Console Gaming - Five Years Late

I have never had a games console. OK, I tell a lie, for a few months when I lived in Rugby I had a SNES. It was a total impulse buy because I was bored shitless living on my own and I only ever had one game for it - Super Mario Somethingorother.

Since then I have never touched another console. PC gamer all the way. That was until yesterday when I inherited a PS2 from a friend who was moving house. The game came with Guitar Hero (I & II) and some old-school racing games. I am about as musical as a brick but Guitar Hero has proved to be doable. However it has been an absolute smash hit with the girls, who have regular battles now whenever our backs are turned.

And the one thing that has always caused me to back away from the console has not transpired - it has not caused TV-schedule nightmares. Instead of the house being filled with iCarly or MTV hits or some other rubbish, its now filled with ROCK! Indeed the acceptance of the console has spawned Mrs G. to suggest we bought some more pre-owned games - and boy, PS2 games are damned cheap.

So we snaffled up Star Wars Lego, Madden 2007 and Super Mario Somethingorother for a tenner. Of course, in order to play them I am going to have to unplug the girls from their new rock addiction.

So readers, what PS2 games are the MUST HAVE games I have missed over the last decade?

In Search of the Greatest Chili Sauce

Its time again to brew a batch of chili sauce and this time I think I'm nearly there. I love sweet chili sauce but I also love hot sauce and I rarely find one which manages to do both. With this in mind I undertook a mission a couple of months ago to make my own.

The trick, it seems, is in the mix of chilis. A lot of sauces I have read use capsicum peppers and tomatoes for body but I find that they meddle with the sauce too much. I prefer to use meaty medium heat chilis and lots of them, like a kilo of them. I add to that minced Birds Eye chilis and some Scots Bonnet too. That delivers the heat. Minced ginger, a little lime rind, coriander seed and some pepper corns for flavour and some whole cinnamon for aroma. White vinegar and jam sugar make up the rest of the mix. Heat it, reduce it, let it cool and bottle it. It really works.

If this batch works out OK, I reckon I have got it sorted. Next trick - the perfect 'brown' sauce.

The Flight of the Excalibur - Dr Who Adventures

So the first session of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space has been executed and it was a success. The girls were thrilled and the story as I planned it rolled out in pretty much the way I imagined.

The Doctor and Donna were dragged onto Camelot Base, the staging platform on the moon for humanities first attempts at FTL travel in 2099. This is the first step for the Great Human Race as they spread out into the galaxy and fulfilled their destiny. A little psychic-paper fueled subterfuge gets our heroes to the main control centre where they meet the science team and generally find out about stuff and then things start going wrong. The medical doctor forgets all of her knowledge. The technician forgets what he is saying on the tannoy announcements. The sympathetic chubby engineer forgets the code to get out of the sealed radiation chamber and has an hour to live and then everyone forgets who each other is and why they are there. Chaos, one hour before mankind's great leap.

As it transpires the memories are being stolen by black shadowy creatures called Harvesters. They try to suck the memories from Donna but her 'Indomitable' trait saves the day. She flees from the monsters just as the Doctor realises what they are. They are the foot soldiers of The Hunger, one of the Pantheon of Discord (see The Trickster from Sarah Jane Adventures) who the Doctor trapped in limbo. If they can feed on the memories of a Time Lord he will gain the knowledge of how to escape his prison and feed on time.

So, how do they escape? The Doctor uses the station's computer to channel all of the massive bank of information about this most famous crew from the media streams from Earth to rebuild their memories. Meanwhile, Donna (!) stands off against the Harvesters and reminds them that they couldn't drain her, she has their number and this is the wrong place, wrong time! And then Emma rolled like a god powered by a fair whack of Story Points. The Harvesters disappeared on a 'Yes, But...' result.

The Doctor and Donna then watch as the renewed but rather confused scientists execute the launch of the Excalibur and humanity makes its first steps to interstellar flight. As they disappeared in the TARDIS, the 'but' occured as space began to fracture slightly and The Hunger whispered a dread warning to his nemesis.

The girls were thrilled. They managed to do a lot of Doctor Who-isms through the entire two hours of the game and they reveled in the situation. The mismatch between the characters was palpable in the game, but in the end it didn't mean much to the experience. The real downside in my view was the strange emphasis placed upon the character playing the Doctor.

We all know HOW the Doctor should be played and its not actually easy. In the show, the Doctor actually powers a lot of the exposition, so you need to have either a player who is very happy to power the setting with a lot of dramatic editing or a GM who can prepare a lot of cheat sheets - but that doesn't seem right. Similarly, if the players cannot come up with something suitably 'Who' as a way to get out of the problem that they are facing, it falls a little flat. I'm not a big one for the 'Spend a story point for the clue' method. It smells of authorised railroading to me.

The system delivered a great game, but I'm not quite convinced that having The Doctor there is necessarily a great thing. That said, the orders are already in for the next episode so I had better get my thinking cap on.

The Time Lord Conundrum

I have in my possession the wonderfully produced Dr Who Roleplaying Game. It is not, in any way, shape or form, a wonderfully innovative game. It smells more than a little of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG (and as those in the know, know, thats a damned good thing in my book!) but it does offer a doorway into one of the great compelling fictional universes.

I'm running a game for the girls on Saturday and I think its pretty much a given that sooner or later the game will make a run out with the gaming group in one way or another. This has had me thinking about how to structure a realistic Dr Who experience at the gaming table. Its not quite as easy as it looks at first glance.

1. No Combat

That doesn't sound so bad when you say it, but when you think about it hard, it actually removes a large number of pretty staple encounters used in games. It does, however, open up what you can do with the bad guys. Balance? Why do you need balance? The monsters can be as dangerous as you want - its not like they are going to discombobulate the PCs? They're going to do it to the NPCs but the PCs will run or talk or whatever.

2. The Best Baddies are Never Obvious

Whatever the bizarre situation the game presents the players, it is rarely what it seems. The spooky possessed kids are not actually spooky or possessed, the ghosts roaming the streets are not actually ghosts, the smelly politicians ruining the country are not .. you get the idea. Thats a genre staple that you can do a lot with, but it relies upon the players buying into the conceit. Of course, you can always call their bluff!

3. The Multiverse is your Playground

Once you put the words TARDIS down on the paper, you open up the doors to anything, anywhere. You want a historical game? Have one. You want a futuristic game? Have one. Modern game? Have one. Alien planet? Space ship? Cavemen? Yes, they're all yours. You can literally have your game anywhere. Again, that sounds wonderful but how many times do we rely upon the surrounding setting to enrich a campaign? What would happen when that setting is so fluid? Where does the stability go? Well I reckon it makes you put a re-emphasis on the characters rather than the ephemera, which isn't necessarily a bad thing!

4. Truly Iconic Assets

There will be a pressure to building up throughout any campaign for that time when the referee utters that immortal Dr Who word - 'EXTERMINATE!' - but what happens when you do? Thats a pretty heavy legacy you are playing with there and your players are going to expect something massive and potent. Thats quite scary but also potentially explosive. I'm struggling to think of a genre that has a bad guy that is so accessible and yet so iconic in quite the same way. The Klingons? Nah. Sith Lords? Not really. Cyclons are too ubiquitous. Daleks are special sauce.

5. The Technobabble Game - worse than the Investigative Game?

I've probably ranted somewhere about my dislike for the faux inevitability of many investigative games but a different flavour of the same problem may be the technobabble game. Dr Who is thoroughly drenched in boffin-heroes using their brains rather than their brawn to jury-rig a dual-phlange-left-hand-gizmo-bracket to solve whatever problem they are facing. Put the ability to do that in the hands of a relatively creative player and you have the potential for some rather fruity chaos. So what will you have to do? Have wrinkles in reserve, complications and other such madness.

So you have a game where violence is never the answer, you usually obfuscate your bad guy behind at least a couple of layers of intrigue, you have a totally fluid campaign backdrop, you have to be prepare for technobabble solutions and you have some of the most iconic bad guys in fiction waiting in the wings.

Yeah, thats pretty daunting and a different way of thinking about things - but thats also pretty damned cool.

Gaming Resolutions 2010

Well, this is going to be a lot harder than I thought because a lot of my longer term goals have already been completed. I've published my games, I've squirreled away the money to go to GenCon this year. I'm in a pretty decent place when it comes to gaming - certainly better than anywhere I have been in previous years. So, lets see what we can come up with?

1. Maintain the momentum of Omnihedron Games

I have noticed, of late, that my attentions have began to stray elsewhere. I have plans (I always have plans) but I have been sticking them on the backburner. I think the problem has been twofold. I have 'done' my job on D&H and BtQ and in some ways I don't see a need to revisit them. However, there are things that I still have to say on the topic. I haven't published an almanac in ages and I have a definite yearning to bring the games into the Victorian era, especially the Anglo-Zulu War period, if only in a short supplement.

2. Balance the time pressures of work and gaming

Of course, one of the great motivators behind getting my games out was that I did it as a way of staying active during a period of unemployment and loose employment. Now that I have a full-time job again and a one with weird hours and practices, I have to try out some pretty aggressive time management. I have an insane amount of marking to do at virtual every turn and that needs managing. I have a course that I am studying which I need to make time for too. I think what I might try is a method that my friend Ian has used - take the timespace for our D&D game and set it aside as a gaming time, regardless of whether we are playing or not. So every other week, I do some writing and games stuff. We shall see whether that plan survives impact with Mrs Gow!

3. Exploit Google Wave

I am running one game on Google Wave at the moment and hopefully it will reignite after the Christmas lull. As an experiment and a proof of concept that you can game on that platform, it has been a success for me. Now, almost solving #2 in #3 I'm going to try to move some of my creative juices onto Wave. I want to get one more Wave game going, probably Dr Who and see if I can sustain it through the year.

4. Be More Selfish at Conventions

Funny one this. Consider the conventions I went to this year.

Conception: Slots 12, Played 0, Ran 0 (I was very ill through most of the convention)

Conpulsion: Slots 5, Played 0, Ran 2

Games Expo: Slots 6, Played 0, Ran 1

Furnace: Slots 5, Played 2, Ran 3

Dragonmeet: Slots 2, Played 0, Ran 0

Now I could balance this with 'Amount of Money Earned on the Collective Endeavour Stall': Metric Fuckton.

However, I think I need to gain some balance between running, playing and stalling. I recognise that it is important to run games if you want to sell games but I find running con games exceedingly stressful until I actually sit down to run them. The idea is worse than the actual execution, if you get what I mean. So my resolution is to spend a little less time on the stall and a little more time at the gaming table, on the players side. Balance in all things.

5. Avoid Toxicity

As an extension of 'The Hypocritical Oath' post below, I am going to have to re-evaluate my interactions with the wider online gaming community. One of the things that I have found very difficult to work with over the last couple of years is that by publishing a game you have made a statement which in some cases is seen as an unbending and unchanging fact. I get called on perceived inconsistencies between what I say and what I have published, in some of the most bizarre situations. I don't mind it, but it is a constant drip-drip reminder that I am seen not just as a community member anymore, but now as a publisher and a designer and a seller and a number of other things and all the complications that this brings. However, this tendency to combine me with my game leads to some people with ... poor feedback skills ... breeching my tolerances. Already I have bowed out of participation in many forums because of this and I hope I can continue with others, but I simply cannot be arsed with some of the shite that flows around the internet anymore. Ignoring it is one thing. Not getting involved is another. Regardless, I'm not going to let that toxicity poison my life anymore.

So there we go. I may revise that last one, as it was a real struggle to come up with something.

The Hypocritical Oath

My wife and I were musing last night that it hardly seems like yesterday since the grand Millennium celebrations were rocking the world, and yet its ten whole years. My youngest daughter is ten years old and she marks the passage of time in the 21st century. This got me thinking about the world as it exists at the moment and how I feel about it and I realised that for the first time in my life I am reluctant to be a participant in many things and have started to withdraw. Thats not a natural state for me, but I reflected that its because of the emergence of five sorts of people and the almost constant haze of shite that they generate. Who are these people?

Haters - Live and Let Live is a wonderful way to exist, but it seems to have disappeared into the aether nowadays. Its much easier to hate something now and to be exceptionally vocal about it. Not things that matter, like racism or homophobia, but totally inconsequential things like a series of books, a comics storyline, a record, a sport, a TV personality, a foodstuff, a TV show, a word, a website, a hobby, a game etc. I'll raise my hand and say that I have, in my time, been one of these people, specifically towards Brian Micheal Bendis and his effect on the Avengers comic book line. Seething, vitriolic hatred permeates our society now like a virus.

Hyper-critics - different from the haters, are the hypercritics. I have noticed an increased level of nit-picking and general moaning about the quality of entertainment over the last few years. Moreover, a number of these decisions on the quality of films, books, comics etc. are made sight-unseen. They are based off a rumour, a trailer or just the idea of the piece. Moreover, the more people who are likely to like something, the more the hyper-critics are looking to find a way to shoot it up. Blow it out of the sky. Take it down a peg or two. Of course, if you disagree with them, you are beset by other hyper-critics and more than a few haters to the point where its becoming increasingly difficult to actually like something publicly without courting disaster.

Political Fantasists - We live in a world of political fantasy. In this world, politicians are good, selfless people who have cast aside any ideas of self-promotion or advancement and instead taken to a life in under the public microscope, doing their very best for the people and not asking for a jot in return. Upon completing this service, they will disappear into the aether and never be heard of again. Every decision made by these puritan politicians will naturally suit everyone and no-one will be disadvantaged or disconcerted by anything. Only in this world will the political system be pure and unsullied and *shudder* democratic. Of course, this is the fantasy and about as far away from the reality as it can get. I'm not suggesting that some of these are no aspirations that can be aimed at, but some people need to understand that we live in a representative democracy, not a participatory democracy and that politics is a cyclical business. Even I, as a left-wing leaning life-long Labour supporter can see that it is healthy for a change of government however it isn't a tribal thing. Its not a case of winning or losing. Its part of the natural state of things.

Conspiracy Theorists - Nothing ever just 'is' - there always has to be something behind it that we cannot see. Were 'we' means 'you' because the person informing you of the theory has perfect 20/20 vision on the matter and almost supernatural perceptions and insight beyond those of normal man. Wars, terrorism, climate change, politics, elections - its all been a massive conspiracy theory from Day One it would seem. Lets just consider that the conspiracy theorists are right and say, the US government did cause 9/11? What you gonna do about it? If they are willing and capable to do that, what makes you think you make one piece of a difference? In a world where nothing is as it seems, no-one is willing to be the King wearing the Invisible Clothese in case they make a fool of themselves. No-one will be tricked and therefore when it matters, no-one cares.

'My World' Selfishness - more than anything else, the rise of 'My World' selfishness has caused me to develop an almost violent twitch of anguish. For example, a games company posted that it had released a new service and the very first post that someone replied with said 'sorry, but its too late for my game, we just finished playing.' So what? Should they have pre-empted your needs and produced it earlier? What? Honestly, what was the point of that utterance? The entire doctrine of 'First!' and 'TL;DR' on forums is all about me-me-me! The preponderance of arguments based on 'it doesn't apply to me, therefore it must be false' is ridiculous. Any sense of being part of a larger diverse community seems to have been lost in a mantra of 'don't waste my time with stuff that doesn't concern me!'

Almost all of this has been facilitated by the increased ease of access to information, volume of content and near-anonymous personality brought to us through internet communication. I think when our children look back on this time, the internet will be seen as an innovation and indeed, a revolution on the same scale as the industrial revolution of the 19th century - and indeed like that revolution it has got some unintended pollution attached to it.

So, before anyone reading this says 'hang on Neil? Aren't you legendary for your ranting and raving about things? Haven't you bored us to tears with your diatribes about the undue influence of the media on the world and its thinking? Don't you tick just about every box on this list?' I will 'fess up and say 'Yes'. And thats the point of this post.

Its time for it to stop or I am just going to become an angry old man. So, this year, I am going to make a concerted effort to excuse myself from that seething, teeth-grinding anger. I'm not going to be a hater or a critic. I'm going to realise that rarely can debates be won or lost - nowadays its more like a case of First World War trench warfare. I'm going to enjoy the world on my own terms and well, sod everyone else. Too much energy lost and too many distractions caused by the people that wind me up. In my 39th year, its time to just chill out a little.

[Box] Prototyps and Felt Pens

So I decided to have a fiddle about making up a prototype of the character card for [Box]. I'm all about the paper-art so it was an easy little challenge for me. Since doing it I've worked out a way to do it better as well, as accuracy and pritt-stik don't sit as natural buddies.

So, what do we have? Five boxes, large enough to put a stack of 12mm d6s on them, of some appropriate colours. A large white box for as-yet-undefined stuff. And a box for an image, in this example we have McGann as Dr Who. The image is changeable as we will see later.

I want to mention the terrible state of felt-tipped pens at this point. The ones that coloured this card are new and frankly, the brown couldn't do half the card. Pathetic. Really shoddy quality. If I were one of my kids I would be complaining!

Anyway, thats what I used to colour in card.

The second card is the same chamber card with a picture of the blue lass from Avatar. The image slides in and out of the hole from the top.

I'm quite pleased with this as a very first prototype. I'm going to look at some alternative designs tomorrow, including one that is a bit bigger but easier to create.

[Box] Whats the difference between a Warrior and a Paladin?

A white and black dice, if I have my way.

OK, so in my previous post I suggested I would use a dice-as-stats system for [Box]. Here is what I have as a very basic concept.

Six different coloured dice. Each colour represents a different aspect of a character type. So, for example, lets plough the fantasy field for a while?

Red = Prowess; strength, stamina and martial might

Blue = Guile; nimbleness, dexterity and intelligence

Green = Nature; weather, animals and the land

Gold = Essence; magic, arcana and summoning

White = The Light; life, piety and healing

Black = Darkness; death, necromancy and terror

So, we are looking to create a Warrior? And we have say, six dice to select. We select Red, Red, Red, Black, Black, Blue - a combination of Prowess, Darkness and Guile. Want to create a Tribal Shaman? Gold, Gold, Green, Green, Green, White? A Paladin? Red, Red, White White, White, Gold.

What else could you do with this? Hmmm.... how about adding a race dice? So if you want a smattering of non-humans in your game, you could add a few race dice to the pool. Or a Noble dice, which if chosen, makes your character a knight or samurai or space lord?

So you have a pile of multi-coloured dice which the players choose from to create their character. These dice can be limited to allow a degree of game world shaping and resource limitation. The categories can be altered for each setting. What each one represents can vary, I believe.

And these dice can be brought together to form dice pools. But what for? Well, thats next but not for a while.

[Box] Inspiration from Strange Places

So I've been putting my mind to the sort of things I can do with the format for my boxed game and what the benefits and limitations of the format are and moreover, how to use those limitations to my advantage.

For example, the recent decision of FFG to only allow you enough components in their box for a certain number of concurrent characters has raised the heckles of some people. However, in the end, thats the limitations of the format at work. We are used to wonderfully open-ended resources, limited only by the sheets of paper we have and the seats around our table and expect that from new games. Its a bit of a cheek really - most 'normal' games have very limited play resources. Two players in chess, four players in Ludo, six players in Monopoly. Of course, I could just do a book and character sheet game, but then whats the point of doing it in a box? No, there should be play resources and that means limiting the number of concurrent characters.

So how do I do this and make it part of the game and possibly turn it to my advantage? Well, one idea that I have come upon is to have character sheets about the size of CCG cards. However, I don't want to get into the mess of having to supply new sheets each time we play. So what if the character sheets were manipulatable in some way? Just keep that thought, OK.

As a system, I want to use dice pools, small dice pools. I also want different coloured dice to represent difference aspects of the character. More on this in the next post, I imagine. So the number of dice you have on your character sheet in a certain area will denote your strength in that area. Cool. Of course, that means that I can only include a certain number of dice in the box, which by its very nature means there are only a certain number of characters that can be made. Now, what if I built this into the balance of character generation. What if there was a pool of these statistic dice that all characters drew from? So, for example, there are a limited number of magic dice. If everyone were to choose their dice one at a time, then I could make it so that not everyone could be magicians. Thats kind of cool, I think.

OK, back to those character sheets on CCG cards. Well, something I really like to do is have a picture on a character sheet. Indeed, I think that games could use images so much better than they do for character generation. There are loads of totally awesome images out there - why not use them? So what if the picture part of the character card could be changed? What if the player could present the picture of the character they wanted and voila! Thats their character. Players could bring together art assets like a campaign mood board.

There is another sneaky little side effect of this. Players and GMs can draw their images from anywhere, so they can use published, copyrighted artwork, images clipped from magazines and comics and all manner of other things. Thats a huge wodge of potential art costs for my £15 sidetracked, and all in the name of flexibility.

As to how to do it? I am reminded of the concept of 'chamber cards' in the Quick Strike system CCGs (PotC and Shaman King iirc). So create a 2-ply card 'chamber' with a hole at the front which the image can be inserted from the top and then slide the whole into something like a rigid toploader and BAM! Its big enough, it can be branded with nice imagery and the image can change.

Gimmicky? Oh hell yeah. But with some underlying madness as well.

The DIY Boxed Game Challenge

Occasionally I set myself little challenges.

Recently, they have been food related. Can I perfect the recipe for the perfect sweet chili sauce? (According to my dad, yes, yes I can!). Can I cook and decorate leiberkuchen? Yes, of course I can! And of course, recently I have been meeting and beating some challenges regarding games design that I set myself three years ago. Its all been a bit too easy really.

I've also been reading with a lot of interest Rob Donaghue's blog, Some Space to Think Its a really interesting blog with a lot of commentary on games and gaming and sharing of ideas. It has formed my early morning Metro reading for some weeks now. Recently, Rob has been talking about rich dice (dice which deliver more information than just the numbers they result in) and the matter of the box and games.

Add to these motifs my journey to GenCon this year, the appearance of some 'indie' board and card games and the explosion of WFRP 3e onto the gaming world in all of its enormous excess and well, its fired my imagination.

I want to make a game in a box. I want that box to be small enough for me to be able to take it anywhere with me. I want everything I need to play the game - EVERYTHING - to be inside that box. I want the contents to be printed and created to a reasonable quality and - and this could be the stinger - I want to keep the cost of the project under £15.

These restrictions are going to dictate some of the materials I can use and that might well impact on the gameplay but hey, this isn't commercial - this is a personal challenge!

Auto-PUG of Joy

I am, on occasion, amazed by the ability of World of Warcraft to reinvent itself and change in a way that drags me back into the game. I guess its why, five years on, I am still happily playing it. The latest innovation is the introduction of the auto-PUG (Pick-Up-Group)

Instead of spamming the trade channel with Looking For Group requests or waiting for enough members of my guild to come online and be in the same frame of mind as me to run an instance, I can now just stab two buttons and voila! I am added to a cross-server queue of thousands of other players all wanting the same. Within minutes I am teleported to the instance and the game commences. Twenty minutes later, the end boss is down and you walk away with 5 Emblems, some cash and other stuff. Its virtually anonymous, instant rewarding gratification.

Whats more, it seems to have made PUGing a lot more palatable. Students of expectancy theory will notice that the carrot of the emblems at the end makes the experience of having a player with slightly subpar DPS a lot more acceptable. Indeed, on many occassions not a word has been passed between the people I have PUGd with - its simply been a business-like execution of a laid down tactic.

On my side of things, this is perfect. I have unpredictable spare time - meaning that I cannot plan when I am going to be able to play or for how long. This is perfect for me, especially as it is accelerating my acquisition of equipment no end! Additionally, it has allowed me to grab a load of outstanding achievements which are well overdue. I've finally done Old Kingdom, Halls of Lightning and Halls of Stone and Gundrak. I'm a happy camper.

The only fly in the ointment, I have to admit, is the attitude of some of the players (WHO would have guessed?). Its not the weaker players. Its the players who are blatantly from the top guilds churning out SERIOUS dps. Their tolerance of people who are less geared than them appears to be quite low. However, you will note, they have all been whining dps'rs. I have been blessed with talented, aggressive tanks and attentive, skilled healers. People I always take the time to thank at the end of the instance! (I am informed by Dave that matters are not quite so rosy at the lower level end of things - I can quite believe it)

That aside, this innovation is fantastic. Its delivering actual progression for me, at a pace that 100% suits me needs. Awesome.

Here We Go Again.

The snow is here. To save me my usual rant:

http://neilgow.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-do-swedes-do-it.html

Thank you...

Neil

How Big is Your Gaming Brain?

Dear Games Designers

Please, for the love of God, can you stop including obscure situational passive effects into your games? These things have been the bane of my existence throughout my CCG days and now they are part of my RPG play and they drive me insane.

What am I talking about? Well, in my Raw Deal days there was a card that sat on the table and every time you took damage, you took one less. Sounds good right? Well it is, if you remember that its there but inevitably, you forget and its annoying. There's no takey-backs in most CCGs so you lose out because of your poor memory or ability to be word-blinded by your opponent. Thats a case of playing better in a competitive game though, its annoying but part of the game.

In RPG sense, specifically D&D4e, the first instance are those bloody paragon tier powers that activate when you spend an action point. Now I don't think I'm over-stating the fact that D&D combat is a bit involved and you have to be paying attention and occassionally things get dropped along the wayside. I'm just about getting used to adding in my Pit Fighter bonus to things but I might only do it 50% of the time. Now, Marked Scourge has been errata'd so that it can only be used once per turn. This isn't an action or a spell - this is a bonus effect from a feat that is currently factored into all of my damage. Its a nightmare of forgetfulness.

I can abide having some degree of system mastery in my CCGs, but I hate it in my RPGs. Although D&H/BtQ have some situational modifiers, the card pool generation system allows for a quick sweep of your character sheet and then one flop to resolve a situation. Compare that with the multiple interacting modifiers and actions that can impact on one of maybe five dozen rolls in one combat and I think I'm safe from stone/glass house references.

I propose, if designers are adamant that they want to follow this path, someone design some sort of Roleplaying Brain Training program to remember all of these modifiers!

2009 Top Three Gaming Moments

Another year, another selection of what must surely be the most prestigious awards given out in gaming from this blog. Previous winners are here and here and as always I kick off with some honorable mentions

Honorable Mention: Princess Academy YEY! at Conception

I wasn't even playing! As Conception 09 was winding up and I was recovering from a monster bout of flu that had floored me during the entire convention. I was playtesting a great little battle cardgame with Iain McAllister and trying out some 'War on Edam' to no great level of satisfaction. In the rest of the room a gang of mad people were playing Primetime Adventures and just creating the most insane, wonderful madness. Utterly entertaining. Oh, and the Steelers won the Superbowl that night too. Woot!

Honorable Mention: Duty & Honour at Games Expo

So I'm at the end of a very long two-day convention and I am timetabled to run Duty & Honour - and its fully signed up. To be honest, I wasn't in the mood and I was all ready to just cancel and refund the players their cash but, you know, the show must go on. What made this so special? Well, it was because the players were all D&H newbies and they grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and rode it to a fantastic finish. Players who can turn up at the end of a con and ravage a game within an inch of it's life? Priceless.

Honorable Mention: The Voyage of the HMS Acaster

I was the gaming whore. In order to playtest Beat to Quarters 'semi-blind' I recruited another group of players - Martin, Shane and Nate. These guys have serious gaming and military chops to back up their play, so I was a little nervous about reffing for them but the game couldn't have gone any better. It was only three sessions but I really really got a kick out of it. Things move on and I guess I won't get the chance to play with those guys again but it was a really memorable game.

Number Three: Mouse Guard at Furnace

I have never really 'got' Burning Wheel but I have been very curious about Mouse Guard and I like the comics. Additionally 'Indy Pete' has a reputation of being an exceptionally dynamic GM and I sat and watched him GM at Conception and I wanted a piece of that action. Him and Mouse Guard seemed a perfect match and it was. It wasn't the amazingness of the story that marked this out for me, or the brilliance of the players (it was Sunday morning!). Rather it was an example of how an enthusiastic, prepared and communicative GM can truly inspire you to higher levels of play and understanding. In three hours I learned exactly how the game worked and went straight home and ran the game for my group. It was a watershed moment between me and BW technology!

Number Two: The Irish Rover at Furnace

So I had this idea - why not use Beat to Quarters to run a game based around the Pogues song 'The Irish Rover'? What could go wrong? Its hard to describe really - to say that the group was 'diverse' would be a massive understatement. To say that it was drunken would be an undeniable truth. The game was loud, raucous, bawdy, brutal, imaginative, laugh-out-loud funny, abusive, exhausting magic. People just walked by and then did a double-take, just looking at the madness with an expression of denial. One of the players even put a sign up warning people that the game was not representative of BtQ. It was just mayhem. You know when you hear people talk about games at a con that they have 'heard about'? This was the first time I have ever ran one and it felt soooo good. So tiring, but so good.

Number One: D&d 4E, The City of Kings Heroic and Paragon Tier

Like there was ever going to be anything else in the #1 spot!? Our entire years gaming has been taken up with an utterly brilliant D&D campaign. My paladin has had a crisis of faith and reverted to type as a pit-fighting gladiator and then sortied across the world hunting the hearts of the Primordial Gods in order to open the tomb of the last of these Primordials and slay him in his prison. Morn, the fighter, has grown from a very confused and ignorant brutal character into a stalwart defender and champion of mankind, found his homeland, secured his own niche in the world and is about to ascend to his Epic destiny of being 'He Who Stands Before the Chaos'. The game was been enthralling with every session adding a new twist and turn to the campaign. Anyone who dares say that 4e cannot be used to create excellent, character and story centric experiences is simply ignoring the potential of what is a great system.

So there we go - I wonder what everyone else's will be this year?

2009 Resolutions - The Results

Its that time of year again, when I look at my resolutions from last year and see how things have transpired. Its not that I actively try to pursue them - its more that I wonder whether my intentions at the end of the year create urges throughout the rest of the next year ( I scored 3.5/5 last year). So, without further ado...!

1. Publish 'Beat to Quarters'
WIN! - Dead on the announced release date, BtQ was unleashed on the masses. Its sold like the proverbial hotcakes, far faster than D&H - although I suspect that might be D&H owners completing the set rather than new players flocking to the fresh hawtness. Still, I'm very pleased with myself and the Road to Indianapolis, next year, is very much on!

2. Be A Better Player
WIN! - (I hope). I like to think that I have pulled my neck in at the table this year. No more tantrums about mind control, for a start and definitely no more 'discussions' about rules calls (Except, of course, when it comes to the difference between the two fighter bonuses, which we can never remember the right way around at the best of times). I've tried to contribute positively to the table ideas in our D&D campaign and generally help bring the awesome. It might not have succeeded always but in the end thats all you can do - try.


3. Run One Campaign of A Reasonable Length
WIN! - (In progress). This has been made rather difficult due to a distinct lack of G2 action and the ongoing nature of the D&D campaign. However, that hasn't stopped me. I gained the attentions of a new group of players in the summer and ran a three-session playtest of BtQ with them. I know that doesn't count as a campaign, but it was a complete game. However, I am running a proper ongoing campaign of BtQ on Google Wave at the moment which appears to have some legs. Its not quite what I imagined, but you have to take your victories when you can!


4. Game With the Girls Again
FAIL! - Technically, this might need to be revised after the arrival of the Dr Who RPG but any other gaming action has simply failed. Its just a timing issue really but its one that is going to have to be overcome by brute force and will rather than luck. They're still up for it.

5. Spend with Prudence
WIN! - Well, this one was easy, seeing as I have been stoney-broke for most of the year! Lets see what systems I purchased.... thinking .... thinking .... does Diaspora on a freebie voucher count? Mouse Guard - yep, thats it, Mouse Guard. And I have played it and ran it.

4/5 with a technical revision and a rules bend on the ongoing game. Not bad at all.

Art or Capitalism?

In a recent online conversation, a friend of mine stated that he was doing games design for 'art not capitalism'. This is a phrase that has stuck in the back of my mind for some time now, niggling away at me. When I started to think around it, my creative persona and my rather hard-wired marketing-driven mindset clashed quite abruptly.

On the one hand, I can see exactly where he was coming from. One of the benefits of small-press publishing is that you can do things and go to places that mainstream publishers simply cannot. You can explore game ideas that would simply not be feasible in the world of three-tier, glossy hardback publishing. This becomes even more blatant when you consider the world of pdf publishing, the ultimate in 'legit but low cost' games publishing. If you really really want to write a game about the trials and tribulations of cartoon underwater animal lawyers, then you can - and someone did! Want to write a freeform game about the siege of Montesgur? Yup, you can do that too! Game of teenage self-destruction in the Warsaw Ghetto? Knock yourself out! The same naturally extends to mechanics - beyond the lunacy of Jenga as a mechanic, some games designers are working on things as bizarre as self-tattooing and performing operations on paper bowel templates. The mind boggles ... but in some way, this is where its at when it comes to being allowed the freedom from constraint that an art-driven game provides.

On the other hand, however, if your game is played at an empty table does anyone hear the dice falling? Every fibre of my being says that you should always consider the commercial viability of your game, even if you are going to give it away for free! I cannot see the point of creating a game that no-one will play so giving yourself a fighting start by choosing a topic or a genre which at least has a hook that people can attach themselves to is something. Beyond that, of course, publishing is filled with 1001 different business decisions - the most important of all being, in my opinion, how far do I want to go with this venture?

Not everyone is going to have the ambition to be the Next Big Thing. Indeed, realistically, you stand very little chance of doing that. Setting yourself goals to achieve and parameters to work within would seem a reasonable choice for the small publisher. My goals have always been quite modest. Some people would suggest that was a measured, realistic and prudent approach to the venture. Others would say I am just horrendously risk averse and don't have the courage of my convictions. Whatever the reasons, I have tried to pursue those goals with vigour and use every trick I know to leverage the advantages I have in the market - be that skills, contacts or knowledge. I'm well versed in the machinery of capitalism and I like to make it work for me a little bit now and then.

However, is that just some hypocrisy on my part? Would my artist friend not just be fulfilling his goals in the same way - just different goals? Has my creative vision been compromised by my need to work within a market and indeed in some ways pander to that market? Every time I have changed an aspect of my game in order to make it more sellable, have I lost a little of its soul in my pursuit of filthy sterling? Or am I simply exercising common sense in making my game spread through planning rather than happenstance?

I find it intriguing as a concept that someone could make something with the intent to sell it, but with no eye to what would sell or who it would be sold to? Intellectually, I can see what drives people in that direction but I'm just not wired that way.

AP: Mouse Guard - Tales from the Shiver Bank

The Mice:

Connor - a tough white-furred patrol guard, known for his rugged adventures and scarred, with only one eye. Earmarked for promotion but still an untested quality with a team, he has been allocated some tenderpaws to train and nurture.

Casper: a very young tenderpaw, straight out of his apprenticeship and filled with curiosity and energy. Finding it almost impossible to stand still and think, he is ready to embark on his career in the Guard.

Tander: A fat tenderpaw trained as a cook, accused of the crime he didn't commit and paroled to the Mouse Guard until his trial could be arranged. A hearty fellow with a shady past.

The Mission:

Spring has come - or has it? Word has reached Lockhaven that the walls around Copperwood have crumbled due to the severe frosts of the winter and the town lies with its defences open. Auxilliary stonemasons - a young apprentice and two Oldfurs - are being sent to help with the rebuilding effort. The Guardmice are tasked with escorting them and ensuring their safe arrival.

GMs Turn

Obstacle One: The Clouds Darken.

As the progress along the muddy pathways the oldest Oldfur warns that the last bite of winter may not have passed yet, just as the winds begin to rise. Conner tries to predict the weather (Failed Weather Watcher test) and suddenly the skies open in a horrific ice storm, bleaching freezing rain across the mice. Thinking on his feet, Casper decides he will find a hidey-hole in an old hollow tree-base to weather the storm. Tander complicated matters by saying that they will have to did out the entrance to accommodate his 'Fat' trait. Conner stands back and watches, exercising his goal of 'Test out the Tenderpaws'. The roll ... fails and whilst the freezing and sodden mice finally get into the hole, Casper is Tired from his exertions.

Twist One: The Sleeping Weasel

As the Oldfurs dried out, Casper, despite his tiredness, decided to have a hunt around in the hollow tree and discovered a passage down to a hidden hole (successful Scout test) where he stumbled upon a sleeping Weasel Soldier! Aghast at this discovery he quietly made his way back and told his comrades, causing Connor to lead his young charges against the enemy! As massive 14 disposition was rolled for the mice against the Weasel's 8 but some cunning ploys by the agile aggressor soon saw that wittled away. In the end, the mice succeeded by the skin of their teeth, slaying the Weasel with a major concession. I decided that as the Weasel was going to try to escape with the smallest mouse, Casper, he would have been picked up in its teeth during the fight and was therefore puncutured and 'Injured'.

One further investigation Tander discovered a medallion from Pebblebrook, a town bordering the Weasel territories that looked suspiciously like a town councillors. Was it a spy or had the weasel stolen it? Test here for Tander which he failed - took too much effort to get back up from the hiding hole with his Fat behind, so I gave him 'Hungry & Thirsty' for his efforts.

Obstacle Two: Snowdrifts and Mudfields

The mice had to press on and and get these stonemasons to their place of work. Jasper's goal was 'Ensure that all the stonemasons make it to Copperwood' (his home town) so he took the lead with a little Scout action, backed up by some digging by Tander (heloing with Labourer) and hindered by the aggressive driving of the 'Tough' Connor. Despite the ravages of the weather, a Persona point helped the mice through the snow and finally they made it to Copperwood. Thus ended the GMs turn.

The Players Turn

Casper: Decided to heal his Tired by seeking out his family home and resting there (succeeded)

Tander : Offered his help in the preperation of a feast to celebrate the arrival of the Guard and the Stonemasons in the town. Healed his 'Hungry & Thirsty' with Baker.

Connor: Wanted to send a message back to Lockhaven noting his suspicions regarding the Weasel. I spiced it up by placing what appeared to be a Weasel sympathiser as the Insectrist that would send the message-insect. Connor tested Nature (his suspicious Mouse ways) and succeeded, realising that the young mouse, Bella, smelled of Weasel! He whipped out his sword (as per both his Belief and his Instinct), bested her in a quick Fighting test and dragged her before the local Administator. Another Conflict, this time social, developed as the Administrator tried to defend the young woman against Connor's evidence (a plaited band of weasel hair used to misdirect the insects was found on her). It was, again, nip and tuck but the Guard Mouse won the day and whilst she was not locked away, she was under further investigation.

Casper: Attempted to find a healer who could mend his Weasel wounds, but failed.

Tander: (Having been given a 'nut' by Connor): Met a Patrol Leader Valmont with Jasper and discussed the performance of Connor on the trek to Copperwood. We decided that Valmont was infact the former mentor of Connor's brother Garalan who is part of 'the rebellion' and Conner's stated enemy. This scene was a little wishy washy and I don't feel we got to the nub of the issue - if there was an issue to start with - but Valmont went away convinced by the young mice that Connor had done nothing to constitute reason to report him - either to Garalan or Gwendolyn.

And thus ended the Players Turn. We discussed Beliefs, Goals and Instincts with some people earning fate and persona points and others admitting that they didn't deserve them. Jasper was voted the MVP and the concensus at the table was that there was no Workhorse etc. award to be given out.

Feedback was pretty positive, especially for a first run of a game. It took just over three hours to chat, generate characters and play out the single round of the game. It looks like something that would fit our timescales for gaming perfectly. I went into it pretty dry regarding story and just made it up on the fly (hey, who would have thought?) but it pretty much told itself in the end. The addition of the little condition and conflict cards made it so much easier and is a genius idea. I was very pleased and with a little bit more planning, some better attention to the wording of some of the Instincts and Beliefs and a deeper plot, I think it could be a great little game.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice

Printers Hate Me.

Which is funny, considering I used to run a print shop! (Almost as funny as my near phobia about cold calling and my long years in ... phone sales. Go figure.) No, it can be virtually guaranteed that if I really need to use a printer, something will go very, very wrong.

I'm on the verge of running Mouse Guard as an off-week game alongside D&D. After playing it Furnace last weekend I have finally understood it as a whole, rather than as fragmented parts and it was excellent. One of the things that made it excellent was the little cards the GM had prepared with some of the rules on them. Thats far to simplistic to explain the awesome of these things - so I decided to make my own. The pics are downloadable on t'interweb.

Right, so I decided to try to print them in colour. Not wanting to tackle the Prontaprint around the corner and its extortionate prices, I thought I would try my father, who has a colour printer. Of course, his new colour cartridge and his new black cartridge refused to print in anything other than grainy black and white. The Gow Curse had hit this printer. Put me within 5 feet of a printer and it becomes nothing more than a rather unwieldy paperweight.

So I will use my printer at home, in black and white. That won't be a problem. I bought some card and splashed out on a laminater. I've been gagging for one for ages and at £9 from ASDA it was an absolute bargain. OK, so I set the printer to 'card' and upped the quality and ... greyscale. Greys, not blacks. Oh for fecks sake! Right, thats fine, that will do. Oh, and the ink wasn't fixing properly to the card. Wonderful. And then it starts smudging and smearing and ... really, why do I bother.

The cards are made. They look ... OK, but clearly shite. Considering my history with printers, I should have known really. It was never going to work well....

Facebook Thoughts

Some random stuff:

1. Facebook is cool, but I am finding a sticking point when it comes to my different 'faces' in public. What would be really cool would be being able to have a facebook to address my close friends, one to interact with the wider gaming community and one to interact with my students. As it is, the assumption that my interests are shared equally amongst all of my friends is annoying. Its like a living example of the old Geek Fallacies thing.

2. One of my students was astounded that I didn't have my profile on lockdown on Facebook? I was curious as to why I should do that. After all, the information there is for people to read isn't it? Oh, don't tell me - you write stuff on Facebook status updates that you don't want some people to read? Pretty silly putting it on the internet eh? I've learned my lesson.

3. Farmville. Could it be used as a teaching tool for simple resource management? There is very definitely a number of strategies that you can pursue depending on the time you have and the willingness you have to click squares continuously. I doubt it would ever get accepted but I reckon you could do something regarding costs and returns on investment!

The Sweet Spot

In the light of the culmination of my publishing plans (I have the proofs of Beat to Quarters and will most likely make my orders this weekend), a surge in work hours putting a crunch upon my spare-time, the continuation of our excellent D&D game and the growing urge to GM something to someone, I have been thinking a lot about how best to use my time when gaming.

I've been pondering why I am enjoying D&D so much? I've come to the conclusion that it is a combination of two things. The first is that the longevity of our group has made for a very comfortable gaming environment. We understand each other and that makes playing games in a way we like very easy indeed. The second is that the game sits in a sweet spot between my self-confessed love of gritty, 'gamist', tweakable systems and nicely cuddly narrative bolt-ons that we have added. The way the game has been modded, with stunt points, legacy items, round-robin adventure seeding and all manner of other little touches really appeals to me.

I've also been pondering why I have almost no yearning to write any other games? Certainly there is a degree of mental fatigue from a three year project that has encompassed about 80% of all my reading in that time. Some of it almost certainly is about the way that the online community that inspired me to create a game has turned into a nasty, judgemental, entitled cesspit of incestuous bollocks with its head so far rammed up its own arse I simply cannot bring myself to read it never mind participate. However, a lot of it has to do with the plethora of rather cool looking games that are available now. I just don't see the need.

Take, for example, Diaspora? Its an SF version of the Fate 3.0 engine (which powers Spirit of the Century and the upcoming Dresden Files rpg) and works on the basis of a small cluster of star systems. It sounds perfect. Why would I write a space game when there is this potential gem waiting to be played.

I've even been pondering what sort of games I want to run. Its been a bit of a joke with my group that I have bipolar gaming tendencies. I like to play crunchy games but as soon as I take the GMs chair I jettison rules like ballast from a runaway balloon. It goes beyond that. I have a sort of personal rule that I like to play games as they are meant. Now clearly thats not 'rules as written' (members of my gaming group reading this can stop sniggering now) but rather that I like to play them in the manner they were meant to be played. So, for example, if I'm playing Buffy, I play Buffy. If I'm playing Hot War, then I play Hot War. I don't have time to be modding games and making rules tweaks and such. Indeed, I barely have time to consider setting! I need something that I can play, as it is bought.

However, and this may well seem contradictory, I also take inspiration from Andrew's tweaking of 4e D&D and the way we have consciously bolted-on the bits of game 'best practice' that we really enjoy. Taking that concept, I could take just about any system and include our package of prefered gaming practices and *boom* its done. That wouldn't be modding - its more moulding.

Of course, the true balancing factor in all of this is time. Something I have none of at the moment. Which sucks.

Anyway, pondering - I'm doing a lot of it.