Cultural Wars And Baggage

I wouldn't think it necessary, but just in case...what follows is a piece of opinion writing. Also, since I know that some will comment without reading this piece in its entirety I will say right now that the Thumper rule is in effect. There's plenty of places that will allow you to spread hate on the internet, this blog is not one of them. Hateful things will be removed, and I get to be the arbitrator of what is hateful.

Some would say that the "geeky past times" are embroiled in a cultural war. I would say they are actually engaging in a cultural catch up, fighting fights or trying to stave off perceived threats that have been hard fought for (and against) for decades now in the larger cultural world and that are making their way into the various sub-cultures orbiting the world.

Whether you talk about fake geek girls or someone not being a hardcore gamer or sex workers shouldn't game or gays being perverts or even just the umbrella not a true geek, you're missing out on an important truth: the world has changed, and if you aren't changing with it you will be left behind. This isn't a threat, it is a fact of life. The world has changed since the 1970s and 1980s and the idea that women should play or run games isn't something that we should think about considering, it is something that is here.

While there's a lot of volatility in video games right now, with plenty of good examples that we can use for how people are getting it wrong, I want to focus on tabletop gaming (and focus even more on RPGs) because that is what I play. I don't think that I've played a video game since the Playstation One was just called the Playstation.

I know that anecdotal isn't data, but I'm going to talk about some of the things that I know.

People talk about women in their gaming groups as if it were some sort of novelty. Back in the late 70s, when I started playing D&D, our group was more than half women. Every group that I have had since then has had women. It seems strange to me to have a gaming group without women. So, when a friend started organizing an online gaming convention where women had the leadership positions of running panels and games, I thought that this was a great thing. Some corners of the internet thought otherwise, saying that it was anti-male or misandry to make it so that men couldn't "be in charge" of things.

It would almost be as if they didn't know that there are conferences and seminars led by women out in the big, bad "real world," where women can help each other into leadership positions or something. No, it is a conspiracy to take away their games, or their game mastering.

We've all heard it being used: fake geek girls, because they're obviously not true geeks. They're in it to "trap" some man or "take over the hobby" or some other nonsense. I find it hard to wrap my head around the idea that someone would actually fake wanting to be seen as a geek. The idea that someone could think that someone would want to demonstrates how mainstream many "geek past times" have become. Super-hero movies are box office blockbusters. Video games are making millions of dollars.

Obviously someone would now want to co-opt the hard work of all the men who helped to make this popular. Yeah, I thought that was funny too.

Gatekeeping, whether you think that you're doing it for good reasons or not, is a bad thing. There is no canon of geekiness. There is no list of things that you like or do in order to be a geek. Playing games makes you a gamer. Reading comics makes you a comic fan. Being of fan of paranormal romance and sexier geeky things is fine too.

Sex work is a hot button issue, even in the most mainstream of discussions. To quote George Michael, who really should be an important part of "cultural discussion," "sex is natural, sex is good..." I'm not going to use the typical buzzwords to talk about the people are against sex workers being involved, or somehow representative, of geeky things.It is reductionist and also fairly stupid. I will say that there is a lot of ignorance about the hows and whys of people who are sex workers, or who make porn. Why do we see so many porn parodies of super-heroes? Well, yes the movies are popular, and that does help with sales, but also because so many of them are geeky people

A lot of this ties into something that I've talked against more than once, both here on the blog and via various social media...and even out in that big, bad scary thing we call real life. I place a lot of these problems at the feet of so-called GEEK CULTURE. This is the idea that there is somewhere a list of things that all geeks like, and that the things not on that list make you less geeky or a fake geek girl or someone who isn't a hardcore gamer. At its simplest, the idea of geek culture is an attempt at gatekeeping (these people get to be part of "the tribe" and those people get to be outcast), but it can also be a bit more complicated than that at the same time.

Geeks have been proud of their "outsider cred" because it helped to define them an their identities. There comes a time when you put aside letting outside influences identify you, and start figuring out who you are for yourself. If you spend all your time being a jerk to other people online, it just might not be the "geek" thing that identifies you.

However, any time you try to take divergent and varied sub-cultures (whether it be Star Trek fans, Star Wars fans, video gamers, board gamers, RPG players) and try to smash them together into one set of rules and guidelines you are going to have troubles. The things that make each of these groups fun and interesting get lost when you try to make them into a monoculture. We need to stop doing that. It is perfectly okay to not like Battlestar Galactica or Firefly or Supernatural, and you shouldn't need to permission of anyone in order to think that. It is okay to like the OSR and not storygames, and the other way around. It is also okay to like storygames and the OSR. No one is going to take away your geek card, even if we had such things.

This is why diversity is, and always will be, a good thing. Monocultures are bad and boring, and monocultures that lead to things like the misogyny of "movements" like Gamergate are terrible things. We aren't fighting a cultural war to "save geeky past times." You don't get it. The women and people of color and gays and lesbians and transgender people are already here. They're making the cultural artifacts that you enjoy, sometimes without your even realizing that are involved. I hate to break it to you, but while you were nose down in your "geeky past times," the world became a lot more diverse than you seem to have realized.

There have been a number of essays and opinion pieces lately talking about the death of the gamer. What I think these are talking about is really the death of the monocultures that so many took comfort from as once outsider past times are moving into the mainstream. People in tabletop RPGs have said for years that tabletop gaming is dying and if only more people would be interested in gaming again. Guess what? There are more people who are interested in gaming, or geekiness, but you don't get to vote them off of the island. Gamers who are afraid of woman or gay people "invading" their hobby are more than welcome to stay in the darkness of their basements and hide away from these people. You, however, don't get to speak for me. Speaking from a position of fear or hate is never a good thing, and it is time that we stopped listening to those people regardless of where they are on the political spectrum or if we think they will like us for agreeing with them.

The cultural war has ended. Women and gays and people of color and transgendered people are here. They are geeky and they are proud. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Mini Reviews of Two Fate Accelerated Mini Products

I like Fate Accelerated. It is a quick, easy and streamlined game that has a deceptive depth of play options in proportion to the lightness of the rules. While I do like Fate Core, I think that Accelerated and its adaptability fits my interests and style of play much more closely. I picked up a couple of PDF mini supplements for the game over at RPGNow. They both definitely have some meat to them and have utility in your own Fate Accelerated games.

First up is the Accelerated Book of Approaches from Dice Monkey Productions. This 19 page PDF contains a cover (seen at left) and three pages of OGL. There is some good stuff to this PDF, but I really see it more as a starting point than anything else.

The best part of this book is the in-depth explanation of the Fate Accelerated approaches. One place where people new to Accelerated trip up is thinking that approaches work like stats in other games, or even like skills in Fate Core or other games. How these things work is right there on the tin: approaches. Keeping in mind that approaches are how a character approaches a game situation can make them much less frustrating, and unlock the key to their simplicity and flexibility. It is the approaches where Fate Accelerated really sings, and where a lot of the game's streamlining is happening. A lot is packed into a little space with approaches.

For those who might be new to Fate Accelerated, the Accelerated Book of Approaches also offers some new approaches inspired by the attributes from various open gaming licence systems like D6, D20 and Mongoose's Traveller rules. This highlights the flexibility and hackability of Fate Accelerated by introducing new approaches that can help familiarize a new game by introducing elements that players may already understand from other games. For me, this is a strength of the Open Gaming License, and I would like to see more publishers bring bits and pieces back and forth from various licensed systems to make new things.

However, to be honest, the adaptations in this book are not as interesting as they could be. I think that sample characters could have better demonstrated these adapted approaches. That isn't to say that these approaches wouldn't work, just that they aren't as flavorful and as interesting as they could be.

Before you give up on the Accelerated Book of Approaches we haven't actually gotten to the best part: the sets of brand new approaches. There are three sets of original approaches for "Action"-oriented games, games set in "wizarding schools" and also for "space knight" campaigns. The Action approaches are interesting, and could work well for a pulp-based Fate Accelerated game, or one inspired by the television show Leverage. The Wizarding School approaches are obviously inspired by the Harry Potter books/movies, however these approaches could be used for any sort of wizard-oriented campaign where everyone is a spell-caster of some sort. A creative GM could build an Ars Magica Acclerated hack off of these approaches. The Space Knights approaches look like they are inspired by the "force powers" from the original West End Games Star Wars RPG, which is an interesting...approach.

Like I said, this book is a starting point for people using Fate Accelerated in their games. There is still going to have to be some lifting on the part of the GM to explain these approaches in a game, and to figure out the situational applications of some of them. People interested in a D&D Accelerated game should also look at the Freeport Companion that Evil Hat and Green Ronin put out. While that is a supplement for Fate Core, it could easily be hacked for use with Fate Accelerated. It also has some interesting stuff for anyone looking to do D&Dish gaming using any version of the Fate rules.

Next is a smaller PDF than the previous. Interstellar Patrol is an 8 page supplement for Fate Accelerated that gives you the basics to start a Star Trek inspired game. No new approaches, although it would be interesting to mix this with the Mongoose Traveller approaches from the Accelerated Book of Approaches to come up with a Traveller-inspired game.

This PDF is all starting point. The GM of an Interstellar Patrol game is going to have to understand the genre of Star Trek and how it is different from other types of science fiction. However, as a Pay What You Want PDF you can pick it up for free. I do think it is worth a dollar (at the least) for giving GMs a starting point. The cover is pretty cool as well.

With this PDF and the Fate Accelerated rules you can pick up and play a fast game on one of those nights when not everyone is able to show up for game night but you still want to play a game. That quickness and simplicity of Fate Accelerated is another one of the many strengths of the system.

I recommend both, or either of these two supplements for Fate Accelerated. Hopefully they will be successful enough to encourage more simple and low cost plug-ins for the game.

The Unbearable Riftness Of Being

Back at the beginning of the year we did an all too brief Rifts game for a couple of months. It was fun, goofy and full of big stuff. I made some mistakes as GM during the game. I probably should have reigned in the players a bit, maybe even nudged them into some other directions. I would probably come up with more options, should we decide to play Rifts again sometime.

The interesting thing is that, whenever we start towards a new game playing Rifts again is always among the suggestions. I'm pretty sure that this means that we will end up there again.

At Gen Con I visited the Palladium Books booth and picked up the latest of the Rifts books, the latest part of their Minion War event. It is more of the same: weapons, spells, weird magic items and a couple of O.C.C.s to liven up your games. The thing is, and I say this every time I pick up something new for Rifts, the real problem with the game is that every time you pick up a new book for it (even if you're just reading through it in a store) you want to run Rifts. I'm not sure that this is something that consistently happens with other game lines for me. Half of our group has shiny new Player's Handbooks, but we're talking about playing Call of Cthulhu instead of D&D 5e.

What is it about this game that provokes such enthusiasm?

We played the game as written. We've spent enough time playing OSR stuff over the last couple of years that all of the weird sub-systems didn't really bother us. I'm not really one who sees obsolescence in rules, so I don't really care that these rules were put together in the 80s, or that other rules have come along since then. I think the Rifts rules work well, and once play starts they are a lot less complex than people give them credit for online. Are they perfect? No, but I don't expect that out of a game's rules. It was fun, and that's really what I want out of a game.

Will we play Rifts again some time? Probably. The interest is always there. As I read more of the Minion War material I want to play a game where the player's characters are right there, on the front line, fighting the good fight against the forces of Hells (of course Rifts has dueling Hells, because Rifts!) that are trying to grind Rifts Earth under their heels. The characters have to hold the line and close up a Hell Pit that the infernal forces of Dyval are trying to open up, allowing more of their armies onto Rifts Earh. Hell, yeah!

And I think that is where the appeal lies for Rifts. So many games hint at things, or show what could happen in their games, but with Rifts you get art that says things like "Want to arm wrestle a devil in order to win a handgun that can shoot holes in the moon? We want you to do that too. Look at this piece of art that shows you just how you can do that with Rifts. Enjoy." You see old school games with a push of "Metal! Demons! Carnage!" and there is Rifts, just ahead, waving at them to come and join it out on the edge.

For me, Rifts is the Jack Kirby of gaming. There's a lot of infectious enthusiasm, and it may not always make sense, but by the time you finish flipping through a book you are nodding your head and smiling and thinking "Hell, yeah. I can do this." And Rifts is whispering to you, "Come and put on giant suits of powered armor and fight demons with us. Travel to strange worlds where everyone are giants who live for thousands of years. Be a centaur who fights crime on a cosmic scale." And you look down and whisper "yes..."

There were a couple of sessions after this, but for one reason or another we didn't record them. These are actually proving to be some of the most popular of the "actual play" videos in my YouTube stream. The episode of Masks of Narylthotep and a couple of the Cyberpunk games are the only ones that are more popular.

New From Image - Warren Ellis And Tula Lotay Reimagine The Straightforward

Supreme was one of the mainstays of Image Comics during its early days. Spinning out of the imagination and world building of Rob Liefeld, Supreme was part of the super-powered arms race going on at the company at the time as creators tried to one up each other with the most powerful characters that they could create. Supreme was Liefeld's homage to Superman, filtered through the unique comic sensibilities of the 90s.

I will be honest, while I knew about the Supreme comic, it didn't really hit my radar until Alan Moore's run on the book. While I enjoyed that run, it was fueled more for nostalgia for comics from another age than the quality for which Moore was known.

Likewise, Ellis' work has been lackluster of late. Where his stories were once some of the most wildly creative in comics, they have of late been infected with an action movie idiom that has made them less appealing. Violence has been substituted for plot in too man of his stories for my taste.

Bring this together and I had planned on skipping this new Supreme Blue Rose series by Warren Ellis and Tula Lotay. However, the recent relaunches and reimaginings of Liefeld's Prophet and Glory were interesting comics that pushed the envelope on super-hero comics. Both were books that I would not have expected to come from Liefeld's studio.

Now, with Supreme Blue Rose I have been surprised for a third time.

The new Supreme Blue Rose by Warren Ellis and Tula Lotay is turning into something like the comic version of a Pynchon novel. Ellis is at his most creative in probably a decade and Lotay's art has a dreaminess to it that gives the story an ethereal quality, and when combined show just exactly how comic books can be an art form.

Fairly pretentious, I know.

I'm not really one to fawn over a comic book without some sort of a justification. As a media, comics have just become too fleeting and ephemeral. You read a new comic once or twice, and then put it away in a box. Maybe later you pull it out of that box and try to experience that initial buzz again. A lot of the time that just doesn't happen.

One of the stengths of Lotay's art in these issues is that she puts that ephemeral quality onto the page, making it a part of the story. Her art, and Ellis' script, has you questioning the reality of what you are experiencing within the comic. This is something that I think is a quality of good art, and something definitely lacking from a lot of mainstream comics these days.

For the longest time I was a huge Ellis fan boy, I even have a copy of Crooked Little Vein, his first novel. Ellis was an explosion onto the comic scene, wildly creative and bringing influences into his stories that we hadn't seen in comics for a long time. Ellis loves his science. Even if his science is itself sketchy, he is able to make it sound convincing with a lot of buzzwords that make you feel like he knows what he's talking about, even when you and he both know that he's just making it all up as he goes. That is one of the qualities that drew me into Ellis' work over the years.

Unfortunately, it felt like much of his initial joy faded away, to be replaced by a more cynical approach fueled by the idioms of blockbuster action movies. Violence became a replacement for plot and a catalog of damages instead filled in for characterization. Everything became an imitation of what he had done with Stormwatch and The Authority, I personally lost interest. I would still pick up books here and there, but a lot of them would be disappointments to me. I am still sad that newuniversal was never completed. Despite the art in that book having one photo reference too many, the writing was the Ellis that we all knew and loved.

However, Supreme Blue Rose isn't a return of vintage Ellis, and that is a good thing. The writing in these issues is subdued, very much in tandem with Lotay's art. Ellis seems to be more interested in creating a tone than in building a world. The setting is obviously our own contemporary world. Little touches of dialogue like "Best Instagram ever." ground his story in the real world.

This isn't some super-hero story filled with bulging biceps and over enhanced breasts. This isn't some hackneyed "deconstruction" of the super-hero genre that comes off as a fifth generation copy of Watchmen or The Dark Knight. The characters in the story aren't new. Much like with Moore's run, they are recreations of the characters that have already appeared in Supreme comics. Unlike Moore, Ellis is not trying to retool them into another comic idiom. Instead, much like in a story by British author J.G. Ballard, Ellis deftly blends the "real" and the "fantastic" into a story that would not be out of place among Borges' works.

I think that I have done enough name dropping for one review.

Let's just say that I think the first two issues of Supreme Blue Rose were engaging comics that drew me into the world that Ellis and Lotay are creating. This is not your father's Supreme. If you want something out of the mainstream, a comic that tells an intriguing story, you should check out Supreme Blue Rose today.

Gen Con Is Over, Long Live Gen Con

Gen Con is come and gone. It was a fun four days, but for me it was also incredibly busy. There were so many great new games that I saw (and many more that I never got to see, but only heard about). There were more great people that I got to meet for the first time after interacting with them online for years...or just who I got to meet for the first time period. Most of my time at the convention was spent in introducing myself to people who may have known of me, or who had definitely heard of Bleeding Cool. It was cool getting to talk to Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell about Numenera and The Strange. It was cool getting to talk about Glorantha with Jeff Richards of Moon Design and to get to talk about Call of Cthulhu with Dustin Wright of Chaosium. These things are what make conventions so great for me, getting to see the people who have made the games that make gaming so great and getting to interact with them one on one.

I picked up so much stuff that I am probably going to have enough games to keep me talking until next year's Gen Con.

But that's a good problem to have. It wasn't all that long ago that people were saying that gaming was dying off, and everything from Magic The Gathering to MMOs was killing it off. I was glad to see that isn't really the case any more.

What does that picture represent? That stack of books is the tip of the iceberg. There is so much new and exciting going on in gaming from the big names like Paizo and Green Ronin and Steve Jackson Games to the indie producers to the self-publishers who are throwing stuff out left and right. There is so much available for so many different styles of play and interests that we didn't have a few years ago. This is a great thing.

The crowds at Gen Con were incredible as well. The people were more ethnically diverse than I have seen at gaming conventions in a long time. There were a lot of women playing and running a variety of games. There were a diverse spread of ages and backgrounds to be seen. As someone who wants to see a diverse gaming landscape, all of these things made me happy.

The greying of gaming appears to be a thing of the past, and the reports of gaming's death are becoming greatly overstated. These are all good things.

Now, the one thing that I keep getting asked (despite answering it repeatedly in my Bleeding Cool coverage) is what were my favorites of the convention? Well, on the RPG side of things I have to say that the most exciting game for me at the con was The Strange from Monte Cook Games. The best non-RPG thing had to be the Mars Attacks Dice Game from Steve Jackson Games.

So, the countdown starts for next year's Gen Con.

Why Gamers Can't Have Nice Things

Putting this out there for people to see.

We really shouldn't have to tell people to knock this shit off, but it appears that we have to.

Revised - Being Inclusive Doesn't Mean Including Hate

The other day I wrote a post called "Inclusive Means Everyone" where I talked about some people having trouble with the new and inclusive language included in the Basic Rules PDF that Wizards of the Coast has put out for the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

I went on to say that those people who are bashing gays using this text don't have a place in this hobby. I was told (and you can see some of the comments that I quoted and the responses that my post received in the above link) that I was being a bigot for saying that, or that I was only saying it to "score brownie points."

I stand by what I said. This is the 21st century, if you're going to hate people because of who they love, or want to have sex with, or because they are a trans* person, or because of the color of their skin that makes you a bad person in my book and I don't want to game with you. I'm not saying this to impress anyone, or because I'm pressured to by some "agenda." I am saying this because this is what good people think.

If you are going to try to troll me for this, well...I'm not going to engage you. You aren't worth the time, and in fact I'll just say in advance that it is more than a little sad. Let me give you my response in advance to any potential trolls out there:

I wouldn't think that I would have to keep repeating myself on this subject, but some people can't seem to get it through their heads that the rest of the world has moved on about these things, and have embraced the differences in people. I don't want a hobby that is just full of all of the same people, because that wouldn't even reflect the gaming groups that I am lucky to have been a part of over my last 30+ years of being a gamer.

Yes, I do think that there is a group that should be excluded: those who spew hate. I'm not going to apologize for that.

Update: Since I know that not everyone will be able to see G+ comments generated by this post, I wanted to add a comment by +David Rollins (with his permission) to the post:

It's strange that people seem to think they have a right to hate. Like it's OK to hate some people and if we refuse to tolerate the presence of these haters they say we are just hating on them.

But hate is the exception to the rules we hold most dear. Freedom of speech or expression do not protect hate speech. Hate speech is still a crime.

RPGs cover a large area of ideas and concepts. There is room for nearly everyone here, but if you think it's OK to hate on people for who they are then there's no place for you at my table.

Heebie Jeebies - A Game Of Unsettling Notions On Kickstarter

One of the fun things about being a blogger is that I sometimes get to see things before they come out, or in early/beta versions. People either want critiques of their stuff, ideas for direction of their game, or just to help generate some buzz. It makes the work that I do as a blogger feel worthwhile.

So, one day a prototype of this strange little card game called Heebie Jebbies showed up in my mail box. I will openly admit that I don't play many party games, of any type, but flipping through the cards made me interested. The cards are funny without being hurtful, and without trying to be edgy (protip: trying to be edgy on purpose rarely works). It looked fun to me.

Over the 4th of July weekend, I took the game out for a spin. The rules are easy to explain, and easy to play. A player draws four cards and lays them out on a numbered board. The player decides which of the cards gives them the most "Heebie Jeebies" and then reads all for of the cards out loud. The other players have Voting Cards, numbered 1-4. They play the voting card of the number that they think is the card most likely to give the player the "Heebie Jeebies." The correct votes get points. Rotate to the next player and repeat. The person  who reaches 10 points first wins.

Not in the rules, but from actual play experience, I would suggest that adult beverages improve the quality of play. This is probably more of a house rule.

So, right now, Heebie Jeebies is on Kickstarter, trying to raise the money to fund the production of the game and get it into distribution. I think it is a worthy goal and you should definitely check the Kickstarter out and throw them a few dollars. The game play was fun and easy, I'm not sure how family friendly the game would be, and definitely converted this non-party game player to the cause. The campaign is in its last 10 days (at the time of posting) and could definitely deserve some love. Let's see more independent creators get into distribution with their games.

Dorkland Scores An ENnie Nomination

The nominees for the ENnies came out this morning, and I was shocked and surprised to see that the Dorkland! blog was on the list of nominees for Best Blog.

I'm not going to lie, there are some great blogs on that list. However, I think that Dorkland! definitely belongs on that list of contenders. I also think that we deserve to win. Which, I'm sure everyone on that list thinks as well.

I never believed in pigeon-holing things for this blog, since I made my first post back in September 2013. The thing that has kept this blog live and active for more than ten years now is the fact that I talk about a lot of different things from gaming to comics to music to movies and more. Gaming doesn't occur in some vacuum. As gamers we are the sum of our inspirations, and that, if anything, is the mission statement of this blog: talk about the things that inspire and influence us...even if they don't come from out of a gaming book.

There have been some great interviews on this blog, from +Helen Yanolatos talking with Max Brooks about his comics, to my interviews with Pat Mills and Erin Evans, to the many, many interviews that +Josh Thompson has conducted with creators about their Kickstarters. This tradition goes back to my Dorkland Roundtable interviews on YouTube and further back. Putting a face and a voice to so many creators has been a goal of the blog for a while now.

And, yes, we don't shy away from opinions here at the Dorkland! blog either. It is important to have informed opinions and be able to defend them. Whether it is as simple as the review of a game or talking about inclusiveness in gaming, being able to state and defend opinions are important.

It was also my work on this blog that lead to my writing for the Bleeding Cool site, which is allowing me to bring gaming to a new, and much larger, audience as well.

Thank you all for reading all of these years, and I hope that when the voting goes live on the 20th of July that you will consider voting for the blog. We're rough around the edges, but we like it that way. Also, if you would consider making a donation to our crowdfunding page to help with the expenses of this year's Gen Con coverage, that would be great too.

I will be at the ENnies this year, win or lose. Hopefully I will see some of you there.

I would also like to thank all of the people coming here for the first time because of the links from the ENnies site and over at EN World. I hope that you like what you see and stick around a little while.

Thank you for reading the blog.

Inclusive Means Everyone

File under things that you think we wouldn't have to talk about in the 21st century is this quote from the D&D Basic Rules PDF that just came out from Wizards of the Coast.

I see this paragraph and think, excellent. It can always be phrased better, but the intent is there and it is a genuinely good thing to want to make gaming more inclusive. There's been a number of people with whom I have gamed over the years who would appreciate it as well.

Of course geeks being contrary, can't agree with the idea that being inclusive is a good thing:

And what could possibly be more authentically faux medieval than that?

or

If I were more cynical, I’d say that Wyatt’s comment betrays yet another flailing attempt by WoTC to regain the industry dominance they ceded to Paizo by brazenly copying the insufferable PC propagandizing that infected Pathfinder years ago.

or

GLBTQETC?

I have to ask: is that for real? Or are you making a parody? I just cannot tell any more. The last time I saw the acronym for the perverts it was only four letters; then it was five. Now it is how many, and who knows what they stand for?

Seriously? Perverts? I'm not going to link to this site, to justify it or to waste my time mocking this people. It makes me sad to see people who think they are so right and so logical be so wrong. Yes, the hobby needs fewer people like this. It needs no people like this in it at all. And yet, instead of going after people like this some feel the need to instead make shit up about people. Priorities.

My idea of inclusiveness is that everyone gets to join in, playing the games that they want to play, without fear of being called out from anyone, or being told that they shouldn't belong or are "doing it wrong."

Oh, and here's a good thing from comic writer Jim Zub, just to wash the taste of the earlier comments out of my mouth:

Pathfinder is easily the most inclusive tabletop RPG setting on the market. Strong characters of both sexes, characters of color and characters of different sexual orientations are all positively represented in many of the game supplements Paizo has released over the years. It’s a robust fantasy world that incorporates classic themes and tropes while allowing including progressive elements at the same time. It’s one of the many things I really like about Pathfinder when compared to a lot of the white-washed and stereotype-ridden fantasy settings of old. It’s something the developers at Paizo paid special attention to and I think it’s one of the many reasons why their game has sold so well around the world.

Looking Back At Weapons of the Gods

This is one of those RPGs that I regret never having had the chance to run. My copy was a gift from Brad Elliott for running some Unhallowed Metropolis events for EOS Press, back at my first Gen Con. While I had never read the comic, the idea of it was cool sounding, and I liked the idea of the scope of the game. It may not show from the stuff that I run nowadays, but I love big, epic RPGs and I don't get to run them enough. Honestly, I think this comes from my love of super-heroes and comics. Regardless, this isn't a review, or anything like that. It is just a semi-organized collection of my thoughts on the game.

Written by R. Sean Borgstrom (now known as Jenna Moran) and Elliott, Weapons of the Gods is really my only look into the realms of Wuxia role-playing. I've liked a few of the movies in the genre that I've seen, but overall it has never really sucked me in as do some other genres do.

Why, then, did this game suck me in, and why do I regret never having had the chance to run it?

That's a good question.

I wish that I had some better answers. For me, the mechanics of Weapons of the Gods share some similarities with Godlike, the originator of the One Roll Engine rules. I'm sure that some will disagree with me, and admittedly my memories of the system are foggy, but the mechanics came across as similar to me. The one thing that I like best about the game is the mechanic called "The River." The River is a combination reserve of dice and a resource management strategy that allows you to take dice from rolls that you make and "float" them into the River, saving them for later in a session when you may need the matches in a more important roll. I like the idea of sacrificing now for a potential benefit later because it matches my concepts of what heroism is supposed to be.

Still, it was an interesting game and I am sorry that I didn't get a chance to run it. I'm not sure that y current approach to gaming has a place for it, which is definitely a bad thing for me.

There is also Legends of the Wulin, a kind of/sort of second edition of Weapons of the Gods that came out as a generic form of the game, not tied to the licensed world of the comics.

Do you have a game that you regret never having had a chance to play or run? What is it and why. The why is the important part, much more important than any list of games.

Talking About Dust Devils by Matt Snyder

I got a copy of the recent Indie Bundle from the Bundle of Holding. As I've waded through them, a couple of games have popped out at me. One of them was Dust Devils from Matt Snyder. As someone who grew up in the 70s and 80s, I do love Western movies. Between my father having been a fan of them from when he was a kid (back in the movie serial days), and the surge of Spaghetti Westerns during my formative years, escaping an interest in them would have been hard. This is why Dust Devils caught my eye.

A Jon Hodgson cover didn't hurt with catching my eye. With all of the complaining about D&D covers right now in gaming circles, I would like to think that this evocative cover is something that we can all agree upon.

For me, Dust Devils comes across as a reworking of the "Devil And The Bluesman" trope, redone for the Western genre. And, really, it fits well. But there's not a huge amount of difference between the early cowboy music and the Blues, they approached a lot of the same topics coming at them from different angles of entry. The difference is that the  Devil chasing down your Dust Devils character is metaphorical. Or is it? One of the nice things about gaming is that things can be as literal, or as metaphorical as you want. With the game as written, the Devil represents those things about your character's personality or psyche that drives them to do the bad things that they do. This is at the heart of good story telling, having a difficulty that your character has to overcome. Too many games want to make it easy on characters, but I think that the mark of a hero is someone who knows their shortcomings, realizes that they may be too much for them, but still struggles against them. They might not always win, but that doesn't make them less heroic for the trying. This is a valuable life lesson that years of Marvel Comics has taught.

I do think that there is a danger in overwriting the past exploits of the character, between the Devil and the Past of the character. My idea of a character is that is should be allowed to breathe in the current, during play, and that there can be a tendency to throttle that with too much back story from some players. Having a lot of big things in the past can undermine the play of the present, so for me this would be something to watch out for during character creation.

Now, this game isn't going to be for everyone. I'm really not interested in the whole "is it an RPG" territory. It is a storygame and it is one of those games where everyone shares control of the growth and direction of the story. Some people don't like that. A lot of the stuff in the section on conflicts is fairly standard RPG stuff, however, and most gamers (regardless of the types of games that they play) should be able to understand the underlying logic of how things work. The character creation and resolution systems do remind me a bit of the old Hubris Games' Story Engine (now published by Precis Intermedia). The explanation of Devils and how they are used in play remind me a bit about that game, but I could be wrong and it could be an old-fashioned case of parallel development. The main difference is that Dust Devils uses playing cards for it's determination.

Having an explanation of the different poker hands is "handy," because I know a lot of gamers who have never played poker...and having a table to point them towards would be much easier than having to explain it to them. It would even make a handy cheat sheet at the table.

I also like the fact that in Dust Devils stories have an end to them. As I get older, I become lest interested in games that last for years and years, or have no ending in sight. I am becoming more interested in stories with a beginning, middle and (hopefully) an end. Or at least some semblance of these things.

The game also has a lot of good advice for players and narrators. You get a good idea of what you are supposed to be doing with this game. That is something that I like. You also get some interesting worked examples of how to play this game in non-Western situations. Of course one of those examples is about samurai. That's another good thing.

Overall reading Dust Devils did what I think that a good game should do. It made me want to play it. I'm not sure when or how I will get a chance, but this is definitely on my gaming to-do list now.

RPG Campaigns: Beginnings And Endings

Two of the hardest things for an RPG campaign are the beginning and the ending. Like a popular television show that has lost its spark, a campaign will sometimes just limp along lifelessly until people just stop showing up and it dies a lingering death. Letting go of a campaign is a hard thing, but sometimes...just sometimes, it has to be done.

One thing that I have come to terms with as a GM in the last few years is the idea that the open ended, potentially endless role-playing campaign isn't something that I am much interested in being involved with any more. I like the idea of a campaign that has a beginning, middle and endpoint to it. I think that it can make for more interesting campaign stories and character development. I know that this isn't the standard for how a lot of people campaign, but I think it is one of those things that puts a bar to the entry into the hobby. Meeting 5-8 hours weekly for an indefinite amount of time just isn't feasible for many people these days.

March Book One By John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell

While at MegaCon last weekend I inadvertently stumbled upon the Top Shelf Productions booth and found what is one of the most powerful comic book stores that I have encountered in a long time.

March Book One is a biographical comic, based on the life of U.S. Representative John Lewis, and written by his aide Andrew Aydin with art by Nate Powell.

One of the great things about picking up a book for the first time at a comic convention is that you often get to meet the creators. Aydin's enthusiasm for his writing on the book and Lewis' life was infectious and got me to pick up the book. I don't think that a comic creator's direct enthusiasm has influenced me as much since I met David Mack back in the 90s, and he sold me on his Kabuki comic. Of course, these two have little in common outside of an emotional impact.

This first book in a trilogy talks about Lewis' early life as the child of Alabama sharecroppers, up through his college years and early involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Early on, Lewis' empathy is shown, in his treatment of the farm's chickens when he was a child. This sets the stage for what would become his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

Don't think that is is a dry recital of facts and dates, like some high school history course. Through Aydin's talent as a writer, Lewis and the people in his life are vivid and engaging as you follow them through their fight for equality. Powell's art beautifully compliments the writing and helps to bring the writing to life.

It is amazing how much you think that you know about a subject, until someone who was actually there shows how little that you really know. This book is like that. Not in a "trying to teach a lesson" kind of way, but with the methods that can only come from natural storytellers like Lewis and Aydin. It is obvious from the writing that Aydin has a great deal of respect for Lewis and his accomplishments, and after reading this first book it is a respect that we all have as well.

I don't think that I can speak highly enough of this book. This comic is something that I am going to stick into the faces of friends for years to come, telling them that they need to read this book. In fact the point of this review is that you need to read this book. One of the things that I talked about with Aydin, while he signed my copy of the book, was that comic, and really all forms of geek media from games to movies, need to expand beyond the power fantasies that you often find and explore new territories with emotional maturity. This comic shows how you can do that.

If it isn't obvious yet, you need to pick up this book (and the next two parts when they come out).

GMing Survey Over On Reddit

One of the industry mailing lists that I am on spawns interesting topics for conversation from time to time. I don't follow Reddit, so I can't comment directly on any of this, but I found the post interesting enough to talk about over here. You can find a link to the post here. The poster put up a survey for GMs that received 900 responses, and I thought that some of the responses were interesting enough to talk about. I'm not going to look at the whole survey's results. You can do that on your own.

The majority of you GM more frequently than you play. No big surprise, given the fact that this survey was aimed squarely at GMs. 39% of you reported that you GM "most of the time," while 25% said you're always the GM. Another 25% of you said that your player/GM time is about 50-50, 9% responded "rarely," and both "only when I have to" and "I want to but don't know how" each netted a measly 1% apiece.

As a full-time GM, I can see this. Obviously as the survey was directed to people who GM, there will be some bias in answers. It also shows that games need to probably be better explained and have better examples of play written up for them. Yes, that 1% of people who don't know how is only 9 people, however other people who would have answered this way might not have taken a survey like this because they have not GMed.

"World building" and "Reacting to unexpected choices from players" were your two favorite things about being a GM, with some interesting trends. These two answers made up 66% of the total responses to this question, with basically an even split (34%/32%). An interesting fact is that the fun of world-building seemed to follow a bell-curve: <22 year-old respondents favored world-building much more strongly (42% of responses), while 22-39 year-old respondents liked reactionary play more (34%) and instead spent more of their away-from-table time planning adventures than the younger crowd (15% to 10%). However, among the 40+ groups, world-building once again took the top spot (33%). My theory here is that 22-39 year-olds probably lead the busiest lives - starting families, building careers, and so on - and would rather spend their energy at the table than behind the scenes. Alternate interpretations are, as always, welcome.

I would definitely say that my favorite thing about being a GM would be world building. I like the idea of filling in the little bits and pieces, even if the players don't get to see them, and making a world that we will all have fun playing in. Of course, I also don't take the traditional approach of "THE GM CREATES EVERYTHING AND THE PLAYERS WALK AROUND IN THE WORLD" either. I like to let the players, and their paranoid imaginings, fill in some of the blanks as we play as well. It is worth it to see that look when they realize that the things they have been worrying about are true.

Of course the fact that I'm not really a module kind of guy probably is a big part of what makes me want to build worlds. Even if those worlds are just subterranean dungeons for the characters to explore.

Among Fantasy gamers, Pathfinder and D&D 3.5e are king. 46% of you chose one of those two options (Pathfinder - 31%, 3.5e - 15%). This was true among every single income and age group except for players <18 years old, where Pathfinder still reigned supreme but 4e edged out 3.5e by a narrow margin (19% to 13%).

This is a shock to no one, I'm sure.

Outside of Fantasy, Cyberpunk and Sci-Fi were your favorite genres. Cyberpunk commanded 17% of votes, while Pulp and Hard Sci-Fi boasted 16% and 15% respectively. Modern (Magical) and Horror followed close behind with 13% each. Post-Apocalypse netted 11%, with the other pre-defined categories hanging out around 2-3% each. Most of the write-in responses here were variations on "I LIKE MORE THAN ONE OF THOSE THINGS." Superheroes was the only significant new category to arise from write-ins, with <2% of total votes.

Again, probably not a huge shock. To be completely honest, there's not a lot here that comes as a big surprised to anyone who has been gaming for a while. It is nice to see someone doing surveys and trying to collect data, however. I wish that it was one of the bigger publishers who has the time and money to do this sort of thing on the right scale, and it the right ways. The marketing data from the old D&D market surveys are creaky enough at this point to be largely irrelevant, since they are a snapshot of the gaming scene before the OGL, before indie design and even before the massive increase in the PDF market for gaming.

The Things That You Hear: Licenses And RPGs [UPDATED With Link]

When you're a blogger, or you have contacts within the tabletop gaming industry, you hear a lot of things that never make it out to the general public. Who isn't paying their bills and their freelancers tends to be the thing that you hear about the most. Which publisher lost a licensing deal over non-payment, that sort of thing. DMs on Twitter and private chats on Facebook and G+ give up some of the details on what is going on behind the scenes. Sometimes you pick up things around the gaming table. If you want this information to keep coming you learn to be discrete about things. You want your information to keep coming, after all. This is when a blogger should behave like a journalist and protect their sources.

For example, a piece of information that I have been sitting on for a while now is that one of the well known publishers, known mostly for their science fiction games but also with some fantasy showings, is planning on dipping its toe into the realms of super-hero games by landing a fairly major (to our smaller niche of gaming) comic book license. Will this get past the negotiation stages? I have heard that it has, but as we all well know that doesn't assure that a final product will make the game shop shelves. We will know it when we see it, however. I hope that the game does make it. The license will hold a certain amount of nostalgia for those gamers who are comic book fans, I think, and it will definitely make for an interesting game.

UPDATE: It appears that, while no announcements have been made, there is a holding page for the game on the company's website (http://www.catalystgamelabs.com/valiant/). If you want to keep secrets quiet, you shouldn't go live with your web pages. Actually, I looked for this a couple of days ago and couldn't find it. Hat tip to an astute reader for finding the link.

SECOND UPDATE: I've added some screen shots of the page. Just in case.

I am always leery of licensed games because, whether gamers like it or not, they are going to go away sooner or later. At some point the license will stop being profitable for someone in the equation and the game will go away. Yes, there is always the idea that licensed games will, by their nature, bring non-gamers into the fold, but I don't know if this is a prevalent as it would have been 10 or 20 years ago. Sure, there will be some crossover interest from people with the inclination who had never before gamed but I don't know that it is a big of a market as it once was.

Regardless, let's watch and see if there are any big announcements about a new license at the GAMA Trade Show, Origins or Gen Con this year. If this game is going to go through, that is when I would assume that it would start to be talked about.

UPDATE THREE: Expect to hear more soon.

Do you have a tip one something big coming up? Let me know about it privately and I will keep all of my sources confidential.

Orin Rakatha RPG Kickstarter

Always complaining about not having enough campaign settings to try out? Well, if you are there is a new Kickstarter for you: Orin Rakatha, a decades-old fantasy LARP campaign that is putting itself to paper. We'll move on to the general information on the project next but before that I want to point out that this article -- and all following Kickstarter articles -- will be a bit different as I will also giving my opinion on how the the projects have been set up. That will be towards the end, and since we are still near the beginning -- let's move on.

Orin Rakatha is a fantasy setting that has been designed over some 27 years by associations of LARPers in the U.K. The books will be system-less but feature stats for Pathfinder (and potentially others, like FATE and 3.5).What's the actual setting like? From the Kickstarter page: "a land ravaged by abhorrent creatures, warring nations and powerful magic. Where the only sanctuary can be found within magical sentient towers that the people band together to live within." The 'sentient towers' is the part that sticks out here to me, but there wasn't really much else about them on the page, unfortunately. We'll get into that later in the article, up next is the pricing and goodies.

The Orin Rakatha Kickstarter has a pretty good range of backing levels but the ones we're interested in are the book levels. Starting with the lowest -- just the PDF -- you can get your hands on all of the books in PDF form for as low as £10 in a limited 'early bird' special, with the normal price being £15. For a printed copy you can get just one book for £20 or all of them in soft back for £35 (shipping outside the U.K. is extra). Finally, if a hardbound copy is what you are looking for, there is a limited edition one on offer for £50. Apart from books there are also various ways to get your character into the books and setting material -- either with just text or with art and even a 28mm miniature likeness.

And so we arrive at the new part of these articles -- my thoughts on the Kickstarter project itself. The first thing that caught my eye on the page was the concept art -- there is a good bit of it and I don't know how it all really relates to the setting (there is some description text, but without more context it doesn't help too much), but I really liked the concept art.

The page has a tidbit of information on the setting -- a chunk of which I pasted in above -- but not enough to give me a good sense of what this setting is really about and why I would want to run or play in it. Instead there seems to be a good deal of text given to talking about how Orin Rakatha is a decades old LARPing campaign that has seen a lot of work and such over the years. That is fine, but not really what I am looking for here. I wanted more setting information, less background to the development of it.

The rest of the page basically just mentions that they really want better art, gives a brief description of each book and then the breakdown of expenses and risks. I liked the clear breakdown of expenses -- hopefully it will be something that is stuck to and prevents the wasting of funds (which has been a problem in Kickstarters before).

The funding point may be just a bit too high, as this is largely a system-less setting, but it isn't completely out of the park. Taking off a portion of the art budget to lower the funding goal and setting that up as a stretch goal might have helped to ensure funding is met. The backing levels are good, though it being in GBP does make it a bit pricey for me, at least. I liked the wide use of incorporating backer's characters into the setting and the range of price options for that. You tend to see that in just the higher backing levels of many projects, but its something that a system-less book could really set as a selling point. I might would even go further and include one more lower option in the same vein, if it proved popular enough.

Lastly, the video was alright. It had some humor in it, which is appreciated. The sound levels were a little off during a couple small parts, though. Mostly, it just briefly covered what the page had, which is just fine.

Overall, the biggest complaint that I had was not enough information about the setting on the page. They are selling the setting and the focus of the page should be on that. Especially since there is the nice concept art all over the page -- I would like to know more, which is good, but the information needs to be there.

And that wraps that up, I think. If you would like to see some of the fancy concept art mentioned above, or poke around to see what you can learn for yourself, be sure to check out Orin Rakatha's Kickstarter page and their website.

Why Non-Disclosures Should Be A Thing Of The Past

One thing that we are seeing more of in this age of Kickstarter-driven tabletop RPG development is a thankful end to the era of NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) being an industry standard. Yeah, there are still some holdouts, but for a lot of designers and companies they are realizing that NDAs are a weakness in development rather than a strength.

Yes, I can understand the argument that you don't want people bitching about things from early drafts of your game after they've been removed. That is easy enough to deal with, however. Just say: "That's not in our game anymore." Yeah, geeks like to chew up a bone of discontent until it is a little nub of negativity, but really there is only so much that you can do about people like that anyway.

The main benefit that comes from all of this is publicity. A Kickstarter campaign that is making lots of money is good publicity, but what makes better publicity? People blogging about their love for your game, talking it up on forums and social media. Games are meant to be played and nothing is as good for publicity as people talking about how much fun they are having while playing your game. Yes, you run the risk of people trash talking, but you run that risk after release and NDAs won't matter anyway. If one YouTube video of a group playing, and having fun, causes 10 people to look at your campaign and pledge...that's 10 people that you might not have had give you money previously.

This doesn't apply only to games that are being Kickstarted either. Open development can be even more helpful to a game that is being funded the old fashioned way because you do not have that extra push of publicity from a Kickstarter campaign. Don't treat your current and potential future customers as if they are thieves who are trying to steal your ideas. These are the people who are the front line of your game's publicity. Do you want them talking about how cool your game is, or how behind the times you are because you want to make them sign an NDA?

It is time to join the 21st century and start treating your audience appropriately. They aren't thieves trying to take your ideas. Tabletop gaming just isn't important enough for "corporate espionage." Put those beta versions of your game out there on the internet. Let gamers worry at the rules like a dog with a new squeak toy. Let them find the math errors, the spelling mistakes, for you. But most of all...let them talk. There's no point in being quiet and squirrely and Cold War about your games. Let your fans be fans, the bad apples will sort themselves out.

The Crushing Mediocrity of Mainstreaming Geek Media

If you are on Twitter, a fan of comics and you're not following the John Byrne Says Twitter account you should fix that. The owner of the account (not actually John Byrne) posts a combination of quotes pulled from a variety of sources and the occasional bit of explication into a fascinating insight into the mind of a sometimes controversial comics creator.

This series of tweets led me to making this post:

I have seen comics, an entertainment form once intended for the widest possible audiences, and an entertainment form to which...
— John Byrne Says... (@JohnByrneSays) January 27, 2014

...I have dedicated a most of my adult life, turned into a niche market exercise in mutual masturbation for aging fanboys and...
— John Byrne Says... (@JohnByrneSays) January 27, 2014

...ennui engorged bungee jumpers. I have seen characters I grew up loving and admiring, and even perhaps trying to emulate, turned into...
— John Byrne Says... (@JohnByrneSays) January 27, 2014

...bleak, empty, virtually pornographic caricatures of themselves. I have seen something which was once done...
— John Byrne Says... (@JohnByrneSays) January 27, 2014

...purely for the love of it turned into something that is all about money. And, ladies and gentlemen, I am PISSED.
— John Byrne Says... (@JohnByrneSays) January 27, 2014

 This is a sentiment that you've been seeing more and more lately, and not just from creators but from fans as well. Everyone wants their favorite forms of entertainment to become popular and "mainstream," they just aren't prepared for the repercussions that come with that popularity. It makes me glad that role-playing games declined in popularity from their heyday in the 90s. Yeah, I would love to see more people playing D&D or Vampire or Champions or whatever game makes them happy, but I am glad that we don't have to deal with the bone-crushing mediocrity that has invaded other forms of "geek" entertainment, like comics.

Just in case you don't know who John Byrne is, click here.

Quentin Tarantino, Spoilers, Buzz and The Internet

By now you have probably heard about Quentin Tarantino and the leak of the Hateful Eight early draft script. If you haven't, click on the link and read about it.

People seek out spoilers. They want to know what they are getting in for. Other people want to avoid them, so that they can have a pristine first experience with their media. Neither is a wrong approach to doing it. Some directors (*cough*J.J. Abrams*cough*) have gone so far as to lie about the things in their movies to avoid spoilers. That rankles me, more than a little bit, but it really isn't the point of this post.

I completely understand why Tarantino reacted the way that he did. This has nothing to do with spoilers, it has to do with trust. Obviously, a joke could be made about how you shouldn't trust Hollywood agents in the first place, but that would be too easy. Whether Tarantino makes this movie or not doesn't really ultimately, I don't think that I've seen one of his movies since Kill Bill anyway. When Tarantino is on as a director and writer, he is phenomenal. When he isn't, his work leaves me cold.

Some may see this as Tarantino "robbing" them of a movie, but he doesn't actually owe anyone the creation of a movie. It is nice for his fans when it happens, but it isn't something that he owes anyone. Getting angry with Tarantino is misplaced, what people should be getting angry at is the institutionalized permissiveness that allows someone to think that it is okay to share something, like a script, with whomever they want. Some have blamed this on Tarantino, saying that he should have watermarked his scripts to protect them. No controversy is complete without a little victim blaming, I guess.

Hopefully this will open up some discussions in Hollywood, and the general public. You're never going to stop the mentality of people wanting to be "in the know." After all, how do you think that you end up getting bloggers? But hopefully people will start understanding that if you don't play right with other people's toys, they can take them away. This time it just lead to a movie being shelved. What happens the next time when someone decides that they don't want to keep making movies because of all of this?