G+ I'm leaving you...

The demise of G+. Couldn't come at a better time. I was starting to wonder why I was continuing to go there. I felt like there was too many posts and circles and groups to effectively curate. If I didn't use G+ as my online game platform I probably would have just stuck with my blog's blog roll to stay up on cool content.

With the migration to MeWe of many G+'ers I kinda get to rebuild my online gaming architecture. Not by much, but with any type of move I get a chance to look through my stuff and ask “What do I really need?” First off I need a group for my current online game. Here MeWe falls short because there is no integrated video conference app built into the site. G+ broke up the seamless way I could go from announcing a game, getting players and then forming a group complete with event listings and then simple click for all participants to jump in on game day. But I could still type in group contacts and send out invites to the online Hangouts session. With MeWe I can have the group organization but I will be needing to lead everyone over to the Hangout. The good which has come about with the forced reorganization is I've made a hard look at YouTube. To look at the recording and live streaming capabilities. The public consumption of viewing others playing table top roleplaying, well I have a long running game and me and my players don't mind people lurking.

Seeing what is possible. This is what I got the most from G+. What I can do with free access to online tools and the audience online to interact with. My game was nonexistent and once I was hooked up on G+ I was reading blogs with elevated gaming information, writing my own game blog and playing actual games. Then was the exposure to incredible adult material I would never get from game companies. Original, visceral and presented in useful and beautiful formats. Plenty for free and the really good stuff was worth the price. Made me want to make my own stuff. The G+ gamers showed the way here too. POD, One Book Shelf, layout software, making PDF's. I get to make game books I want to have on my shelf. And if anyone else is interested they can spend coffee money and have them too!

I was way wrong in thinking G+ would be around for a long time. But hell with it. The good look and lesson I got sure showed it is all about the people in the game community. We have met, more come everyday, and the blogs backstop all the valuable material so exposure and innovation will continue.

I will be detaching from G+. No reason not to just post on my blog and group scrum live with the gang on MeWe for now. As long as I have a viable means of creating a video table for players to sit around I don't think my online experience will be diminished at all. Maybe this will cut down on distractions so I can finish the latest three or four gaming books I agonize over.

All in all this shows the durability of the blogs. This is a good thing. Now I got a game I gotta get ready for. See you all real soon.

The Blood of Heroes Rules for Character Interaction

My close read and implementation of The Blood of Heroes: Second Edition continues on its first early steps and I'm jumping to Chapter 6: Character Interaction.

Interrogation, Intimidation and Persuasion are character interactions you can resolve with a “Dice Action”. The AV/EV* and OV/RV* for a PC are already known. The Infl/Aura and Infl/Spirit of the NPC is determined by the Gamemaster. When the GM does this, either on the fly or prepped ahead of time, they are essentially setting a difficulty target number which needs to be hit. When the Players and the GM wish to roll for results to decide the outcome of these three types of character interactions they are resolved the same way everything else is in the game; with the Action Table and the Results Table. 

What about the other way around? What happens if a villain or any other NPC tries to use Character Interaction against one of the Players? Myself I try not to force the PC to do anything. Other gamers are more comfortable making the PC briefly restricted by puppet strings, and do it well. I philosophically try and tie my hands so it is the PC's themselves deciding whether the villain is bluffing or should they cut and run from a dangerous and uncertain situation. These rules for BoH kinda go half way. The PC can be bound to failed opposed and resistance rolls, but they can also spend Hero Points to ignore the effects.

Otherwise character interaction should be handled like any well done rpg does, with the Players doing stuff and the GM adjudicating results until the need for dice feels warranted.

This is a short chapter. Quick to digest. There are suitable descriptions of the three character interactions including additional chrome; Interaction Maneuvers. These can be taken or left as the GM sees fit without breaking the mechanic. Next I'll take a read through Chapter 7 Gadgets and after I will tell you my thoughts.

*AV=Acting Value, OV=Opposed Value, EV=Effect Value and RV=Resistance Value from the BoH rulebook. 

The Blood of Heroes & MEGS

Which is kinda one and the same. Pulsar games purchased the rights to create a Supers RPG using Mayfair’s DC Heroes MEGS (Mayfair Exponential Game System) mechanics, minus the DC licensed properties. Which is perfect for those like myself who like to create their own game world with original characters as opposed to premade setting with established characters. The final form this system took is The Blood of Heroes: Special Edition and is well known for the dreadful quality of the art, dated layout and awful NPC write ups for the limited setting Pulsar inserted into the book.

I’ve been taking looks at BoH for several years when my interest returns to Supers roleplaying. Reading reviews of DC Heroes, and MEGS in general, the system gets solid props and very little criticism. The only reason I hadn’t taken a deep dive into the game is because I didn’t push myself past the two-chart method of resolving action in the game, the core mechanic if you would. Swallowing another character creation system for a Supers game prevented me from giving it a solid go as well. Maybe I can make Champions finally work for me? I had most of the best books of the system. But in my heart of hearts I knew I would never return to this game for my dream Supers campaign, so running out of alternatives a serious read of BoH was now at hand. First I reread the intro with Anarchy Man getting into a fist fight with Clint and learned how to use the resolution charts. Not bad, pretty straight forward. Okay, so basic resolution doesn’t bother me and I’m not going to worry right now how this game handles superspeed. Making a verdict on how the game scales everything on the same exponential numbering will take some exposure to before I know whether it works for me. I am intrigued, this is the part of the system which gets most of the praise. A normal person has attributes of “2”. An attribute of 3 is twice as good, and a 4 is twice as good as a 3!. Time, distance, weight, even wealth, is all tied to this scale. For example a time of “0” is 4 seconds. Time 1 is 8 seconds, Time 2 is 16 seconds and time 3 is 32 seconds. Weight starts at a base 0=50lbs. Weight of 1 is 100lbs., 2 200lbs., 3 is 400lbs. See exponential progression. This allows the game to scale seamlessly ever upwards without breaking the game. Champions handles wildly different power scales well, but Chaosium’s Superworld not so much. Here the MEGS system goes as high on the power scale as you want with no distortion. The final test will be how I think of superspeed and initiative work out. Some have criticized the MEGS mechanics of BoH not handling low-powered characters very well, but I’m not seeing this. So everyman has a Strength and Dex of 2, but any experienced game master knows the color of your NPC’s is not so much in the stats but in their personality and skills. My first character I built with the system uses their recommended base of 450 points and as a low-powered superhero I was able to create the super I want and build in all the personality, color, powers and motivation I envision. Once I crunched through character generation I felt I was looking at a fast moving game which also eliminates all the tactical crunch I find hanging onto Champions. I can see running this game online without battle maps and minis.

This will also aid in world building. I don’t think statting out villians and gadgets will be as time consuming as found in Champions. No, I think this system will allow me to put forth effort in the hard part of Supers gaming, having a campaign world worthy of interesting game play. This is the number one reason why I love playing old school. The OSR has taught me not to depend on the system to make my game work. It takes a game worthy of playing in to be good. The system is more of an afterthought. Use the system which helps you run, not tells you how to run. Classic Traveller is a great example of this OSR principle of game design. The source material is my best world building reference, not the rulebook. In the game of supers this means comic books! Find the stories I like and build that. Certainly the BoH MEGS mechanics will handle anything I can dream up!

My Five Favorite Role-playing Games

Gamma World: TSR's Basic Dungeons & Dragons was the game which introduced me into ttrpg's but it was Gamma World which really opened up the endless fun to be had with the role playing format. While D&D channeled my love for Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Gamma World allowed me to play out my passion for comic books. Kamandi and TheWarlord specifically. There was a certain freedom in world building and character creation which I could not embrace with D&D. Not that there was anything wrong with D&D, I just felt, as a kid, Gamma World asking more imagination from me than a game concerned with High Fantasy.

Champions: I love, love the role play potential built into comic books and Champions got my attention with the promise of custom character builds for your superhero, and by extension, your supers game world. Issues of Marvel with Dr. Doom and Iron Man battling it out in King Arthur's court and the ubiquitous future science fantasy woven in most comics of the day made it apparent in a supers role playing game I could fold in any genre trope into the campaign. The stacks, racks and boxes of used comics throughout comic book stores told me I would never be short of adventure material for my game. The breakdown with Champions came with the self same tools for custom builds prohibited breezy world building. As a Game Master I made the mistake of using the crunchy game mechanics as the method for game prep. I bogged down and just couldn't do it anymore. But Champions holds the number two spot because I did run it more than any other superhero game. And nailing down an important Game Master realization; the mechanics are for the PC's, not the GM!

Stormbringer/Elric!: Blood and souls for my lord Arioch. Not only did this game introduce me to pulp fantasy beyond Conan, it turned me on to another way to break from the level/class scriptures of Dungeons & Dragons. The ability to build a fantasy character as I see fit was liberating.

Why can't a PC wield a sword, wear power armor, fire a gun and use magic? My favorite stories and comics all have these polyglot type of characters. Why are my games restricting me? Obviously they are not. I was just too hidebound, narrow in my thinking and only as good at gaming as I was going to be. I find indie games and their popularity similar to the popularity of paint by numbers. Create a Van Gogh, in the comfort of your own comfort zone! Just follow these easy step by step instructions. Yeah this is fun to do, but this isn't art. This is not a challenge. But Chaosium's d100 system met my young person's ability half way and gave me a system which justified my belief the depth of role play was real. Any failings in the game where not a result of system, but within myself. Made me believe that if I didn't want a bad game just don't suck.

Renaissance: A smart polish on Chaosium's venerable d100 system Cakebread & Walton's black powder era game does all the right things for those who want to tap into this historical time period for fantastic gaming. Rules for Alchemy and Witchcraft add the right amount of fantastical for adept players and game masters to hit any high note they want. Humorous and cinematic, realistic and gritty grimdark and grotty. Renaissance will do it. It is my current number two favorite role playing game of all time because it is what I am running right now. At two and a half years the system has not only satisfied myself, it has kept the same group of online players invested since the first opening adventure!

USR Sword & Sorcery: Yes my favorite role playing game of all time is the one I built from the ground up using Scott Malthouse's (U)nbelievably (S)imple (R)oleplaying game mechanics. USR is a simple set of resolution mechanics balance against a PC having few attributes while at the same time offering an extremely player facing, flexible way for character customization. I used this generic role playing system to try out a deliberate approach to a game I though Gary Gygax and D&D first challenged and thrilled me to apprehend. Pulp fantasy; Howard, Moorcock, Carter, etc. was source material which I always envision when I daydream about role playing games. Why not just rely on these stories and tropes when running a game? Shouldn't I just let the rules and mechanics lie in the background waiting to be used when required? This may be rote for better gamers than me, but I had always relied on game mechanics to deliver the package, and this is exactly contrary to what original role playing games promised. USR gave me an opportunity to approach the art fresh with young expectations and seasoned eyes. The result was USR Sword & Sorcery and it was sufficient to run, after being out of gaming for 25 years, a swingy, blood soaked pulp fantasy campaign with a dedicated group of strangers on line for three years. Mission accomplished.

Problematic Interrogating of Colonial Oppression in your Misogynistic OSR game

It is what it is. Running a role playing game in Seventeenth Century Europe where all the superstitious historical and literary tropes are real. In a game sense. We all know witches aren't real, but it was "legal" to burn people alive. We know forcing others into bondage is horrid, but slavery is matter of course. We know zombie movies are a parody of the depredations humanity visits on itself, but the next Battle of the Bulge is just around the corner.

I love the fact that the horrid human fantasy is but window dressing in the furious car chase which is my Clockwork & Cthulhu campaign. Slavery, splat. Cowardice, splat. Alien infestation, splat. Thieving and double dealing, splat. Cannibalism, splat. Gun fights and murder, and murder, and murder, splat. Taking advantage of the unhinged and mentally soft, splat.

Coming from a literate society and playing with others who are well read in the classics; Kirby, Beowulf, Hustler, just makes for a great game. Nothing is sacred and everything is on the table. Traditional role playing games can take any premise, any genre, any implied conceit and make it rock if the principles of good gaming are respected; Game Master with a firm grip on the genre, and Player's who do stuff. After that the setting doesn't matter cause the random mechanics of game play just add an edge to the event. This being everyone at the table has done something awesome, and you know what, you still may get fucked. Trust your Game Master or become one. Do both and be of service to gamerkind. Use POD and DriveThru to make all you have available to others. This is the golden age of gaming. It can only get better!

Scourge Books, the Royal Trux of podcasts

The anchor podcast party continues to grow and more and more episodes from anyone in the gaming universe are dropping every day. But the newest comer on this new block has got me out of the house and working on one of my game books in the parking lot where a lot of the local transients camp for the night.

Scourge Books has caught my attention with its glib attitude and basement living bombast which gets me thinking of overflowing ashtrays, empty liquor bottles and a corner of the room stacked with amps where the “band” practices. Where I’ve seen brevity reign (my podcast included) with gamer podcasts on anchor dropping in at fifteen minutes or less, Scourge Books plopped down an hour and half long first episode. A rambling bull session between “Scourge” and his “Woman”, keeping names and background absent, only revealing themselves through the dialogue; the gaming, video, music topics the two bounce through, the new show feels like a cut up four track mix reminiscent of DIY Heroin-Punk from the late eighties, except it is about table top gaming. And it is on the internet so immediately accessible. I’m sure someone can tell me in a red-hot minute who Scourge is, but for a brief moment the weird world of online content delivered me a dirty, underground thrill like reading Naked Lunch for the first time.

If Scourge and the Woman can keep it up, keep the topics revolving all hipster and eternally young and ultimately disposable Scourge Books podcasts could easily become a favorite listen of mine while I toil away on my own obscure DIY role playing projects. In a van. Down by the river.

Review of Gathox Vertical Slum Adventure Module

+David Lewis Johnson offered me a PDF copy of Quake Alley Mayhem for review. I am happy to do so because; one, I have used much of his royalty free stock art to illustrate my baby USR Sword & Sorcery,Rules Lite Roleplaying for Fantastic Pulp Fantasy Adventures, and two, I purchased Gathox Vertical Slum, a far out, gonzo science fantasy campaign setting for Swords & Wizardry White Box sight unseen because it spoke early eighties Heavy Metal magazine I bought on the down low as a young teen.

So I'm in David Lewis Johnson's camp hard. On top of this +Mike Evans edited Quake Alley Mayhem. He is the moving force behind DIY RPG Productions and does his shit soooo straight and right +Zak Smith threw Demon City at him to carry the publishing load. I buy Zak's stuff because it is some of the best RPG material available today. Mike I met at Gencon 50 and I watched him win a Silver Ennie for Hubris and he is not shy for flying a middle finger. He does not stay up as late as Jacob Hurst or Jez Gordon. So you know he actually is probably kind of a softie.

QuakeAlley Mayhem is a good example of how overworked all our best people are these days. It gives me hope that all of us on the OSR DIY sidelines figuring things out, well, we need to do so, cause everyone like David Lewis Johnson are writing fun good stuff and the pipeline for distribution is jammed. I mean stopped up! Evil Hat hasn't put out anything of value since ever. They are sooo starved for something to do all they can come up with is dissing the Ennies. The Ennies! Smart, mildly good looking men and women, on their own volition, are striving forth, putting everything on the line and producing great game talent and now they are swamped. If it wasn't for the connections at conventions and google plus being made by earnest folk in real time, well you my fellow gamer would be still playing Lost Mines of Phandelver again and again and again.

Quake Alley Mayhem is a harbinger of glee for all and everyone on the nonexistent margins of the RPG game world. Can you edit? Can you do layout? Can you write? Can you draw? Can you playtest? Do you love to proofread (there has got to be someone, right?) Can you use POD software? Gather together and make an RPG product.

Established RPG companies in the “middle ground”* trying to imitate WotC business model are in the process of being disassembled like a first level PC by a Giant Crab.

If you have enough enthusiasm and typing skills you can produce a ready to run adventure so much more interesting than anything else available on the mainstream market in an afternoon. And have people buying it and playing it by nightfall.

The regular game companies should be shitting their pants. I think they have been for the last four or five years and just can't say it. The best they can do is minimize outsider achievement. But once again outsider achievement will be on full display at this year's Gencon. The LotFP booth will sell out. The Ennies will be dominated by outsider products winning awards. These will be, in no particular order, Hot Springs Island, Hobbs and Friends, Frostbitten and Mutilated. In no way should the corporate game world see such scrappy, passionate outfits succeed, but succeed they do. There will be some hangovers after Gencon 51, but none which matter.

*an undefinded term of mine, but I'm thinking Pinnacle, Evil Hat, Green Ronin, Lumpley Games, etc.