#RPGaDAY: Day 30 - Rarest game I own

This one is actually quite easy. As I don't own many rareties, then unless Maelstrom is rarer than I think, it's got to be Allansia, the Advanced Fighting Fantasy wilderness adventures and massed battle core book. I picked it up for about £35 to complete my set, and they now run for £70-£110 on Amazon, which was a bit of a surprise.

I did used to own the original Changeling: the Dreaming sampler, which would probably have trumped this, but I think that vanished two moves ago.

That's pretty much all I have on this one. Last, and by definition anything but least, we'll cover 'my all-time favourite game' later today.

#RPGaDAY: Day 29 - It's all fun and games until somebody loses a Fate point

Today's topic is 'most memorable encounter', and I'm drawing a bit of a blank, as I've never really been in many games which played out in discrete encounters. Instead of a single exemplar then, I'm going to run down two memorable incidents and talk a little about what makes them work.

And then this happened...

Here There Be Monsters was the 13th session of my epic WFRP game, 'Boomtown', and took the action to a whole new level. The PCs had previously fought bandits and small packs of beastmen stalking the woods near their village of Heortwald. In this session, they took a trip into the deeper woods to aid their barbarian friends - actually a group of dissident academics who have adopted a barbarian lifestyle, although there is an actual barbarian tribe living in an abandoned mansion nearby - against a massive (by their terms at least) Beastman horde.

In the end, the session involved the PCs rallying the actual barbarians to aid their new neighbours by capturing a beastman for them to fight, then dressing in beastman skins to mask their scent (eww) to rescue captives from sacrifice, and finally leading a massed battle at the neo-barbarian camp. This last was an almost note-perfect mid-game climax, and a huge step up from some of my earlier efforts at large-scale combat.

It worked because the PCs were intimately involved in the combat, battling major opponents at pivotal points in the fight; it worked because they made a major strategic and tactical contribution to the fight, and because they had to work their arses off not to get mashed into a paste by a minotaur or acid-burned by the shaman. There was threat and consequence, and as a result, there was triumph. I think it is still the best battle I've ever run.

Evil, right. Right?

My second example is from a game of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness. We - being a college educated bull-man, a martial arts trained badger-man and a trailer trash bobcat-man - were tracking a group of mutant weasel archers (led by a wolverine and a psychotic bat) who were raiding meat storage facilities. We tracked them down and captured them, and we established that they needed to eat more than their own body weight in meat every day to survive. I'm pretty sure that the scenario's ending options were 'fight to the death' and 'turn them over to the authorities to be returned to the military lab that made them'; possibly, allow them to go to Alaska and try to live free.

Instead, we figured that given their unstoppable digestive systems, we could set ourselves up in a business partnership with them, collecting and disposing of condemned meat. Apart from the bat; because fuck that guy, he was a crazy, giggling killer.

This was a notable incident, because we turned the expectation on its head and were able to find a left-field solution that really worked.

Just two more days left, but I may end up doing both on Monday. The topics are rarest RPG owned and favourite RPG of all time. Not sure what's going to go into that, but I guess we'll find out.

#RPGaDAY: Day 28 - Scariest game played

It's hard to be truly scared playing an RPG; at least the way I've tended to play them. There's tension, if the game is a good one with plenty of risk and consequence, but fear - even horror movie, ghost train fear - is hard to generate.

LARP does it better, and my friend James explains that better than I can, having run many more LARPs and in particular a load of Cthulhu Live games. I've never quite managed that level of horror in my Geist games, in part I suspect because I no longer have the commitment to run a graveyard slot and it's really hard to do scary in the midday sun.

The game uses locks and keys as major
symbols, but the art is more about the chains.

The game I have played that had the most intention to be scary is Wraith: the Oblivion, one of White Wolf's more conceptual efforts. In it, each player takes on the role both of their own PC - like a classic ghost, but part of a neo-feudal, highly predatory society of dead people and still possessed of a complete set of human desires and drives - and of the darker impulses of another player's Wraith, the Shadow.

The idea was that as the Shadow you would tempt the Wraith to act within your Passions, rather than their own, strengthening your control over them. You did this both by goading and by offering bonus dice in exchange for complicity. Each offer accepted moved the Wraith closer to a period of Catharsis in which the Shadow became briefly ascendant. The fact that Catharsis happened due to a build up of Angst, and that your energy reserves were called Pathos never really helped people to take the game seriously, and the problem was that it would only ever be scary, or indeed compelling in any way, if you took it very seriously. Wraith was not a game that could realistically survive a Monty Python reference, and was so unremittingly serious and grim that it was hard to want it to. It was like the RP equivalent of poetry written on black paper in silver ink.

On the few occasions where I have managed to elicit a fear response in game, it hasn't come from anything outrageously grisly or bleak, but from subverting expectations of the ordinary. It has also come more from implication than overt statement. On learning that the water in a small town was contaminated with Mythos-stuff, my Delta Green investigator definitely would have got less reaction by warning people not to use the toilet than he got by bringing in an ice bucket and a waste paper bin and announcing: "Number one, and number two." (Although I'm not sure if that works for an American character at all).

Tomorrow, we continue the downhill tumble towards completion with Day 29 and Most Memorable Encounter.

#RPGaDAY: Day 27 - Game you would like to see a new/improved edition of

This is quite the hot topic at the moment, what with Onyx Path rolling out the All-New World of Darkness Second Edition Show (formerly [apt and/or pretentious title] the [iconic antagonist] Chronicle), and D&D (ostensibly) 5th Edition now fresh off the printers and allegedly smelling of fish (literally, and I've certainly had gaming products which had that particular ink-smell problem before).

Angel sarcophagus ON THE MOON!
Sign me up!*

The God-Machine Chronicle release for nWoD is a truly massive overhaul, involving pretty major alterations to every aspect of the game's design. The basic resolution mechanic is the same, but there is a lot more focus on intrinsic abilities, and the 'Condition' mechanic, which basically borrows a page from Fate's playbook and allows a great many powers and effects to pin a description on their target which either gives them penalties or gives other characters advantages against them until they can resolve the Condition in some way.

It also links experience and character progression directly to in-play action rather than raw game time clocked, and decouples morality and sanity. There are a huge number of changes that I really like, and in particular the preview material for Mage and Forsaken suggests that the writers have a much, much stronger handle on what they are actually trying to do with the game than they did with the first editions.

Of course, it's a tabletop game and I mostly (only) play WoD in a LARP setting where about 50-75% of the changes would be a massive headache to implement, but I can hardly criticise the games for that; it would like complaining that hammer is no good for whisking eggs, or at least that my frying pan is too shallow to make sauces in. National-scale LARP societies is not what the game is written for (and given White Wolf's history with the Cam, you can see that they might really not want to go there again.)

This one is newer than mine; I don't know if
there is a yet-newer one.

On top of the announced games, I'd like to see them take a revised run at Geist, which is the game I run and - as we work in a much smaller arena than the big four (Requiem, Lost, Forsaken and Awakening) - it would be something I actually could implement. It's needed as well, as there's still a lot that doesn't entirely tie together in the game as is. I'd like to see Synergy function as a balance mechanic rather than being shoehorned into the linear, unidirectional morality system (they are apparently doing something of the sort with Werewolf's Harmony, so I might just nick that when it's unveiled).

This (or Unisystem cinematic) is
basically my new edition of anything I
don't like the system of.

I hear that there is a new Feng Shui out/due, which would be interesting to take a look at, although my ideal wuxia RPG would be one more removed from the Shadowfist setting. There is also Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2nd Edition, which intrigues me strangely. Onyx Path, again, is revising the Aeon series (Adventure!, Aberrant and Trinity) and that intrigues me, especially the first two (I was never really taken with Trinity, although a closing down sale at the game shop means I have, like, all the material knocking around at home).

But this is all tangential to the point, which is what would I like to see revised, rather than what is being revised. I have to admit, this question is complicated by the fact that I realised recently that I can pretty much run anything I like the setting of, but not the system, in Fate Core with a little prep work; possibly less than learning a new system would take.

I suspect that there are games I would get excited about a new edition for. Hell, I was mad keen when I heard there was a new AFF, wasn't I? But I don't think that there is anything that I think 'man, if only they would revise that', in part because I'm now an experienced enough rules hacker to be confident changing anything that doesn't make sense, and I haven't felt bounded by 'canon' setting since Kung Fu Vampire Hunters at the latest.

Look for the #RPGaDAY hashtag for more on new editions, and check back tomorrow when I'll talk at you about the scariest game I've ever played; or something like it anyway.

* If there are no angels in sarcophagi on the moon in GMC, please tell me; break my heart clean.**

** I would totally accept Mars as an alternative.

#RPGaDAY: Day 26 - Coolest character sheet

What is the measure of a man? Or woman? Or dwarf, or for that matter cyborg killer afflicted with a deep and unremitting melancholy fugue as a side effect of his intra-cranial armour plating? In an RPG, that measure is the character sheet.

I have no particular dog in today's fight, so I've just gone trawling through a Google image search for some prime examples. Most of the examples below are stock sheets; where I can see that they are otherwise, I've credited the creators as best I can.

 

D&D: Lowering the common denominator since 1974

We begin with the daddy of them all: Dungeons & Dragons. Just look at that thing; it's huge and cluttered and... I think the best thing I can say for it is that it's comprehensive. I guess that the tabular layout is clear, but it's not visually appealing (although in all honesty the teenage me would have been excited by the multiplicity of apparent options, however irrelevant). I guess it does at least not have a space in which the artistically inept can self-consciously not draw a portrait of their PC and feel kind of like a failure each time they look at the blank space where they know they could have drawn a portrait if they were any good. I disapprove of RPGs making their players feel even more wanting than most of them already do. It's not like the cool, confident kids tend to find their way into roleplaying, especially not as teenagers.

Overall, I include it here as an example of what is not (to me) a cool character sheet.

If anyone knows what this is actually for, drop a note in the
comments.

By comparison, here's another sheet purporting to be for D&D; I guess for 5th edition, although the necessarily chaotic and complex nature of my high-dimensional data mining exercise (search terms: character + sheet) means that it may be mislabeled and not a D&D sheet at all. The presence of a 'Tec' attribute and the 'Augments' section argues for the latter somewhat.

I much prefer the layout on this one. The curves are visually appealing, and the information is clustered according to use, and the whole thing is on a single side, including a reference list of favoured combos. The combination of form and function makes this a strong contender.

Some folks will always go the extra mile.

One of the hallmarks of a good character sheet is how easy it is for the financially and tech impoverished to replicate using a piece of paper and a pencil, and in fairness the D&D sheet above would be easy to copy, given its tabular layout.

The hand drawn sheet on the left (created for Dungeon Crawl Classics by The Earthlight Academy) is proof, if it were needed, that not everyone considers such simplicity to be a virtue. Despite the visual elegance, however, the layout of this sheet remains clear and concise. D&D could learn a bit about structuring a D20 character sheet here. On the down side, being of an obviously artistic bent, the maker has left that great big character portrait space in the centre to tease those of a more literary or mathematical persuasion.

This one also represents the PC as
the Vitruvian man, so Da Vinci props.

Speaking of simplicity, here's a couple of fair examples. On the left, Tunnels and Trolls, and on the right, no less than two character sheets for In Nomine; one for an angel and one for a demon.

Each has a straightforward design; tabular, but broken up by images so that they don't look like an unalloyed accounting spreadsheet. They contain all the information needed for a character, and don't take up pages and pages of paper.

On to the Fate system now, and the Fate Core character sheet.

Again, it's a beautifully simple and elegant layout, and no taunting portrait space. It's got pretty much everything it needs, although if I'm honest I find it a bit stark. Aesthetically, it works for me as a sheet for a modern or futuristic game, but I'd find it odd looking at that style and layout for a fantasy or historical game.

It is dead easy to copy into your own variation if you so desired, but in and of itself is all function and no form.

This sheet for Spirit of the Century is almost the opposite; very visual, but not necessarily convenient in play. I do like the fact that you could absolutely draw a portrait in the centre circle, but because it's the hub of the sheet rather than an obvious picture frame, there's no pressure to do so.

Moving on quite quickly, I like the cog design of the Tephra sheet on the right, and it looks pretty usable.

On the left, a D20 Star Wars sheet. Much prettier than the D&D sheet, but I have a feeling that this one is incomplete, to the level of there probably being at least one more sheet.

And the final instance, and winner of the coolest character sheet award is this little beauty:

Why? Well, it's about Vampire Pirates; what's cooler than that?

Check back tomorrow for the game I would like to see an improved or expanded version of, and in the meantime check out the hashtag, #RPGaDAY, for more cool character sheets.

#RPGaDAY: Day 25 - Favourite RPG that no one else wants to play

I really don't think I have an answer for this. I've never yet been faced with the situation that I couldn't put together a group for a game due to lack of system, or even concept, enthusiasm.

Time is another matter, and is - together with geographical distances - what has stymied me time and again, but it's not about people not wanting to play. Unless all of my so-called friends are liars, just making excuses to avoid getting involve in games with me, but I'm pretty sure that isn't it.

As I've mentioned before then, I'd love to play some more Warhammer, either my Dirty Dozen-styled Only War campaign, or Pies Across the Ocean, which would be like the Hobbit, but with more scurvy. I also want to run some version of The Crown of Kings for new AFF, and I'd like to play some Fiasco! sometime.

Sadly, not much to add on this one. Next is... man, 'coolest character sheet'. That's going to take some thought.

#RPGaDAY: Day 24 - Most complicated RPG owned

The game which had a skill called 'Do', which
seemed a little broad.

I don't own many mechanically complex games. Easily the worst offender is Dark Heresy, which as I've noted before took five or six rolls to resolve a single combat hit from the psyker's Force staff. If I had 'Lost, in Space' to do over, I'd just have said "Okay; add Psi-Rating to Strength Bonus and Armour Pirecing; have fun with that."

However, I've already talked a lot about Warhammer in various forms, so instead I'm going to look at a game whose complications were metaphysical rather than mechanical (although it's a White Wolf old World of Darkness game, so it has its share of rules complications, from endless lists of secondary skills to a four stage resolution for each and every basic combat roll): Mage: The Ascension.

The central premise and conceit of Mage: the Ascension is that magic is a point of view. All reality is fluid, determined by the consensus beliefs of the mass of humanity. Most humans are unconscious participants in the system, Sleepers; the Awakened are the Mages whose enlightened condition allows them to impose their will on reality and say: "No, you work like this."

Magical ability was determined by Spheres - nine branches of magic, which determined what you could do - and Arete - degree of enlightenment, which determined how well you could do it. Within the dominion of your Spheres, you could basically do anything. There were some sample effects, but basically there was no spell list, no power set; if you could conceive it in terms of your Spheres, and make the Arete roll (the tricky part, as casting pools tended to be the lowest dice pools in the game), you could make it happen. The fundamental simplicity of this system was the source of its complication, because in the absence of a spell list, every casting was up for debate: Can you do this, or are you just blagging it? Nuclear blasts are the preserve of the Forces Sphere, but what if I use the Matter Sphere to create a critical mass of fissile plutonium? (Official ruling was that without Forces, the material would not be fissile, as the inherent instability of plutonium was a function of the consensus reality that you were bypassing to make the plutonium out of thin air in the first place, IIRC.)

The debate was further complicated by Paradox. When a mage tried to bend reality too far, reality could push back through a little-understood force called Paradox. Spells that worked cleverly around consensus reality were coincidental, while those that punched the consensus in the nose and called it chicken were vulgar; vulgar spells generated more Paradox, which built up inside a mage until it was either bled off, exploded, or sent a manifestation around to take you out back and give you the business, so every casting involved a measure of debate over whether something 'could have' happened.

Of course, that was all hunky-dory compared to the Technocracy issue. The Technocracy were the morally ambiguous bad guys... Sort of. They were mages who, rather than harking back to a mythical golden age of wonder, sought to create a perfect world of ordered reality... through SCIENCE! They were so succesful a sympathetic antagonist that later material on them did everything short of slapping swastikas on all their iconography to make them more obviously baddies, before giving up and making them a playable option.

The thing of it was that the Technocracy truly believed in 'enlightened Science'. They didn't see themselves as wizards monkeying with technology; they were scientists and inventors and surgeons and explorers who used Sufficiently Advanced Science (TM) to shape the future scientific paradigm of the consensus reality. And the metaphysic being what it was, they were right. Wrap your head around that, if you please; at least until the 3rd edition showed up and was all: "Nah; they're wizards monkeying with science, but now none of that consensus shit applies and the world is as it is." 3rd ed was weird in its efforts not to be weird.

Next up, in a few minutes really, my favourite RPG that no-one else wants to play. I have literally no clue what to talk about for that.

Check out the hashtag for more overly complicated RPGs.