Tuesday, June 18, 2013

IDW Publishing's Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes Crossover In Review

IDW Publishing and DC Comics crossed over two of the venerable properties of science fiction: Star Trek and the Legion of Super-Heroes. The Legion has almost a decade on Star Trek, but they are both the product of the hopefully optimistic sub-genre of science fiction that was prevalent in the 50s and 60s. Thankfully, this mini-series (written by the ever prolific Chris Roberson) did not take the route of all too many contemporary comics by adding a veneer of "reality" to this hopefulness by making the characters suddenly grim and gritty.

The story is steeped in the mythology of both universes, and the characters are true to their origins. Roberson has done a much better job than a lot of crossover writers in this regard. I think that I would have liked it better if the motivation behind the crossover was from the original Star Trek series instead of something from The Next Generation, but overall that is probably a minor quibble.

I did like the little touches of characterizations, like Kirk flirting with Shadow Lass or Cosmic Boy talking about history. I do think that the bits between Spock and Brainiac Five probably should have been a bit more contentious, but I think that Brainiac Five's exasperation with Spock, at times, was a good handling of how the character would react to having to deal with another intelligent scientist being in the room. There were a lot of characters to deal with in this crossover, but I think that McCoy and Uhura were a bit shortchanged.

I did like melding the alternate timeline with classic DC Comics science fiction characters, and the Star Trek characters being convinced that they were in the Mirror Universe was funny at times.

Overall, this was a well done comic. Roberson's writing was better in this book than in other recent crossovers that I have read by him, but I think that is probably due to having a freer hand from editorial edicts. The writing is sharp, the characterizations are spot on and the overall plot is engaging. Roberson does just to the characters and tries his best to give everyone as much screen time as possible, within constraints of the story. Not only do I recommend picking this up, but I hope that this did well enough to warrant future crossovers. I would love to see a story that allows the characters to deal with each other's universes, rather than the "crossover world" created for this. I think that we need to see a scene where Scotty tries to correct Brainiac Five's repairs of the Enterprise.

The trade edition of this comic is out and available in comic stores now. Rush to your local comic store and pick up your copy today.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Dorkland! Roundtable with Matt Finch

I spoke with +Matt Finch on the Dorkland! Roundtable. A lot of you probably know him as the creator of Swords & Wizardry, but you may not know that as the original developer of OSRIC, he is probably responsible for starting up the whole retroclone trend that has hit gaming.


We spent time talking about why retroclones are a good thing, and various bits and pieces about old school gaming. If you haven't checked out our talk, you should give it a watch.

Comic Writer Cullen Bunn: My Life As A Gamer

Some of the regular comic readers who follow Dorkland! may recognize Cullen Bunn from his comic writing comic books for Oni Press (The Sixth Gun, Helheim, The Damned, and The Tooth) and Marvel Comics (Fearless Defenders, Deadpool Killustrated, Venom, Wolverine, and Spider-Man: Season One), but what you may not know is that he is also a long time tabletop RPG gamer. A recent tweet that he made on his Twitter stream caused me to contact him and ask him a few questions about his gaming. These are the answers that he made.

With what game did you get started down the path of tabletop RPGs? About how old were you when you started?

I’m pretty sure it was Dungeons and Dragons. When I was in second grade, a friend of mine brought his older brother’s copy of Tomb of Horrors to school. At lunch, we poured over the art book that was included in the module. There was so much imagination in those pages… and I was hooked. Tomb of Horrors, Barrier Peaks, Castle Amber… those were some of the first adventures I played… and I loved them. I didn’t live really close to a lot of gamers, so I started playing these single-player RPGS from Heritage Games. They came with miniatures, paints, and a little adventure booklet. Cleric’s Quest was the one I most remember.

Later, I joined a D&D club at the local library, where I played great adventures like The Lost City, Against the Giants, and Descent into the Depths of the Earth.

We played on the school bus in the afternoons and during lunch. Whenever we could find some time.
As I got a little older, we played once a week at my house, and we started breaking into games other than D&D… notably Villains and Vigilantes, Star Frontiers, Twilight 2000, and homegrown games like a Transformers game we came up with called Robots and Renegades. I remember that one quite fondly.

I got out of gaming for a few years, but around the time Dark Sun was popular, I was drawn back into it. I had a steady group of gamers for a while after that, but for the last several years my gaming has been sporadic at best. Recently, I started talking to some folks about getting a new regular game going, but we’ll see how that goes.

What are some of your favorite games?

There are a number of games that I really like from a game system or game world standpoint, but most of my favorite games are tied directly to campaigns or even a single night of gaming that really stood out for me. Dungeons and Dragons (Basic and Expert, Advanced, 2nd edition, and 3.5), Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Villains and Vigilantes, GURPS (in particular the Horror, Space, and Vampire settings), Dark Conspiracy, Vampire: the Masquerade, Deadlands, QAGS, and (my all-time favorite) Call of Cthulhu.

What is the ongoing appeal of tabletop RPGs for you?

At their best, role-playing games can be great exercises in collaborative storytelling. My favorite games are the ones where everyone is really engaged in telling a great story and building interesting characters, regardless of rolling dice and the rules and such. Sure, there’s an appeal to rolling dice and bashing monsters, but that’s not my favorite aspect of gaming. If mechanics and the like were the only appeal, I’d stick with card games or board games. Also, getting together with friends for a few hours every couple of weeks is always fun.

Are you primarily a GM or a Player? Which do you prefer?

I much prefer being a GM. There are only a couple of other players (primarily with Call of Cthulhu, Dark Conspiracy, and D&D) who have GM’d a game that I enjoyed. Maybe I’m too much of a control freak.

How is comic writing different from making up stuff for a game? How do the two processes compliment each other for you?

I don’t know that there’s a lot of crossover for me, especially because I don’t seem to have much time for gaming right now. Sometimes, working on a game can be a nice break from outlining a comic. And if I’m experiencing writer’s block, a little gaming can sometimes help break those barriers. (I think focusing on another type of story can get the wheels turning on other projects.) For most of my RPG games, though, I have an initial rough outline of what’s happening in the world, and then I just let the players derail it.

If you could write a comic adaptation of any RPG, what would it be and why?

There’s such a broad range. I think Dungeons and Dragons could be rip-roaring fun. I believe a Vampire: the Masquerade comic could be a good, moody, intrigue-heavy book. Gamma World or Dark Conspiracy… or maybe even something like Nightbane or Whispering Vault… might also be a blast from a sheer craziness standpoint.

If you have one of your comics adapted to an RPG, which would it be and why?

I think The Sixth Gun is the best fantasy comic that role-players could buy from a sheer “idea vault” point of view… and I’d love to see an RPG based on that book. If it ever happened, I’d love to see the rulebook as a resource and guidebook to the world of The Sixth Gun, something gamers and non-gamers could enjoy.

Friday, June 14, 2013

A Preview of IDW Publishing's Star Trek / Legion of Super-Heroes Trade

The trade collection of IDW Publishing's cross-over between the Star Trek and Legion of Super-Heroes universes has come out in the collected edition, while you wait for my review of it, check out this 11 page preview from IDW Pubishing that gives a hint at how writer Chris Roberson managed to merge the two settings.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Dorkland! Roundtable with Anthony Gallela

I spoke with Anthony Gallela on the Dorkland! Roundtable. As a former Executive Director for GAMA (gaming's one and only trade association), I thought that it would make for some interesting background to talk about that for a bit. Most John Q. Gamers aren't really all that familiar with GAMA and what it does for gaming, so I thought it would make for some interesting listening.


We also talked about his time as a designer of RPGs and board games, and we spent a bit of time talking about the Theatrix diceless game that he was a designer of, and how Star Trek influenced the design of the game (hint: it was originally intended to be the system for a licensed Star Trek game).

Monday, June 10, 2013

The Hollow Men: A 4C Space Antagonist Report

From the T.S. Eliot poem, The Hollow Men:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar


No one is sure what the Hollow Men are, or even if they have a name. All that is known is that they attack passing space craft, in groups of 4 or more, and completely drain them of energy, leaving the dead husks of ships in their wake with the crew and passengers to die. The stories of the Hollow Men have come from those few lucky individuals who have managed to be found by passing ships before they died on their dead ships. The description of the Hollow Men are sketchy, and it is uncertain why some ships are attacked and others ignored. They are believed to be extradimensional in nature.

Ships are warned to be cautious in systems known for Hollow Men attacks, and are warned to stay clear of them.

Origins For Your 4C Space Games


4C Space Origins
Origins in 4C tell you how the character became someone extraordinary. It is a combination of their background and how they became a hero. The Origin also gives you, as the player, some hooks into how to play the character. These Origins have come from science fiction comics, novels and movies. Each character has one Origin, which can be determined randomly or, depending on the style of the campaign being played, picked for a character. This post isn’t intended to be comprehensive, just to give you the ideas with which to start your own 4C Space games. And if you haven't checked them out yet, be sure to check out the 4C System rules page.

Friday, June 07, 2013

Dorkland! and Accessible Games Announce The First Psi-Punk Contest


Create an entity for Psi-punk: Corps and Criminals. The chosen winner will score a free PDF copy of Psi-punk and their corporation, cartel, or gang will be featured in the upcoming sourcebook.
Details
Write an entry for a mega-corporation, cartel, or gang using the following information as guidance. Entries should be no more than 750 words. We will choose the best entry and feature it in the upcoming Corps and Criminals sourcebook, and the chosen winner will receive a free PDF copy of Psi-punk.
All participants will receive a 20% discount to purchase Psi-punk from RPGNow, so even if your entry isn't chosen you're still a winner.
Entries must be submitted via e-mail to jacob@accessiblegames.biz on or before 11:59 p.m. PST on July 7th, 2013. The winner will be reviewed and announced by July 21st, 2013 on the Dorkland! Blog.
By entering this contest, you agree to allow Accessible Games to use your winning entry in the Corps and Criminals sourcebook (with or without modifications). You will also receive a free PDF of this sourcebook and credit for your entry as a contributor.
To be eligible to enter this contest, you must not be Jacob Wood (unless your name happens to be Jacob Wood and you are not the owner of Accessible Games). Only one entry per person will be accepted, so make it your best.
Descriptions of Megacorporations, Cartels, and Gangs--use the following information to help you craft your entries.
Megacorporations
"No entity in the world holds as much wealth and power as a mega-corporation. Even governments bend to the will and beg for the influence of these powerful organizations which run nearly every facet of our daily lives. From manufacturing and selling the clothes we wear and nano-food we eat to establishing armed militaries and peacekeeping forces, mega-corporations truly run the show.
Mega-corporations, also known as mega-corps or corps, vary wildly in the types of services they offer, goods they manufacture, and people they employ. They do all hold one thing in common, though: they operate worldwide. Every mega-corp has offices in multiple countries and across multiple continents. The largest of them even have bases of operations on the moon, although that territory is still primarily an international safe-haven.
Most mega-corps have adopted their own corporate cultures. Employees often dress the same, behave the same, and in some cases even speak their own corporate language regardless of which country the employee is from. Though slight regional differences do exist, it’s easy to tell one Macroware employee apart from a Magicorp employee no matter which continent they’re on.
Mega-corp employees tend to identify as corporate citizens first and national citizens second. Corporate patriotism is strongly encouraged, and some of the world’s top players even participate in the Olympics as sovereign entities. This is to the chagrin of many governments who prefer to keep a strong hold on their people, but few governments possess the power to truly oppose this gradual leeching of citizens. As long as everyone continues to pay their taxes, most governments quietly accept the new norm."
What is your corporation's name? 
What is their industry of expertise? 
How do they operate? 
Briefly describe their corporate culture. 
What else should we know about them?
Cartels
"Strictly speaking a cartel is not a criminal organization. The term refers to any formal agreement between competitors to control a market in such a way as to benefit all of the members. These agreements usually include such activities as price fixing, bid rigging, and rigorously controlling the supply of goods.
Any cartel that is not government sanctioned is illegal, as are the practices they employ to control a given market. The fundamentally secretive nature of cartels, coupled with the greed of members who seek to cheat on the agreement and improve matters for themselves, makes them highly unstable and prone to in-fighting.

It is possible for multiple cartels to form in a single industry, which rarely ends well. Criminal cartels are especially likely to war with one another for control. 
In common use, the term refers to any number of alliances that controls one specific area of crime. Drug cartels, ghost cartels, weapons cartels, and human trafficking cartels are some of the most prominent criminal organizations in public awareness, and for good reason. These organizations control much of the world’s illicit activities and much of what appears on the news can be attributed to one of these institutions. 

Cartels are responsible for supporting gang activity, resisting corporations, toppling governments, and employing street runners to handle some of their heavy lifting."
What is your cartel's name? 
What kind of cartel is it? 
(Drug cartel, ghost cartel, gun cartel, trafficking cartel)? 
A ghost cartel is an organization that employs ghosts -- computer hackers who literally merge their consciousness with the 'Net -- to steal sensitive information from others. 
How does the cartel operate? 
What else should we know?
Gangs
"Gangs battle it out in the slums and ghettos of the world’s cities and constantly war over turf, resources, and whatever scraps of respect they can attain. Police often ignore the petty crimes that gangs commit as long as they’re carried out against each other, but when a gang oversteps its boundaries and starts mugging citizens or robbing local convenience stores the police are forced to intervene. Occasionally the police send squads of gangbusters into the sprawl to take down particularly powerful groups of ruffians, but for the most part their stance has been to let them kill each other… for the good of mankind.
Most gangs are street-level criminals who don’t make it out of the little league. It takes truly organized criminals (see Chapter 2: Cartels) to go pro and break into the national circuit. Gangs usually have a territory ranging from a few city blocks to a few neighborhoods in width, but a truly powerful gang may even rule over most of a city or small county.
When a gang oversteps its boundaries and wanders onto another’s turf, bad things happen. The best case scenario is that the gang in charge of that area runs the other off its land by showing its strength and authority – usually with violence. If both gangs are equally matched a gang war may ensue and bloody battles are waged in the streets for days or even weeks on end. When this happens, it’s usually up to the police and their gangbusting squads to come in and put an end to the in-fighting before too many innocent lives are lost in the cross-fire.
In a bid for dominance, some gangs may intentionally challenge others. Many of the more organized gang leaders have aspirations of one day making it big and taking over the town, and they’ll do whatever they can to prove themselves worthy of fear and respect. In most cases this behavior results in a lot of dead gang leaders, but in a few instances groups will consolidate and become a stronger force."
What is your gang's name? 
Who is their leader? 
How big is their turf? (Street, neighborhood, city, county) 
What is the gang's method of operation? (Do they vandalize property for fun, steal electronics, smuggle illicit goods, etc.) 
What is their symbol or identifying factor (tattoos, crazy implants, a certain color or style of hair, etc.) 
What else should we know about the gang?

Thank you and also be sure to check out +Accessible Games and +Jacob Wood on Google+. If you aren't following the +Dorkland Blog! or myself (+Christopher Helton), you may want to do that as well. My G+ feed is an augmentation of this blog. Good luck. If you have any questions about your submission, do not leave them in the comments of this blog, or its related social media feeds. All questions directly regarding the contest should be directed to Jacob Wood.

Wednesday, June 05, 2013

The Paladins of Space: A 4C System Supplement


This post features some supplemental rules for the 4C System, a super-heroic retroclone. I am keeping exact locations vague in this so that GMs will have some wiggle room in placing these characters in their own campaigns. Space is big, so there is plenty of room for the Paladins and the Eidolon in any campaign.

Courtesy NASA

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

The Perrin Conventions

The place where OD&D and Runequest merge and overlap are in the Perrin Conventions. Originally a set of house rules for the play of D&D in his games, Steve Perrin wrote up what became known as the Perrin Conventions. The house rules became popular in many California-based campaigns and also lead to inspire the creation of the Runequest system (of which Perrin was also an original designer). You can also see how these inspired the Holmes revision of D&D as well.

It is interesting, also, to see an era thought of as preferring rulings over rules as generating house rules that add quite a bit of complexity to the D&D system. Like anything, there was a lot of variance among gamers and no real standard of play. While some have always liked lighter approaches to the rules, there have also always been those who are interested in heavier, more detailed rules for play. A part of the reason that I decided to post these houserules is because I periodically think about the use of them (or more likely portions of them) in my own Demon Codex game, or at least rules inspired by them. I really like the idea of Perrin's Dexterity roll, but that is probably because I have liked the idea of it in various BRP games over the years as well.

Anyway, posting them can start discussion, so perhaps something will shake loose that will inspire me and my design.

After this point are the Conventions, enjoy!

Per the introduction to Chaosium's All the World's Monsters, vol. II: "Steve Perrin's CONVENTIONS have been used entirely or in part by fantasy role-players in the San Francisco bay area and beyond since they debuted at DUNDRACON I in March 1976. They are revised and expanded here for all those who want to know how people fight these monsters. While the ideas start from D&D, much of the material can be used with any system."

THE PERRIN CONVENTIONS
Many thanks to Steve Henderson. Clint Bigglestone, Nioolai Shapero, Jerry Jacks, Michael McNeil, Owen and Hilda Hannifen, Dave Harqrave, Dan Pierson, and the many contributors to Alarum & Excursions: may your characters have close shaves and your dungeons be hairy.

SEQUENCE OF PLAY - Melee Round
In a melee round, (which takes up 10 seconds), each character can perform one or more of the functions below, unless he is busy bleeding his life away and is no longer interested. The functions below are listed in the order to be followed, even if some of them can be thought to be simultaneous. For those wishing to subdivide movement into seconds, the approximate seconds within the round during which the action may occur are shown in italics after the description of the action.

Anyone attempting to use missile or spell when melee cannot use them, and will strike last in that melee round (see the description of combat for the usual strike order) if he manages (via a dexterity roll) to get a hand weapon free. Otherwise, he will have no strike at all for that round, and must take the punishment if his armor fails.

ORDER OF ACTION
(1). Monster Motivation. The DM determines what his monster will do in the coming round. No melee time (MT) spent

(2). Declaration of Intent. Players declare their character(s)'s intentions for the coming round, including specific target and the nature of missile or spell. Target can be ''first one to come through the door," "the last one in line," etc. Once declared, the character may follow through or abort, but not change his target or objective. But alternate targets can be chosen as a contingency plan. No melee time (MT) spent

(3). Preparation. The undertaking of something to be completed by the next round or of the end of the current one. Involves complicated procedures such as finding a special item in a full pack, changing dissimilar weapons, pouring oil in front of the character to make a barricade, etc. It should be an activity which will last the whole turn. A DM can vary the speed of completion because of various characteristics. MT: 10 seconds base.

(4). Missile Fire from Prepared Weapons. This refers to crossbows, guns, bows, wands, spells, etc., which already have been aimed. Missile weapons can be fire at this time only if the same target was fired at previously or if the character has prepared (see 3. above) opportunity fire for a specific area, such as a doorway or corner. MT: 2nd second

(5). Movement Up To 30'. If characters meet within this space, missile fire or spells at one of them after this phase may hit the other, unless their sizes are disparate. MT: 2nd-5th second.

(6). "At Hand" Missile Fire. At-hand missile weapons which were not already aimed may be fired at an obvious target. The intention to fire at an obvious target must have been declared during the Declaration of Intent. MT: 6th second.

(7). Movement Up To 30'. More movement available for those not already engaged in melee. MT: 6th-9th seconds

(8). Melee Resolution. Fought out for all who came next to an enemy after the first movement (see 5.). Those who came next to an enemy during the second movement (see 7.) do not have time to strike a blow for this turn, must take any fire from at-hand missiles (see 6.), but prevent even a prepared missile (see 4.) from being used on them next turn. MT: 4th-9th seconds.

(9.) Spells and New Missile Fire. This can be done by unengaged characters who have not moved more than one 30' movement phase. MT: 7th-10th seconds.

(10). Bookkeeping. Take this time to add points regenerated, subtract spell points, updating the cheracter for the next round.

NOTES
MOVEMENT - from the basic ''armored man moves 60 feet." The phases of a character who can move 120' (12") can be done as two movement phases of 60' (6") each. The derivations and possibilities are obvious.

PREPARATION TIME - time required for complex tasks can be based on a dexterity roll. For every 10% of a roll better than the needed dexterity, a character completes the task one second earlier. Example: a character with a dexterity of 12 rolls a 23. He needed 60, bettering the roll be 37%, or three increments of 10%. His task could be done within 7 seconds instead of 10, leaving him free to meet an attack. If he was spreading oil of Slipperiness in front of himself and an enemy came next to him on the second move phase, that's one enemy down. The dexterity roll would not work on anything which takes a set period of time, like gathering energies for a spell. If the character had rolled an 83, that would put him 2 increments of 10% over what he needed The task goes 2 seconds into the next round.

MISSILE FIRE - a wand or stave takes a certain time to be ready for another burst, so only one charga could be expended a melee round. Missile weapons have other limits, which follow.

Heavy Crossbow: one shot per two melee rounds, always to be fired in the same missile phase the first one was, unless purposefully delayed. Cannot move.

Longbow, Composite Bow, Light Crossbow: two shots per melee round. First either at Prepared or Ready phase (assuming either applies), and then at the New Missile Fire phase. If moving, forsake one shot for every 30' or fraction thereof moved.

Short Bow, Modern Guns: three shots per melee round if Prepared for the first one and there is no movement. Lose one shot per round for every 30' or fraction thereof moved. Thus a user of such a weapon could fire a Prepared shot, then run 60' in that round. The same applies to the user of a wand or staff or a Prepared spell or device.

Early Gunpowder Gun: one shot per three to six melee rounds, depending on just how ancient the piece is. No movement allowed by firer in a round in which the piece fires.

DEXTERITY - the term "dexterity roll" appears throughout these conventions. The ability to do many things, especially combat and magic, as well as complex actions such as changing weapons, turning and firing, opening a box and jumping back, closing a door quickly, etc., depends on a combination of dexterity and experience. Success in the percentile dice roll depends on the following: the basic dexterity roll is a simple roll of 5% per point of dexterity, A dexterity of 3 always has a 15% chance of succeeding; a dexterity of 18 always has a 10% chance (91-00) of muffing it.

OPTIONAL RULE
The type of armor worn can decrease the effectiveness of dexterity. For plate, subtract 2 from the dexterity bonus; for mail, subtract 1 from the dexterity bonus; for bare skin, add 1 to the dexterity bonus. This could be offset by experience.

COMBAT
(1). First strike in any sltuation, whether melee combat, spell casting, or whatever depends on who has the highest dexterity. This does not apply to surprise situations, unless it is mutual surprise. Hasted or sped conditions do count. Haste doubles dexterity in this connection. (Wayne Shaw Option: once the first strike dexterity is determined, all haste bonuses, etc., are figured, roll 2D6 for each character and add the result to the dexterity. This will give a little variety to just who gets to strike first.) (Further Modification: a character with a long weapon or a long reach and a dexterity of at least half of his opponent's will have first strike.

(2). When a character takes more than 10% damage, and each time he takes damage thereafter, the percentage of hit points he has left shall be found and precentile dice rolled. If the percentage or less is not rolled, the character is knocked back(if less than 50% down) or knocked down (if 50% or more damaged). If not knocked down, roll again to see if the character is knocked back.

Knocked Back: a character must make his dexterity roll in order to get in a blow if he has the lesser dexterity and therefore must strike after being hit, or retain his place of first strike on the next round if he has the higher dexterity.

Knocked Down: a character gets no strike on that turn (if he has the lesser dexterity) and must make his percentage to get a strike on the next turn. If he does get a strike, it will be the last one of the turn. If left alone, he can regain his feet on making a percentage roll, but if pressed he will stay down, defending himself as best he can, continuing to get in the last shot.

Remember: a character must make his percentage every time he takes damage, after the initial 10% damage is taken.

(3). One-to-one combat cannot be broken off unless an opponent has been knocked back or down, or the higher dexterity fighter makes a dexterity roll. If the higher dexterity fighter makes his roll, the lower dexterity fighter may pursue, getting first shot, if he makes his own dexterity roll.

(4). A combined strength, dexterity, end level score of 30 is necessary to allow a character the use of two weapons in melee combat (and strength and dexterity must each at least be 11). Anyone useing two weapons without the necessary total will add the difference between the necessary total and his total to the number needed to hit his opponent. A dexterity roll must be achieved to use the second weapon in any melee round.

(5). When using two weapons, the first weapon strikes according to the wielder's dexterity, and the second weapon as if his dexterity were halved. EXAMPLE: a character with a dexterity of 16 is fighting someone with dexterity 12. The 16-man will get his first weapon in first, then the 12-man will strike with his, and then the 16-man will get in with his second weapon as if his dexterity were 8.

(6). A two-weapon man may up his armor class by one by using one weapon as a shield in man-to-man combat. Despite any pluses on the waapon, it acts as a simple shield. Of course, if used as a shield, the second weapon cannot be used to strike.

- Steve Perrin
Oakland, California

November, 1977

Musings On Chaosium's Magic World, Part 1

Magic World is a fantasy game from one of tabletop gaming's longest existing publishers, Chaosium Games. Once upon a time there was a role-playing game that thought that fantasy games could be more than the high fantasy tropes used and reused by D&D. This game was called Runequest, and you have probably heard about it before. Runequest was interesting in that it dealt with some things that RPGs really didn't deal with otherwise: the impact of religion and culture on the game's world and the player characters was probably the biggest things. These ideas from Runequest spawned a lot of interesting concepts and games over the years, from King Arthur Pendragon to Hero Wars/Heroquest to hundreds of non-Chaosium games big and small.

For Chaosium Games, Runequest became a cornerstone of their publishing. Their tabletop RPGs took ideas or the system from Runequest and adapted it to things like Lovecraftian horror and Occult Fantasy (if you've never seen Chaosium's translation of the French RPG Nephlim, you need to find a copy of it). Along the way Chaosium acquired the license to Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga and published boardgames and a series of role-playing games based on Moorcock's characters and worlds. This lead to one of the earliest dark fantasy games, based on Moorcock's Elric called Stormbringer (with a brief sidetrack into the Elric! game for its 4th edition). Stormbringer spawned five editions and a wide variety of supplements over the course of its history.

Flash forward to today (or a few months ago when this book came out) and Chaosium found itself in a hobby where fantasy is king, and they were no longer able to publish either of their fantasy properties. No more Stormbringer because the license to Moorcock's stuff is with another publisher, and no more Runequest name because, well, a lot of stuff happened. What's a publisher to do when they have the system and no name to go with it? Simple, they dig around in their history for a name that they do own (Magic World from the old Worlds of Wonder boxed set) and build a new game around it.

Magic World is literally built upon the shoulders of giants. Editor Ben Monroe went through years worth of Stormbringer material and carefully weeded through it to take out the references to Moorcock's work but kept all of the flavor and assumptions of the underlying system's approach to fantasy gaming.

The system eschews the standards of class and level for a skill-based approach that puts more importance on what a character knows and is capable of doing, and letting that define the character. While using the same Basic Roleplaying System that was originally developed for Runequest, it is a standalone game and does not require anything else to play. You could use the big gold book, Basic Roleplaying, from Chaosium to give your Magic World game more options, but it is not a requirement. And if you're looking for creatures to populate your world, everything from old Runequest supplements to the Malleus Monsromo (one of the best monster manuals ever made) for Call of Cthulhu to the old Stormbringer stuff will be compatible. Some material, like the Call of Cthulhu monsters, may require a minimal bit of adaptation, but ultimately it will all fit. By its nature and ancestry, Magic World has a lustier approach to fantasy than with many other fantasy RPGs. For me, this is a good thing because I think that Magic World has less of a high fantasy feel to it (as typified by Tolkien and his many, many imitators) and more of (what I hate to call) "low fantasy" approach. I would use the label Swords & Sorcery, but I think that this would pigeonhole the game and make people think that it is capable only of characters like Elric or Conan or the Grey Mouser.

Magic World is available in PDF and print, either directly from Chaosium Games, or via traditional distribution through your local gaming store. If you want fantasy, but you are looking for something that is different from many of the fantasy games that are out there, you would not do wrong to check out Magic World.

Why Things Like The ConTessa Convention Are More Important Than My Opinions On The Matter


The real reason that my opinion on the matter doesn't count has zero to do with my being a guy. The real reason why my opinion doesn't count is because, whether I agree with the existence of this online convention or not (and I do, by the way) it is something that needs to happen. I've been gaming for a long time, a very long time, and I have always been lucky to be able to share my gaming with groups that were diverse in some form or another, whether due to gender, sexuality, ethnicity or some combination of these factors. The thing is, you cannot have too much diversity. That's what makes something like ConTessa important.

Let's see more conventions like this, virtually and otherwise, where diversity is put at the forefront. Yeah, guys can't run the panels or GM the games. Not being able to do that is really going to kill anyone for a weekend, particularly when they can go back to their set ways the rest of the year. This is a good idea, whether anyone else likes it or not.

Click one of the links and join a game. Check out the +ConTessa G+ profile. Play something that you might not normally play. Have some fun and focus on the games, not the shape or color of the people. Ultimately we're all just people and it shouldn't matter who wants to run a game or a panel.

Monday, June 03, 2013

Dorkland! Roundtable with Jeff Dee

I spoke with +Jeff Dee on the Dorkland! Roundtable. Apparently a couple of the questions about the early days of TSR were a bit too far back for a clear remembrance, but I think that I did get some interesting stories about the early days of TSR out of him.


We did talk about the background of Villains & Vigilantes, how it came about because of one of the deep, philosophical questions that only comic fans worry about (which you can find out about in the video). We also talked a lot about his work as an artist and his recent embracing of Kickstarter.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Chaosium Q&A For The Call of Cthulhu 7e Kickstarter

In light of the Kickstarter campaign for the new edition of Call of Cthulhu from Chaosium Games, I sent the company an email with some questions about the campaign and the changes to the game. These are the answers that I received from Chaosium's Charlie Krank:

Chaosium seems to have jumped into the Kickstarter paradigm pretty wholeheartedly. For an established company like Chaosium, does that come with any risks to the established distribution channels and do the benefits outnumber the risks?
We have not jumped in wholeheartedly at all. Our current Kickstarter is only our second campaign and we have a third planned for the future, but Kickstarter is another way for us to publish our books. Usually we must print a book, convince a distributor to carry it, who then convinces a retail store to buy it, who sells it to our fans. With Kickstarter we reverse the flow of interest; we directly interact with our customers who end up with a book they want. Their energy and excitement then flows to the store owner and up to the distributor.

Do you worry that you might be taking some of the audience from gaming stores with a successful Kickstarter? If enough of your existing audience is buying the game directly from Chaosium, where does that leave the stores?
Of course. There have been similar worries throughout the history of roleplaying and in many other industries. After MAGIC was released, many distributors worried that WOTC would go direct to the retailers. Similar worries accompany the proliferation of downloadable books vs. print books. Wise stores do what successful stores have always done: focus on customer service and product knowledge.

Also, the potential market for a product is not defined by the whole of the Kickstarter audience. In the end, both we and the customers build a better product that will eventually hit the "normal" distribution chain, and should be more attractive to all customers.

What sorts of changes to their approaches to publishing does a company like Chaosium face when dealing with something like Kickstarter? Have there been speedbumps in the process for you guys, and if so what have they been?

Kickstarter result in changes and improvements to a project. Having published roleplaying games and supplements for many years, we understand that these are complex projects. For example, our BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS campaign was the result of ten years of effort.

There always are speed bumps, and I think that is where your skill comes into play--mitigating the delaying effects of such bumps.

Call of Cthulhu is one of the oldest tabletop RPGs that have been in continuous publication. Most of the contemporaries in RPG publishing for Chaosium have either faded away, changed hands or disappeared completely. A lot of people are asking why a game like this has to change. What do you say to those questions?
For a product such as a roleplaying game to survive for more than 30 years in this marketplace it needs to be refreshed occasionally. It has been almost 12 years since the last edition of Call of Cthulhu was published. The new edition streamlines some of the combat rules and opposition rolls.

What are some of the changes that have been made to the game for this new edition? Can you also explain some of the reasons behind why these changes have been made?

As always, our primary consideration is telling a good story and having fun. We try to keep our rules intuitive and out-of-the-way of the Keeper's narrative. We noticed that the system occasionally results in "no-effect" combat rounds; so we tried to smooth combat just a bit. We extended the use of some mechanics already used in the game, making them more consistently-applied.

Besides a successful Kickstarer, what would make a game like Call of Cthulhu of interest to newer gamers? When the game first came out, there wasn't much in the way of horror gaming but now there is a lot more competition in the market. What sets this new edition apart from other games out there?

Call of Cthulhu is, first and foremost, a game in which ordinary people are thrust into extraordinary, and sanity-threatening, situations. The thrill comes from seeing if your character, lacking the powers, magic, and armor of (essentially) super-hero knights and wizards, can prevail against superhuman enemies. Lacking the accoutrements of the high-powered roleplaying systems, your sense of achievement is the greater should your characters prevail. I think this results in a more memorable, and satisfying, roleplaying experience.

You have set a tight window for publishing the new edition. Do you have any worries that you will be late?

Yeah, it is tight. I had hoped to begin it a month or two ago but life events intervened. I always worry that books will be late, but the rules have been written and in revision for more than a year, so we have been working up to this point. What we need to know is the final shape of the books. It is fun to work with the fans, to learn what is important and fun for them, and to try to surprise them in the end.

Besides, what would be a better release day than Halloween?

Diana Jones 2013 Shortlist Announced

From a list of nominations that included traditional board-games, card-games, miniatures games and role-playing games, as well as events, books about games and gaming, and for the first time a PhD thesis, the secretive committee of the Diana Jones Award has built a shortlist of five items that it believes best exemplify ‘excellence’ in the field of hobby-gaming.

The Diana Jones committee is proud to announce the shortlist for its annual Award for Excellence in Gaming:

Dog Eat Dog, an RPG by Liam Burke, together with the Asocena supplement
Published by Liwanag Press
‘Dog Eat Dog is a game about colonialism that skilfully brings issues of violence and assimilation to the fore. A lightweight economy forces the native players to continually make agonizing decisions and the colonial player to be an utter dick. The Asocena supplement includes “setting hacks” that move the action from a player-created fictitious island to real-world settings – Italy under German occupation, for example – which shows off the game's true potential as a tool for empathy and understanding.’

Love Letter, a card game by Seiji Kanai
Published by AEG
‘A game like a fine watch mechanism: tiny, intricate and beautiful.’

Metatopia, a games convention in Morristown, New Jersey
Organised by Double Exposure, Inc.
‘Metatopia is a sui generis experience, in which game designers pay the con to demo their games for alpha gamers (who pay less for tickets, as they're the “attraction”) and/or experienced alpha designers. It's half retreat, half academic conference, half workshop, half game convention.’

Playing at the World, a book by Jon Peterson
Published by Unreason Press
‘A thorough, scholarly account of the history of hobby gaming in general and Dungeons & Dragons in particular. It convincingly traces the roots of D&D's core mechanics all the way back to chess, its tropes through fantasy fiction and mythology, and its community back to the wargaming societies that formed at the turn of the last century. Peterson's book is a must-read for anyone in the industry.’

Tabletop, a web series created by Wil Wheaton
Produced by Geek ‘n’ Sundry
‘Tabletop has brought a new energy and humour to the board-game field: its blend of good humour and gameplay is pitch-perfect and has introduced a range of titles from modern classics to indie RPGs to thousands of new players. The games hobby could not want a better public face than Wil Wheaton.’


PRESENTATION
The winner of this year’s award will be announced and the Diana Jones trophy will be presented at the annual Diana Jones Party, which will be held at the Cadillac Ranch, 39 West Jackson Place, Indianapolis, at 9pm on August 14th – the night before the Gen Con games convention opens to the public. All games-industry professionals are invited to attend.

Monday, May 27, 2013

The 4C System

I've put up a page with the 4C System rules, here on the blog. If you've never checked these out, this was an early retroclone (of a certain popular Marvelous role-playing game) that had the misfortune of coming about before people really accepted and understood what retroclones really were. Much like OSRIC, 4C was intended to be a way to allow publishers (and fans!) to make new material that would be compatible with the old game.

The game, while complete and playable, is a bit dry and barebones. One of my goals has been to do a cleaned up new edition of these rules that expand these basics, give plenty of examples and even have some sample characters included. Basically build out and demonstrate what can be done with the basics.

For now, enjoy the SRD for the game. The text of it has been released into the public domain by it's creator, so you can do with it what you will.

If you're so inclined, you can also find some cool stuff made by small press publishers for the system over at RPGNow.com.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Let's Visit The Doctor's Grave...For The First Time In Lawrence Miles' Alien Bodies

This week's season finale of Doctor Who was a lead-in to the upcoming 50th Anniversary Special. And it had to do with a visit to the final resting point of The Doctor.

Recently I decided to embark upon a return journey through the Eighth Doctor Adventures published by BBC Books during that horrible period of time when there was no Doctor Who on television, and the only way that we could experience The Doctor's adventures was through (to many) the non-canonical novels and audio dramas. I decided to start this journey with Lawrence Miles' Alien Bodies (mostly because I am a not so closet fan of his Faction Paradox concept). The parallels between this novel and the season finale are interesting (and I am pretty sure coincidental).

I should warn that there might be spoilers in this, but I think that spoilers have a statute of limitations...and 16 years is more than enough time for everyone to catch up on the book. If you don't want to see any spoilers of the novel, don't go past the jump.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Dorkland! Roundtable with C.A. Suleiman

I spoke with White Wolf Developer/Designer C.A. Suleiman on the Dorkland! Roundtable. We talked about his time in the gaming business, working for companies like Wizards of the Coast and Green Ronin on projects like Eberron and Hamunaptra. We talked about his recent work for White Wolf on the Mummy RPG as well as his music.


Time Lord: The "Lost" Doctor Who RPG

In the 90s, back in the dark ages of Doctor Who fandom when the show itself was on a razor-thin path that lead eventually to the cancellation of the program, Virgin Books was doing licensed Doctor Who novels. I am not really a huge fan of licensed tie-in novels, I think that (at best) you have to consider them to be in some sort of weird parallel universe where the characters are almost but not quite the characters that you are used to in your movies or TV programs. With Doctor Who, I think this is an easier pill to swallow because there's already parallel universes that are part of the setting.

The Virgin Books period is marked by quirky and inventive storylines that advanced the story of the (then current) Seventh Doctor. Not as quirky as the BBC Books fiction that would follow (the Eighth Doctor Adventures in particular fleshed out a character that only received one appearance on our TV screens).

But during this period, the people at Virgin Books decided to try their hand at a role-playing game set in the Doctor Who universe that they could sell side-by-side with their novels. It was a great idea that, unfortunately, fell short in a few ways. They didn't really market the book as being an RPG, and since it looked like the novels in their trade dress, some bought this and didn't really know what to do with it, since it wasn't actually a novel. The game also wasn't distributed to hobby stores, so gaming fans of the show weren't really exposed to it either. I picked up my copy one year at Origins. I've run it a few times, in the distant past, and while it has some quirky features it was a fun game to play and run.

Intended as an entry level game, the rules do a very good job of explaining themselves and introducing the concepts of role-playing to those who might not know what it is. The rules themselves are fairly simple, with resolution being based around a 2d6 roll (where the lower of the two dice is subtracted from the higher to get a result that is compared to the difficulty). In the original rules, character creation was minimal preferring an approach where the players play the characters from the show. Seeing as how this was intended primarily for fan of the show I can understand this approach. This is not to say that there was no character creation rules in the game, just that they were perfunctory and not very good. In the free PDF release (linked below) the authors tried to make this option more robust, having learned from talk with players of the game that no one liked the character generation rules.

The game does have an extensive list of writeups of Doctors, Companions, aliens and varies nemesis of the Doctor from the first seven regenerations. It does have the advantage of being written during the period when Doctor Who was off the air, so their writeups weren't going to be contradicted by the show. It is an interesting snapshot of the Classic Doctor Who show in this regard.

After Virgin Books lost their Doctor Who license, the game went out of print. No supplements were every published (and as far as I can tell none were ever actually planned). Outside of the current (at the time of this post) Doctor Who game put out by Cubicle 7, this is my only real experience with Doctor Who role-playing, and probably my favorite of these two. While the current Doctor Who game definitely reflects the New Who era, I think that Time Lord is an accurate reflection of Classic era in RPG form. The original authors (with permission of the BBC) put the Time Lord game out on the internet as a free PDF, back in the mid-90s, and it still floats around out there today. Below I've included links to the PDF of the game, along with two fan-produced supplements that expanded and explained some of the rules a bit better. Check these out, and I hope that you enjoy them.

Time Lord: This is the basic game, as originally published by Virgin Books. The PDF is a no art version, since the authors didn't have permission to reproduce the art from the game.

Time Lord Companion: Originally produced as a text file (yeah, welcome to the old days of the internet), this was eventually turned into a PDF. This has some expanded character creation options, and some character writeups and rule expansions.

Time Lord Journies: (Yeah, I know but that's how it was spelled.) This supplement built on the Time Lord Companion and added a number of new character creation options as well. There are also a number of rules clarifications and expansions, from the viewpoint of the author of this fan supplement.

All three of these files are saved up on my Google Drive, so hopefully there shouldn't be any downloading issues. If there are, all that I can say is wait and try again in a bit. It is a free service, so there are bound to be bandwidth limitations at times.

If this post causes you to run games with Time Lord, let me know.leave a comment here or say something about it to me on Twitter or Google+. I want to hear more about your Time Lord games.

Monday, May 13, 2013

DriveThruRPG's OSR Promotion


From Monday, May 13 - Sunday, May 19, DriveThruRPG is going to be running an OSR-related promotion. For this week 10 of the site's best selling old school games will be eligible for an additional 15% savings with the coupon OSRF711F2. This coupon is only good for one week and only on the products listed here. There are some good games to be found on that list. I can recommend Crypts & Things (a Swords & Wizardry variant) and Spellcraft & Swordplay (an excellent old school styled game from Jason Vey. If you don't have either of these games on your gaming pile, you really should. I don't think that I have to suggest picking up the original D&D Basic Rules to anyone.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Dorkland! Roundtable with Patrick Kapera

I spoke with +Patrick Kapera of Crafy Games about many things on the Dorkland! Roundtable. We discussed the history of the development of Spycraft, how that lead to Fantasy Craft and how designers who'd made a book as big as Spycraft 2.0 could then do something as small as the Mistborn Adventure Game. It was a good talk, and it gave some interesting insights into Patrick's and Crafty's processes, as well as looking at how they approach the development of a new RPG.


We had a slight technical glitch at one point, so just bear with us at that point.

The Mini Manor In Review

I received a copy of the zine-formated module The Mini Manor from +Tim Shorts of GM Games, and promptly forgot that I had intended to blog about it. The picture to the right is one that I took of the cover of the 20 page long, 5.5" x 4.23" inch booklet.

Don't let the size fool you because there is a lot packed into the small package.

Written for Swords & Wizardry, as part of the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day festivities, Tim has crafted a fairly standard dungeon crawl into something with a bit more bite by using the modern sensibilities of the DIY zine culture. And I think that's a very good thing. We need to advance fantasy games beyond what they were like 30 years ago and make them into something that is recognizable by us now. In a way, that is what the dungeon and adventure designers of the 70s and 80s were doing with things like the Judges Guild books, or many of the Mayfair Games materials. It is good to see people making their own, rather than just trying to emulate what has gone on before.

The Mini Manor lives up to its name, this dungeon has only eight rooms to it, but they are filled with an interesting take on monsters and situations. The characters wake up, naked, in a room after a night of partying and the action goes from there. There is a bit of a grindhouse feel to this module, so it isn't for the faint of heart (or the young). This is clearly labeled as a "mature audiences" module, and I think that it lives up to that label. This isn't a tee-hee 13-year old sniggering at naked breasts sort of mature, but the real deal.

I won't spoil the module, because I think people should track it down and experience it for themselves. I may have to spring it on my Demon Codex players in a few levels (it says that the adventure works best with 5th level characters). In addition to the module itself, The Mini Manor has a number of new creatures (stated for Swords & Wizardry but easily adapted to any of the old school games), a handful of new magic items, a new spell and a new race. All definitely worth the price of admission. The best part is that you can get the PDF of this for free, however if you can track Tim down and get a physical copy it is worth the effort.

Friday, May 10, 2013

The Eternal Warrior Is Coming From Valiant Comics


I know that people have been asking when this was going to happen (I've had a lot of people asking about it in my social media streams). The Eternal Warrior is coming this summer from Valiant Comics, Greg Pak and Trevor Hairsine. You likely know Pak from his longtime work with Marvel Comic, and Hairsine is a great up and coming artist. Greg Pak gave an exclusive interview to Comic Book Resources about the upcoming book.

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Dorkland! Roundtable with Sean Fannon

I talked with long time game designer and industry insider Sean Fannon on the Dorkland! Roundtable. He has worn a lot of hats in the gaming business and we tried to talk about as many of those hats as possible in the time that we had.


We also spent some time talking about his upcoming game Shaintar (he even gave us an advanced preview of the cover art sans tradedress):


It was a good talk and we managed to squeeze a lot of Sean's history and current doings into the interview.

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Why I Won't Be Seeing Ender's Game

These are all unvarnished or unaltered quotes from Orson Scott Card:
How dangerous is this, politically? Please remember that for the mildest of comments critical of the political agenda of homosexual activists, I have been called a "homophobe" for years.

This is a term that was invented to describe people with a pathological fear of homosexuals — the kind of people who engage in acts of violence against gays. But the term was immediately extended to apply to anyone who opposed the homosexual activist agenda in any way.

A term that has mental-health implications (homophobe) is now routinely applied to anyone who deviates from the politically correct line. How long before opposing gay marriage, or refusing to recognize it, gets you officially classified as "mentally ill"?
 or
And you can guess how long it will now take before any group that speaks against "gay marriage" being identical to marriage will be attacked using the same tools that have been used against anti-abortion groups — RICO laws, for instance.
 or
No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman.
This is a permanent fact of nature.
(In another column I will talk seriously and candidly about the state of scientific research on the causes of homosexuality, and the reasons why homosexuality persists even though it does not provide a reproductive advantage.)
There is no natural method by which two males or two females can create offspring in which both partners contribute genetically. This is not subject to legislation, let alone fashionable opinion.
Human beings are part of a long mammalian tradition of heterosexuality. No parthenogenic test tube procedure can alter what we, by nature, are. No surgery, no hormone injections, can change X to Y or make the distinction nonexistent.
That a few individuals suffer from tragic genetic mixups does not affect the differences between genetically distinct males and females.
or
Married people are doing something that is very, very hard — to combine the lives of a male and female, with all their physical and personality differences, into a stable relationship that persists across time.
When they are able to create children together, married people then provide the role models for those children to learn how to become a man or a woman, and what to expect of their spouse when they themselves marry.
When a heterosexual couple cannot have children, their faithful marriage still affirms, in the eyes of other people's children, the universality of the pattern of marriage.
When a heterosexual couple adopts children who are not their genetic offspring, they affirm the pattern of marriage and generously confer its blessings on children who might otherwise have been deprived of its benefits.
And yet if a homosexual couple does these same things it perverts and demeans the sanctity of marriage in the eyes of some. Because:
With "gay marriage," the last shreds of meaning will be stripped away from marriage, with homosexuals finishing what faithless, selfish heterosexuals have begun.
And the ultimate extension of this is that governments who support gay marriage should be brought down through insurrection:
If America becomes a place where our children are taken from us by law and forced to attend schools where they are taught that cohabitation is as good as marriage, that motherhood doesn't require a husband or father, and that homosexuality is as valid a choice as heterosexuality for their future lives, then why in the world should married people continue to accept the authority of such a government?
What these dictator-judges do not seem to understand is that their authority extends only as far as people choose to obey them.
How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.
One last particularly vile quote from Card (to be found here):
The dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.
This is where your money goes when you buy one of his novel, support a movie or comic book made from his books, or any other project that has his name on it. Pure and simple, your money goes to support hate. I don't care what the reasons are, that money supports hate. In my book that makes you just as much of a bad person as Card himself. I don't care if you don't like this, but then the opinions of people who promote or support hate of others because of their gender, ethnicity, sexual preference or pretty much anything mean nothing to me.

I don't want to see Ender's Game and I don't want to hear about your rationalizations.

If you're looking for other articles about this, here's a good one.