How Games Mold Play

Happy Halloween! Sorry I haven't posted lately, but things have been busy at work and at home.

My brain has been about to explode lately because it's trying to hold in three radically different game rule sets. These games are Dungeons and Dragons (3.5, though 4E has infected it slightly), Burning Wheel, and TORG. One is the granddaddy of gaming, one is arguably the most popular indie-game out there, and the last is a game from the '90s that I've been a fan of for a long time.

As I study these rules (and I'll even admit that TORG might not be played, but hope springs eternal), I'm noticing how the assumptions these games make can affect play at the table. I've already touched on how differently D&D and Burning Wheel treat failure in another post, but that's not the only way that they shape play.

D&D is, always, a game about killing monsters and taking their stuff. Heck, back in first edition you got one experience point for every gold piece of treasure. Sure, 4E has introduced a "skill challenge" system, but that's just defeating enemies (though the enemies are no longer limited to monsters and NPCs) with different weapons (skills instead of spells or swords). You get experience for defeating or circumventing the monsters. The GM might give you a story award for accomplishing some goal, but let's face it; you had to beat up some monsters to do that, so he's really just giving you a bonus. The only type of reward that is NOT tied to beating up monsters is if your GM gives you experience for role-playing your character, but that's usually so small and hard to get that it's not worthwhile.

Burning Wheel, on the other hand, does not have an experience system. You improve your character by trying to do things (and often failing at them). You can also practice your skills or find an instructor, but the quickest way to learn something is to just go out and try to do it. The other reward in Burning Wheel is called artha, which is used to modify die rolls. You earn this by incorporating your character's beliefs into the story of the game. These beliefs can be almost anything, as long as they provide a hook to drive the story. They don't have to involve fighting, and given that Burning Wheel's system for recovering from wounds can lay your character up for months, that's a good thing.

TORG uses a resource management style of advancement. You earn possibility points through play. These points can be used to modify rolls, pay for super powers, or spent to advance skills. It takes more points to advance a high-level skill than a low-level one. So, you're always trying to figure out if you should use them on your rolls or save them to advance your character. Points are award based on accomplishing adventures, which are broken into "acts." You get a few for completing an act, and more when the entire adventure is completed.

In short, D&D encourages players to kill things, BW encourages players to accomplish their personal goals, and TORG encourages players to accomplish goals set by the GM.

However, there's more to it than that. Let's now take a look at combat and its results.

In D&D, divine magic can easily heal any wound, and even death cannot really stop a determined adventurer's career. Even the dreaded Total Party Kill might not stop things, if the GM is feeling generous. There seldom is any real consequence from combat, as even the most debilitating condition can be cured, somehow.

In BW, combat can be very deadly, if you roll badly and your opponent rolls well. Spending artha can keep your character alive once he has received a mortal wound, but he'll be a long time recovering from it. If things go really badly, he might even gain traits such as "Missing Limb" or "One Eye" and, like in the real world, he'll have to deal with that (or retire the character). The author himself admits that the reason for this is to make sure that no one enters combat without feeling the tension. Even if you don't die, wounds can exact large penalties on your character.

TORG takes a middle ground, as things can go badly, and penalties mount, but they can be healed completely and with no after-effects (or at least your can get cyberware replacements). Possibility points can also reduce wounds (so more resource management.)

So, in D&D, you can run blithely into battle, sure that you can probably recover from whatever happens. In BW, combat is fraught with peril, and you might be paying for your rashness for a long time (as you would in Real Life). In TORG, things can go badly quickly, but there probably will be no long-term consequences.

I think I'll end this here, but I hope this helps you see how your game of choice will affect your play at the table. Next time, maybe I'll review TORG, for those who have never heard of it.

Gaming Group Flux

This last weekend, one of my players in my Saturday Gaming Group (I also have the Monday and Thursday Groups ;), told us that he had to take an indefinite leave of absence due to work.

That got me thinking about how many players I've seen come and go in my group. Let's face it, it's never easy to lose a player. This is (I hope) a friend who is moving out of your orbit, for whatever reason. Hopefully it's a short absence, but sometimes they move out of your life completely. Besides all the other real life issues, how does this affect your game?

First, the loss of a player and his or her character affects the story. That character might have been essential to the storylines in your game. If you're playing a game about putting the rightful heir on the throne, the game takes a sudden turn if the rightful heir suddenly isn't there.

Second, the missing character might have had a certain role in the group. If he or she was your tank (i.e., can both dish out and take damage like no one else), then the combat effectiveness of your group is reduced. If the character handled all the diplomatic aspects, then the group might be unable to close a crucial deal.

Third, it's an empty chair. Some games require a certain number of characters to work well. We've all seen games that have a "sweet spot" in terms of players. Maybe losing one player puts you below that number, and the game becomes far more difficult.

Take my Saturday Ptolus Game, for instance. I started with five players. I now have three full time (and one who can attend periodically), and only two of them were in the game back when we started. One player got a job that required him to work on Saturdays. Another moved to North Carolina. The third (the one who sparked this topic) has always had to drive 90+ minutes to get to the game, and work's left him too tired to do that anymore. I've picked up two new players since then. So, how did I deal with losing these characters?

Well, the player who moved to North Carolina was not difficult. He had been missing games because of a new baby and preparing for the move, so we just had the character vanish one night on a mysterious errand for his elvish crime syndicate.

The second one, who got a new job, was tougher, as he played the party cleric. Worse, he had just rescued a young girl from the Dark Reliquary, a home to demons and undead. Well, I decided to have him and the girl be kidnapped by the demons. The party has been building up their forces to one day free him. (They are rightfully scared of the place, as they had to release a demon god from a prison to escape it in the first place.)

Now we're losing the party tank, who was crucial in several party storylines. He had a quest for the Church of Lothian, the most powerful in the land, to recover a holy artifact from the dark elves. He had just become a underboss for one of the two major criminal organizations in Ptolus. And he has a quest from the demon god he released to recover a different artifact from the leader of the Dark Reliquary.

So, look back up the page at the three consequences of losing a character: Story, Party Role, and Minimum Players. Pretty much all three apply, as he was involved in major storylines, was a major damage dealer for the party, and we're down to three full-time players (Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 is built around four players and a DM.)

So, this Saturday, we spent a lot of time talking about what to do. Here are some possible solutions we discussed:

1. Time Out! We discussed pressing "pause" on Ptolus until the player can return. While this is simple solution, it leaves us at a loss as to what to play in the meantime, and we have no idea when the character could return. Also, whenever a game is "put to bed" like that, there's always a chance it will never wake up again.

2. Take the Mountain to Mohammed. We're in the middle of discussing with the player about traveling down to his place once or twice a month to play Ptolus. The problems with this is that we gamed at my place because it was centrally located. Four of the players live about 40 minutes northwest of me, and he lived 90 minutes southeast of me. So, those players would have a lot more driving to do. Also, the player just moved into a house, so he's not set up for gaming yet.

3. Next! We've also discussed finding a new player, as well as retiring a few other player characters whose stories have more or less come to a close for the moment. This is almost as big a change as Option #1. Finding a new player is always a bit stressful, and I'm sure I'll be talking about the problems of integrating a new player into an established group in future posts.

So, what do you do when this happens to you? Well, there is no cookie-cutter solution that works for everyone, as your situation will probably be different from mine. All you really can do is talk it out with everyone, and see what they want to do. But keep in mind some of the things I've talked about above, and it will help you find a solution.

For us, it looks like we're going to do some old-school gaming with one of my favorite game worlds: TORG. After that, we'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Anathem

I have finally finished off the monster. No, not in an RPG. I finally finished reading Neal Stephenson's 900+ page Anathem. I've been a fan of his books for a long time. The first one I actually read was his Big U, which I hear is a book he now wishes he never wrote.

Stephenson has a way of writing that comes across as both effortless and complex. He sucks you into his world, building detail onto detail, and you soak it in like a sponge. And before you know it, he has you considering the world around you in a different light.

The events of Anathem take place on the world of Arbre. The main character, and narrator, Fraa Erasmus is a young man who has lived the last ten years of his life in the Concent of Saunt Edhar. There he has lived an austere life of contemplation on the mysteries of the universe; namely, mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy.

Wait, what?

Yes, Arbre is not quite what it seems. In it, the scientists, the great thinkers, have retreated from the secular world into the concents. There, they spend all of their time thinking and writing. They are divided into four orders, the Unarians, the Decenarians, the Centarians, and the Millenarians. Each group stays isolated from the outside world for a set length of time (1, 10, 100, or 1,000 years) and then get to leave the concent for 10 days during the festival of Apert.

This familiar seeming yet strange set up grew out of the history of the world of Arbre, where the Saeculum (secular powers) grew to fear how quickly the thinkers ("avout," in the terminology of the world) where advancing technology ("praxis"). The avout discovered how to make materials ("newmatter") that followed different natural laws, the secular powers locked them away from their particle colliders in the concents. When the avout discovered how to master genetic sequencing, the secular powers sacked the concents and forbid the avouts from making any more new life forms. And so on. The concents are not religious, as that is something for the secular world, but they are very convent-like.

So, life on Arbre has continued for thousands of years in this way, until something strange happens. Something that throws the entire world, for both the avout and the extramurous (those who live in the secular world), into upheaval. An alien space ship is spotted.

From that point on, Fraa Erasmus and his friends must travel beyond the world of the concent and learn the truth about the aliens and the world that they inhabit.

There's a steep learning curve in reading Anathem, because Stephenson has created an entire vocabulary of terms to describe things. For instance, computers are called syndevs, networks are reticulums, cell phones are jeejahs, video cameras are speelycaptors. There is a glossary in the back of the book to help you understand, but it can be slow going at first. He also can go off on pages of philosophical debate on the nature of reality, and consciousness, some of which can be rather hard to understand (after all, most of us have never walled ourselves off from the world for a 1,000 years just to think.)

But, all in all, Stephenson has created a vibrant, interesting world, that I liken to Name of the Rose crossed with Contact. Everything is consistent with the internal logic of Arbre, and it all builds to an end that leaves you scratching your head a bit, for many subtle things have been happening just beneath the surface that only come to a head at that point.

I wish there was a RPG based on this, it would probably be cool.

Now Reading: Living With the Dead by Kelley Armstrong
Now Watching: Not much, actually... been busy.

Failing at Games

"You have failed me for the last time." -- Darth Vader

Bet that title got your attention, huh? But I'm not talking about playing games badly, I'm talking today about how games handle failure. This topic was recently driven home to me when I ran a game of Burning Wheel.

So, let's compare how Dungeons and Dragons handles failure versus Burning Wheel. In D&D,
it goes something like this:

Player: I want to pick the lock before the monsters get here.
GM: OK, roll your Thievery skill.
Player: *roll* Crap, I get a 7.
GM: Sorry, the door's still locked.
Player: I'll try again.
GM: Sorry, you don't have time. Now you're trapped in this corridor as the ogres charge.

In Burning Wheel, the situation is a little different:

Player: I want to pick the lock before the monsters get here.
GM: OK, so that's your intent. If you succeed at an Ob 3 test, you open the lock and are gone before the ogres arrive. If you fail, the door opens just as they get there. Sound OK?
Player: Sure! *roll* Crap, no successes. Can I try again?
GM: Sorry, but the Let It Ride rule is in effect. OK, you work franticly at the lock. Just as it clicks open, the ogres round the corner and spot you. They charge.

I'll admit this is a simplistic scenario, but it illustrates two different philosophies of failure.

D&D makes almost everything pass/fail. You hit the monster or you miss. You pick the lock or you don't. As the example above shows, that's a fine way to paint yourself into a corner. This is a perfectly fine way to look at things, and it's definitely easy to grasp.

Burning Wheel, on the other hand, is more interested in the Consequences of Failure. It's not interested in whether you succeed or fail at a task, but if you get your intent. The key phrase in the BW example above is "before the monsters get here." With that intent, the GM has some wiggle room. And this is good, because BW is a lot stingier on handing out successes.

A pass/fail system, like D&D, unfortunately creates the mindset "I must win at everything." Failure equals death, or at least something else equally nasty. This encourages min-maxing, so that you win more often than you lose and therefore "win" the game.

In a Consequences of Failure system, like BW, failures make things more interesting (in the Chinese proverb sense) for the players, but doesn't necessarily mean death and destruction. Instead, it forces the narrative off in a new direction. What was a straight path suddenly takes a sharp turn. The players must deal with the consequences before they can get back on track. It might take them somewhere they never thought they'd go.

Here's another example of the Consequences of Failure that you might recognize.

The intrepid explorer stands in the tomb, looking at a gold idol on a pedestal. He takes a bag of sand out of his pouch and carefully measures out a handful of sand, until he thinks it weighs as much as the idol. Carefully, mindful of the traps, he switches the idol for the bag and grins at his companion. However, the bag of sand on the pedestal begins to sink, and the traps in the room begin to go off...

It's not easy to grasp a system like Burning Wheel's that rewards failure as much as success. I played several sessions before I really grasped it. There were times when I was really cursing the GM for what he did to my character. But I had, whether I had known it or not, agreed to the stakes that were set. But, after I calmed down, I saw the roleplaying potential in the failures. Yes, my character has been forced to change, but that's not a bad thing. Both he and I have to then grapple with how this change has affected him. Maybe it could turn out to be a blessing in the end. Who knows? You're off the map and into uncharted territory. That can be scary, but also a lot more rewarding.

To wrap up, here are a few points to keep in mind when playing with the Consequences of Failure:

1. Always make sure that the player and the GM agree on the consequences. Don't try and force it on them.

2. When you fail, try and think what your character will do next. (It pays not to plan too far ahead for your character, because these curve balls will probably junk that plan.)

3. Play up the consequences, if you can, for a humorous effect. Look at Indiana Jones, for example, where it could be argued that he has the worst good luck imaginable.

Good luck!

Reading: Anathem by Neal Stephenson (almost done!)
Movie: Excalibur
TV: Iron Chef America

Life on Mars

Yesterday, I finally got caught up on my DVR backlog, which included watching the first two episodes of ABC's Life on Mars.

Life on Mars is an American remake of the British series of the same name (which is taken from a David Bowie song), and they both deal with a police detective named Sam Tyler who finds himself mysteriously transported back to 1973 following a car accident.

To make things even stranger, he seems to have a complete life waiting for him in 1973. He's still a police detective, still working in the same precinct, has an apartment and a car (complete with an 8-track playing the same song that his iPod was playing in 2008: Life on Mars.) He first denies that he's in 1973, but the World Trade Center Towers dominating the skyline make that almost impossible. (In the second episode, he makes a long list of all the possible reasons for his predicament, including coma dreams, drug trip, and aliens as well as time travel.)

Actually going to Mars could not have created a stranger or more alien landscape for Sam than New York City in 1973. Most of the things he took for granted (like cell phones, iPods, computers) are gone. Nixon is in the White House, American troops are in Vietnam, and there's free love and drugs all around. And don't even get me started on the clothes and hairstyles!

The stuff he has the most trouble with is the era's views on racism and sexism. For example, he meets Anne Norris, a policewoman in 1973 who has a degree in psychology. Despite her intelligence, the white male detectives refer to her as "No Nuts Norris" and "a twirl, a broad..." She's not even considered a "real" policeman, as she is in the NYPD's Bureau of Policewomen, who were in no way considered equals of the male police officers. To Sam's (and our) sensibilities, the people of 1973 are unforgivably non-politically correct, perhaps no one more so than Lieutenant Gene Hunt, played exceptionally well by Harvey Keitel.

To make things even stranger, the show sometimes has weird moments that seem to suggest that Sam is NOT in 1973. In the first episode, a man on his television begins to talk about Sam being in a coma, like Sam was hearing a doctor from 2008 speaking about him after the car accident. In episode 2, he sees a robotic probe, very much like the Mars Rovers that NASA has rolling on the surface on Mars in 2008, that scans him with a light that lets him see flashes of his life in 2008. Later, when he busts a heroin smuggling operation, he finds the heroin hidden beneath toys that resemble the probe.

Life on Mars is perhaps the best new "sci-fi" show on prime-time TV. It's not what most people call science fiction, closer to speculative fiction. It takes an ordinary man and places him in a most extraordinary situation. Jason O'Meara, as Sam Tyler, does a good job of portraying Sam's struggle to deal with his new life in 1973. He oscillates between angry denial and resigned acceptance, as a real person might (if they didn't just go catatonic from the shock). Sometimes he's convinced that 1973 New York is all in his mind, and other times he worries that 2008 might be a figment of his imagination.

Harvey Keitel is excellent as Lt. Gene Hunt, a good man and a bad cop. Lt. Hunt has no problem beating up suspects or planting evidence to get crooks off the street. He wants, as he puts it, for the city to say "He was here" when he's done, that he made the city better, but he doesn't seem to realize how hypocritical his methods are. He's also bigoted and sexist, and seems baffled when Sam points this out.

The show's unapologetic look at the world of 1973 is, to my mind, the most refreshing part of it. I'm sure that they've toned down a lot of things in order to show it, but it's nice to see them put it in there, to say "This is the way we were," rather than sweep it under the rug of reconstructionist history.

I'm going to keep watching this show. I hope it does well.

Reading: Anathem by Neal Stephenson (still! It's a monster book, but good!)
Watching (Movie): Excalibur (DVD)

My Only Election Post

These two strips from Sabrina Online are the only thing I'm going to say about the election. I think I'll vote Decepticon this year... ;)

Losing With Style: The Way of the GM

I've been GMing a looooong time. Somehow, even back when I was first introduced to D&D, I always gravitated to one side of the GM's screen. I loved telling stories, creating NPCs, and getting to play a variety of roles. (One reason I can never stick with a PC is because I get bored and want to try something new.)

All GMs go through several stages in their development. I'm sure that you've all played under the Newbie GM, the Rules Stickler GM, and, worst of all, the Adversarial GM.

The Newbie GM is just what it says, someone who's new to the realm behind the GM screen. They make a lot of mistakes and often say, "Just a moment, let me look up that rule." Still, ignorance and inexperience are not sins. They also tend to be self-correcting.

The Rules Stickler GM is so obsessed with control that he enforces every tiny aspect of the rules, afraid to deviate from them in the slightest. These are the guys that insist that you add up every ounce of encumbrance, and insist that you can't do anything that isn't covered by the rules. Rules Stickler GMs are often still uncertain of their skills, so they over compensate. Again, most GMs get past this stage, if for no other reason than it gets exhausting to keep track of all of that.

But the Adversarial GM is probably the worst. They are obsessed with "beating" their players. Under their regimes, no player will get an even break. They're the ones with the decapitation traps in the latrines and the assassins hiding behind every corner, to the point that a character couldn't go to a market for a jug of milk without risking life and limb. Every difficulty is magnified, every advantage is minimized, and the GM takes an unholy glee in the deaths of player characters. Sadly, these GMs can stay like this for a long time. Why is that, you ask?

Because it's insanely easy for a GM to kill the players.

Look at any game. Take a really close look at it. Can you find anything in it that truly prevents a GM from "killing" the player characters and "winning" the game?

That's why I take the stance that a GM's job is to lose, but to lose with style.

So what does "losing with style" mean? It's creating enough of a challenge to interest your players, while at the same time making sure that you won't kill the players' interest in the game. Unless your players are confirmed masochists, they won't like to be your punching bags. So, you let them win, but make it fun for everyone.

Easier said than done, right? Well, here are a few things I've found helpful:

1. Either Roll Dice or Say Yes: This advice is from Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard, and it's probably the most helpful advice I can give you. Only bring out the dice if the roll will be meaningful. If the players want to find the best inn in town, let them do it. If they want to shoe their horse, let them. You don't need to roll dice for simple things that have no bearing on the story.
2. Add Weird Stuff: When creating an encounter, add some weird stuff into the mix. Want some floating islands? Add them in. How about dragons with purple polka-dots that fart nerve gas? OK, that might be a bit over the top, but anything that evokes a sense of wonder in your party is a good thing. Don't worry if the rules don't say anything about it, just put it in there and watch your party ooh and ahh.
3. Make Failure Special: How often have you seen this: "I try to pick the lock." "You fail. The door remains locked." Pretty boring, right? Well, you can make failures more interesting. Burning Wheel offers a much more interesting example: "I try to pick the lock before the guards get here." "You fail, the guards arrive just as the lock clicks open." See, now isn't that more interesting? A failure has set up an interesting encounter, and the party isn't blocked. And if you can't think of something special, ask your players, "What if you fail? What happens then?"
4. Go Over the Top With NPCs: While you don't have to create a whole life story of your NPCs, you can quickly bring them to life with a few mannerisms. NPCs who yell curses at the PCs get more interest than the silent sorts. One trick that I've found useful is have an NPC develop a hatred for one particular PC. Having your NPC point at one of them (possibly the rogue who just backstabbed him or the wizard who fireballed him) and say, "I'm going to kill you!" makes it all the more interesting.
5. Make Death Count: Another trick I like to use is to embrace the idea of a "Boss Fight." In video games, boss fights are the big battles that mark the climax of a story. Keep a lot of your encounters simple and (relatively) pain-free... but when there's a boss fight, tell your players, "OK, this is a really important encounter. You could die here." This tells your players that it's going to be tough, but the encounter also means something to the story. If they die here, at least they died at the hands of the Big Bad. For some, that makes a lot of difference. Wouldn't you rather have your character killed by Darth Vader than some schmoe, if he has to die? And if you can, let them die in a glorious manner, maybe a last minute blow that weakens the bad guy so someone else can finish him off. Or let him realize what the Big Bad's weakness is, so he can tell the rest of the party before he dies.

If you use some of these tricks, and others, you can make things a lot more fun. Remember, talk to your players, make sure you understand what they want out of the game, and try to work with them to get it.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Terminator is one of the classic sci-fi movies, and it propelled a certain Austrian body-builder to national prominence (and governorship of California.) In one of its latest incarnations, it's also a TV show that I've been watching carefully. (Spoilers follow.)

In the movies, James Cameron and others made a pretty compelling universe where the machines, led by the computer program Skynet, destroyed human civilization with nuclear fire and then waged war against the remnants of humanity with its Terminators, machines made to look like humans. And when it was about to lose the war, it sent its Terminators back in time to kill the Human Resistance leader, John Connor, before he is even born.

"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. " -- Kyle Reese, Terminator (1984)

The Terminator is, of course, the Frankenstein myth writ large. Humans try to create artificial life, and our creations turn against us. It's a powerful image, and it's a staple of apocalyptic sci-fi. Its sheer unstoppable nature, along with it slowly losing its camouflage of human flesh, makes it a terrifying monster in the movie. We later learn that Skynet's attack was prompted by humans attempting to pull its plug once it became self-aware, so it was acting in self-defense, which makes the morality of it all decidedly murky.

It was followed by two sequels, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, which added the concept of a reprogrammed Terminator acting as a guardian for John Connor, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines... the less said about, the better, really, but it did introduce a female "Terminatrix."

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles combines the best of the movie mythology (and excises T3 entirely through the judicious use of time travel technology) with a great cast. It follows the lives of Sarah and John Connor (now a teenager) as they struggle to survive the attacks of Skynet's Terminators while trying to prevent Judgement Day (when the nuclear missiles destroy almost everything.)

Lena Headly (of 300) stars as Sarah Connor, but it's Summer Glau (River Tam from Firefly) who really steals the show. She stars as Cameron, a Terminator sent back to guard John Connor. Glau is a very good actress and you would think that she would be wasted playing the emotionless killing machine... but there's more to Cameron than meets the eye. At the end of Season 2, she was in a car explosion that damaged her processor. She went back to her core programming and attempted to kill John Connor... and she was a terrifyingly unstoppable killing machine, just as much as Arnold ever managed. (Particularly gruesome was the scene where she used a staple gun to close a wound on her face.) It's also to watch Glau, who is nowhere near the body-builder that Arnold was when he originated the role, lifting grown men or doing other feats of strength.

She was repaired, of course, but we've been learning more and more about her past, and there are hints that she may not be what she claims to be. A recent episode showed that Cameron's appearance was taken from a human resistance fighter named Allison Young, and Cameron told the woman (also played by Glau) that she prepresented a faction of the Machines who wanted peace with humanity. This may have been a lie, however, for when Cameron later kills Allison when she doesn't give Cameron the information she needs to safely enter a Resistance camp.

"Did you kill her?!"
*A young woman whom Cameron choked takes a gasping breath*
"Apparently not."
--John Connor and Cameron, "Allison from Palmdale"

Thomas Dekker stars as John Connor, a boy about to become a man who is struggling with the weight of destiny, Brian Austin Green plays Derek Reese, John's uncle (John's father Kyle was a Resistance fighter sent back to guard Sarah Connor and sire John, though he did not know about that part), Richard T. Jones as FBI Agent James Ellison, who is hunting the Connors, Dean Winters as Charley Dixon, a former lover of Sarah, Garrett Dillahunt as Cromartie, a T-888 Terminator who is hunting John, and Shirley Manson as Catherine Weaver, a T-1001 polymimetic alloy Terminator (shape shifter, as in T2) who seems intent on insuring the creation of Skynet.

It's a large cast of regular and recurring characters, and the show also has many, many shout-outs to the mythology of the movies, rewarding fans of the series. I think it was pretty good last year, and it's only getting better. The story seems to be growing more complex the more we learn. Is Cameron really a "good" Terminator? What is Catherine Weaver trying to accomplish? One human character, FBI Agent James Ellison, has recently started working for Weaver, helping her accomplish her goals (though he doesn't realize she is a machine.)

It makes me sad when I hear it's not doing as well as it could be in the ratings. Sci-fi is always a tough sell on the network, and I hope that it continues. I suggest you go and watch it on Fox on Monday nights.

Reading: Anathem (still... it's HUGE)
Movie: Transformers, 2007, DVD (Autobots, Transform and Roll Out!)
TV: Iron Chef

Ice Station Nerdly

Yesterday, I held my semi-annual mini-convention that I call "Ice Station Nerdly." I call it that because I go to an annual gaming meetup called "Camp Nerdly" in Prince William Forest Park down in Triangle, VA.

I started this last fall, with a small little gathering that had only 5-7 people. But I got to meet two new friends out of it, and tried out a game called "Spirit of the Century" for the first time. In February 2008, I had the first Ice Station. We had a total of 15 people attend that, and played 6 games. It was a lot of fun, and let me really enter the local (Washington DC area) gaming scene.

Yesterday, we had about 15 people. I got to play two games, a playtest of a new game by Jason Morningstar called Fiasco, and a new space marine game called "3:16 Carnage Among the Stars." Four other games were played, including "The Princess Game," "Dirty Secrets," "Misspent Youth," and "A Thousand and One Nights."

While unfinished, Fiasco has a great deal of potential. Its basic premise is to create a scenario where the characters needs lead to a horribly complex mess, like a Cohen Brothers movie (Fargo, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading). You roll dice to determine what your relationships are with the other players, then determine what you need, and what objects and locations are involved. It only takes 16 six-sided dice to play, and we played two games in about 3-4 hours. Every time, the story spiraled out of control and left us struggling (in a fun way) to get out of messes of our own design. I hope Jason goes on to publish this, because I would buy it.

The other game I played, 3:16, is a straightforward enough game. You're a space marine, going out and killing aliens before they kill you. The game mechanic is to roll a ten-sided die and see if you roll under your Fighting Ability or Non-Fighting Ability. That's it. Your weapons do a certain amount of Kills, not damage. That's right, you kill at least one alien, if not more, with every shot. You accumulate kills to earn promotions, better equipment, and to improve your scores. All in all, it's a nice beer & pretzels game that can be played quickly and is fun. I recommend it.

Everyone had a lot of fun, we ate a lot of good food (beef stew, baked spaghetti, tomato & squash soup, with homemade ice cream for dessert) and met and gamed with friends new and old. Really, mini-cons are a great way to meet people and have fun, so you should think of holding one. Here are a few tips:

1. Post the invite on an internet forum, like Story Games.
2. Tell people to sign up in the thread, and keep a running total.
3. Find out who wants to run a game, and set up a schedule.
4. Make sure you know how many people you can fit in your gaming space, and how many games you can run simultaneously.
5. As host, you're responsible for supplying some food and drinks, but you don't have to bring it all. Many gamers will be willing to bring something.

You can see my thread for Ice Station Nerdly Fall 2008 here.

Reading: Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Movie: Gamers: Dorkness Rising (DVD)
TV: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Sanctuary

I just watched the Sci-Fi Channel's new show, Sanctuary. It's got some of the same creative team that's been behind Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis (which has been canceled so they can start making DVD movies for it, like they've been doing for SG-1.) It also stars Amanda Tapping, who of course was Samantha Carter on Stargate.

I want this show to do well for Sci-Fi, mainly because my reasons for watching them have been dwindling for some time. I remember when I used to watch Stargate, Farscape, and Lexx on Friday nights back in the day, and then, of course, there is Battlestar Galactica. But after seeing what happened to the Dresden Files TV show (which I really liked), I'm not sure that I can trust the Sci-Fi channel any more.

In any event, Sanctuary is about a mysterious woman named Dr. Helen Magnus (played by Tapping), her daughter Ashley (played by Emilie Ullerup), and Dr. Will Zimmerman (played by Robin Dunne) are, basically, monster hunters. They seek out "abnormals" and take them back to the Sanctuary for study and to either keep the monsters safe from humans... or humans safe from the monsters.

Sanctuary began as a series of webisodes, and despite the creators' original intentions to keep it soley on the web, they've moved to Sci-Fi because of the expense of making the show. Its gimmick lies in a great deal of green screen work, like the movies Sin City and 300. They use it to even "build" some of the major sets of the show and to create interesting looking "location" shots.

It's a nice idea, but I don't think the technology is quite there yet. At least on my TV, it's obvious when the green screen is being used, which can be a bit jarring. They've gone for a stylized look (probably to make the green screen work look better) but I can't help but feel that a more realistic setting might have served them better for this story. When you can create any fantastic location for your stories that you want with a computer, you sometimes stop thinking of what fits in your story and just throw things in for the heck of it.

That said, the technique does give them the freedom to add all sorts of interesting shots into the show that you'd normally never see on a cable channel. Also, Amanda Tapping is doing good work in her role, and Christopher Heyerdahl is a very menacing villain from her past that makes me want to see more of him. Ullerup and Dunne aren't as good, but Dunne definitely improved in the second episode, and Ullerup does very well in the fight scenes (she's played as the brawn to her mother's brains, in many ways.)

They've only shown two episodes, and they're doing a lot of teasing. The show and world has potential, but they need to show more of it. The premiere episode was slowed down by a lot of expository dialogue (a necessary evil of pilots, I'll admit), and the second episode threw in a lot of almost extraneous bits (an invisible "chameleon" like monster that is found and killed in one scene, an informant that eats bugs) that they are using to make us more interested in the world of Sanctuary, but they've only gotten a 13-episode order from Sci-Fi. I think they should step it up a notch, give us more solid story and less filler.

This show reminds me of the Dresden Files TV show a lot. Both shows had good premises, and they both are off to a kind of shaky start. Dresden got a LOT better toward the end, but obviously it was a little too late to save the show. I hope the same thing doesn't happen to Sanctuary. With Battlestar and Stargate Atlantis ending next year, Sci-Fi needs a solid block of real sci-fi shows, not third-rate horror movies and "reality" shows, to keep me watching.

Good luck, Sanctuary.

Sanctuary -- Show's Website

Now Reading: Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Last Movie: Iron Man DVD (in theaters, the Dark Knight)

Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons

In June 2008, Wizards of the Coast published the Fourth Edition of the grandpappy of all RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons.

I learned to roleplay back in the mists of time with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (also known as First Edition--1979-1989). Heck, I even had, though I never played, the "Red Box" of Dungeons and Dragons. (I believe my copy is long lost, however...) Most of my D&D career was spend in Second (1989-2000) and Third Editions (2000-2003), especially version 3.5 (2003-2008). So I have been a fan and a player all my roleplaying life.

I really, really wanted to like Fourth Edition. I did. And it is certainly a fine game, for what it is designed to do. But I find that I don't like running it.

Why?

1. Miniatures Wargaming. The game has taken its emphasis on miniatures to new heights. I understand that they want to use the game to sell D&D miniatures, but I never liked that aspect of the game under Third Edition, and I like it even less with Fourth. I just seem to lack the strategic talents to run a miniatures combat game, and that's pretty much what D&D4E is. Could I pick up these talents with time? Probably, but I wouldn't be having much fun while doing it.

2. Video Game Style. Since Third Edition, massively multiplayer online roleplaying games have grown as an industry. Go out on the street and start asking random people if they ever played World of Warcraft, and you'll probably find someone pretty quickly. And so, Wizards decided to try and lure some of those gamers back to pen and paper play. Many aspects from MMORPGs are in 4E, including such staples as "powers," "resting restores your hit points," "no race/class has any weakness," etc. In a way, it's amusing, since video games stole so many ideas from D&D, and now D&D returns the favor. But this strains my suspension of disbelief and, I think, it promotes a "fight-rest-fight-rest-fight-rest" mentality.

3. Lack of non-combat options. D&D has always been about "kill the monster, take his stuff." 4E takes this even further, I think, as they have not included much in the way of non-combat systems. The only thing they have is the Skill Challenge system, which I find rather clunky to use. To make matters worse, within weeks of the books hitting the shelves, Wizards had to post some hefty errata (excuse me, "updates"--more video game jargon) on the Skill Challenge system.

So, we have a game where I don't like the combat system, and where there is almost nothing BUT a combat system.

Now, 4E has several good things going for it. It's easy to make a character, the classes and races are well-balanced, and while I don't like the miniatures wargaming aspect, the game handles it very well.

I gave it a good try. I've played in several games, and I ran four sessions of my new Plagueborne campaign in it, but my unhappiness kept growing. So, I put it to my gaming group, and we've decided to abandon 4E and use Burning Wheel to play Plagueborne. So, I'll probably talk in another post about how that goes.

Now Reading: Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Last Movie: Iron Man

And So It Begins

Welcome to a new experiment of mine....

I've been thinking for a while of making my own blog, separate from the one that my wife and I use for our personal issues, to discuss matters important to me about role-playing games, science fiction, fantasy, and other such matters. I hope to post rather regularly, but we'll see how that goes.

My little mini-con "Ice Station Nerdly" takes place tomorrow, so I'll post about that here afterwards.

Talk to you soon!