Building the Perfect MMO, Part One: Characters

In case you didn’t know, Dungeons and Dragons Online has recently opened up its servers for subscription-free gameplay.  Now since I successfully kicked my MMO addiction a couple years ago, I’ve been (intentionally) out of the loop on the topic.  But with several of my online acquaintances trying out DDO, I figured I’d give it a shot.  Surely I wouldn’t get hooked all over again.

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, I’m about to say that I got hooked all over again.  And you’re wrong.  What I am about to say is that my experience with what is good about DDO (the combat) and what isn’t so good about DDO (everything else) got me to thinking about what I’ve liked and disliked about the various other MMOs I’ve played.  And how someone out there can code the MMO that would get me hooked all over again. 

Rather than a bulleted list of the pros and cons of each game, I’m going to take the aspects of gameplay that are important to me , and talk for a bit about which games have really done well in this regard, and why.  For me anyway.

Well, start with Characters.  When I think about this all-important first step in playing a game, two really stand out.  Everquest II provided the most options.  Many races, many available classes (and subclasses), and many many ways to customize the appearance of your toon.  If you’re going to go the standard “I want to create an elven druid” route with characters, you’d do well to give your players as many viable and meaningful options as you can.  Of course, you don’t have to go this route at all.  EVE-Online is by far the winner in my opinion with its classless character creation.  Choices you make at the beginning impact your starting skill-set but after that, any character can train to do anything, given time (more about that in a bit when we talk about advancement).

In the coming days I’ll also be talking about character advancement, crafting, economics, questing, combat, and some other parts of the MMO experience.  For now, though, what have I missed?  What other games do a great (or terrible) job during the character creation phase?

I’m Maligning Your Alignment

Probably no big surprise here, but a lot of my opinions about rpgs and gaming in general cut a bit across the grain. One of the topics on which I often have the most animated debates is on character alignment.

The biggest issue I have with such systems is that, even if the various alignment possibilities were well defined, I simply cannot accept that all of the various permutations and combinations of ethical and moral values can be pigeonholed into nine neat little slots. Jess and I might both be playing “lawful good” characters, but we’re not going to react the same way; if I had a guess I’d probably be “more lawful than good”, while my companion would be the converse. This isn’t the problem. The problem is that in that situation, it’d be very easy to accuse one of us an alignment infraction, if you don’t recognize the grey area.

Next biggest issue, and this is the one that actually gets me into the most knife fights, is that no one has the same conception of good and evil. You and I might consider cannibalism to be evil (and I certainly hope we can agree on that), but certain isolated cultures as recently as the middle of the previous century would beg to differ. I consider myself a good person overall (at least I try to be), but I have a neighbor who is sincerely convinced that my politics and choice of personal vehicle have earned me more "bad Karma" than Martin Bormann. So we in the industrialized nations of the 21st century each have a different idea what is good and what isn’t, and guess what? None of our ideas agree completely with any portrayal of a quasi-medieval fantasy setting. I mean let’s face it: a gang of unemployed thugs takes up a vocation involving invading people’s homes, slaughtering them when they defend said homes, and stealing their property. All because they look different and/or have a different religion. What our society’s values would see as serial hate-crimes, the game environment considers the brave feats of daring-do about which skalds sing. So we’re role-playing in a time and place of different values, you say. Absolutely, I reply. That’s exactly my point as well.

Here’s a further illustration. In your typical fantasy setting, no player-character is going to be put to trial for killing a goblin (unless it is by the goblins, but I’d suspect they may have divergent views of due process…). Whole battalions of adventures can wipe out entire tribes with impunity. Why? Well, it is obvious: goblins aren’t people! They’re monsters! Little more than talking vermin, you’re doing society a favor by getting rid of them. Got it. And yet, every time I’ve done the following trick, the GM has blown a gasket and threatened some form of bogus alignment punishment. Here’s the trick: everyone knows that the very first dungeon you go into when you’re first level will have some kind of wuss encounter either right outside the dungeon or just inside. It’ll be with something really weak, like low-hp kobolds or something. I generally try to take one or two alive, but not out of any sense of mercy. Instead I’ll truss them up and run them ahead of the party down the corridor to set off traps*. Whoa, there! That’s just evil! But why? I mean, they aren’t people. We’re here to kill them anyway. In fact, the same people who are now calling me a monster were a few minutes ago asking me what the hell I was thinking taking them prisoner in the first place. Society doesn’t recognize these creatures as having any rights. I consider it better for them to suffer the effects of their fiendish and cowardly traps than my hygienically-superior companions. Clearly we have a disconnect here.**

“Aha!”, shouts the bald dwarf in the back of the room. “But good and evil are not subjective”, he begins trotting out a speech we’ve heard him give many, many times. Only this time it is actually relevant to the matter at hand. “We have spells that can ‘detect’ evil. Priest and paladins wield holy weapons that do additional harm to ‘evil’ creatures. Indeed”, he flusters. “Some of these fiends are so objectively evil that they can only be harmed by these blessed artifacts. So clearly, good and evil are tangible forces, and all of your wishy-washy relativism is a bunch of humbug! And…”, he concludes in an even louder voice, “This game sucks! Call of Cthulhu is the only game anyone should ever play!”

And he has a point. About the alignment question, that is. If good and evil have mechanical considerations in addition to social ones, then clearly someone has to decide what, for the purpose of the game, makes the grade. That person is the GM, as if he or she doesn’t already have enough to do. But I reiterate, the GM and I might not be on the same page, and while he has the final call, creating a complex and evolved system of social mores and communicating it to the players, in addition to everything else a GM does is just too much work to ask. And if we simply say, “Well, it is more or less a medieval society”, then we run into the issues of “are dragons people?” and “why isn’t anyone burning that sorcerer at the stake?”. Obviously we likewise can’t just say, “Well, it is medieval technology, but with modern values.” Because if we did, adventurers would lose their fear of dragons only to soil their chainmail at the approach of the jackbooted minions of the Greyhawk Civil Liberties Union.

Its a pretty problem (to me, anyway—I’m well aware that thousands of gamers don’t even think about any of this stuff and are scratching their heads—if you’re one of them feel free to call me a geek). What’s my solution, you ask? Well, depending on the game I’m running and the story my players and I want to tell, I do one of three things:

1. Ignore the issue and dungeon on! Yes, believe it or not, I can do exactly that. More often, however, I choose to…
2. Chuck the whole thing right out the window. There are no alignments. Or to put it more precisely, there are an infinite number of them, and each character has to decide for him/her/itself what moral compass to follow. Sure, you may follow one or more religions which provide you with guidance, but no mere mortal can live up to the ideals of a divine being, and besides, the teachings of the gods do not always provide a cut-and-dried answer for every single question you might encounter. And all those spells and abilities that detect or affect certain alignments? Useless. Figure it out for yourself.
3. Expand the alignment system. If it is necessary to the story to have objective good/evil and law/chaos, I use the expanded alignment system that, even though I came up with a very similar idea twenty years ago, Monte Cook published in The Book of Divine Might. In a nutshell, good/evil and law/chaos are rated on a scale of 0-9. Zero represents neutrality, and is not available to most people; everyone has some opinion even it is simply, “I don’t like to see people get hurt”. Ratings of one or two represent these latent tendencies and if detected for using a spell or class ability read as “neutral”. Three and four are more visible tendencies and are subject to effects that target that alignment axis, but only at half efficacy. Other ratings are normal up to nine, which is the unattainable ideal of that axis, reserved for deities and outsiders. This system makes for a more diverse array of grey areas, and likewise makes the next part a lot easier for the GM. Now when someone professes a certain alignment (say for example a paladin who has “Law7, Good5” written on her sheet), I’m watching. But I hate it when people say, “Your character would never do that!”, or “I’m changing your alignment for that!”. Instead I just calmly make a note to myself to “slide” those numbers in whichever direction is appropriate. I say nothing to the player, but if they cross a critical threshold, I’ll make sure to adjudicate the effects: say our above-mentioned pally slips below her minimum level in Law. She’s making her way through a dungeon with her buddies and, as pallies do, tries to detect evil frequently. I inform her that she detects no evil. They find themselves surrounded by demons. She asks, “Do I detect any evil now?” I answer, “Nope.” She says, “Shit! Must’ve been the orphanage we burned down! We’re screwed, guys.”

One might get the idea that I’m opposed to the alignment system completely. And I’m really not. The alignments do serve useful purposes (though “They tell you how to play your character” shouldn’t be among them), including game balance. All I’m saying is that *I* prefer things to be a little more complex than the usual nine archetypes.

Feel free to weigh in.

* I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If Gary Gygax hadn’t intended for us to do exactly that, “ten-foot pole” would not have been on the equipment list of every version of the game ever published.

** And no, I didn’t always do that, and I never did it with characters who were supposed to be saintly; I’m just making a point.

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Other Gaming Stereotypes

Apparently, folks want to hear what I have to say about archetypes apart from Munchkins and Power-Gamers, so once again let us head on over for a watch of The Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising, and I’ll go through each of the players in turn.

Cass: As already stated, here’s your “bad” power-gamer. He’s an overbearing, competitive rules-lawyer. It’d be tempting to say that he meets the Ieqological criteria for munchkinism as well, but we really don’t see him trying to steal any thunder from the other players: his douchebaggery is limited to the OOC realm, so it is a grey area. I myself wouldn’t label him a muncher, but others might (and Lodge does during the scene in the coffee shop).

Joanna: Three stereotypes shown here. First we have the benevolent power-gamer. Min-maxed to the nines, and ruthlessly pursuing the party’s goal, she meets every critical standard for power-gaming. She even took notes at the table! If she weren’t a northwesterner who would turn into a pillar of ash when exposed to the Tennessee sun, I’d marry her. Second, we see the “significant other brought to the gaming table”. This one actually gets turned on its head, since the stereotype usually involves the sig-other being disinterested, only showing up because her beau insists upon it. Finally, we have the popular conception of what girl-gamers are like: more interested in the roleplay aspect than metagaming, side interests in theater, and a loathing of in-game chauvinism. Had she had facial piercings and been playing a LARP instead of a real game, the stereotype would be complete. But then she wouldn’t be a power-gamer.

Gary: Where to start? Gender-bending for one: the nerd who plays female characters because he can’t get a real one. I’ll try not to mention his other stereotypical traits that might explain a penchant for roleplaying a woman, since some people might find it offensive. . . . Yeah, okay I couldn’t keep a straight face, either. But mostly he’s the munchkin, as I’ve already proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a previous essay.

Lodge: Oh, puhleeze! Have you ever known a GM who wasn’t a frustrated writer? That’s so obvious, it hardly bears mentioning. He’s also the focus of my envy because clearly he’s about to start tapping Joanna… More importantly, his journey--indeed the whole movie--is a great illustration of the bit of GMing advice I give more often than any other: Let your players do the adventure their way!

Leo: The portly fellow with a beard whose character runs around doinking everything in a skirt? If there’s a gaming stereotype there, it is well hidden…

Lets Agree on Vocabulary, Part Deux: The Munchkin

Wikipedia, which I profess to loathe and anyone who cites it as a source in a discussion with me is destined for a blastin', defines munchkin thusly: a player who plays what is intended to be a non-competitive game (usually a role-playing game) in an aggressively competitive manner. A munchkin seeks within the context of the game to amass the greatest power, score the most "kills," and grab the most loot, no matter how deleterious their actions are to role-playing, the storyline, fairness, logic, or the other players' fun.

That's a pretty good definition, though I would expand it to include "receive the most attention, be the central character in the story, and in general overshadow other players, NPCs, and the plot itself." Yes, brother and sister gamers, your pretentious "story games" attract munchkins as well, and sometimes the games most considered "munchkinproof" actually suffer the worst infestations.


Let us begin. To continue from yesterday's discussion of power-gamers, we shall also keep using The Gamers2: Dorkness Rising as our demonstrative example. As I stated, Gary the gamevestite is our classic munchkin. As I list the telltales of munchkinism, think of his portrayal (before his redemption, anyway).

1. Attention is the pizza and munchkins want the biggest slice, be it the GM's attention, the attention of the other characters, the most "unique and interesting" role or whatever. If they had their way, they'd have the whole pie, both IC and at the table.
2. Munchkins hate being railroaded. I mean they really hate it. They're here to have fun, and how dare that dick of a GM try to impose a plot? This goes beyond normal free-wheeling plot-dodging; munchkins will actively attempt to destroy the plot. This is the guy who, when the GM says he's starting a game of intrigue that will take place in the kingdom's largest city says, "Cool! Can I play a druid?"
3. Munchkins can always justify their douchebaggery. If you find a group of gamers glaring at one of their number while he protests, "But it is what my character would do!", then you have treed yourself a munchkin. While he will attest that he's simply staying in character and being a good roleplayer (often with a derisive sniff to indicate that all you sheep who are trying to follow the plot are bad roleplayers), do not be fooled. A cursory examination of the character sheet will usually show that yes, indeed, burning down the orphanage is what that character would do...and that the character was created to be exactly the kind of character who would do that!
4. Munchkins get bored easily. As in they get bored any time they are not in the spotlight. Their customary solution to boredom is to cause chaos in the gameworld. "Just shaking things up a bit to keep it fresh."
5. For all their talent for mayhem, munchkins tend to have little imagination. One common manifestation is that their characters tend to all be very similar to the last character they played. Another is the one whose characters are all cookie-cutter images of characters from fiction or anime. How many dual-wielding, brooding dark elf clones have we seen in the past 20 years?* These guys are easy to spot and very easy to surprise at the table: if their character's "inspiration" never did something in the books or the cartoons, the player will never think of trying it. Of course, the bad part of this is if Drizz't or their anime hero ever did do something, these guys are guaranteed to try it--especially if it is ridiculous and/or would look 'kewl'.
6. Munchkins are often also power-gamers, but not always. Sometimes they can be the opposite. Remember, the power-gamer is motivated by success. Victory is everything. A power-gamer loves his character and might have every level of progression planned out, but if a situation arises where a heroic martyrdom will seal the group's success, a power-gamer will unhesitatingly charge in, the plan for his next character already forming in his mind. A munchkin, on the other hand is motivated by narcissism. Everyone else at the table, including the GM, is there to show how awesome the munchkin is, and the most annoying munchkins don't do power builds at all. Instead they make the most ridiculously crippled characters they can dream up. Becuase if their character has to be carried by the rest of the party, and is so useless as to guarantee the failure of the mission, then they are assured to have a whole lot of the attention; the activities of the group will by necessity revolve around them.
7. Munchkins are convinced, and will try to convince everyone else, that they are the elite of roleplayers. The Very Elder Gods of the Game, if you will. They will deride every other player ("Matt's a damn power-gamer"), the GM ("What a fucking railroader--why doesn't he just write a book?"), and the game itself ("This game sucks. Call of Cthulhu is way better!"). Should you make the mistake of calling them out, be prepared for tantrums, internet flame-wars, and of course, a renewed campaign of douchbaggery.
8. Munchkins are everywhere. Sadly it is true. Look around your gaming group. If you cannot identify the munchkin, then either you have the luckiest GM alive, or you yourself are the munchkin.
9. Munchkins never leave. They are the ones who will stick with even a bad campaign until the GM gets tired of it. Maybe it is due to the narcissism, or possibly that they know they have a negative reputation at every other game in town, but once you've got one, you have to either endure, convert, or murder him. The first two options require more patience than I generally have.

You see the common threads and are tempted to say, "Oh I get it: munchkins are selfish." You're not wrong. But you're also thinking so small that you're far from right. I mean, while it might be accurate to say that a bank-robber is selfish, you wouldn't say that about a terrorist.

So lets wrap up with an example that shows the difference between a power-gamer (who isn't a munchkin) and a munchkin (who may or may not be a power-gamer). After all, that was the whole purpose of these two entries anyway. I'll even use an example from the World of Tropis, to make Danny smile:

Our characters are investigating a murder. The victim was a noble from a rival nation in our nation's capital city, and tensions are so high right now that were the killing to become known, a bitter and bloody war would surely erupt. So we basically have to find the Serb who killed Archduke Ferdinand while at the same time staging a coverup of the assassination, lest the whole of Europe erupt into World War I. Easy right? Well, the noble family is stonewalling us, we can't bring any official weight to bear because we need to keep the coverup in place, and besides our superiors are a bunch of corrupt tossers anyway. What do we do? We break into the noble house's villa to look for clues, naturally. The rogue is the obvious choice, but the power-gamer in the group insists on going with. Not so much because my character is all that particularly stealthy (we already had a rogue so I built him to fill a different role), but because as a power-gamer I know that having another set of eyes and ears (ie. a second perception roll) could spell the difference between success and failure. A munchkin would have gone along because he hates anyone else in the spotlight. Once inside, we make a surprising discovery: the god-ninjas of the campaign world are already here and they are slaughtering the entire family. They ignore us because we aren't a threat to them (really, they could kill us thirty different ways before we could say "shit"). So we stay out of their way. A munchkin would engage the assassins out of course, because no NPC can possibly be allowed to be more powerful than he. Now we have a problem. Where we were trying to keep a single killing quiet out of fear of the consequences, now the entire noble family is being killed. We can't stop the assassins, and come sunrise the whole world will know that they have been murdered. War is inevitable, and the streets will run red with blood. Or is it? The powergamer says "wait until the assassins clear out then we set the house on fire and leg it." The reasoning being that an "accidental" fire would muddy the waters enough to buy us some time to try to figure all this mess out, whereas just leaving would ignite the war (and possibly bring us, the heroes, under suspicion). So the power-gamer is advocating a course of action that sounds a whole lot like munchkinery. The difference is in motivation. A little mayhem here increases our chances of success in the long term. A munchkin would burn the house down simply because the nobles snubbed him. Or because he was bored. Or because they are NPCs.

So hopefully I've a clear and convincing argument that Munchkins and power-gamers are not the same beast, and also hopefully explained why it is important to me that people draw the distinction.

Tell me your thoughts on the topic or just tell me your munchkin stories.






*Yes it is true that I played a drow for close to six years, but he doesn't count: he was admittedly evil, not broody at all, and was a henchman to the campaign's quintessential villian. A munchkin wouldn't play second-fiddle to anyone. Besides, he was also a pirate, and therefore by definition he was cool.

Let's Agree on Vocabulary At Least...

If my blog were about the way my older brother barbecues, I'd call it Cooking Without Heat Because I'm Scared Shitless of Burning Stuff. But here I am digressing already, so back on topic!

Past couple days I've been rewatching The Gamers and The Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising. That makes about the eleventy-zillionth time, for those of you keeping score at home. This time I even put the YouTube link up on my PSM for Skype, and sure enough I got a slew of "lol" messages. Those guys (and ladies, of course) are very talented, and I'm happy to evangelize for them.[subliminal] Buy the DVD... Buy the DVD[/subliminal] You haven't seen it? Shame, shame. Go HERE right after you're done reading this. I mean it.

Here's where I start getting to the point. While I was waiting for one of the parts to buffer* I happened to scroll down to the comments. There I found a month-old exchange that can accurately be paraphrased thusly:

Muppet4016: This is inaccurate. Roleplaying games aren't competitive,
so why are they portraying this as a contest between the GM and the players?

Dumbass6739: They are making fun of his group of immature
power-gamers! Wow, I hate power-gamers. So immature.

Xxn00b-pwner69xX: Yeh. Power-gamers are teh
suXxorz!

This, friends, bothers me. Not only because I am a power-gamer, but also because I'm a big fan language and it is really really difficult to have intelligent discourse on any subject when we disagree on the meaning of a word. So, in the interests of civil conversation, let us agree on the following:

A Power-gamer is defined (by Wikipedia, no less--who'd have thought I'd be citing them) as: a player of role-playing games who focuses on making their characters as powerful as possible. Check. I support that definition, and would submit as I have many many times in the past, that this is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. As a power-gamer I seek ways to make my character efficient in his chosen vocation, be that ranged combatant, backstabber, wizard, whatever. Am I doing this to be a prick? Actually just the opposite: I'm filling a role within my party, so I owe it to them to not do it half-assed. If I'm the party's battle-turtle, they are depending on me to have (to quote the movie) good strength, a high armor-class, and hit points out the ass. By Gygax's Bushy Beard, I'm fucking going to have the best strength, the highest armor class, and the most hit points I can squeeze out of the rules, because the people around me at the table deserve the best I can do. Metagaming? Hell, no! How is it metagaming to say that Hugh Badaxe is going to play to his strengths and train his hardest to be the best damn big, dumb door-kicker he can be?

Some characteristics of power-gamers:

1. They seek, find, and exploit mechanical and/or tactical and/or social advantages to increase the efficiency of their character within its designated role in the party.
2. They have an intimate knowledge of the rules. They may or may not be argumentative, depending on the specific player. This familiarity will extend to other classes and party roles, so they may best support the overall party. They may or may not advise other players in tactical situations depending upon the specific player and group dynamic. They do not, however, cheat; that is the bailiwick of the munchkin.
3. They have an intense and personal interest in the survival and advancement of the character. This usually extends to that of the other party members as well, but may not depending on the specific player and group dynamic.
4. They fucking pay attention. They take notes. They gather information. They make plans, purchase specific gear, and load up on specific spells to efficiently take the party's objective.

In the movie, everyone represented a gamer stereotype. No, I won't get into all of them because this ain't a cinema-analysis blog. But if we agree upon the above definition, the only power-gamers in the movie are Cass and Joanna. They make good representations of the "may or may not" clauses in my definition.

So what are the others? Well, the gender-bending magic-user guy is a munchkin, pure and simple.**

But isn't power-gamer just another word for munchkin? You know: you say 'tomato' and all that?

Nope. A munchkin is a different type of critter. We get confused because very often a real douchebag will exhibit qualities of both the power-gamer and the munchkin. But they ain't the same thing.

So what is a munchkin, you ask?

Tell you tomorrow.

*No, that's not a euphemism for anything, regardless of what it might mean in the UK--we won a couple wars so we wouldn't have to listen to you guys so fu... Sorry. Digressing again.

**AND his character is hawt!

Why I Game Over the Internet

Some highlights from today’s trip to the FLGS:

You play Rolemaster?  That’s a game for munchkins!

“I beg to differ: Few munchkins have enough attention span to  get through a character creation.” 

Well, yeah, but all those rules…

Another conversation with a different person (who would have been easier to understand if she’d had fewer than six facial piercings, but I digress):

Why don’t you like 4e?  Is it because young people play it?

“No.  I don’t like it because the characters all have the same abilities."

No they don’t… (pause)  Well, maybe some of them do but take the… (pause)  Well, I don’t care, it rocks!

The guy at the register points to my headphones while he’s ringing up my dice (the TGG’s Conan game is audible through the one that isn’t in my ear):  You listening to the Penny Arcade podcast?  Man that is so awesome!

“No, actually it is one of the groups hosted on rpgmp3.com.  If you like the PA podcast you should check them out.”

Yeah, I hear a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon since the PA guys proved to be so popular.

“Actually rpgmp3.com has been doing that sort of thing since since 2004 and they began podcasting a 4ed game the same day the game was released and…  You know, never mind.  I’ll buy some dice online.  Have a nice day.”

Some days its easy being a card-carrying RPG Podcast Professional and Worldwide Ambassador for AP Producers Everywhere.  Other days it ain’t

David Carradine 1936-2009

For those of you living under rocks, David Carradine passed away yesterday in Thailand. He’s best remembered for the tv series Kung Fu, and doing a slew of really bad (but really good…) Roger Corman films in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

I won’t sit here and try to say that his screen works were any kind of a big influence on my life, or that he was any kind of terrific actor. But I have had a lot of fun watching them, and I feel saddened by his passing more than any other tv/film celebrity that I can remember.

So, friends, lets all pop in our DVDs of Death Race 2000, open a frosty beverage or three and have a laugh with D.C. for old time’s sake. Don’t own a copy? Well, get to your local Blockbuster and rent one! And turn in your nerd card on the way.

CRAZY IDEA OF THE WEEK: I wonder how much of a logistics and timing hassle it’d be to record movie commentary tracks over Skype… This may require investigation. Any thoughts?

It Was Good Enough For Me Twenty Five Years Ago…

 

There are many many introductory adventures that have been written for Call of Cthulhu in the time since I (and probably 75% of all CoC players globally) first played through The Haunting.  There probably a few of them that are better.  Probably a bunch of them that are not.  But I’ll admit it, I chose to run The Haunting for Jess, Andy, and Natasha this week because that’s the adventure that was run for me the first time.  I have fond memories, and naturally I want my friends to have fond memories.

But, reading through it, the adventure shows its vintage.  I’m sure I’ll get no argument when I say that gaming has evolved since I started into the hobby.  And so have gamers.  We expect more these days.  Maybe just because it was good enough in 1984 is no guarantee that it will be good enough in 2009.

We’ll see though.  It is still, in my opinion, the best intro scenario of which I’m aware.  And lets face it: I want my friends to have fond memories like I do.

Talk to me: anyone else had any thoughts along these lines (and please, lets talk about some other games here; if I stick too long on a topic exclusive to CoC I might become one of those people I alluded to in an earlier post.  And I’ll not have that.

I Demand Credit!

Last night, Jess was reading my earlier post where I mentioned Call of Cthulhu a couple times. She mentioned she'd like to give the game a try sometime.

With God as my witness, I didn't make any comment about Jess wanting to try CoC. Nor did I ask if she'd like me to run it (which would of course have led to a comment about her wanting to try my CoC).

See, I can be a grownup. Sometimes.

Missing Mythology in RPGs

One of the things I've always said was wrong with most RPG settings, and I've always said I'd get around to fixing for mine (and maybe I have--Monday RMers beware, mwahahaha), is the lack of mythology. That may sound weird when you're talking about worlds where dragons and manticores exist. But that's exactly what I'm talking about: it all exists. There are no quaint superstitions about faeries when the GM and players can open up the rulebook and say, "Yep. Right here on page 145: dryads."

Same thing when you're doing other types of game. If you're running a modern-day thing, and there are news reports about a series of UFO sightings, your players will say, "Yep. We're gonna be goin up against aliens."

Dreams and visions have a similar hangup. Players will pay close attention any time you say, "Your character, Master Pu, has a dream..." They do this because they know dreams and visions are always prophetic and meaningful.

Friends when you're putting together a campaign world, remember to leave a bit of the mythological to myth. Just don't tell your players. :-)

And this week's bonus observation: Certain people on certain forums where most readers of a certain blog hang out seem to always make posts that are contrary to the general consensus. Hey, this is fine. Be an individual. State your opinion. Its a free world we live in. I'm talking about the ones who always disagree with anything anyone has to say. Now I'm neither a statistician nor a psychologist, but it would seem to me that the law of averages says given enough time they'd have to agree with someone else sometime. I ask you, dear friends: why don't they?

Breaking Your Own Game (Or: Why I Don't Allow Randolph Scott at My Table)

"This system is unbalanced." "That system is too complex." "Monte Cook is the Antichrist, that's why Call of Cthulhu is the only game anyone should ever play." Any of these phrases sound familiar to you? They do to me, and I generally do my best to stay out of the RPG Holy Wars. Inexplicably, a lot of folks come to me for advice on games and the care and feeding thereof (I told Becca this blogging thing was a bad idea...), so here's my thoughts on how perfectly good game systems like 3.5 become a headache for their GM.

By far the biggest offender in making a game broken are house rules. "What?! Are you saying that the things I add in to make things 'more realistic' or 'simpler' or 'cooler' are actually bad?!" No. Not necessarily. Maybe. Yes. Look, big-press game systems like 3.x, tend to be designed by, you know, professional game designers. They get put together by people who know how to balance things. They get play-tested. Then they get tweaked by the people who put them together. Are you going to tell me that you know how everything fits together in d20 better than Monte does? That little rule that seems to you to just get in the way is probably there for a very good reason, and you'll probably figure out what that reason is after you begin ignoring it. Or maybe you won't figure it out and just become one of the d20 haters.

Think about it for a second, though. If your complaint is that spellcasters have become too powerful, do you use any house rules regarding them? Maybe you made a little adjustment regarding spell slots or preparation requirements to make magic-users more survivable at low levels? Yes you did? Good chance there's your problem, son. You have a fighter who cleaves his way through encounters four or five CRs above his level with nary a scratch? Sounds like a case of Hero Points to me. Or maybe you skimmed over the rewards-per-level chapter saying, "Hell, I know how much treasure and magic items to give." So house rules are bad? No. Just give some thought before you implement them. What will this rule affect? Will anything else be affected? If I were a munchkin how could I abuse it? Is he saying that I need to be an expert in the rules before I go about changing them?! Actually, yes. I am.

Another thing that I place under the rubric of "house rules" but most people do not are the various "rules supplements", "campaign supplements", "complete books of [fill in the blank]". You know what I'm talking about: splatbooks. Munchkins love 'em. Never, ever forget that they only exist in your game with your express approval. Don't also ever forget that the rules therein are usually intended for specific settings and/or styles of play. Know this before Billy-Joe-Ray-Bob rolls up a character with spells from one book, feats from another, and a character class from yet a third. Am I saying splatbooks are evil? No. I own, employ, and enjoy a whole bunch of them. What I am saying is that they are easily abused, even by players who do not have munchkinery in their hearts, and I give thought to the suitability of each of them before I approve them for use in a new campaign. Just because an Eldritch Might feat or spell might be appropriate for one game I run doesn't mean it is okay for the next.

Related to this is the Randolph Scott Factor. Guys, for as often as I stump and preach about loosening your grip and letting the players go, you also have to be prepared to say NO. Billy-Joe-Ray-Bob wants his Eldritch Might-Frostburn-Monkey Grip-Using sorcerer/monk for use in your low-magic campaign wherein you'll be exploring the relationship between religion and nobility? Say it with me, son: no. He says, please? Nyet. He throws a tantrum? Nein. He says you'd do it for Randolph Scott? Hell yes, but he ain't Randolph Scott, is he?

House rules and Randolph Scott are the biggest offenders, but ignorance plays a big part as well. And in this case I use the word in its classical definition: I'm talking about not knowing something, rather than calling people douchebags. In 3.5 the biggest victims of ignorance are Attacks of Opportunity and Grappling. Here's a newsflash for the haters: the shit actually works if you take the time to understand it! I get my blood pressure up every time I hear someone moan and complain about breaking out the grappling rules. Seriously, I've begun to wonder if I'm the one who has it wrong because I don't have a problem with either of them. Need it explained? Well, I ain't gonna do it. Put down the splatbooks and open your damn PHB. Really, its all there.

Some other time I'll talk about other hater-babble, like "Game-x is all about combat, that's why Call of Cthulhu is the only game anyone should ever play."

Meantime though, give me some thoughts here. What other complaints have you heard/have yourself? What have I missed?

Working Without a Net (Or: How Stupid Do You Have to Be to Run Rolemaster Sandbox-style over the Internet?)

Well, here it is. Countless hours of talking people through character creation, countless more hours of sifting through nine Companions plus the revised core rules to customize the system, and finally not a few hours of story prep will come to fruition in just under an hour. Success will spotlight further evidence that when it comes to GMing, I am the goddamn Batman. Failure means that a bunch of folks who have heard lots of bad things about my favorite game will have some of them confirmed.

Am I nervous you ask? Meh. A little. The story is what it is; if they don't like it, then they simply don't like the way I run a game. I'm a sandboxer, so while there'll be hooks dangling all over the place, 90% of the pressure on me will be for setting. That's why I'm blowing the dust off the old homebrew world that John, Aug, and I created together over the course of about ten years; I know it, I know the NPCs (retired player-characters most of them), and I know where most of the hooks will tangle (and I'm ready for my new players to tangle others).

What I don't know all that well are these players. How will they react? Will they react? What hooks will they bite at? Will they hook me instead by going after a hook I hadn't set(I hope so!)?

Like I was saying the other day: no matter how many years you've done this, starting with a new group (even the same group with one different player) is like being a brand new GM all over again. I can start a campaign a dozen times in the exact same place, with the exact same story hooks, and it will be entirely different each and every time. Its why I love this peculiar hobby of mine.

So I know what I'm getting into.

Doesn't mean I ain't nervous.

RM26: The Reaction

Holy shit, when did they all regress to 12-year-olds? Ned, love ya lots, but what's up with the tantrums, dude?

The RPG Podcasts Currently in My Player

Here's what I've currently got loaded up and am enjoying (now with links to stop Britt and Becca from bitching at me!):

• The Game Master Show's AP and Review of Colonial Gothic. This one is decent, though the Game Masters have run games that I've found more entertaining (Hellas comes to mind...). I started listening to this one since I plan on doing a similar play-and-review of that very game with the Pantsless Gamers in the near future (so all you other PGs stay clear of this one--I want you unsullied). I found it to be medium-informative regarding the mechanics (and it was good to see that Mario struggled with the very same editing difficulties I noticed in my own prep), but frankly the story was lackluster. Like the intro adventure included in the .pdf, it was a standard plot line, without anything that grabbed you into the setting. Hopefully, I'll do better (and I know the Game Masters can).
• The Gaming Grunts Adventure! campaign. I started listening to the Gaming Grunts with their sessions of the Day of the Beast campaign for CoC. To be brutally honest, I prefer these CoC recordings over the Yoggies, and so far they've got me hooked on this new one. It is currently on Episode 2 (plus an "Ep. 0" for character gen), and it is worth a listen. And of course the Grunts are part of the rpgmp3.com extended family, so show them a 'lil support, yo.
• The Kore RPG Myr Campaign. To the best of my knowledge this is the only other AP podcast that records a Skype game. I began listening simply from "professional" interest in how they got it done. I still listen because the story is engaging, even if it does tend to be a whole lotta Victor. Currently posted is Episode 23, "Victor's Dream". Walt Snider, the producer (and the one who plays Victor, but I'm sure that's a coincidence), keeps the eps right around an hour in length for easy scheduling, so it isn't a huge investment to give the first episode or two a listen. Just keep in mind, these guys ain't the Pantsless Gamers, and I mean that in both good and bad ways.

Okay, is everyone satisfied that I listen to a few 'casts that aren't hosted on rpgmp3.com? Good. 'Cuz here's what's happenning over there this week:

• Rolemaster Episode 25. Yes, yes, I know I promised not to abuse my VIP status to get at the goodies that I morally should pay for. But this is Rolemaster, bitches! My integrity lasted about a week. After that my self-loathing for compromising my integrity lasted about three minutes into the first session I would have otherwise had to wait two to three weeks for. I got over it. I moved on. So should you. General release is up to Session 21, I believe, so really the Patrons aren't too far ahead for once. I'm loving the RM sessions. Even if I weren't a rabid RM player, I'd still be frothing over the skilled GMing, and the awesome awesome fucking awesome Texan group. If they could find a way to shoehorn James into that game I think I might just sully my trousers.
• Warhammer Episode 7. See above disclaimer concerning me and Patron content. WFRP. Okay, so I'm not so much a fan of this game system. Its too...shitty. By that I mean, the setting is too low-magic and there's too much...shit. Squalor. Medieval realism. Whatever. Call me old-school but I like my fantasy to be fantastic, and the heroes should be heroic (I'm talking to you, Ned). That being said, this is Hal and the Texan crew (including James), so I'm still having a blast.
• SLIDEways. Its Whartson Hall. 'Nuff said.
• Accordlands... Oh, man. If memory serves (and even if it doesn't I've got my fracking DL Manager console right in front of me...), the last episode of the BAG-People's Warlords of the Accordlands campaign (which I love--and it is the last 3.5-based game "in production" on the site) I listened to was... Episode 38. General release is now up to 57. Patrons (see above about seeing above) are up to 60. Yeah, it'll be some time before I can talk about the Accordlands, but here's your chance to jump ahead of me! Go on. I dare ya.

So who's got something I should be listening to but ain't? Anyone?

Star Trek: I'm Speechless

I need to see the movie at least twice more (preferably in IMAX if the shitheads at the Aquarium ever get over their cranial-rectal inversion disorder), before I'll be able to give a full and impartial review.

In the meantime, y'all go see it. You won't be disappointed. As April said as we were exiting the theater: "Oh my God, Dad, I think I actually like Star Trek!"

One bit of advice though: don't bring your mother. Especially if she's a talker.

And Speaking of Early Sci-Fi...

One of the items in a recent care-package is the first season of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Man, that's a blast from the past (thanks Britt!). Growing up, I loved that show, though I want to categorically state that I'm not that old; I caught reruns of it on Saturday afternoons on the local low-budget UHF station.

You kids won't like it. While it isn't campy per se, it certainly isn't in the same weight-class as today's programming. But it was wonderful Cold War adventure that ripped off--er, I mean borrowed from everything. Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, old World War II movies, spy flicks... Everything got the Irwin Allen treatment. None of this new-fangled moral ambiguity, either; the heroes were heroes dammit! Now, of course, it didn't hurt that I started watching it at around the same time that I first read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Advancing age prevents me from identifying which was first, but for sure there was some large amount of cross-pollination of interests there. And now watching it again, thirty years later what do I think? Two things: One, that here's something that's tailor-made for RPGs. And two: Somali pirates? No problem. Send Harriman Nelson after them, and he'll have the whole mess sorted out in time for Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Opening Nights

Opera notwithstanding*, I have never made any kind of effort to catch any form of entertainment on its opening day. It just isn't that important to me go out among a crush of fanboys and get cattle-driven into a crowded theater, or wait among eleventy gajillion folks in Harry Potter costume until midnight at the local Books-A-Million. I can ignore media reviews and spoilers, and wait a week or so.

Apparently not so this time, however. I have purchased my tickets for Star Trek so I can be among the crush of folks getting shoehorned into the theater to see it on Thursday. I'd love to see it in IMAX, but as of now they haven't posted showtimes or opened advance sales (Chattanooga Aquarium/IMAX Theater, FedEx just called and they need someone to come down and sign for your shipment of fail!).

So why is Trek an exception? I've never owned a pair of Spock ears, can't match up episode numbers to names, and I don't speak a single word of Klingon**. But the Trek films have always been special. Even the sucky ones. Probably it is just age; Star Trek was my first exposure to sci-fi, so it would be understandable to have some form of nostalgia. Maybe also it is boredom: here I've got something to get excited about and look forward to that doesn't involve a headset growing out of my head.

Whatever the reason, I'll have my review posted by 2230 EDT on Thursday, so y'all can ignore me until you see it.


*And that's not an issue since the CSO has canceled opera performances until further notice (CSO Guild, would you like an extra side of weaksauce with that?).

**Though I can tell you the name of the three-armed rock alien who sat in Chekov's seat in the animated series--WITHOUT looking it up on imdb or wikipedia. Losers.

Baby's First Geocoin...

My package from Groundspeak came in today, and in addition to some bug tags, I ordered the 2009 Groundspeak Lackeys coin. Now, obviously, I'd never purchased a geocoin, never even found one in a cache. So I had no idea what to expect. One it is gorgeous (as Funka will attest, below). I mean, really well-made. Two, this thing is a lunker. Its almost as big as my PJ challenge-coin, and equally heavy. Sorry cachers, I think I'm keeping this one in my pocket.

All You Rolemaster Haters STFU

On the craggy battlefields of the RPG Holy Wars, no game gets as much misinformed, undeserved, and completely groundless crap as my beloved Rolemaster. To be fair, a lot of the crap it gets is well-informed, as well, but it seems to be one of those lightning rods of opinion. People who have never seen a Rolemaster book become experts at how clunky it is. People who have never heard the name Terry K. Amthor moan about how it takes twelve hours to make a character. And folks who don't know their DB from from their BMR can tell you in exquisite detail how many charts and tables must be referenced in order to pick a simple lock [Ieqo says (ding!): One--The Static Action Table--but everyone who's never played the game knows that it must take at least four!].

Verily I say unto all of you: bite me! Yesterday I talked not one, but two novice gamers through the wonders of character creation! At different times! Over Skype! Without the luxury of a shared die rolling client! And it didn't take more than eight hours...

Yes, I'm stoked. My good friends Jess and Andy (fictionalfemme and dm501, respectively, for my fellow denizens of the rpgmp3 forums) took to the quirks of old-skool RM far better than I did back in the Days of Yore. Jess even managed to make an old Power Gamer proud with her character.

She's technically a "pure spell-user", but through some wonderful rolls for background options and a killer min/max choice of races, she's completely broken in the role of frontline fighter.

Andy's pure spell-user has more of a conventional magic-user's build, but his love of the Evil Mentalist base lists means I'm totally looking forward to being schooled in how to fuck up the enemy.

And the best part so far of my current Rolemaster adventure: I managed to break Illiani by showing him the Rolemaster equipment sourcebook. For the next two hours between "this is so beautiful", we were treated to exclamations like, "Four different types of bucket...Two different types of pegleg...they have stats for a zither...I don't even know what a zither is, but I love it!" My apologies to everyone else in that conversation who was supposed to be getting needed info off of Danny during that time.

Rolemaster: you don't know until you go. And that's all I have to say about that.

The Reading Room

Just finished up The Dakota Cipher by William Dietrich, which is the third novel to feature his hero Ethan Gage.

I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest. It was an enjoyable read, but the author hasn't been able to match the first book in the series, Napolean's Pyramids. I'll not give any spoilers other than to say that Ethan Gage is one of the top five fictional smartasses extant in literature today (and coincedentally, the series would make for a totally kick ass campaign for Colonial Gothic).

Also, I noticed something strange (and perhaps horrifying): as I've been reading the books, I like just about everyone I guess have been projecting my mental image of how the characters look. This inevitably indicates who I think would be perfectly cast in the movie adaptation...which also inevitably leads to disappointment when they actually do make a movie. I'd have never picked Tom Hanks for Michael Langdon, for example. But if they do make a film adaptation of Napolean's Pyramids, I hope they do a better job of reading my mind. It'd be good to see Wil Wheaton get some work again.

What are you reading?

Conventional Wisdom

Today's mail brought me, in addition to the usual array of Pay-Us-Or-Die missives, a very nice letter from the organizers of Chattacon (the local sci-fi convention) thanking me for past support and reminding me that it is time to start planning for next year's bash. Would I care to volunteer? Make my check payable to...

Friends, if you've ever had a great time at a con, consider the folks who organized it. You can't even begin to imagine how much work, heartache, and general-purpose bullshit is involved unless you've been a part of it. I'm talking about smaller, local cons, not the big corporate wank-fests like the one in Indianapolis every August. These local get-togethers truly are labors of love for the organizers, who not only don't make any money off of them, but often bear a substantial burden in the form of lost time on the job and actual out-of-pocket investment.

And if you've never been to a con, I encourage you to scour the Internet for one in your area and check it out. Admission prices are generally less than one of my bar tabs and sometimes include free beverages to boot. Even if (like Chattacon) the main attraction is just a party, how often to you get to party with fellow geeks without feeling self-conscious about it? Guests, vendors, and games are the bonus if you look at it that way.

So will I be volunteering for Chattacon '10? Not this time, I think. Rather I'll watch to see who they line up for guests, then pester someone who runs a certain website that deals in...shall we say RPGmp3s (wink wink nudge nudge) to get me a press pass. What can I say? The Powers That Made Me gave me many gifts. Shame is not among them.

Tell me your convention stories.

Computer RPGers vs Tabletop RPGers

Well, duh. Obviously there are differences between old farts like me who cut their teeth on roleplaying around a tabletop, and the new crop of gamers who came over from computer games like NWN. Why do I even think it noteworthy?

Because I've noticed that a lot of the computer gamers can't seem to cut the cord, that's why. They want everything possible to be automated for them. Excel character sheets that do all the calculations, for example. Clearly, this is their comfort zone, and I'm totally considerate of that; they never had to figure bonuses by hand before, so they're not sure why they shouldn't have it done behind the curtain in the tabletop environment as well. A perfectly valid point of view.

Except that for old farts like me, doing the mechanics are part of the gaming experience just as much as the in-character dialogue and spilling of drinks on the batttlemat are. Maybe I'm just stuck in my ways, but I find myself thinking If you want to play a computer game, play a computer game, and if you want to play tabletop (whether it is over Skype or in person) bring your damn pencil and scratch paper.

Someone tell me I'm off-base.

Terrible Television...But Soooo Awesome

I have better things to do than watch tv. You've heard people say it. Hell, I normally am one of the ones saying it. Currently, of course, it isn't true so I've been watching a lot of television, and yes, most of it still crap.

One of the crappiest I've found recently is Comedy Central's "Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire" (there's supposed to be a couple of umlauts in there, but I can't be bothered...). This thing is the second-stupidest show that network has ever inflicted upon us to my knowledge.

And it is so freaking hilarious every episode sets my recovery back a week (I really am not supposed to laugh yet). Anachronistic pop-culture references? Check. Eye-candy characters that make fun of the fact that they're eye-candy characters? Oh yeah, baby. Fourth wall? What's a fourth wall?
In-jokes that only a complete nerd could get? You betcha.

Seriously, check the show out. You'll either be laughing along with me or cursing my name. Or both. I'm okay with it.