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?