Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in A Lawful Evil GM's LiveJournal:

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Monday, October 24th, 2011
7:00 pm	Convention Game Sign-Ups, A Rant Or, I know no one asked me, but . . . (This is kind of a response to what a blogger/gamer posted a few weeks ago, that I had to work out in my head. I'm posting it here because my thoughts were too complex to put into a simple response to the blog post, and because it's been a few weeks.) The Bay Area does stuff differently. That apparently annoys a lot of people who aren't from here. (Technically, I'm not from here, but I've been here long enough that I can totally flow with it, and I like that we're different.) This even includes game sign-ups at gaming conventions. See, the bigger conventions use a "shuffler" system. Here's what an ideal shuffler system won't do: 1. Yes, it can not guarantee that you get into every game you want. 2. It will not put you in a game you don't want to be in unless you screwed up in your game sign ups. (I've heard people claim this has happened. Seems a bit suspicious to me.) What it does do is create a kind of "fair" sign up system where everyone has an equal chance to get the games they want, but the more popular games will be harder to get into. A lot of people want all the Conventions to run on a First Come, First Serve sign-up basis. This seems like a bad idea to me because it eliminates (or at least severely cuts down) on "walk-in" gamers. Also, since people are going on what works for them, let me tell you why this doesn't work for me. I'm a type B personality. I like to go with the flow of things. I never know what my mood is going to be like from day to day. When something is supposed to be fun, I don't want to put too much structure to it. And, for me, long term planning is when I figure out what I'll be doing in the next 12 hours. I can sleep all day on a Sunday, with no guilt, just because sleeping and napping feels so good. On top of this, I'm really picky about what games I play. I won't play any game that is inherently PvP or tragic. This cuts out on a whole bunch of indie games. I won't play any game that is just a war game in diguise (D&D in any edition, for example). I'm not saying these games are bad, nor am I making any judgment on the people who play them. All I'm saying is that I don't like them. (Or, in the case of inherently tragic games, just can't play them.) I recognize that type B's are a minority amongst gamers. FCFS works completely against this combination. And it makes the conventions stressful for me. Case in point - Big Bad Con Yeah, I had fun. I do not want to take away at all from how well run, or how enjoyable, Big Bad Con was. But game sign-ups were a "delayed" FCFS, where the people who pre-registered for the Convention signed up a couple weeks before the Convention, all starting at the same time. And as that time approached, and I was trying to get some sleep, I began having stress dreams about oversleeping past the sign up time, of missing the games I wanted to be in the most, of missing the entire sign up period, and so on. It really screwed my sleeping up. It was like, for about six hours, I was a type A personality. I don't know how those of you who are like that continue. I'd just explode from the stress. I know at least one GM who missed the sign-up times, so she pretty much got into nothing at the Con. And that sucks. Others told me "Oh, I was going to go, but all the games were full" or "I have a friend who was going to go, but all the games were full." And my response has always been "Don't talk to me about it. I'm not involved in the sign up process. Talk to the person who runs the Con." Which I know they won't do, and so I seem like the lying crazy person whenever I bring up that there's about as many people who hate FCFS as there are who hate shufflers. But neither solves the problem that Bay Area Cons are having. The problem is that there aren't enough GMs, and there isn't enough variety. (Though Big Bad Con was a huge, notable exception to that rule. It had the most variety I've seen at a Convention, ever, which is another reason I had problems figuring out sign-up.) Since BBC can populate a 2 1/2 day Convention with a wide variety of games, I know it can be done. If there were enough GMs, and enough variety, this whole discussion would be moot. But I like the fact that the Bay Area is "weird" compared to other places. I like that all the Cons give you a variety of game lengths - 4, 6, or 8 hours. Tell the story you want, not the one you are limited to. I like that other things work differently as well. I would NEVER want the Bay Area to conform to what other places are doing. It's part of our "charm." And I'm sure this whole sign up process can be fixed, so that everyone is equally miserable happy. But we need to rethink beyond there only being two or three options. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 13th, 2011
11:28 pm	[Actual Play] In the Dead of Night Players: Me; Gabriel Weiss; Gene Wood; Nicholas Owczarek System: Dresden Files RPG/Fate 3.0 GM: Kevan Forbes So this is the game that I wound up being an hour late for. But at least I stayed for it. The set-up of the game was that we were all dead - people who couldn't move on to the great Beyond. And in our little realm, we were police officers/investigators whose main job was to protect the other lost souls there. We heard rumors of a Rakshasah who had stolen/destroyed some lost souls, so we investigated. Our group was: A modernish police officers who was the former partner of one of the characters in the Dresden Files book. A man who was part of Elliott Ness' "Untouchables." A Pinkerton (<- Me) A former slave turned Civil War soldier (Union side). We discovered some evidence of the Rakshasah, and the soldier found a way to use the manifestation of it to reach into the dream realms. This led us into three dreamscapes - a farm-house, where we faced weird monkey things; a dollhouse (which led to the dreamer, a little girl); and the little girl's room (except it looked like an adult room). We found the little girl being assaulted by a porcelain doll, a sand filled dog plush; and an evil clown. As expected, a fight broke out. Well, I picked the fight. (This was my theme for the weekend.) We fought all the things - I wound up with my second wound of the night (A Consequence - a way to avoid adding to your damage track. During the fight with the monkey things, I got a dislocated shoulde; in this fight, I also became "horribly burned".) It took some time to take down the clown (who was the Rakshasa), relying mostly on the modern officer and the untouchable, while I kept trying to put up Aspects (as did the untouchable). It was fun, but I was feeling ill. One reason why this story is so short. What Rocked 1. I love FATE. 2. The guy playing Ron (the police officer) was Awesome. 3. Kevan knew his story and his setting. What Could Have Been Better 1. Kevan had some confusoin with the rules, which he admitted. 2. There wasn't much of a FATE chip economy going on. (Again, Kevan apologized for that.) 3. I had some serious problems with two of the players. I don't remember their names. Problem Player 1 just had two problems - first, he was drinking beer. Beer ruins your concentration, your memory, and your focus. And this showed - he couldn't recall certain explanations of the rules or the story, and got a little too belligerent when asking questions. Problem Player 2 was a bit worse. Now, I think he's going through chemotherapy or something. But - he spent most of the game away from the table. When he was there, he was just nasty and complaining, or rules lawyering, which is one of my pet peeves about FATE players - a game that has few actual rules. Mostly, he was just disruptive. It bugged me. Rich (4 Comments |Comment on this)
7:07 pm	[Actual Play] Do you Remember . . .? Players: Bill Miller, Kevan Forbes, Kevin Beagle, Michael Ripley, Mike McFarland, Nik Gervae System: New World of Darkness (and, Changeling: the Lost - see below) Storyteller: Me This game was probably the second biggest risk I've ever taken as a Convention GM. I'll explain why below, but let it be known that as I was working on this scenario, I frequently consulted other GM/Players (people who do both) to ask "Would this make you leave a convention game?" "Would this game still be fun?" For Convention games, I'm not much of a risk-taker. As a GM, I'm not much of a planner. So for this game, for probably the first time ever, I had props. Kind of. I had character namecards that folded up in front of the player, with the name of their character and the picture of the celebrity who would play them in the movie. (In this case, we had Johnny Depp as a horror author, Naomi Watts as a children's book author, Emma Stone as Depp's oldest (bastard) daughter, David Morse as the only police detective in town, Khandi Alexander as the town's Medical Examiner, and Patrick Warburton as a retired Marine who is now a school teacher.) For me, these are props. I suck at props. Mostly because I don't plan that far ahead. I did the quickest run down of game mechanics that I could, which still took about half an hour. I had one brand new role-player. (Well, newish. He had played a few games before, but he had that new player smell and shine to him.) Another player played in the old World of Darkness, but not the new one. I then set up the background of their small town, and of a television show they all watched as children, called Candle Cove. (Yes, I will steal things from the internet. Actually, I'll steal from anywhere - the news, movies, tv shows, books, other GMs, MMOs, video games, old LSD trips . . .) I gave them a very general rundown, and each had a card of 'true things' they recalled about the show that the others wouldn't until they were shared. And then I explained that they were all (but one) single parents, with young children, who began to get together to watch "Candle Cove," which was being rebroadcast on some local channel. They would all gather at someone's house after school for a half-hour, and then come home. (Which house it was would change from day to day.) And on the first night of the game, the children didn't come home. When the parents went to look for them, they found the host house locked up, covered in sea-water. After getting in, they found the host parents dead, the first floor covered in sea-water, and a teapot on the stove whistling out calliope music. (They did a lot of investigation - which is good - and apparently I creeped them out during this phase and with random 'facts' about the show.) I let the players run with this scene. They investigated the house up and down. The ME went over the bodies. They tore through the crawlspace. They looked things up online. In a twist that I didn't expect, the ME and the cop went to the local institution to talk to her (the MEs) husband, who had been institutionalized about a year ago after cutting his abdomen open while shrieking "You. Have. To. Go. Deeper." (That was the catch-phrase I used instead of "You. Have. To. Go. Inside.") Anyway, this visit forced me to improvise word-salad style speaking. I also had him hitting the table, frequently, to emphasize his points - which weren't alwasy easy to understand. Around the half-way point, a character tried really hard to open the television screen from the house. And open it did. I took each player's name-card, and gave them a new one. The new cards had the same names, with photoshopped versions of the characters - the police detective looked very dog like and furry; the ME had gray skin and HUGE jet black eyes, the male author had bushier eyebrows and odd letters and sigils all over his skin, the female author had pointy ears and almost all-white skin and hair; the male author's daughter had blue hair and eyes (like, aqua blue); and the retired marine was large, red, and had fangs protruding from his lower lip. They all learned that in truth, they were Changelings. And that Candle Cove wasn't a TV show, but an Arcadian realm they had all once been abducted into. After that, and some further examination now that they had some supernatural abilities, they headed into the TV/Door and into the Hedge (which I kind of hand-waved for sake of brevity), and into Candle Cove itself. There, they encountered two other Changelings who they had left behind from their initial escape, and eventually they caught up to their old Keeper. Seems he made an oath with them once - he would send them back to reality and erase all the pain and misery he had caused from their minds, and one of the characters slipped in "And our descendants." The Keeper didn't think that last part would count, so he took the kids, and that's how it all happened. Anyway, the PCs realized that with him having broken the Pledge with him, they had a chance to do him in. So they did, in a battle that turned pretty much one-sided in a matter of turns. After that, they found a way home, and that was the end. What Rocked 1. I always get a perverse thrill when I unknowingly creep players out. 2. No one left the game after the bait & switch section. What Could Have Been Better 1. Hotel food got me sick to my stomach - which did cost the game a little bit. 2. I think I lost two players after the bait & switch. They seemed to be unsure what to do or how to do it. (Comment on this)
6:10 pm	[Actual Play] Eclipse on Extropia Players: Me, Basil, Leon, and Silas System: Eclipse Phase GM: Mike Parker So you know what's not brilliant? Trying to write Actual Play content almost a week after the play. That's me all over. I've been intrigued by Eclipse Phase since I saw the first marketing for it online. As I think I've mentioned before, it covers lots of science fiction material that I find endlessly fascinating - transhumanism, post-humanism, animal uplifts, brain-taping, approaches to immortality, post-scarcity societies, terraforming, and of course everything that can go wrong with those things. In Eclipse Phase, a bunch of AIs hit the point where they were smarter than humanity, and tried to wipe us out. They almost succeeded. But humanity has been through worse (literally, though not as planned out or tactical), and so we survive. The normal character in Eclipse Phase has a "cortical stack," a small, grape-sized device in the base of their spine that allows them to transfer their consciousness from body to body. Most also have a "back-up" of this stack, in case it is destroyed or lost (or stolen. . .) Characters normally work for a group called "Firewall," that wants to ensure humans don't become extinct, regardless of what form they may take. And so . . . We were a Fury (an Amazon type body, the stereotype from bad movies, not the real life one breasted kind; and the gun bunny); an uplifted Ocotpus (not quite certain what his specialty was); a Menton (a body with maximized intellectual capacity); and an Olympian (as awesome as it sounds.) We were sent to investigate a company on a habitat called Extropia. We didn't have much data beyond that, except that Firewall thought they were up to something. There was a lot of info gathering - not my character's strong point, since I was the gun bunny. I did accompany them on a few trips, even when they created duplicates of their psyches (called "Forks") and sent them off on a pure info/digital mission. Our group discovered a zombie virus sort of nanotech on a distant laboratory that had been digitally transmitted back to the Extropian company. (Things like this happen in Eclipse Phase.) Long story short, before we were done some kind of terrorist attack happened on Extropia, causing three of their nuclear reactors to become unshielded. (Radiation, btw, causes the nanotech to mutate more quickly, and to evolve more quickly). We raced to save the remaining reactor, and found a contact of mine trying to organize security forces. One of his underlings incapacitated him, so I took out the gun I had and combat broke out. Someone shot our Olympian (who had, in their defense, shot first), so I liquidated him (literally), and later, when one of them ran away, I destroyed his leg. We saved my contact ("Stan"), and eventually discovered we had to abandon this habitat (which apparently houses 100 million people) to the plague. We did get the cortical stacks of many of the terrorists, including some who we thought were leaders. And we managed to warn Firewall about the dangers in Extropia. So in many ways, it was a pyrrhic victory, rather than a total loss. What Rocked 1. Early on, we made connection rolls to see if we knew anyone on the station who could help us. I rolled and then made up "Stan," who worked security on Extropia. Mike let me continue to use Stan, and even worked him into the plot at the end, which is awesome. (I hate the "Okay, you meet nameless contacts" outcome. I try to not use that as a GM, even though sometimes I do for brevity.) 2. Mike knew the system, and used all of it, so that even though it looks like we had very low skills in some places, we were all hypercompetent in our areas of expertise and in related fields. It was awesome when I pulled out my big gun and realized that I was the badass on the field. 3. I don't know about the others, but I had skills in things like "Psychosurgery," which was manipulating other people's "Egos" (digital personalities) directly, and got to use it to help others. 4. I have a better feeling for Eclipse Phase, now. What Could Have Been Better 1. Game intro seemed to go on forever, but I'm not sure how to fix that either. I sometimes do this as well. It must be the plague of not using super popular systems that have any degree of complexity. 2. Apparently, one of the players had recently received bad medical news. A related topic came up, he tried to share (looking for connections and such, like people do in times of tragedy), but it just served to make the game briefly uncomfortable. Not out of calloussness, more just like it felt we were blind-sided. (At least I did.) 3. The story itself seemed aimed to either be a tragedy or a pyrrhic victory - which I don't mind, but . . . I dunno. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 10th, 2011
7:31 pm	Big Bad Con - Review This year was the first year of "Big Bad Con," a game convention put together by a friend of mine. And apparently this first year was a good success for a small Convention, which is awesome, because seannittner knows how to organize things, and is charismatic enough and smart enough to actually turn this into one of the bigger Cons in the area, if he keeps up with it. (And, no, I'm not just kissing ass here. I'm much more obsequious when I do that.) So - timeline of the Con: Friday Friday morning was going fine until my printer decided it didn't want to speak with my laptop anymore, and then decided that rather than ejecting a printed page, it would hold it and print the top of the next page on the bottom of the previous page. This curtailed some of the printing I wanted to do - but maybe that was for the best. I took a nap, got up a little bit later than intended, packed up the car, and made the drive that should have taken only 15-20 minutes in 45 minutes. ( I hate people who have to rubberneck at every police pull-over or, in one case, at a parked, inoperative tow truck.) Still, got there in time to grab my hotel room, but stuff in it, register for the Con, and make it to the Friday night game I was in. Yep, that's right people, I actually PLAYED on a Friday night. Mike Parker ran Eclipse Phase, in the actual Eclipse Phase world, and with all the rules. I'll post a review later (I'm going to review all the games I participated in), but I'll say here that I had fun again. Though there were some awkward moments that had nothing to do with the game. After that game, I went up to my room, finished up some details for my game, and tried to sleep. I always sleep poorly the first night in a hotel. Saturday Saturday AM Cil and I woke up, had breakfast, went into the dealer's room (I purchased only two books - Microscope and the Airship Pirates/Abney Park RPG. I had a "wish list" and only bought things that were on that list.) Cil had to work registration at noon, so I went up to the room, added a bit more detail to the game, played City of Heroes, then went to run my game. The game I ran was advertised as a New World of Darkness game, but there was a bit of bait & switch. They started out the game as mortals, mostly single parents dealing with the disappearance of their children. Roughly around the half-way point of the game, they discovered that they were Changelings, that this knowledge had been removed from them through a powerful Pledge, and that the disappearance of the children reflected that the Other who swore the Oath with them had violated his side of the Oath. (I'll go more into it later, when I review it.) During the dinner break, Cil purchased a hotel restaurant hamburger for me, which immediately went through my digestive system like high powered ammo through cheesecloth. This required me to take another break about 15 minutes after I restarted the game, which I felt awful about. But the worst would come later. Despite that, the game went well. Which made me happy. I think this might have been the best convention game I ran this year - though I do have to credit the players I had with a lot of that. Sunday I had a 10 AM game to get to, and I overslept a bit. Cil and I tried to grab breakfast, but five minutes after I ordered I had to go to the game. My stomach was still kind of gurgly, and I was disoriented. So I was kind of confused when people seemed upset at me for only being a few minutes late. I found out later I was over an hour late - the game started at 9, not 10. But fortunately, my space wasn't given away. Still, the game was fun. It was a Dresden Files RPG where we were all dead people working as a makeshift police force in a realm of dead people, tracking down a Rakshasa that had managed to connive it's way into our world. My character was a 19th Century Pinkerton. I was also supposed to play in a 3 PM World of Darkness: Innocents game that I had been looking forward to all weekend. Except my stomach wouldn't quit lurching and gurgling. I decided to bow out (fortunately, they found a replacement) and drive home. But one day . . . ONE DAY . . . I will play in one of this GMs games. Overall Games were good. None were perfect, but that happens very rarely. (Once every four years, as far as I can tell. At least when I'm involved.) I had some problem with the game registration system - but I'll go into that in another post. (Let's just say there's problems with gaming in the Bay Area in general, and the sign up style - regardless if it's First Come First Serve or Shuffler driven - will never fix it.) I'd just like the registration system that doesn't make me psychotic and annoying. The Hotel had a kind of creepy vibe to it - I started to tell people the elevator was haunted, based on how the lights would flicker and move when the elevator was operating. (No, it wasn't haunted. I don't actually BELIEVE in ghosts.) The accessibility of food wasn't the best. However, I will say this is what a well organized convention looks like. I was unaware of any snags in the general flow of things. There were also too many games that I wanted to play in or try out - and that's not a complaint. I heard it turned out well, so we can apparently look forward to another Big Bad Con next year. Which is awesome. Rich (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011
11:53 pm	From Old to New Worlds I realized recently that the new World of Darkness has been out for seven years. Which means it's not really that 'new' anymore. I've found this particular version of the game to be much more inspiring as a GM - and as a player - but I'm apparently one of the few in this area, which I find disappointing. Though I do have some good players who do enjoy the setting. So after seven years: Vampire: the Requiem is kind of disappointing to me, only because it's way too close to the original vampire. Then again, that was the most popular game, so why fix what wasn't really broken. The clans, though, seem less iconic. Werewolf: the Forsaken is, in my opinion, superior to the Apocalypse, though it does lack the epic feel that Apocalypse had. It was easily fixed, though, for me at least. I sometimes miss the Triat (Weaver / Wyld / Wyrm), but I'll get a bit more into that below. Mage: the Awakening blew me away. I found the setting and rules to be vastly improved, and I like it so much I'm running two (kind of weird) Mage games - one of which is a revamp of "Ascension" (because I want to run the Ascension), and one is the post apocalypse game (that is quickly reaching the end of Act One.) Promethean: the Created was unique. I wish I could find a group who could get into the mindset for the game, instead of people who just say "Why would I want to be human?" no matter what I throw at them, plot-wise. Changeling: the Lost was even better than Mage, in terms of the changes to the setting and changes to the characters. Hunter: the Vigil is still a game that I don't think needed it's own gameline. Geist: the Sin-Eaters is another awesome new idea. I'm having fun running it right now. (One gripe I have about the nWoD and it's various games is that I never get to play in a long term, regular game. And that's never going to change, apparently.) But there are things I miss: I miss a lot of the old vampire Clans, and even BEFORE WW released the Vampire Translation Guide, I had my own rules for it. I like mine better, so guess which ones I'm using? Sure, it's kind of a hybrid, because I like the Covenants a lot more than the Camarilla/Sabbat/Anarch divide. I miss Pentex. The idea of a corporation that has found a way to profit from the end of the world, and has a plan that goes past that, is one that still appeals to me. Not just because I'm a die-hard anti-corporatist, but because the plans and web of intrigue, and the morally gray areas, make it a wonderful antagonist. (And imagine if Pentex existed WITHOUT the Wyrm - just mostly pure, supernatural, human evil.) In one game I'm running, I reintroduced "The Midnight Circus," though I've used French words for it - 'Cirque du Minuit." Translating characters from that book has been kind of frustrating, as I look at certain skills that NPCs have and think "What, was the author 12?" Still, I like circuses, and while again things might have to change a bit, the idea of the evil behind the clowns and the brightly colored tents and sounds of laughter entertains me to no end. I wound up using the "Changing Breeds" book as a starter to introduce over 50 different, non-Uratha shape-changers into my games, including two Werewolf variants, two different kinds of were-spiders (who don't get along), and some that think they are the keepers of ancient magics. According to reports from GenCon, White Wolf will be releasing a new version of Mummy next year, and once again I can't wait. I always liked Mummy, though cold never get anyone to play it. The Purified from Immortals worked for a bit, but I really liked the culture and history behind the old Mummies. I've been trying to re-work Demon: the Fallen (Demon: the Redemption), though there are some issues with it's mythos and the new World as it exists. (Though not by much, now that I think about it.) On my own, I've got working rules for Slayers (like Buffy, but more world appropriate, and extremely toned down for earlier rules ideas I had), and something like the "Others" from Nightwatch. (I've only finished the first half of the first book), and even the Mai from "The Nine Lives of Chloe King" (a kind of non-shapeshifting shape-shifter, if you will.) I guess what I'm saying is that even after seven years, the world seems new to me. I like that. It's open enough to add what I want without trying too hard, and almost every book has been a big boost to the setting without going too far. (Comment on this)
Monday, July 11th, 2011
10:04 pm	A brief confession I'm going to talk a bit about the GM group Good Omens. This year is the 10th Anniversary of the group. I was there at the very beginning, and for the first few years was really, really active in promoting the group, recruiting, and making sure things functioned. After a while, some others came along who were a lot better than it than I was, and I happily ceded the functions to them. (Which may have been a mistake. It may have been too much. Though my personal stress level has gone down, it's really hard to get myself motivated to take all of this back over again.) In many ways, I view Good Omens as my child. I've been there for some of our experiments (the biggest, IMO, being a one shot Harry Potter LARP, aimed at children and early teen players, with a very simple system that I threw together in a week. I don't think it went as well as it could have, but I learned a lot from it.) We have our proponents - a decently large group of friendly people who genuinely seem to like us and what we do. And there's a smaller group (isn't there always) that are our detractors - people who say things that are either misinterpretations or outright lies involving what we do. If I were a smart man, or if I were a wise man, I'd just ignore that small group. Unfortunately, I'm not really either. I mean, I should expect the naysayers because that's one of the prime aspects of geek culture - geeks hate when other geeks succeed at anything. And there's one or two detractors who are members of Good Omens (and, really, if I could kick them out, I would. Why would you join a group you hate? OR why would you stick with a group you hate? It doesn't make sense to me.) As I said, I'm not as smart or wise as I appear. I take the small group of detractors VERY seriously. In some ways, when I hear bad things about Good Omens, it's like a parent hearing someone say that their child is ugly or stupid. I really shouldn't care about these people, but I do. But I also have this to say: During our 5th Anniversary, we started GOCon, an event I'm proud of because it's a thing I never thought we'd put together. What's even better is that it's a charity event - each year, we accept donations to the local county food bank in lieu of entry fees. The gaming store that lets us use their space for this convention doesn't charge us anything (which is pretty awesome of them, I have to say), and so each year, for the past five years, we've managed to put 100 lbs. or more of food into the hands of underprivileged families. Which, in my mind, is pretty awesome as well. We don't do this as a religious group or a political group. That would be impossible for us - our politics run from socialist-left to libertarian-right. Our religion run from a small percentage of believers to mostly agnostics and atheists. So we just do this as gamers. This year, there's a new convention coming up - Big Bad Con. While not associated with Good Omens directly, it's founder, seannittner, is a member. And many of us are going to support him. Considering he's one of the few people in the world I'd take a punch for, I'm going to be there. He's set up this convention to be a charity as well. Money will go to the Alameda County Food Bank and to Doctors Without Borders. And who can seriously argue with either of those charities without sounding like a douchebag? So I look at what we've done - feeding the poor. And what we will do - getting medical aid to the isolated and needy. And I think that, while we aren't solving the worlds problems, we are contributing to lightening the load. And so, if Good Omens is so bad . . . . . . what the fuck have you done? And until you can answer that question, please, shut the fuck up. :-) Rich (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
2:01 am	[Actual Play] The Fallen World, 6/30/11 (I'm really trying to keep this updated with these, but I think I'm running too many games to do so. My apologies to everyone in all the blank spots.) Players: Billy, Cil, Cory, Jenn W, Paul System: Mage: the Awakening, post-apocalypse setting. Storyteller: Me So this game has gone on a while - over three and a half months of weekly sessions. And I don't think we've missed a week. Let me remind you about the characters: Billy plays "Daunt," an Acanthus who runs a biker gang. Cil plays "Eris," a Sortarus (home-made path) who works as an assassin and spy. Cory plays "Domino," a Moros who is the craftsman and maker of the group. Jenn plays "Lyra," a Mastigos who is the diplomat and social part of the group. Paul plays "Marsh," a Thyrsus who is also the lead warrior of the group. Major NPCs: Keen, a Moros who leads the community the PCs live in. Tai, an Obrimos who leads a cult of people seeking for a higher purpose in life. Setting Notes: 1. The apocalypse in question was supernatural, not scientific. For one day, the Pure managed to remove the gauntlet. When it ended, there were tons more "spirit claimed" and other horrible things. And the spirits (and the Pure) pretty much tore everything apart. The Foresaken sacrificed everything (including their own lives) to put the Gauntlet back, but the damage had been done. 2. The players set up a fairly stable village with a clean water supply and easily available crops. As a result, there's not much in the way of 'scarcity' threat to the characters. That forces me to make all the adventures take place outside of the village. (The set-up part was done sort of Dresden Files style.) 3. The world was more technologically advanced than ours when things went down. There was a basic moon-base, some enhancement in human / robot interactions, more advanced toys and such. (Imagine how much fun spirits had leaping into robotic bodies to attack things they hated . . . ) So here goes, the quick update: The group had first gone to collect some "oracles," finding one underground in the form of a doll; and another being a group of three sisters who could answer only specific questions. In the search, they encountered a small pack of werewolves who did not speak the same language, and the shape-changers rushed forward to attack. This attack was serious, as it should be, but in the end the PCs were victorious. They only had one oracle left to find. Then, a local tribe of Amazons offered their village one of their breeder studs in exchange for help with a group of cannibals. According to this tribe, the cannibals had some kind of supernatural powers, and their tribe had none. So Keen sent the six other mages off, and they eventually handled the problem. (Though I did learn an important lesson about using Extras in this game system - two Hit Extras can do a lot more damage than one Hit Extras. I need to remember this.) [1] After that recovery, Keen sent them on a third mission - to a town called Birdwell, which has a good quarry. When they arrived, they found a diseased ridden village. That village's leader asked the characters to go to a location to retrieve the cure. This led to a zombie mission. The group got through this with intelligence rather than fighting, and retrieved the cure for the disease that plagued the village. (It was an attack of strep, and all it took was penicillin, but people in this world don't know that.) They also found a fairly functional robot that helped them with some parts, though they discovered that it's ability to measure time (how long has passed since a given event) is broken. Oh - after the first two adventures, the village was attacked (both times) by the Boggers - wild animal like creatures that kill without mercy or reason. Their village, however, has now twice survived attacks that normally leave small villages. The group has figured out that the Boggers are werewolves, and have begun to add extra security to protect the people within. Current Story: This is the last two sessions, so far: Coming back from Birdwell, they came across a silvery-dome. They couldn't enter it. They found a door, but couldn't figure out how to open it. Lyra touched the glowing panel next to it, and received a dagger from a cubby hole that opened and then closed. And this action repeated - Eris received a different style dagger, Tai received a staff, Domino received a war hammer, Daunt received a fencing bloade, and Marsh got a thicker sword. Each weapon felt perfect for them, and they discovered that each held a power tied to their path. (Well, almost all of them.) When Eris tried to get another weapon, the machine "scolded" her but did nothing. When they sent one of Daunt's gang to touch the panel, he disappeared. After concluding that they could not retrieve him, they kind of half-heartedly went home. To find the missing man there. He spoke about a woman with pink and black hair who dressed in tight clothes he had never seen before. She was nice to him, spoke kindly, and told him she would send him home when the time is right. She also sent him with six "eggs", roughly an inch high. The instructions were that each one was to go to a specific member of the mages, and that they should sleep with it on their forehead or in their mouth. In the morning, the eggs were gone, but each of them felt more powerful - their combat capabilities improved. Also, each had a phrase on a notecard: Domino: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Daunt: The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the scythe. Eris: When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite. Lyra: Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? Marsh: Great and good are seldom the same man. Tai: There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it. Each of these quotes is relevant to the vice or drives of the characters. (Or, in one case, to the current fallacy that the player has grabbed onto.) Back home, the group told Keen and one other Mage of the discovery of the dome. The group is also planning on fixing the village more. And that's where it stands. Coming Up: There's only 2-3 stories left in this act, and then the game swtiches. More on that below. What Rocked: 1. I liked that Jenn and Cil were willing to experiment with the dome. I always tell players that interacting with the world is always better than NOT interacting with the world. 2. I told them that they currently have "Death Immunity," as replacing Cabal-members at this stage of the game is nigh-impossible. However, they are not "seriously messed up" proof, and dying will lead to things like lost limbs, lost organs, lost skill points (brain damage), lost merits, or the like. Sure, it can be healed, but the more I have to "not kill you," the more messed up you can get. After the first act ends, the "Death Immunity" goes away. What Could have been better: 1. I need to get Cory to stop scolding the rest of the group. This was a recent insight in general - I noticed, earlier this year, that in every game Cory is in, there's some kind of hostile, not-entirely-in-character rivalry going on. And the only common denominator in all of them is . . . Cory. And I realized that even when he's right, people turn against him. Because he doesn't talk, he doesn't speak - he scolds. And that turns people off, and makes them less likely to pay attention to anything he's saying. Especially when he's scolding people 10-20 years older than he is. 2. I'm worried that Daunt and Domino won't make it past the first act twist. Their characters are pretty rigid in what they want to do, and the twist won't let them do that. The other three will be fine - so going with the majority, I continue on the course I'm on. FOOTNOTES: [1] I'm using Extras from the Chroniclers Guide for Mage - NPCs who can only take one or two hits. Not damage, you just need to hit them only once to take them out of the fight. Though they do have pretty full attack pools - normally 5 or 6 dice each. The first fight I used them for, they were two hit Extras - they had to be hit twice to go down. But there were too many of them, and the mess was way out of control. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
11:19 pm	[KublaCon] I'm baaack I've been attending KublaCon from it's first year, and each year it gets better. Also, following my general protocol for real life, I never mention when I'm going somewhere, only when I've returned. Friday I got started a half hour later than I intended, all because I wanted to do "one more quest" in WoW. Still, it wasn't that bad - it just meant that instead of arriving at 3 PM, I got there around 3:30 PM. Found parking, checked into my room, checked into the Con, talked a bit with some friends, went to dinner, and BSd a lot. Overall, a good time. Our normal roommate hadn't contacted me before his game had started, so I was kind of worried (I have that kind of worried nature.) Fortunately, he was at his game and in the process of setting it up. Two things of note: Saw a con attendee having some kind of fit because the Kubla character this year was a female. Really? He wouldn't let it go. For that reason, for the first time in the history of KC, I kept my GMs pin and wore it proudly the next day. And brought up this ignoramus every chance I could. (It did enter my thoughts that this person thought he was being funny, but that only would have worked if he had dropped the joke after a few rounds of it.) Second, I never (or hardly ever) game on Friday night. I'd much rather spend the time working on my game just to get it done. Saturday Woke up mostly naturally, though after a crappy night of sleep. Had breakfast with Cil, did my one actual buying trip into the dealer's room (Leverage and two Shadowrun supplements. Oh, and a box of FUDGE dice.) Afterwards, I made an attempt to finish up my game, and took a two hour nap. Needed that. Then I ran my game - an homage to movies like "The Crazies," and "The Signal," and books like Cell, the Fog, Hater, and Dog Blooded. The premise was six people waking up in a diner, and slowly learning that everyone in their small mountain town had become insane and horrible killers. If you weren't infected, they tried to kill you. Of course, as a GM that struck me as a bad thing for an entire premise, solely because there are no "victory conditions" for the players. Do they kill everyone in the town? They could just try to drive out of the town, but then the game is over in 30 minutes. Part one, to keep them in the city, you have the military close the city off. The reason why gets exposed later. Part two, victory condition. In this case, the death or capture of a rogue government agent who is directly responsible for this entire situation. To make it more challenging, make the agent a Slasher (from WoD: Slasher), so that he can hold his own for a bit against a bunch of people trying to stop him. The game went fairly well. The only hitch was one player. Who I will label as a bad player. They focused entirely on themselves, with no thought to the other players. They somehow made their character insane and unlikeable, even though the intention for the character was someone very likeable and fairly stable. They created discord in the group, made at least one player hate the game, and generally made running the game difficult. I know at least two others were also somewhat challenged (in a non-positive, non-good for the game way) due to that player. I just have to get back to the old Rich and be at peace with booting disruptive players from my game. Oh - the punchline? He said at the end of the game "I was just trying to get myself killed." Really? Because I had 8 people who would have loved to have your seat, asshole. Seriously, next time, just leave and let a player who wants to play with others have the space. But other than him, the game went fairly well IMO. Sunday I got into a game - Hellcats & Hockeysticks - a game about wicked girls in an all-girls boarding school in England. Based mostly on the St. Trinian's movies and comics, it's supposed to be over the top, with scheming, dangerous, and nearly psychopathic teenage girls trying to get what they want. The game was fun, the GM knew the system, and most of the other players were good, so it was fun. My only complaints: 1. I picked up the "Goth/Emo Girl" character originally, but put it down because I at least wanted to see if anyone else wanted to take a shot at it. This is the third or fourth time I've done this in a game, and the problem is everyone else who grabs that type of character makes them boring, dreary, and repetitive. It's not their fault - it's the stereotype. I always figure the perkygoths are more fun to have in a game, and always get disappointed when people don't play that. Next time, I'm snapping that character up. 2. The GM seemed to focus on only a few players, and since I'm not the type to grab attention and force myself in that way, I feel a few of us were overlooked - at least half the group. Also, I was trying hard to keep it with the subtle british humor type. 3. I never got to explain my brilliant master plans, including "How to prevent the royal wedding" "How to get the American President to speak at our school" "How to get Radiohead to play at our mixer" "How to get rid of Ginger (our nemesis)", and "How to make Racetta (a player character) smarter and less irritating." (That last part was purely in character - I enjoy playing with the person who played Racetta.) Beyond that, I'd play that game again. After that, I rested a bit, and then played in Mike Bogan's second run of his convention game. It was an idea he first spoke about 15 months ago, one that I really, really enjoyed. We started the game as super-heroes - a team called "The Aegis League" - with characters that pretty closely tied with some famous DC comics characters. There was Artemis (Wonder Woman), Animalistic (Changeling/Beast Boy), Hyper Speed (The Flash), Cerulean (a female Green Lantern), Sister Mystic (Zantanna), and Mainframe. Mike described them as being like Cyborg (from the Teen Titans), but to me he sounded more like Brainiac (the Superman villain.) The system was FATE, a modified version of the Dresden Files RPG. It worked fairly well, much to my surprise. (It never occured to me to use that system to run super-heroes. Or, rather, it occurred to me, but I couldn't figure out how to give it justice. Mike's idea has sparked my own ideas on how to do this.) I was going to give a more detailed run of this adventure, but Mike's been talking about running it again, so I don't want to spoil it for anyone. I will say this. 1) There is a huge twist in the game, that can be either philosophical or visceral, depending on how the players reacted. (Our group was very visceral. Apparently, the prevoius group was quite philosophical.) 2) When Mike first brought up this idea, at least two role-players who I respect said "I would walk out of this game when that twist happened if I hadn't agreed to it in advance." So far, no one has walked out. One person said if the game was explained to him, he'd never had played it, but now that he had he enjoyed it. Mike thrives off those reactions. It's part of his new schtick for "4-Eyed Demon," his new gaming label. Overall, KublaCon was a blast. I didn't get to chat with everyone I wanted to, but I did have fun with my event and in the one official event I played in, and in the unofficial game I played in as well. Looking forward to the next Con I attend. Not sure which one that will be. Rich (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 27th, 2011
11:02 pm	[Actual Play, sort of] The Fallen World, Redeemed Players: Cory Maggard, Paul Strack, Priscilla Taylor, Billy Ward, Jennifer Ward System: Mage: the Awakening/nWoD, with lots of modifications. Also, lots of ideas stolen and mutated from Apocalypse World Storyteller: Me This is going to be a tale about character creation. And starting a game. I'm normally an okay GM about starting a game - I like to have an idea of what game I'm running, how the game works, and have the ability to answer most of the questions the players have. (Some questions I answer with "Don't worry about that now. You are getting way far ahead of what starting characters can do.") This time, I was super-inspired when putting the game together, and that led to me doing a TON of more work for this game than I've done in a long, long time. (I don't really think I've ever done this much prep-work when starting up a game, ever.) And it helped - which leads me to believe that I need to get this structure going in the future, when I start certain games. So I started by giving a "Rich is a hard ass" speech, which whlie not entirely true (and four of the players knew it), still kind of set the tone. My big thing this game was about experience points - a lot of people believe that if a chunk of XP is available, they deserve all of it. For example, if there is a 10 XP cap per session, and they don't receive 10 XP, I did something wrong, or I'm somehow cheating them from their due. I laid it out plainly - the only experience point I "owe" players is the one they get for attending the game. Everything else must be earned, and should be considered bonus XP. I know I'm generous with XP, though in this game I'm doing a serious reduction of how much I'm handing out. Scarcity is one of the issues of the Apocalyptic type setting I'm using. I'll still most likely wind up giving out more XP than the game suggests, but not as much as I have in the past. I explained to them: There's the normal XP reward There's Arcane XP that mages gain There's now "GM XP" which is XP I award secretly, and then can either give it to them or spend it on my own. GM XP is for the following things: 1) Humility/Cooperation (Not grandstanding or showing off when it's better for the group to follow the plan); 2) Impressive role-playing; 3) Showing Wisdom (not the morality of Mages, just showing a certain degree of knowledge and mental competence); 4) Showing benevolence (This isn't a game about being sadistic and heartless); 5) Creativity (Anything that shows you are thinking creatively how to use your characters.) There's also now "Cabal XP": Each character can receive XP for 1) Showing teamwork 2) Establishing group ideals and rituals; 3) There's a miscellaneous category. The last two are handed out at the end of each story, the others are totalled each story. Then I laid out some house rules: 1) Extras: NPCs who don't get tracked by damage, just by the numbeer of times you've hit them. And if you wind up killing a dozen of them in one scene to accomplish a goal, I'll probably not make you check for "Mass Murder." 2) Some PCs will have Extras that they have to put some work into - names, and one or two "quirks" 3) My combat hacks that I've used for the past few years will still be in effect, specifically "Guns are Deadly" and casting improvised spells in combat takes two turns. Oh - before all this, I had put out a bunch of pictures of apocalyptic imagery - photographs of urban decay (especially in Detroit), shots of the city around Chernobyl, and some pictures supplied by seannittner. (Thanks, Sean.) So the next step is I told the players to pick five photos each. They chose to do it round robin style. I asked them to pick the pictures that "called" to them, and explained they would have to elaborate on how these pictures were linked to their characters. As that was done, I explained each of the five paths of Magic, though instead I had six - each with it's own pamphlet. Inspired by Apocalypse world, each pamphlet explained how to make a character, and each path had two AW roles tied to it as well. When explaining the Paths, I also briefly described the roles each path had bound to it. (Roles are a Merit - each player started with one point in their Role, and as the role improves, the better they get with their skills within that role.) They soon followed the path books, and I took the unclaimed one to make a "Storyteller Character" who isn't quite an NPC who will be there to complete the group. Basic character creation went like this: Pick your path. From your path, pick a role Assign attribute dots Assign skill dots Choose three specialties Assign supernatural package: Get an additional point of one of two attributes (based on Path) Get a Gnosis rating of 2. Get two dots in the two primary arcana of your path. Get some other dots in Arcana. Pick one of three Merit packages that were unique to your Path. (These packages added up to about 20 XP each, give or take 2 points. Mostly give.) Pick your merits. I had created edited merit packages that got rid of merits that weren't appropriate to the setting - like Resources, Sanctum, etc. Some fighting styles were gone. Certain merits just don't exist in this world. Assign "Post-Apocalypse" package: Characters gained +1 Stamina and +1 Survival They got 1 dot in Role, and that gave them a free specialty in one of two Role skills They got a free dot of "Community Status" - I explained that their community knows they are special, and therefore both respects them and asks them to do things for them. Then they did the math, picked names, picked virtues/vices / motiviations. (Each pamphlet had a list of sample motivations, and one of those had to come from this list.) Each character received a gear card for their role, and then we had to break for the night. Characters still have to go through a few more details, and assign trust levels to each other. What we have so far: Billy is playing an Acanthus/Chopper - he has fate and time magic, and a motorcycle, and a decent sized gang of extras. Cil is playing a Sortaros/Hatchet. The Sortaros path (for those who know Mage) is tied to Djinn legends, with Forces and Spirit as their primaries and Life as their weak Arcana. A Hatchet is an assassin - a scalpel for murder as opposed to the bludgeon of the other types. Cory is playing a Moros/Savvyhead - death and matter magic, and he fixes tech and other things. Jenn is playing a Mastigos/Operator - mind and space magic, and contacts/operations throughout her community and through nearby communities. Paul is playing a Thyrsus/Battlebabe - life and spirit magic, a warrior who leads from the front. I wrote up an Obrimos/Hocus - Forces & Prime magic, a post-apocalyptic cult leader. The whole group is in the same community, made up of their extras, themselves, an NPC named Keen (a Moros/Hardholder - like Cory's character, but he sees over the day to day operations of the community), and a bunch of other people. They have not yet named their community. I told them of four threats: 1. Wild Dog packs 2. Boggers - mysterious creatures who none have seen, but who obliterate entire communities 3. The Maelstrom (straight out of Apocalypse World) 4. Other communities, who want what theirs has, including a nearby community called "Stormwall." Next week, we wrap up character creation, and then begin their first tale. WHAT ROCKED: 1. The players really liked the pamphlets, and said it helped character creation immensely. 2. Most people were very good with taking advice and insight. 3. I had kept the sixth path a secret for a very long time, so getting the reactions from experienced players was classic. WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN IMPROVED 1. I was kind of rude with answering questions, because I was trying to speed character creation along so it would only take one session. I failed at that, and at remaining polite. 2. I really would have liked for character creation to only take one session. Bummed that it didn't - but what can you do? I'm looking forward to this game. Oh - I would also like some co-conspirators from this point on. While I have given the players a lot of control over things, I also know that most of the group likes surprises and such along the way. So if you'd like to just put your own $0.025 in, (that's 2 1/2 cents), please let me know and I'll hook you up as a Co-GM on the webiste on Obsidian Portal. Thanks Rich (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 7th, 2011
11:29 pm	Looking for a player, once again. I'm starting here, but this will be moving to a couple of other places as time goes on. I'm looking for a person who is available from 7PM - 10 PM on Thursday nights. (Sometimes, it goes later.) This will be a weekly game, based on White Wolf's Mage: the Awakening. It will be a post-apocalyptic setting, with some changes after the first act. The premise is that, some time ago, something killed off human civilization. And a good majority of the humans. The game is very POST apocalyptic in that it happened at least two generations before the characters were even born. Also, being a Mage game, it was most likely something supernatural. Let me rewind a bit to describe part of the setting - okay, actually, it's rewinding a lot. Around the time of the Ice Age, in real life, humanity was reduced to only 10,000. (Actually, if I'm remembering right, these were more like "pre" human humans, if that makes any sense.) Some anthropologists refer to this as "The Great Bottleneck." The event that ended civilization in this world would be a second Great Bottleneck - almost, but not quite, wiping out all of humanity. Anyway . . . The characters are untrained mages who Awakened within a survivor community. And once their extra talents became known, they gained a slightly more important role within that community. A position of authority. Since not enough Mages survived the end of the world, there was no one to train the PCs. They have the raw power of a Mage, but none of the benefits of belonging to an Order or being able to learn Rotes. (Which might not make sense if you haven't played Mage, but those are important things that help refine a Mage's abilities.) So . . . characters have a decent amount of raw power, but not much in the way of finesse, at least at the beginning. The big warning I gave all the players is that at the end of what I'll call the first act, there'll be a big event that will completely change the game. The only promises I made is that it won't involve time travel, the characters will remain mages, and will remain viable characters (and, in fact, I won't be forcing any changes on player characters). But I'll be honest that I couldn't maintain a long term Post Apocalypse game. That's pretty much the gist of the game. I'll have handouts and such for this game, to explain the basics of character creation and the like. Especially since the setting changes a lot of how characters are made, that part will be new for all the players. With World of Darkness, I like to tinker with the rules, especially after they released the Book of Mirrors, which is all about hacking the rules and making changes to the setting. I do use house rules, but I do send a copy to all players to print and read at their leisure, or to even bring to games. (There are two specific changes for this setting that I won't bore you with right now.) If you are interested and in the area, let me know. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011
4:30 pm	Post-Apocalyptic Gaming So I told one group of players that I have grown bored of running the game they are in. I realized this when I had trouble getting the game going several weeks in a row - actually running/playing the game has become a labor. I promised them we'd move to the end, and presented them with my next idea: a post-apocalyptic Mage: the Awakening game that I mentioned here, previously. Though I haven't told them any of the twists, just that there is one because running in a post-apocalyptic game forever would be too depressing. This game has put me on creative overdrive. I hope that's a good sign. I'm creating pamphlets a la "Apocalypse World" for character creation - one for each Path. Each contains the basics for making a character, and includes two Roles (all lifted from Apocalypse World, but tied to the Paths), and three "Bonus Merit Lists" of 'banned' Merits - since not all Merits will fit the setting, some have been banned unless available via your Path. Players will pick one Path and one Bonus Merit Combo from their pamphlets. (And, yes, the implication is only one of each Path is allowed.) After that, I hope to get together a list of name ideas to help people with that. I found photographs from some Scandinavian post-apocalypse LARP that I decided to use for the character pamphlets. I'm also experimenting with a new mechanic - Trust. Similar to the Hx rules from Apocalypse World, but not quite as detailed. Characters start with one point of Trust with each other, and have a few more points to distribute. Trust can go up or down based on what happens in a game, and if someone winds up not being trusted by most of the other characters, bad things will happen. It also adds to teamwork rolls, and to the person you trust making social rolls against you. (You trust them, right?) I just need to stress a few other things: 1. This ain't Gamma World. 2. This ain't the Road Warrior 2a. Though I have dubbed the first part, tongue-in-cheek, as "The Road" Warrior. 3. The first act will probably have a bittersweet ending, at best. I've named the game "The Fallen World, Redeemed." I just need some more ideas for music, and some good imagery to use for setting the mood. (Suggestions are always welcome.) I'm really hyped for this. Rich (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, February 21st, 2011
9:34 pm	Back from Dundracon I'm alive and well after Dundracon. This is good - though Cil is sick, so that's bad. I won't know if I have Con Crud until tomorrow. But this year was possibly one of the smoothest DDC's for me in history. Let's review: Friday Cil and I arrived at the hotel just after 4 PM, unloaded the car, got our room keys, had the car put in valet parking, and met up with our con roomate, Mike B., all before 5. I checked into the Conventoin, Cil took off with some of her friends for dinner, Mike went to playtest a new potential Good Omens GM, and I stayed in the room and worked on my game that was the next morning. (As I've said before, I do the lion's share of my plot work for convention games the night before, so that it is fresh in my mind, and so I can fine tune whatever plot I have without making it so restrictive that the players havce nothing to do.) Anyway, I fell asleep around 4 AM, to get up in time for my 10 AM game. Oh, I also hung out briefly with Sean N. and Travis L. for a little bit. And explained why Skyline was the worst movie ever made. Saturday I made it to my game with plenty of time. I ran Mage: the Awakening, and had a great group. The game went really, really well. The group worked together fairly well, figured out the plot stuff that I had "forced" onto them, and also explored their own ideas fairly well. Plus, I got the major NPC to give the line "You've done exactly what I needed, and exposed the traitor I expected was there, and you did it well enough on your own. Why would I get directly involved now?" After that, I ran into Jenn B. and Eric L., and we pretty much hung out and talked for the rest of the night. (I do miss having Jenn down here.) The downside is that I got so wrapped up in the conversation, I didn't remember to sign up for any games for Sunday morning. Sunday Cil and I hung out for most of the morning. We had breakfast/lunch at the hotel, walked through the dealer's room, ran into Jenn, and then hung out until about 3 or so. Then Cil and I sat in on the end of Mike's game, a game set in the Fables universe, using the FATE system. The players looked like they were having fun, which is pretty much the only way to judge how an RPG has gone. Unfortunately, the next Good Omens game scheduled had a problem - the GM was at the doctor's. (I hope it wasn't serious - I have yet to hear.) So Mike and I debated, and I decided to try running FATE for the first time ever. It was kind of weird, a modern horror/ conspiracy / humor/ fantasy game involving Robert E. Howard's Serpent-Folk in the role of the Reptoids (web search it). It was an entirely improvised. After that, Mike decided he wanted to take Ryan (fucking) Macklin (from the Internet) out for a drink to quesiton him about the FATE system and other things. (Mike and I are fairly new recruits to the FATE system, so this was pretty cool.) Unfortunately, the bar closed before 11 PM. But I did learn a couple of things, and got some good ideas on how to improve a lot of games I run. Monday Packed up and left. Not terribly exciting. My haul for the Con: Apocalypse World Shadowrun: War Hellcats & Hockeysticks Misspent Youth Aspect I also picked up extra copies of Mage: the Awakening and Geist: the Sin-Eaters for the games I run, and a deck of cards called "Plot Twist Cards." I mostly enjoy talking to people at Cons, so I got a lot of that done. It was good. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
11:46 pm	Chronicle Idea I sped-read my way through Mirrors: Infinte Macabre, which deals with the idea of taking the World of Darkness into Space Opera. One idea that is pretty strong in there is the idea of Mages being kind of akin to Jedi Knights. (Amusingly, in my Star Wars for Storyteling mechancis, that's how I did the Force - very similar to magic in Mage: the Awakening.) That, and another part of WoD: Mirrors, combined in my head for an interesting (I would hope) Chronicle idea. It starts as a post-apocalypse game. The player characters are mages, but they have no training. They are responsible for a small colony of survivors in a ruined world. As untrained mages, they don't have rotes, don't have specialized skills, and don't have High Speech. They just have raw magical talent, and maybe a way to regain Mana. (I'd need to work on that part. Otherwise, this game would be really limited. Then again, forcing them to wrack their bodies and perform blood sacrifices in order to do what mana does also sounds somewhat appealing in terms of the the game idea.) So a few stories are run, mostly to demonstrate the horrors of this world they live in. ( And then it twists. ) I dunno. Would anyone ever want to play this? (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011
10:14 am	[Actual Play] Gravesend Hey, it's back, people. GM: Me Players: Matthew Gaston, Cory Maggard, Jenn Mitchell, Erica Schmit, Priscilla Taylor, Kevin Wilbon System: Geist: the Sin Eaters Two quick notes before I begin - 1) This session started with the end of another game. One that I just wasn't enjoying and couldn't figure out how to enjoy. It had relatively nothing to do with the playesr or their actions - I take full responsibility for it. 2) I did use one "official" White Wolf adventure in this: Dem Bones, which you can download for free from that link. It's only one scene, which is what we had the time for. I like Geist, conceptually. The idea of the Sin-Eaters, people who act as the intermediaries between the dead and the living, hits all the buttons I need for characters that I would like. This session started with character creation. I'll detail the characters later, once I have a better grasp on them. It took a bit longer than I thought it would, and there was some grumbling (most of it good natured) about how I didn't give them extra points. My own decision on this game is that I'm adhering to the "official rules" for character creation as much as possible, with only a few exceptions: 1. I gave each character a "player described merit" (from Wolrd of Darkness: Mirrors), so that they could get their basic concepts much more easily. 2. I used my alternate "reduce your morality for XP" rule, which awards slightly more XP for dropping your Morality. (Or, in the case of G:tSE, Synergy). 3. I decided to use my "Drives" rule - a supplement to the Virtue/Vice system that gives characters other motivators, and rewards them more frequently, though in smaller amounts. Their particular krewe are debunkers - they want to focus on exposing charlatans and frauds, while at the same time dealing with the real hauntings and such in the world. I'm not sure what this will wind up saying about their ceremonies and rituals, but we'll find out, won't we. Anyway, after we made characters, they went through the one scene story that I linked to above: The group was meeting at their Haunt, in the Gravesend cemetery in Brooklyn. Two members felt a disturbance – the use of ghostly or necromantic abilities – within their territory. Once this was pointed out, others heard a deep, bass voice singing the spiritual known as “Dem Bones.” (A song that I, the Storyteller, didn’t even know was a spiritual until I started doing research.) The group left their haunt (a mausoleum in the cemetery) and found two animated corpses walking away from them. While a few tracked the zombies, others looked the opposite direction and saw a huge, voodoun-looking Geist, connected to the body of a young girl, and using her to dig up corpses to animate. The girl was covered almost head to toe in dirt. Her hair was tangled and braided with mud. When they took her shovel away, she began digging with her bare hands. People who looked closer determined that she was possessed by her Geist, and therefore had no control over what she did. One member of the krewe attempted to attack the Geist directly, while others attempted to run off with the poor girl, at which point they ran afoul of the zombies. In addition, the geist summoned forth the corpses of nearby vermin – rats, squirrels, and cats – to attack the interlopers as well. Finally, through use of the Oracle manifestation, the group discovered that an exorcism was needed. They performed a spontaneous one, while at the same time the girl was knocked unconscious due to the attacks on her geist. Now that she was secure, the group had to deal with a someone petulant geist (that just sat down and would have pouted, had it’s face had any skin on it), and the group had to figure out what was the next step. After that, I bid everyone goodbye. What Rocked 1. For me, I feel more comfortable with the Storytelling System than any other. As I commented on Facebook, looking at the sheer number of books I have, I have to run this game until I die. 2. Characters tried some unique things with their powers. 3. I had to kluge together some rules for things like how much damage a swarm of animated and fragile rat skeletons can actually cause to a person. I like doing stuff like that. What Could Have Gone Better 1. I really need to work on my vocal tone. An expression of surprise on my part apparently sounded like mocking or a reprimand to a few of the players. (I'm not sure how I get that one wrong, but it's a frequent occurrence.) 2. The biggest problem with this one scene adventure - the main way to solve it is impossible for most characters. You are supposed to find out the name of the young woman when she's in no shape to tell you, figure out the name of her Geist while it doesn't want to tell you (though you might be able to guess based on what it was singing), and there was some other huge penalty the group had to face during the exorcism. I discounted a few other penalties as just being mean. 3. I heard at least one voice saying "This isn't our problem," which is the thing I like to hear least from players. I rarely target PCs directly, because as a player I hate that. It's not that I think players necessarily have to go with the stories presented to them, but it would be nice if they were more motivated to be actually heroic, rather than selfish-heroic. 4. I was going to take the blame on this one, but instead (due to cognitive therapy) I decided it actually belongs on the writers for the book. The editing is so bad that there were things I couldn't adequatly explain to the players, during character creation. In some ways, this book is like the RPG version of The Room, but only due to sloppy editing, I believe. So next time - a longer game, and a longer story. Rich (Comment on this)
Friday, January 21st, 2011
4:06 am	Why I can't run super-power games I've recently annonuced the end of a game I've been running monthly, since June. It was a super-powers based game, using the Wild Talents system. It was a good idea, thanks to the input of a lot of the players. But I realized almost four moths before it began that I shouldn't run super-power games. And I never should have suggested one. Recently, I've been reading the seriies Irredeemable by Mark Waid. Long story short - an obvious Superman expy known as "The Plutonian" ("Tony" to his fellow super-heroes) becomes the biggest threat to the world, destroying his world's version of Metropolis and later, the country of Singapore. The series has slowly revealed what led to this rampage, as his former teammates try to figure out how to stop him. Whlie none of them are particularly powerless, compared to Tony, they're still pretty much tissue paper. And they realize they are only alive because he's allowing them to live. I'm loving this series. It's dark, violent, apocalyptic, and the world is full of the horrors you would expect when they basically face the wrath of an angry god. I also finished the one-shot graphic novel Black Summer, by Warren Ellis. It's a similar story - kind of. In a world with only seven super-powered individuals, one assassinates the president and vice president (since this takes place in 2006, we're talking Bush/Cheney), and then demands that the United States hold new elections within a few days, or else. Both of these ask serious questions about the responsibility of power, and how far the battle against evil must go, and who decides what evil is. I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of Bush/Cheney, but I'm not sure I'd label them evil. (Well, not Bush, at least. Cheney is like a James Bond villain.) Black Summer takes you into the mind of the super-hero who killed them, though only indirectly, as the rest of his team debates what to do and te government decides that none of these powered individuals can be trusted. My favorite "official" super-powered setting was Aberrant. I liked Aberrant because you knew something was close to just going terribly wrong, and in all the revelations, who was the actual hero and villain of the story changed. When playing the game and looking at the fiction, you could wonder exactly when the Novas were just going to snap, and the Aberrant War would begin. I like when things go wrong, at least for super-heroes. I get sick of the costumes, the code names, and the black / white morality. Maybe it was that I began readinig comics in earnest during the mid to late 1980s - the era of Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and V for Vendetta. (Yes, V is a superhero, at least for the world he exists in. He's still not the protagonist.) Even a corny, independent comic called "Justice Machine" affected me - the story of a world called (bear with me) Georwell, a futuristic, totalitarian society where they had their own super-team, the Justice Machine, who always existed, and, as far as the media was concerned, was always the same people. The members truly believed that they were the heroes, and when they began to doubt that, things went bad for them. This was a fairly mature comic, that had the team not always liking each other. They got exiled to our world. They had to trust one of the most horrible villains of their world to help them. Two of them were a divorced couple. A young buck martial artist is revealed to be an amphetamine addict, and later dies as a side effect of his condition. Another member of the team is pretty much a criminal, who is tolerated by the others because of the usefulness of his "luck affecting" powers. After that, there was the Squadron Supreme mini-series, where a super-hero team attempted to save their world from the brink of destruction by conquering it, and using their powers and science to introduce new and better technologies. It only took about a dozen issues for them to realize they had become dictators, who took away people's freedom of choice to build their own utopia. It was well done. So what I'm saying is this - I really think I'd only enjoy a super-power game, as a player or GM, if things were allowed to go this wrong. It's why I like the main plot arc in Aberrant. By the time the players figure it out, it's too late. But I also know that most players won't be into this deconstruction. It goes against the fantasy/escapism most look for in RPGs. I forgot about this as I started this most recent game. While I still think there were good ideas there, I shouldn't have started it. I only hope when I end it, the players enjoy it. Rich (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
11:42 pm	Deep Thoughts I'm contemplating booting a player from one of my games. I know I've said that before, but this time, I'm real close. They rarely show up. When they do, they are disruptive, inattentive, and a bad combination of too nervous and too flighty to grasp any of the rules. I'll admit thsi game (Shadowrun) is one of the more complex games I run, but everyone else seems to have figured it out. I don't even do that many house rules stuff in this. I'm going to talk to her next game when she gets dirsuptive. But I should only have to try one or two times to get people focused on the game. If she doesn't learn from that, or pick that up, I'm going to have to find a diplomatic way to say "Good bye." And that's tough. Rich (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 10th, 2011
8:13 am	Ch-ch-ch-changes Those who read my normal LJ (unkyrich) are aware that I'm going through intense therapy for depression. (And those who don't read that journal know now.) One thing that I've been encouraged to do is to re-evaluate certain things, and if something isn't enjoyable or whatever, put it aside for now, unless there is an easy fix. (This is in relatioship to hobbies. I mean, I hate paying bills, that's unenjoyable, but I can't just say "Nope, going through crazy-time, ain't gonna do it." And no psychologist would ever recommend that.) My major hobby is gaming, and as a result I've been reviewing what control I have over which games and what I can do to fix them. And it's led me to some (good) realizations, though it may take time for some people to understand. Right now, I run 4 games. Two are weekly, one is bi-weekly, and one is monthly. And I know I have the energy to continue to do this. But, in this upcoming year, I plan on ending three of these games. I even know which three they are, and have a brief timeline of when this will all happen. It won't be all at once. The last game to end will probably be around August or September. This will be a game that has run its course - I don't run games into perpetuity, I run them until a good story point has been reached. This one is a good game with good players, and the only stress I have with it is it feels like too much of a "GM vs. the PCs" approach to the game, which I don't like. But beyond that, it's been a lot of fun, and will most likely remain fun all the way through. The fisrt game to end was kind of an experiment, that just didn't go right. No harm, no foul, it'll probably make it halfway through it's next session before it ends. It lacks consensus between several players and myself (as in there are at least four differing opinions in regards to what this game should be like), and the four way tug of war has been interesting, but it's probably time to write this off. The other game I realized I just don't enjoy running anymore. I haven't for a couple of months, and maybe it's time for me to just call it over. It'll probably end within six to ten weeks after the fisrt game I end. HOWEVER - each of these games will end. Not just stop, but end. There's a difference. I owe it to the players in each of these games to at least reward their efforts with an end point in the story. I could see the first game ending on a cliff-hanger - a decision point that never gets answered because that winds up not being the point of the game. (I have a lot of ideas for "thematic points" in games, but I always have problems properly conveying it to the players. Part of this is that I think it's really . . . cheating to say "This is what this game is going to be about, this is what we're going to explore." ) Once I start the new games (which will start by including some conversation about where I feel things went wrong, in at least two cases, and also drawing in the players and their opinions more to make sure everyone is on the same page), I'll probably restart my Actual Play reports. I'll also probably report a little on why a particular game had to end. (And, no, none of it will be "This player was a douchebag" or "This guy did this wrong." If any of it were that simple, I'd just remove the player or tell them to change. But it's all more complicated than that.) After I begin this proejct, I'm going to begin looking at the games I play in and figure out if any of them are making things bad for me, and if so, figure out what I can change. With the realization that the focus of this change is entirely on me. Wish me luck. Rich (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 19th, 2010
1:25 pm	Should [Actual Play] continue from me? I've enjoyed writing up my Actual Play stories. However, it seems that people's feelings are being hurt. I never thought I was sniping at anyone, and thought that even the "what could have gone better" stuff wasn't anything horrible. But apparently it is. I'm not in this to hurt people's feelings. I've tried to recognize my own shortcomings here. So what do you think? Should I continue? Any advice? Rich (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 12th, 2010
1:10 am	[Actual Play] Hunters Grown, 10/28 & 11/4. GM: Me Players: Cory Maggard (Donovan), Paul Strack (Jacob), Priscilla Taylor (Samantha), Jennifer Ward (Sandra) System: Hunter: the Vigil Okay, let me start off with a little rant. ( I hate PvP ) So I'm behind on these, because I have one stuck in the pipe that is making me crazy with explanation and background. It's a game that is more complicated than any I've tried running, with all the benefits and drawbacks (Oh, the drawbacks) that this implies. But this is not that game. Anyway, this takes up two sessions that were both awesome and annoying in many ways. Combined, they make up this game at its best and at its worse. The Story The group had ended a vampire, and two of them (Donovan and Jacob) were hospitalized. Unbeknownst to them, it was the "master" of this little trinity - the toughest one. Also the one most prepared and empowered. Jacob used the last of his strength to pray to God to heal Donovan - giving Donovan enough strength to rejoin Samantha and Sandra as they continued their quest for the other two vampires. Feeling stuck, it occurred to Sandra to interrogate Meaghan, the simple-minded vampire servant they found. (Though, due to the nature of these vampires, Donovan suspected that Meaghan was a vampire as well.) The group played a variant of "Good Cop/Bad Cop" with the woman, with Donovan being the bad cop and Sandy & Sam (Sam at the forefront) being the Good Cop. They managed to make a strong tie to her (using the Sway rules), and as her new friend, she told them basic information about the vampires - at least what she knew. Including where the other two would most likely be resting during the day. (And that would be "Under the Earth," meaning that the Hunters would have to wait until nightfall to attack the vampires, since as long as they were under the dirt, the Hunters couldn't reach them.) The hunters prepped some molotov cocktails, and then waited at the right spot. When the two vampires rose up, they were covered in gasoline and flame - or at least one of them. The group worked together to stake the other one (using their Staking Tactic), and then Sam put a bullet in that vampires brain. They also burned the abandoned farm house down, and alerted local authorities of this so that the fire didn't spread out of control. (Of course, it's early November just outside Seattle, so I also assume there's lots of rain.) This fight, where they worked together, went much better than the previous battle, which had incidents of friendly fire and not so friendly fire. As they left, Sandra received a phone call from a young woman who identified herself as Stephanie Gavinson, the Head Prefect of the private academy that Sandy sent Dolly (her adopted daughter) to. Stephanie was just curious as to why Dolly wasn't in school, and wanted to make sure Dolly was okay. Sandy thought this was weird, so arranged to meet Stephanie at a luncheon during the week. Sam received a phone call from an ally of hers within the Serial Crimes Unit of the FBI, warning her that they were tracking a convergence of five Serial Killers heading towards Seattle. They were coming from different places, and three of them were of special note - the mysterious "Y," a killer who is one part Jigsaw (from the Saw movies) and one part Apocalips (from the X-Men - not in power, but personality and goals), and the pair known as Delphine Trick and Vanya, who only kill other serial killers. (Delphine Trick and Vanya are based on Cassandra Hack and Ivan from "Hack/Slash." Not the bad Manga, but the disjointed comic book.) Sam is told that SCU leaves Trick and Vanya mostly alone, as they are considered low level threats to the general populace, and that "Y" used to be a member of the VANGUARD SCU (VASCU), the psychic FBI Hunter group. The big problem here is that VASCU isn't sure WHICH member it is, since there are three possibilities. Sandra's meeting with Stephanie goes well, and Stephanie is kind of like Sandy was at her age - an overachiever and perfectionist. Stephanie manages to pry a little knowledge about the Vigil from Sandra, though only Sandra realizes the importance of what she said. Now, let me interrupt a bit with ( Donovan's Story ) Donovan has been, for the past few months, getting the informatoin he needed to kill Des. He met some Changelings in an Irish bar in Seattle (he had been directed there - long story), and learned that they seemed a lot like him - Hunters who seemed really insane, but were devoted to hunting one type of creature, which they alternately called "The Others," "The Gentry," "The Good Neighbors," and "The Kindly Ones." The leader of this group of Changelings taught Donovan how to use a sword, properly. He and his group told Donovan what they knew of the limitations of these creatures. (And this teaching was done in Donovan's dreams, which, since he's a hunter with super-powers, he proibably didn't think of as being anything more than what this group could do.) On Hallowe'en, a large group of Changelings attacked this pub while Donovan was present. They flooded the area with glamour, letting their true Seemings be seen. The regulars, who owned the bar, fought back, and the glamour forced them into their true forms as well. It was at that moment that Donovan learned that he had been getting assistance from monsters. But they still seemed more interested in helping him gain advantage over his enemy than anything else, and were kind of helpful. Plus, it all seemed sort of like a dream. (This happened a long time ago IRL.) So Donovan was ready. Almost. He needed to distract Des. He called Sandy and Sam (and Sam called Jacob), and the group went to the bad parts of Seattle to hunt a vampire. Jacob's divine vision kicked in at full blast, revealing to him one concealed supernatural Hunter, two unrelated shape-changers, ghosts of crime victims, horrible spirits, and a single vampire hiding in a back ally. (This is what the Hunter - an ally of the group named Mr. Jones - was watching.) Again, the coordinated group vs. the vampire means one quickly staked vampire. They took the vampire to an abandoned warehouse, where they found a young woman, fast asleep. The group let her sleep as Donovan sicced Des on the staked vampire (though Des did try to get to eat the girl, instead.) Per their agreement, Des left. The group awakened the young girl, who seemed shocked at women in pants and "female constabulary." Jacob and Sandy figured out, from her clothes and manner of speaking, that she somehow came from the Antebellum era of New Orleans. This sounded like what the Changeliing at the pub went through, so she drove the girl there. The pub owner, Jim, supplied Sandy with free beer for the rest of the evening. Jacob confronted Donovan about how Donovan seemd to be "trying to kill" him, and demanded it be resolved. Donovan punched Jacob in the face. And then proceeded to beat Jacob almost to death as Jacob took no action to defned himself. Sam, who was outside, came in and saw this, and was very, very angry at Donovan. (I should note - Cil hates PvP stuff more than I do, and I always thought I hated it the most.) She shooshed Donovan out, called the ambulance (as Donovan had), and eventually lied to the local police when they asked if she knew who did this. (A priest is nearly beaten to death, cops get involved.) Sam pretty much decided to cold shoulder Donovan at this point, and went off into her own research. She also refused to help Donovan any further in his search for information on how to kill Des, because right now she doens't want to talk to him. When Jacob regianed consciousness, the police asked him if he knew who did this to him. Jacob lied, claiming it was two men he didn't get a good look at. The police inform him he's the first survivor of a local serial killer, whose MO matches what happened to him. They press him for information, but his doctor begs them off, saying that Jacob needs to rest. The police agree, but say that they're going to leave an officer behind to guard Jacob, in case the killer tries again. Donovan goes to Jacob's room, and tries to get an apology from Jacob for revealing what he did to Donovan (the breach of trust). This goes poorly, and Donovan begins to raise his voice, pretty much admitting that he did this, and that he'd do it again if that's what it took. I'll remind you that there is a cop outside this room. As Donovan goes to leave the hospital, two officers approach him and politely ask him to put his hands up. They arrest him and book him, and he is put in jail. He calls Sandra, who can't do anything for him, and then calls his contacts in the Lucifuge. (He is a highly respected member of this group.) They say that if he was in Italy, they could totally cover this, but since it is in the US, they can only send him a good lawyer. They send him a woman named Lilah. If you've ever watched "Angel," yeah, that Lilah. Who else would Satan's grandchildren call? The group encountered her before, at the beginning of this Chronicle, as an antagonist. I pulled out her "NPC Card" and found a note that she hated another character (who was no longer in the game) after their encounter. Lilah gets a (high) bail set for Donovan, and then arranges for it to be paid, and gets him back out on the streets. For now. The game ran a little late, and then Jen, Cory, Cil and I talked about this for about 90 minutes. Part of it was to help calm Cil down (she was really upset, and I don't blame her), and to explain some things to Cory - mostly that despite my dislike of PvP stuff, I'm not judging him or intentionally making it tough on him. (In fact, had he not gone to Jacob's room and yelled out words that were pretty much confessions, I wasn't even going to have him arrested. Each time he yelled, I rolled a Perception roll for the cops. Eventually, they heard one too many suspicious things.) Donovan is facing serious jail time. The DA can prosecute this without Jacob pressing charges - aggravated assault, attempted murder, battery - and his lawyer knows he did it. But, as she said, "My job isn't to judge you. My job is to defend you in court and try my best to get you found not guilty." Though we'll see how that goes. Things that Rocked 1. I am SOOOOOO glad that White Wolf swapped the power levels of Earth Meld and Wolf Claws. It makes more sense this way, and the "sleep under the dirt" vampires aren't as dangerous as they could have been. 2. Two uses of the Sway rules made the game better - for me, at least. Especially since, with PCs, they get the choice of accepting the Sway used on them (and gaining an experience point) or spending a Willpower to resist it all for the scene. It pays to role-pllay the fact that some people can be persuaded. 3. If the group doesn't implode, there's some interesting role play moments coming up. The fact that Sam doesn't just disagree with what Donovan did, but hates it, and still she lied to protect him, gives me hope that this isn't over yet. Things that could have gone better 1. I didn't really enjoy how things went down between Jacob and Donovan. I wanted to stop it, but there was no logical way. 2. I think this has the potential to end this game, which I don't want to have happen. Anyone want to join a Hunter game? I promise this isn't NORMAL for the game . . . We're near BART. (10 Comments |Comment on this)