete Darkness. I think that is pretty amazing. At d12+2 this increases to over 30%. Now neither of those comes with a raise, but c'mon...he's shooting someone at 120 yards in total darkness almost 1/3 of the time...without spending a Bennie.

If my conversion guidelines end up seeming a little on the low end to you, please feel free to bump them up.

Make Marvel Savage!!!

The recently cancelled Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game is among the better superhero rpgs to see publication. It combined a deep knowledge of the source material with an easy to learn and robust game mechanic. Marvel Heroic took a "drama" driven approach to comic books and the Cortex+ system was a good match. The license for the game ended before Cam Banks and crew were able to complete their goal of providing three campaigns for the game -- Civil War, Annihilation, and Age of Apocalypse -- but the source material they published is a gold mine for anyone playing any superhero game.  If you can find copies of the system and supplements pick them up.

As much as I enjoy the Cortex+ system, not everyone in my regular gaming group liked it as much as I did. They all recognized that it was a good system, but some of them are more tactical and miniatures minded than the game robustly supports. These gamers prefer more action and combat focused games like 3.X, 4e, and Savage Worlds. All games that can be played dramatically --just as MHR can be played with a combat focus -- but which lend themselves well to the use of miniatures. Of these games, I am most fond of the Savage Worlds game system due to its focus on quick and easy game play. I'm a busy GM and the Savage Worlds system and support material greatly aid the "working GM."

Yesterday I started posting write-ups from my old "Savage Worlds Character a Day" website, and I plan to continue that trend and to provide new write-ups as well. While my backlog contains characters from many genre -- including the Firefly Crew who are now a part of a new Cortex+ game -- my new write ups will largely be adaptations of comic book characters. Make that Marvel comic book characters based on the write ups in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game. Why? Because I think I want to run my players through Civil War or Annihilation...maybe both...and this is a good place to start. The Savage Worlds Super Powers companion has a very flexible and workable super hero system that has some guidelines/switches that add to the system's ability to emulate a wide variety of heroes. For example, it has guidelines for both street level and cosmic level hero campaigns. The thing is that Marvel characters are often a combination of the two. Nova is a mid-range hero when he's battling the villains of New York City, but when he exits the atmosphere he is a truly cosmic hero. Below are how I propose toggling the switches when running a Marvel game.

Savage Marvel Settings

When playing a Savaged Marvel game, it isn't as easy as stating that the current game is "Street, Baseline, or Cosmic." The circumstances of the story set the overall power level of the basic "Environmental Options" that are used in a gaming session. Character Power Point options are still determined by a Street, Baseline, or Cosmic character type but the underlying switches change. For example, Luke Cage's Super Strength lifting capacity fits more with "Street Hero" environment when he's hanging out with the Heroes for Hire, but when he's running around with the Avengers his lifting capacity seems to fall more in line with the "Baseline" campaign.

Note that this is an adjustment to the "Enviromental Options" and not reflective of the "Power Point" options. Luke Cage would likely be a "Standard" hero in that mix while the kids from Power Pack would be Minor Leaguers and Skeets and Boom-Boom might be Second Stringers.

According to the Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion the most common super hero campaigns have he following setting rules:

• Baseline Environment
• Inherent Power
• Knockback
• Recurring Roles
• Super Karma
• Unarmed Defenders

I would argue that the Savaged Marvel Game doesn't quite match this common campaign description, but only with regard to the environment. I would argue that the environment in Savaged Marvel campaigns should match the evening's (or plot point's) circumstances rather than be static. Characters in a Savaged Marvel campaign should be designed with their "Origin Environment" in mind and gain/lose benefits based on where the adventure is taking place. With this in mind, I recommend the following adjustments to the Environmental Options.

COSMIC AND BASELINE HEROES IN STREET HERO ENVIRONMENT

1. The carrying capacity, flight, and speed modifiers for the Street Environment are used  instead of the Origin Environment.
2. Knockback is reduced. Ever notice how The Thing doesn't seem to knockback "normals" as far as he would villains in his "Street" stories? 
3. The character must spend a Bennie to get the benefit of their Heavy Weapon or Heavy Armor abilities.
4. Cosmic Heroes must spend a Bennie to gain the Focus effect on their powers.

STREET LEVEL AND COSMIC HEROES IN BASELINE ENVIRONMENT

1. Carrying capacity, flight, and speed scale to Baseline. It's amazing how Nova slows down and Spider-Man scales up. (I would argue that Spider-Man is a Standard "Street Hero").
2. Knockback is normal.
3. Street Heroes can spend a Bennie to gain the Heavy Weapon trait on their powers for 1 round.
4. If a Street Hero purchased Heavy Armor in Street Environment the hero can spend a Bennie to get a +6 to toughness against a non-Armor Piercing attack.
5. Cosmic Heroes must spend a Bennie to gain the Focus effect on their powers.

STREET LEVEL AND BASELINE HEROES IN COSMIC ENVIRONMENT

1. Carrying capacity, flight, and speed scale to Cosmic automatically. Colossus and Gladiator have similar, but not identical, capabilities.
2. Knockback is at Cosmic.
3. All heroes can spend a Bennie to gain the Cosmic Focus ability that all Cosmic Origin characters have in this environment. 
4. Characters with Strengths of d12+1 or higher, or those with an appropriate theme, may gain Heavy Armor for an entire combat with the expenditure of a Bennie.

As you can see, the major change from the rule book to the "Savaged Marvel" is that it allows characters from one Environment to team up with heroes of other environments at the "same level" so long as they are willing to spend Bennies to get certain effects. I think that this house rule allows a rough approximation of how heroes behave in the comic books. For example, Wolverine's claws would likely have the Focus ability at creation but when he's in a Street Environment he might have to spend a Bennie to get that bonus (signaling extraordinary effort for the Environment).

This house rule is far from official, but I think it will be a great aid when contemplating how Gladiator and The Hulk should have similar Strength stats even though Gladiator is a Marvel Superman proxy.

Colossus -- Savage Worlds Style (A Beginning)

Way back in 2004, I started a blog with the bold title "Savage Worlds Character a Day" with the audacious desire to convert one character from comics, history, or television into the Savage Worlds game system per day. Needless to say, I didn't accomplish the goal. What I did do was to stat up quite a few characters I enjoyed and spark some discussions with friends. I've decided to move those write ups over to this blog in the hopes of both centralizing my "writing" and spurring more discussion.

I do not present these write ups as the only way to represent characters in the SW system, rather I hope to see your ideas and enter into a conversation with you about how you would write up the same characters. These are starting points. Let's chat and come up with a "merged" write up so I can create a page of "finalized" characters. The statistics below were adapted using the original Savage Worlds supers rules as presented in the original Necessary Evil campaign guide. Let's update this using the full Super Powers Companion.

Colossus (A Savaged Version)

Security Level: Novice

Race: Human (Mutant)

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit, D6, Strength d8 (d12+5), Vigor d8 (d12)

Skills: Fighting d10, Guts d6, Intimidate d6, Throwing d8, Knowledge (Art) d4

Charisma: +0, Pace: 6, Parry: 7, Toughness: 6 (10/Heavy Armor)

Hindrances: Mutant (Major as Minor Wanted and Outsider), Heroic (Major), Loyal (Minor), Enemy (minor)

Edges: Arcane Background (Super Powers), Brawny, Power Points

Super Powers:

Living Steel Form: [Super Attribute (8pp) +7 steps Strength and +2 Steps Vigor requires activation; Toughness (4pp) +1 and Heavy Armor requires activation]

Attack Melee (3pp) +2d6 requires activation

Security Level: Seasoned

Race: Human (Mutant)

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit, D6, Strength d10 (d12+7), Vigor d10 (d12+2)

Skills: Fighting d10, Guts d6, Intimidate d6, Throwing d8, Knowledge (Art) d4

Charisma: +0, Pace: 6, Parry: 7, Toughness: 8 (11/Heavy Armor)

Hindrances: Mutant (Major as Minor Wanted and Outsider), Heroic (Major), Loyal (Minor), Enemy (minor)

Edges: Arcane Background (Super Powers), Brawny, Power Points x2 (20 total), Take the Hit

Super Powers:  

Living Steel Form: [Super Attribute (11pp) +8 steps Strength and +3 Steps Vigor requires activation; Toughness (4pp) +1 and Heavy Armor requires activation]

Attack Melee (5pp) +2d6, Knockback, requires activation

Security Level: Veteran

Race: Human (Mutant)

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit, D6, Strength d12 (d12+8), Vigor d12 (d12+2)

Skills: Fighting d10, Guts d6, Intimidate d6, Throwing d8, Knowledge (Art) d4

Charisma: +0, Pace: 6, Parry: 7, Toughness: 8 (11/Heavy Armor)

Hindrances: Mutant (Major as Minor Wanted and Outsider), Heroic (Major), Loyal (Minor), Enemy (minor)

Edges: Arcane Background (Super Powers), Brawny, Power Points x3 (25 total), Take the Hit, Hard to Kill (2pp), Arcane Resistance

Super Powers:

Living Steel Form: [Super Attribute (10pp) +8 steps Strength and +3 Steps Vigor requires activation; Toughness (4pp) +1 and Heavy Armor requires activation]

Attack Melee (9pp) +2d6, Knockback 4 AP, requires activation

Kaiju Crisis Looks Like Destructive Fun

Southern California has long had a vibrant hobby gaming culture. In the early days of RPGs there were APAs like Alarums & Excursions and D&D mods like Warlock. All over Los Angeles County there are designers and players who helped our hobby grow and who made sure that the hobby was shared with new people. Alan Emrich of Victory Point Games is one of those designers. Alan has long been active in the Southern California gaming scene. He has long been an active proponent of hobby gaming, and a few years ago he started teaching a new generation how to design games. He does so as both a college instructor and as a business owner. You see, Alan's company Victory Point Games is "a desktop publishing company for small, budget-priced games based around submissions from students, amateurs and professional game designers alike." It's a company that makes great games, but that is also designed to help gamers become game designers.

Recently, Victory Point Games has added mobile gaming to their list of genres in which they develop games. VPG has an extensive tabletop catalog and some of their tabletop games (like Zulus at the Ramparts) have been converted to mobile devices. The translations of tabletop games have been good so far, but I am looking forward to some of their direct to mobile games currently in development. In particular, I'm looking forward to Kaiju Crisis.

Kaiju Crisis

Our mobile-monster-mash, Kaiju Crisis, is coming soon to iOS and Android devices! The news from Monster Island is that we're in our first round of alpha testing, with game testers coming into the VPG offices and lending us their thoughts. Testers have had the opportunity to play the first few levels of the game, topple a few buildings, tangle with the National Guard, and gobble up some helpless pedestrians. When the dust settles, we've asked them to fill out a questionnaire with their thoughts on everything from the controls and interface to their player goals and fun factor

With all this going on, master artist Clark Miller has completed nearly all of our monster's (adorably) terrifying forms and accompanying special powers, including a flame jet, ice breath, and lightning burst. Additionally, many of the boss monsters you will combat, and the islands they call home, have made it into the game, and so his time on the project is nearly at an end

From there, and with all the feedback from our testers addressed, I will be designing, testing, and balancing the remaining game levels and boss fights, so that soon you, too, will be able to enjoy this special brand of stompy, smash-em-up fun. Enjoy this quick glimpse into the alpha build of the game, and a bit of the theme music from our talented composer, Cain German!

Dungeon Roller -- Tranforming Random Tables into Tabletop Fun

In March of 2012, Paul Hughes of blog of holding launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his illustrated rendition of the old "random dungeon" charts from the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide. The Kickstarter was successful and raised close to $28,000. The additional funds allowed Hughes the time to create rules for a quick and easy Dungeon Crawl board game based on the poster and to begin work on a flash based version of the game called Dungeon Robber that would be hosted on the web and free to play for anyone who wanted to experience a narrative "rogue-like."

That game is now available and it is everything one could hope for from such a game. Players begin with very limited choices of career...they can only be Dungeon Robbers. New character classes, items, and the ability to recruit henchmen are unlocked with the successful retirement of past Dungeon Robbers. Do you want to be able to purchase food, and thus be able to heal at certain spots in the dungeon? Then you need to have a character retire as a Yeoman. Do you want to hire henchmen? Then some lucky sap needs to adventure long enough to become an innkeeper.

The game is tough and quite arbitrary due to its random nature, but it is fun in the classic Ken St. Andre way. Life is cheap and death is just around the corner. Going down a level in a dungeon is almost certain suicide unless you're of high enough level. Game play is similar to older text based games like Zork, but the results of the interface are more akin to playing a game of Dungeon Hack or another rogue-like. The game is good fun and I recommend playing the game on the website (just click the image above). If you like the game as much as I do just buy a copy of the poster and make sure that Paul gets a couple of ducats for his trouble.

Weird Wars Rome Continues Pinnacle's Long Run of Great High Concept Campaigns

A few years ago, at the height of the d20 Boom, a medium sized game publisher called Pinnacle Entertainment Group released a d20 version of their signature role playing game Deadlands. The d20 version was released in an attempt to take advantage of the recent increase in interest in the role playing game market sparked by the 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The book sold well enough, but instead of increasing the Deadlands fan base it ended up alienating some fans who believed Pinnacle was abandoning their old Greg Gorden designed masterpiece. This wasn't the case, but the damage was done and sales declined.

By this time Pinnacle had already released their customizable and easy to learn and play Savage Worlds role playing game system. That game went on to be an award winning game and the Phoenix that helped Pinnacle rise from the ashes of their declined sales. Sales that had declined so much that three Friendly Local Gaming Stores in the Los Angeles area informed me that Pinnacle went out of business. Pinnacle wasn't out of business. Far from it. They were - and are - an innovative company and were at the cutting edge of the sale of digital products. Their sales for digital as well as physical Savage Worlds products saved the company and built them a loyal and passionate fan base. Staying at the fore of industry trends, Pinnacle has already had an extremely successful Deadlands Kickstarter campaign and they hope to repeat that success with their most recent project.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group recently launched Weird Wars Rome a new Savage Worlds game setting on Kickstarter. The project quickly surpassed its initial goal and is quickly conquering the stretch goals that the company has put forth. So far the digital rewards that backers of this project will receive include an original soundtrack, short adventures, and interior outlays for poster maps. All backers of the project will also be receiving an 8 page supplement by Jack Emmert (of Cryptic Studios) that discusses the role of class and race, the gods, and myths and legends in ancient Roman society.

Weird Wars Rome is the latest in a series of tabletop roleplaying game books for Pinnacle's Weird Wars line of Savage Worlds settings. The Weird Wars product line reimagines historical military campaigns and twists them by adding supernatural and horrific elements to create entertaining alternate world game settings. Game settings to date have included Vietnam and World War II. In Weird Wars Rome, players are legionnaires living in the vast Roman Empire who encounter the terrors of war and of far darker things that lurk in the shadows of the fringes of the Empire...and in the heart of Rome itself.

Unlike many Kickstarter projects, the Weird Wars Rome Kickstarter automatically provides all new digital rewards to backers as each stretch goal is reached. There are no "pay for" add ons. Shortly after the Kickstarter campaign is completed, backers will be able to down load the completed pdf the book and any digital rewards that have been completed to date. The basic funding level is $20 for which the backer will receive a copy of the base Weird Wars Rome rulebook and some digital rewards. Other levels allow backers to get more physical products like dry-erase poster maps, custom dice, a GM Screen and some adventures.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group has long been one of the kings of "high concept" when it comes to games and campaign settings. Their DEADLANDS game set the tone for undead/Western mash-ups and many of their Savage Worlds settings have taken long standing narrative tropes and given them a "savage twist." The Savage Worlds game system is marketed as being Fast, Furious, and Fun and I have very much found this to be the case.

Chainsaw Warrior -- Coming to a Digital Device Near You!

It's the year 2032. A warp has opened up in the old Municipal Buildings in the heart of old Manhattan and bizarre creatures are flooding through into our dimension. Goading them on is Darkness, a malevolent entity who intends dragging the city of New York back through the warp - destroying it utterly! 

Many brave men died assailing Darkness' stronghold before they remembered you. In the past you have done the Special Forces Unit many favors... but now you must come out of retirement to face the toughest challenge of your glorious career. Equipped with all the latest in high-tech armaments you must battle your way into the very heart of Darkness' domain and defeat him within the hour - or the city you love will be destroyed!! 

Chainsaw Warrior is a nail-biting game for one strong-nerved player. Yes, it is a solo game - just you against the clock! Can you save New York? Remember, you only have one hour!
 

In 1987 Games Workshop released a game that was an almost perfect high concept mash up of THE WARRIORS, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, and EVIL DEAD 2. That game was CHAINSAW WARRIOR and it was published in the days before Games Workshop decided they were a miniatures company and fiction publisher rather than a game workshop. In CHAINSAW WARRIOR the player took the role of an Arnold Schwartzenegger/Snake Pliskin/Ash mashup in his attempt to save Manhattan and rid the world of some terrible evil that included Mutants and Zombies...and you cannot kill enough mutants and zombies right?

In the designer notes, Steven Hand mentions that he was hard at work designing a sequel that would be published if CHAINSAW WARRIOR did well enough. As far as I know that sequel, which would have featured mutant Nazi zombies was never published. At least I never saw it and I don't own it, though I do own the original (see those sweet pics?). The game dwindled out of print and is now only available as an over priced ebay offering...UNTIL NOW!

Aurauch Digital will be releasing a Tablet and PC version of the game in the near future. Now a whole new generation will be able to struggle against THE DARKNESS.

I would be remiss if I didn't note that I had been introduced to this magnificent game by my dear friend Ron Peck. Ron had exquisite taste in music, games, and film. He was a dear friend who I miss dearly. 

Little Geek Girls: Don't Say Superheroes are "Just for Boys"

On Tuesday, Kirk Hamilton at Kotaku shared a music video by The Doubleclicks entitled "Nothing to Prove."  I'll be honest and say that the song itself doesn't do much for me and sounds a bit like a song that would be performed by Carrie Brownstein on an episode of Portlandia, though I guess comparing a song to a song by a member of Sleater-Kinney isn't exactly an excoriating review. The aesthetics of the song notwithstanding, it was the visual content of the music video that really resonated with me. In particular the woman holding the "Don't tell my daughters that Lego, Robots, and Superheroes are for boys."

That sentence struck me like lightning and with almost perfect timing. As regular readers of this blog know, I am the father of two young girls I call History and Mystery in my blog posts and who are the two "Twin Princess Superheroes" referred to in the right sidebar. To give you a picture, this is them on a "Fancy Day."

As you can see, they are wearing Fancy Nancy-esque clothing with sunglasses, domino masks, and History is holding forth a Captain America shield. This is them at their "Princess Superheroiest," well accepting when they where their Bell and Aurora dresses kitted with Merrida bow and arrow and Iron Man masks and "Boomers." All of which is to say that they have acquired many of their mom and dad's geek obsessions. I cannot express how much fun it is imagining playing D&D with the twins when they get older. I'm giddy right now thinking about it.

As you might guess, my daughters live a pretty happy life. They have parents who share their interests and who play are willing to play any game or support any interest. But that's not to say that these young innocents haven't already faced the dreaded "you aren't allowed to be interested in that" assertion by some of their peers. There was one student at their school - a student that History had a crush on no less - who saw that History and Mystery were wearing superhero tennis shoes (Cap and Iron Man) and who took it upon himself to point out to my daughters that "Superheroes" are for boys. What's more, the boy also pointed out the "Blue" is for boys too.

Blue.

BLUE!

Are you kidding me?! This kid tried to lay claim to a color? Ugh.

Back to the story. This young boy's attack upon their preferences was the first time that my daughters had been told that something was outside their purview. Sure, Jody and I have told the girls that we cannot afford certain things or that they have to wait until they are "bigger kids" to play Advanced Squad Leader with dad, but we've never told them that any given entertainment was reserved for a particular subset of society. Jody and I find that concept to be absurd on its face. No one is going to stop me from DVRing REAL HOUSEWIVES (OC and Jersey only), and certainly no one is going to tell Jody she cannot watch JUSTIFIED or THE AVENGERS because she's a woman.

So after this boy attacked my daughter's love for superheroes Mystery comes home weeping. She's upset that she's no longer allowed to like Captain America - who has fought off more Closet Monsters than I care to imagine - because he's for boys. Needless to say, it didn't take me long to inform my daughter that Captain America is for everyone and to give Mystery several real world examples of the women in my and Jody's life who are fans of "Steve." After which we watched a couple episodes of EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES and called it good. My daughters seemed satisfied. Heck, History started wearing blue (Mystery's favorite color) in solidarity with her sister.

But the story doesn't end with having a supportive mom and dad who have supportive friends. Sadly, this little punk has already sown the seed of a mental weed that must be constantly pursued and extracted as quickly as possible. I've already had History ask me if there REALLY are any female race car drivers and heaven knows what the next moment will be. One thing I do know, I'll have to be vigilant. It's no longer enough to just share the things I'm passionate about with my daughters. I now have to be prepared to help my daughters defend their enjoyment.

I'm happy to do it, but it's something that shouldn't have to be done. Stop attacking "Fake Geek Girls." Some of the kindest, warmest, and giving people I know are Geek Girls (yes I'm talking about you Jody, Susan, Shawna, and America...and many others). There is nothing fake about them.

And for those of you who spend the time "vetting" to see if a "Fake Geek Girl" is actually a real geek. You know that vetting time would be far more enjoyable if it was just a normal conversation where you both geek out right? Sure, you might end up fighting about whether Alan Scott or Hal Jordan are the better GL or how big a jerk Dan Didio is, but I guarantee that you will be more likely to leave that conversation with a friend than you will if you begin your "conversation" with an oral exam in which you scrutinize even the slightest error.

Siri as D&D Dungeon Master

As might be guessed Siri is a "killer DM." I think she ran a Call of Cthulhu adventure for me at an old DundraCon (it's in Apple's backyard).  On a serious note, check out the copy of Gary Gygax's ROLE PLAYING MASTERY on the table. That is a significant easter egg, especially given the kind of DM Siri turns out to be.

 

And yes, I own a copy of ROLE PLAYING MASTERY. I also have a copy of MASTER OF THE GAME.

Guest Post: Wesley Chu (THE LIVES OF TAO) on Playing Games with Kids

[Editor's Note] A couple of months ago, Shawna and I discussed Wesley Chu's new book THE LIVES OF TAO on our Geekerati Podcast. In addition to asking Wesley to join us on the podcast, I asked him if he would be willing to write a guest post for my Advanced Dungeons and Parenting blog and he agreed. Below is the article he wrote for the site. Before you read, I'd like to point out that reading his ADP guest article gave me a great deal of pleasure. It isn't often that I meet a fellow Mystara fan. So read on and enjoy.[End Editor's Note]

In honor of Advanced Dungeons & Parenting, I wanted to get on my soapbox and tell parents to force their kids to learn to become responsible adults by leveling characters in Dungeons and Dragons and/or Pathfinder.

My main poison from grades one through eight was Dungeons and Dragons, the non-advanced version. This is back in the eighties and nineties back to those old school TSR days when we had those red, blue, teal, and finally gold manuals. Back then, rules weren’t nearly as complicated and there weren’t a bazillion books to have to buy.

I have fond memories of the land of Mystara. My old stomping grounds were the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, the mage kingdom of Glantri, and the merchants Republic of Darokin. Sometimes, we’d venture as far out as the Ethengar Khanate. Now, Mystara, or The Known World, at the time was a fantastic sandbox. I had leveled my mage Kraven (before I knew what that name meant) up to the point he became a baron in Karameikos. What does this have anything to do with being a responsible adult? Well, I decided to build my first keep. Now, my memory of all this is a little fuzzy, but I distinctly remember thinking to my fourth grade self that “damn, I need a big frigging castle with a moat! And a huge stable! And a very high tower!”

I didn’t take into consideration for materials, defenses, garrison size…etc. I just wanted a big castle. I remember begging my parents for grid paper so I could map the entire thing out. I believe I had a dozen blue prints before I settled on a design. And boy, was it a beautiful, poorly conceived, audacious castle. Note to self: not becoming an architect was a good thing. In my defense, I had enough gold to build the damn thing. Sure I basically had to hire myself out as a high level mercenary and do some rather unpleasant things (that’s what happens when you have a mean older brother DM) and basically taxed my poor peasants to near death. But at the end of the day, the castle was built with all its needless additional towers and silly additions only a kid with too many legos could imagine.

However, I was so poor and in so much debt that I couldn’t maintain my garrison and ended up losing the castle to a marauding Dwarven army. Actually, it wasn’t even very marauding, just like 50 dwarves who snuck in from a really ill-conceived part of my defenses. I had hardly garrison and it seems my amateur architectural planning had more than a few fatal flaws. In the end, poor Kraven was left broke and destitute, and had to spend the rest of his days guarding caravans in Darokin. But, like those wise lessons learned by watching Monty Python:

"That [castle] burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.” 

I had learned some lessons that I carry with me to this day:  

1.       Don’t spend more gold than you got. 
2.       Hire a proper architect or someone who is an expert on what you need done. 
3.       Never be house poor. 
4.       Castles are expensive as hell to build, and even more expensive to maintain. 
5.       Wizards should just get a nice tower in downtown Glantri.

So parents, do your kids a favor. Play games with them, and sneak in those life lessons that will help them when they get older. After all, if you don’t, a bunch of rampaging dwarves might end up sacking their castle.

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Geekerati Radio Flashback Friday -- Susan Palwick Discusses SHELTER

Susan Palwick is an award winning Science Fiction and Fantasy author who currently teaches English at the University of Nevada Reno. Many of her novels and stories deal with emotional trauma or questions of identity, and that includes her novel SHELTER. Susan kindly discussed her book with me and the other Geekerati hosts back in 2007.

It was a special moment in the Geekerati history as it was one of our first author interviews. We've done many more over the past six years, but this one was quite special. It isn't special solely for its place as an early episode, it is also special because Susan was one of my mentoring professors as an undergraduate. There is absolutely no way I would have been able to complete my degree if it hadn't been for her compassion - and the compassion of a couple of other wonderful academics.

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THE GRANDMASTER: Tony Leung and Wong Kar Wai's Take on Ip Man Looks Amazing

I've already discussed how excited I am about the upcoming Wong Kar Wai film THE GRANDMASTER. That excitement increases with every new preview. THE GRANDMASTER a new addition to what has become a large catalog of films about Ip Man, a catalog that includes one of the most entertaining martial arts films ever made. In fact, the Donnie Yen and Wilson Yip entry into that catalog is so good that it makes one wonder why anyone would even try to tell another Ip Man story.

But then I look at the trailer and I see Tony Leung bringing all of his charisma to bear, Wong Kar Wai's insanely beautiful cinematography and style, and Zhang Ziyi.

Good grief, this looks amazing.

Just Showing Off My Wife Jody Lindke

From time to time, I like to add some of my wife's artwork to the website. She's a pretty fantastic illustrator and I am blessed to have her in my life.

Jody designed the above logo for use with some children's books we are working on. She wants "Underfut" to be the brand name, and I like it. The dog "Underfut" was a regular character in her Schulz award winning cartoon strip "Nicnup," and the character was based on Jody's real dog Oreo. Both Jody and I miss her very much. Oreo lived to be 20 years old and died the day I was leaving to go to my first Gen Con. We both wish that History and Mystery could have had a chance to meet her.

This is Jody's Steampulp rendition of our marriage. After seeing this, I have been very tempted to walk around with a tophat.

Jody drew this one for a book at work. I work at a non-profit dedicated to youth civic engagement, and this is one of my favorite exaggerated effect of campaign ads images ever.

An Open Letter to Danica Patrick, Jennifer Jo Cobb, Annabeth Barnes, and Many Others

Father's Day may be this weekend, but I received a great Father's Day gift a few days early. I was chatting with my five year old daughter History the other day about what she would like to be when she grows up.

"Daddy," she said.

"Yes."

"I think I'd like to be a race car driver when I grow up."

I smiled down at her with fantasies of her driving aggressively at 180+ mph flashing through my mind - alternating with random visuals of motor sport crashes - and said, "What kind of race car do you want to drive? Do you want to drive a car like Francesco Bernoulli or a car like Lightning McQueen?"

Her answer was swift and unsurprising, "Lightning McQueen!"

It wasn't unsurprising because Jody and I are regular viewers of NASCAR, we aren't. Ever since the twins - History and Mystery - were born, we've been devoted followers of Formula 1 racing. In the early days of the twins' lives when Jody and I were up at seemingly random times for late night feedings, we found something magical on the television. That something magical was Formula 1. Depending on where the race happened to be in a given week, the practice, qualifying, and race might be on at 2am or 3am. This was perfect for late night feeding. And I swear that the sound of the high RPM, high speed engines of those open wheel marvels was one of the reasons we were able to get the girls back to sleep at night. Nothing against NASCAR, but those drivers tend to race at reasonable hours US time.

It was unsurprising because History and Mystery love the Disney movie CARS. They love Lightning McQueen, Mater, and Sally - but they have a special place for Lightning.

Yes, they have Lightning McQueen stuffed pillows to sleep with.

After my imagination stopped flickering between excitement and panic, History asked me a question.

"Daddy? Can girls race cars?" she said.

"Yes!" I answered quickly - a slew of names came to mind, starting with Shirley Muldowney
and including many others.

My answer wasn't enough to steer her away from her own observations though.

"Daddy? Why don't I ever see any girl drivers then?" she asked.

At that moment, I became one of the world's biggest Danica Patrick, Jennifer Jo Cobb, and Annabeth Barnes fans - and I'll be a fan for life. I knew all of their names already. Danica and Jennifer are known to most motorsport fans, and Danica is one of the biggest names in sports period. And I knew Annabeth Barnes name from the motorsport documentary RACING DREAMS.

I became a life long fan because with one single action, I was able to dispel all of the powerful doubt and skepticism that a 5 year old imagination can muster. My daughter had never seen a woman race and she was starting to believe that they weren't allowed to, regardless of what her dad said. With a wave of my hand - we had been looking at a Disney Princess ebook on my iPad - I brought up Danica Patrick's homepage. Clio's eyes widened with awe, I could hear her gasp with excitement.

"Is that her race car?" she asked. She was pointing at the car Danica was standing next to.

"Yes," I answered and as I did so, the slideshow scrolled to show Danica behind the wheel. I proceeded to talk with History about Danica, Jennifer, and Annabeth and visited each of their websites, and a couple more as well (like Katherine Legge).

It was a wonderful moment, and a great early Father's Day gift.

I don't know if History will continue to want to be a race car driver when she grows up. People's dream jobs do change as they grow up. But I do know that after History went to her room for her nap, I began looking up local Kart circuits, availability, and costs. If she has an interest, I will work to provide her the opportunity. I would have done so whether there were currently any women in motorsport, or whether there ever had been, but I am so thankful that there were so many examples I could show my daughter. I have no idea how hard it would have been to fight against the preconceptions my daughter was building up from her own observations, if there weren't footsteps to follow. 

I am glad there were.

So, I'd just like to take the time to thank every woman currently racing in motor sport for doing what they love. My daughter may never join you in the ranks, but you made her dream a believable one and I first hand saw how important that was to her. I have always rooted for drivers like Danica and Annabeth, but it had always been in an abstract "American's love the underdog" kind of way. I am now a devoted fan of any woman brave enough to sit behind the wheel, because you are physical proof of a child's dream.

RIP: Iain M. Banks

I first encountered the brilliant writing of Iain M. Banks when I was an undergraduate at the University of Nevada, Reno. I was working in a computer lab and, having read Heinlein/Asimov/Farmer,  claimed to be a science fiction fan while in conversation with one of the technicians. The technician started asking me, and not in a gotcha way, my opinions on a wide range of authors - authors who had names I was completely unfamiliar with. One of these names was Iain M. Banks. From the conversations I had with the tech, Banks' writing seemed something both new and old. It combined the Space Opera grand tapestry background of Herbert or Asimov (I hadn't heard of Niven yet, but would soon) with stylistic prose that captured the imagination.

The first Banks book I read was Consider Phlebas, the first in the splendid series of "Culture" novels. The book describes a "small action" that takes place within a grand interstellar war between the Culture and a race of aliens called the Idirans. The story was - in some ways - an argument against "Death Star" moments and against "super kid" style SF. At the same time, it was deeply human and evocative of emotion. It was a book that made me think and ask for more, and Banks delivered a great deal more. I consider the Culture novels to be the best collective works in all of science fiction. There may be better individual stories, but as a body of work they are canonical and magnificent.

I read earlier today that Banks, who had been revealed his cancer earlier this year, has died. I am filled with the selfish sorrow of the fan. For now I know that the amount of new experiences that this talented writer will bring into my life has hit its termination. I can only read his final work and reread all that he wrote that has brought me joy - time and again. I cannot imagine the sorrow of his family and newlywed wife - who he asked if she would do him the honor of being his widow earlier this year - I can only know the self-centered sorrow that I feel. I never met the man, neither at a con or a signing, but his work has affected me deeply. It will be shared with my children. I would like to thank him for the gift he gave me.

In memoriam of Banks, I'd like to do two things. First, I'd like to share an excerpt from the poem The Wasteland from which the novel Consider Phlebas acquired its title. Then I'd like to present a quote from the book itself.

IV. DEATH BY WATER Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea	315
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,	320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

One of the reasons Banks impressed me as a writer was his ability to capture human struggle in a post-scarcity society. He had a much better grasp on such things than most writers. His economics were not as confused as Star Trek's, which as much as I love the show meander from post-scarcity to smuggling/black market. He understood one of the drives that makes us human. He sums up nicely the human spirit in post-scarcity societies with the following:

The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines they had (at however great remove) brought into being: the urge not to feel useless. The Culture's sole justification for the relatively unworried, hedonistic life its population enjoyed was its good works; the secular evangelism of the Contact Section, not simply finding, cataloguing, investigating and analyzing other, less advanced civilizations but - where circumstances appeared to Contact to justify so doing - actually interfering (overtly or covertly) in the historical processes of those other cultures.

The human spirit is inherently anti-Prime Directive, as Kirk and crew so often demonstrate, because we wish to matter. We want to make things better. This is a wonderful impulse, it can lead us to beautiful acts or base ones, but it is a quintessentially human impulse.

Banks mattered.

Cancelling AD&D? RPG Rumors Circa 1986 -- Different Worlds #44

I'm a big fan of Tadashi Ehara's now defunct gaming magazine DIFFERENT WORLDS. Over its tenure, the magazine was published by a couple of companies including Chaosium and Sleuth Publications. According to a pre-publication solicitation letter (available here), the magazine was originally slated to be entitled DM. The change was likely due to concerns over TSR's trademark of DM/Dungeon Master. Regardless of the reason for the change in title, I think that DIFFERENT WORLDS better suited the content of the magazine than DM ever would have. The magazine was a gem. Like Steve Jackson Games' magazine SPACE GAMER, Ehara's magazine covered the entire roleplaying game hobby. As I've written before, issue #23 of the magazine is maybe one of the most important magazines ever written about the origins of Superhero Roleplaying games. For those who want to understand the history of RPGs, DIFFERENT WORLDS, SPACE GAMER, and ALARUMS & EXCURSIONS are three of the most valuable resources that the aspiring historian can find. They really help to cut through a lot of the community gossip about a transitional era in the hobby.

Speaking of Gossip, DIFFERENT WORLDS featured an excellent gossip column written by the pseudonymous Gigi D'arn (clearly a Gary Gygax/David Arneson reference). I've written speculation about the identity of this columnist before, and I'm still pretty sure that she was a real person and that the Chaosium staff added to her actual letters. There are just too many little tidbits of SoCal culture, which was booming at the time as an RPG hub, for me to believe otherwise. The column was filled with a great deal of speculation, some true, some pure fiction, and all fun to read.

There are a couple of pieces of gossip/rumors in issue 44 that stand out and need attention. In fact, they are rumors that I'd like to hear more from the gaming community at large about, and I'll be asking around to see if there is any merit to them.

First and foremost - actually quite shocking - really is a claim about ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. According to Gigi, "Rumour thinks TSR is unhappy with the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game line and is considering dropping it. GARY GYGAX meanwhile is starting his own company, Infinity Games, in New Jersey. Will he take the license with him?"

I wonder if this is true. 1985 saw the publication of UNEARTHED ARCANA and ORIENTAL ADVENTURES for the AD&D game, but the mid-80s was also the era of the publication of the Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortals rules for D&D. It was a time when the D&D brand was divided among two sub-brands and a time when there was great potential that one brand was cannibalizing the other. From my experience, the D&D brand was putting out a lot of great material at this time. According to GROGNARDIA 1986 saw the release of a number of BECMI products and 1987 saw the production of the first Gazetteer products for the D&D brand - some of the best products ever released for D&D.

If I were to guess, I'd say the rumor was true and that core rule book sales for AD&D had dropped. I would argue that this is why we saw a 2nd edition of AD&D released in 1989. An edition that may not have happened at all if not for the success of the Forgotten Realms Setting. My thought is that the Forgotten Realms setting, written for AD&D, was so successful that management decided to do a new edition of the game for increased sales. I'd like to know if this is correct or not though.

The second interesting piece of gossip/rumors is that J.D. Webster, the creator of the Finieous Fingers cartoon strip, was a carrier fighter pilot. This is apparently true.

What's That You Say? You Saw My Name on a Voice Media Group Article?

A couple of weeks ago, the editor of the Topless Robot website asked if I wanted to begin pitching ideas for table top gaming related Daily Lists posts. Before even considering how challenging the task would be, I shouted with a resounding "Heck yeah!" This morning at 6:00 my first article was published on the website. The article discusses Ray Harryhausen's influence on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and features 9 AD&D monsters that I think exemplify that influence.

I cannot say how excited I am to see my name in print - or more pixels in this case - again. I haven't seen my name in a "professional" byline since my friend John Ford and I wrote our last Celluloid Say-So article for the Daily Sparks Tribune. The time I had writing that column with J was a joy, and my desire to recapture that feeling was one of the reasons I started this blog. What makes my current article even more exciting is that Topless Robot is a part of Voice Media Group, the same company that publishes the LA Weekly and The Village Voice. As a film fan, one of my favorite critics is/was Andrew Sarris and many of the critical arguments he had with fellow critic Pauline Kael were published by the Village Voice.

Topless Robot may not quite be the Village Voice, but I'm no Andrew Sarris either. 

Boy am I excited! Please...go to the site to read my article - and hopefully many more in the future.

Television Viewing Behavior Study

I am currently in the process of collecting data for my MBA thesis.  To that end, I have designed a survey.  I don't normally post solicitations like this and this will not be a regular occurrence. 

You are being invited to participate in an opinion survey regarding a Television Viewing Behavior. The survey will run for one week only, therefore your timely participation is greatly appreciated. If you are interested in participating, please follow the link below.

https://calpolycba.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_ehx2jqbk2hOYODX

You can right click and choose “Open Link” or paste it into your web browser to get to the survey.

You will be asked to read an Informed Consent, which will explain the study I am conducting as an MBA student at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. The survey contains 17 questions and should take approximately 20 minutes of your time.

Your participation is strictly voluntary and all your responses are completely anonymous.

Sincerely,
Christian Lindke
MBA candidate, Principal Investigator
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Email: christianj@csupomona.edu

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RIP: Ray Harryhausen (1920 - 2013)

To say that the work of Ray Harryhausen had a significant impact on my life would be an understatement.  Not only are JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD two of my favorite films, films I cannot wait to share with my twin daughters, they are also parts of some of the happiest memories of my childhood.  I remember watching these films with my mom and dad when they ran as matinee films.  I remember my parents "secretly" smuggling me in to see SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER at the Drive-In.  I hid under a sheet in the back of the Gremlin and they pretended I wasn't there. It turns out that they paid the family rate and that the subterfuge was just for my entertainment.  

The movies were undeniably magical and one of my two favorite Comic Con moments is sitting in the audience at a "Ray & Ray" panel (that's Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen) where they both talked about their life's work.  Our local science fiction/fantasy bookstore in Glendale would frequently hold Ray & Ray signings. It was one of the things that makes Glendale the perfect place to live.

Finding out that Harryhausen has passed is sad.  That sadness is lessened by the truth that Harryhausen added so much joy to the world -- joy that will long outlive me.

Thank you Mr. Harryhausen for my childhood joys, and thank you for the future joy I will be able to experience thanks to your imagination.


The Harryhausen Family formally announced the death on Facebook with the following message:

Raymond Frederick Harryhausen
Born: Los Angeles 29th June 1920
Died: London 7th May 2013.

The Harryhausen family regret to announce the death of Ray Harryhausen, Visual Effects pioneer and stop-motion model animator. He was a multi-award winner which includes a special Oscar and BAFTA. Ray’s influence on today’s film makers was enormous, with luminaries; Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson, George Lucas, John Landis and the UK’s own Nick Park have cited Harryhausen as being the man whose work inspired their own creations.

Harryhausen’s fascination with animated models began when he first saw Willis O’Brien’s creations in KING KONG with his boyhood friend, the author Ray Bradbury in 1933, and he made his first foray into filmmaking in 1935 with home-movies that featured his youthful attempts at model animation. Over the period of the next 46 years, he made some of the genres best known movies – MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949), IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (1955), 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957), MYSTERIUOUS ISLAND (1961), ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966), THE VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969), three films based on the adventures of SINBAD and CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981). He is perhaps best remembered for his extraordinary animation of seven skeletons in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963) which took him three months to film.

Harryhausen’s genius was in being able to bring his models alive. Whether they were prehistoric dinosaurs or mythological creatures, in Ray’s hands they were no longer puppets but became instead characters in their own right, just as important as the actors they played against and in most cases even more so.

Today The Ray & Diana Harryhausen Foundation, a charitable Trust set up by Ray on the 10th April 1986, is devoted to the protection of Ray’s name and body of work as well as archiving, preserving and restoring Ray’s extensive Collection.

Tributes have been heaped upon Harryhausen for his work by his peers in recent years.

“Ray has been a great inspiration to us all in special visual industry. The art of his earlier films, which most of us grew up on, inspired us so much.” “Without Ray Harryhausen, there would likely have been no STAR WARS”
George Lucas.

“THE LORD OF THE RINGS is my ‘Ray Harryhausen movie’. Without his life-long love of his wondrous images and storytelling it would never have been made – not by me at least”
Peter Jackson

“In my mind he will always be the king of stop-motion animation”
Nick Park

"His legacy of course is in good hands
Because it’s carried in the DNA of so many film fans."
Randy Cook

"You know I’m always saying to the guys that I work with now on computer graphics “do it like Ray Harryhausen”
Phil Tippett

“What we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before but without computers. Only with his digits.”
Terry Gilliam.

"His patience, his endurance have inspired so many of us."
Peter Jackson

"Ray, your inspiration goes with us forever."
Steven Spielberg

"I think all of us who are practioners in the arts of science fiction and fantasy movies now all feel that we’re standing on the shoulders of a giant.
If not for Ray’s contribution to the collective dreamscape, we wouldn’t be who we are."
James Cameron