Rather Mauled, I Think.

"What attack pattern is that, anyway?  It looks like it's...what?  Alpha, Beta?  Those are two words I just learned, though."  Tiok babbled, the Sullustan already adjusting the Unchained Kiros' deflector fields in anticipation of the TIE/ln wing's attack.

Niobe glanced up from the point defense cannon controls, almost silently cursing the luck that put her in the bridge of the cruiser, rather than their more nimble, battle ready transport, the Swift Grifter.  They really needed to find her a new name, but at least she could dodge the TIE's aim in the smuggler ship.  It did not feel natural  or wise to her to accept ship blasters slamming into your shields.  A quick glance at the formation of the two incoming wings told her they were using the far more offensive tactics of Gamma pattern - a gusty move for just TIE/lns.  Her eyes narrowed.  Why would they...

"Gamma, obviously," sighed Athorn, standing next to Tiok at the tactical display.  It was, perhaps, more shaming than she would be to the Sullustan, but she figured Chiss had to over-emote with their voices to get certain ideas across.  They, as a culture, probably never picked up on rolling their eyes to express exasperation - because no one would pick up on that sort of movement from their softly glowing red orbs.

She nodded curtly to Athorn, in agreement with his assessment, though he was already angling around the display, so she doubted he saw it.  She went back to her previous though - Gamma was a very forwardly offensive pattern for just two wings, even supported by an ISD out of the nebulae clouds.  For that matter, why hadn't they launched the remainder of their fighter compliment?

~~~

The captain of the Imperial Star Destroyer Torment brought the comms to life over the sounds of the ion engine screams with a quick, throat-clearing cough.  "The cruiser is limping, its fighters spent in the last engagement.  Inferno, go in flying Imperial Attack Pattern Gamma.  We shall make it lesson to the other rebel scum.  Melt. It. Down."

"Fire One to command," a voice rasped over the comms,"Acknowledged.  Assuming Imperial Attack Pattern Gamma.  Check in, Inferno."  A number of somewhat muffled voices replied in turn, acknowledging the order.  "Fury One, yuuuuup!" DX-77-4 - cut in quickly to prevent the attack leader from calling her wingleader's...sense of humor. "Fury Two, ack," her jaw tightened with an effort not to laugh.  Miraculously, the check-in continued without any discipline threats.

"All wings, begin attack run."  After three quick passes from the TIE/INs, the shields of the oddly shaped, alien-built cruiser weakened, given no time to regenerate - but no rebel fighters launched to challenge theirs.  The bombers of Tuk'ata wing joined them on the fourth pass, and shields and hull crumpled and exploded, throwing wreckage that Fire Three wasn't quick enough to dodge.  DX-77-4's mouth tightened, and she rolled her eyes underneath her mask.  The cruiser had a skeleton crew aboard, enough to draw them in to kill it when it's remaining fighters and transports must have snuck out between jumps, before it got here and the Torment had been alerted.  They'd missed the bulk of the surviving rebels, and had no idea until the attack had been underway.  It had been the third time they'd just missed the enemy - but at least the scruffy anarchists had yet again had to sacrifice firepower in order to save themselves.

"A ration of Bonadan in honor of Fire Three, when we get back," she nearly spat across the comms.  Fury One responded soberly, quietly, "A drink, in honor of our loss today.  Sure."

~~~

Their attack pattern hadn't executed as tightly as she expected from the sort of diehards that would still be with the Imperial remnants these days.  Niobe muttered, "something's not right," even as she tore into the damaged wingman from the first group, sending panels spinning away from each other at a sharp angle.  They called for the Kiros' surrender, and looked like they were going to attempt to board.  When they sprang the trap, she guessed that the Destroyer had set a trap for any Alliance forces attempting to reach Hapan space - the way was dangerous, so the Hapans might not be in on the ambush.  The lack of fighters, and the attempt to capture them did not add up.  She shook her head - there was no way to explain this change in Imperial strategy.

Gyrinim called up the the bridge on the comms.  "I'm going to shout 'knock, knock.'  They'll pause cutting the door, and say, 'who's there,' then I'll say 'Nexu.' 'Nexu who?' 'Nexu one through this blast door is going to get rather mauled, I think.'"

She ignored the librarian and his distractions.  Her eyes widened, and she breathed in sharply in surprise.  They weren't Imperial remnant.  They were common pirates.

Accepting Violence.

The glowing, light blue form of the Saber Master leaned back, folded his arms, and began at a mild pace.

"One!  Not so wide a stance, padawan.  Two!  Not straddling a tuk'ata, here.  Three!  Better...Jung!"


~~~


Gyrinim reached out with his senses to the small crystal device sitting on the crate across the room.  The holocron's glow shifted, the deep red radiance brightened to a soft, light blue as he thought of his lightsaber, and his ideas for how to modify the weapon.  An instant after he mouthed the name of the saber master imprinted within, Xieran Halcyon's image appeared in the center of the room.

The imprint greeted Gyr as he always did.  "How can I help?"

The archivist responded as he always did - by clearing his throat.  "Saber Master, thank you.  I was wondering if you could help me apply the Ways of the Sarlacc and Ysalamiri to a...different weapon."

The imprint glanced down at the saber clipped to Gyrinim's belt, then at the metal staff lying across his legs.  It raised an eyebrow.  "This isn't about those regrets you had before, is it, padawan?  We can continue to work on your control with the saber.  And, I'd rather not be remembered by history as a Jedi stick master."

Gyr grinned at that.  "No, Saber Master.  Instead, I was thinking of modifying my saber..."

"Oh, now that could be interesting."  Halcyon's imprint tilted his head, as he cut Gyr off.  "A saberstaff?  And you, a padawan who didn't even complete his training in Form I with a Master supervising you?"

Gyr stood up, a challenging look in his eyes.  According to records, Master Halcyon had been quite proud of his accomplishments with the Ways, and would have a hard time passing by an opportunity to test himself.  "There is Knowledge, Saber Master.  You yourself have graded me proficient in both Forms I and II."

"Yes, but you are not what I would call a natural, consular.  We'll be working twice as hard."  The image looked Gyr up and down, frowning.  "Maybe three times.  Are you sure you don't want practice lifting rocks, instead?"

"If I am correct, Saber Master, I should adjust for the added length and change in grip by...." he held the staff horizontally in front of himself, but gripped it off-center, closer to the right hand side.

"No, padawan, unless you feel certain you prefer to be just a torso."  The image sighed, and Gyr breathed deeply to repress a grin of triumph.  "Three times."


~~~


The imprint counted off more quickly, calling out marks and maneuvers.

"One!  Two!  Three!  Jung!  Two and sai!"

Gyrinim breathed deeply and let the memory of the marks he had been practicing take over for his hands and feet.  He felt that he would start to trip and stumble if he tried to force his body to keep up normally, and the imprint would call out if his memory got something wrong.  For now, there was no rush, no fatigue, just his mind, and the Force.  His mouth formed the words "There is Knowledge," and began to anticipate what the imprint was about to call.


~~~


The holocron's glow was a deeper blue as it sat on the edge of the workbench.  Gyrinim hunched over the center of the table, and another imprint stood over them both.  The figure's pointed ears peeked out from it's long, white hair, and it's arms were folded, hidden somewhere in it's heavily-mantled robes.  The imprint's lack of motion, and it's expressionless, pupil-less eyes, gave the impression of a statue.  Gyr had read a few accounts that Jedi Master Arca Jeth gave that impression when he had been alive, too.

"The cystal shards seem to have responded well to our previous work, archivist.  By all accounts, you only need to weave the strands into the zeyd cloth and attach the thermoplast plates."

Gyr reached out his claws behind him to another worktable, and one of the jumble of tools he had gathered from around the base snapped into his hand.  He pulled down a heat-visor - working this close to some of the tools and the heated crystal strands put a strain on his vision, and would have left him blind after just a few minutes.

The imprint of Arca Jeth had used the right word - the crystals hadn't simply been worked, but had responded to the heat, the pressure, and being shaped by Gyr through the Force.  It was as if they knew the form the archivist wanted for them, and helped. He only needed the help of a legendary Jedi sage to figure it out.

"Armor, even more than weaponry, suggests a casual relationship with violence, archivist.  A lightsaber must be drawn and ignited.  Armor is clothing for battle, worn as an acceptance of combat."

Gyr nodded, and flipped up the visor to look at the imprint.  "Yes.  And as soon as i can, I'll take it off, and put it up on display.  I feel like I need to wear it, for now, though"

The imprint nodded, and they both though of other Jedi who felt like they needed to accept violence for a time.  Gyr went back to work.


~~~


"Onetwosaitwoonethreejung!"

The staff and Gyr both blurred through the marks as the Saber Master called them.

It's World Trees All the Way Down.

Yes, I'm still running a Nobilis game!  And I need to gush about it a smidgen.

Our current campaign is a bit of a reboot of the game I was running when last I wrote regularly, so the principals will be familiar.  In the meantime, we played a game about a sort-of-doomed Creation staring a almost-certainly-doomed Familia of Nobles, the Powers of Openings, Awakenings, Patience and Vengeance.  That campaign (subtitled "Ashes of an Age") is a long, fun, dark story.  Remind me to tell it to you sometime.

But my players seemed really interested in going back to the characters and the campaign we never really finished.  So, we rebooted, giving everyone a chance to re-imagine their characters, and giving our new player a chance to work her ideas in.  Which didn't completely happen...

In Nobilis, the group plays demigods that each have/are one concept that actually belongs to a bigger being, called an Imperator.  The concepts, or Estates, that each player chooses help to define who the Imperator will be.  In this case (campaign subtitled "When Worlds Fall"), my returning players each rebuilt their Powers of The Dead, Tracking, and Blood, while I threw in an NPC Power of Blades.  Their boss was a giant serpent/dragon named Nidhogg, the Serpent Who Gnaws at the Roots.  But the newer player had a great idea I couldn't ignore - she wanted to play someone old, and powerful outside of the normal dynamic of Noble and Imperator.  That character would get injured, and Nidhogg - ever the collector of stuff - would come to rescue her.  What's left of that new character's mythic essence translates into the Power of Release, which Nidhogg - ever the collector of stuff - claims as his own.

Oh, and the character - the new one, old and powerful?  It's basically Lilith, Adam's legendary first wife.

I was pretty friggin' happy that this idea fell in my lap - my first Nobilis campaign dealt heavily with the origins of humanity - in that setting, I had decided that Adam and Eve weren't really created, so
much as imported from beyond Creation.  Now I have another reason to re-imagine lots of characters from that first campaign, dust them off and make them relevant for a new game.

Most stories about the Garden blame the Serpent.  The Peacock got off  scott-free. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Themes are important for lots of table-top RPGs, and maybe more so for Nobilis.  A lot of the theme comes from the Estates the players choose, but also from the Code their characters adhere to.  Codes are sort of like political parties of demigods - and this group overwhelmingly focus on Codes that talk about individual freedom in some way.  Some focus on Humanity's freedom to direct their own fates, especially if that has dangerous or deadly consequences.  Others favor every being's freedom to be exactly what they are or should be.  And one prefers focusing on how to protect Humanity, including from themselves.  We definitely range all over the security vs. freedom spectrum.  I find it compelling and fun, so I often feature NPCs that relate to that somehow.

So far these characters have a great time dealing with large plot points in the most complicated way possible.  I've always been fortunate with this group of players, because they are very good at providing more hooks just by playing, and they're all pretty great at enjoying themselves even when their characters are in trouble or pain.  I still want to stand by the idea that any roleplayer can play Nobilis - but these people make the game for me.

Sometimes literally.


Bonus Links:

• My favorite art of Nidhogg, by Ruth Taylor
• A whole DeviantArt group for Nobilis art
• Tumblr for Jenna K. Moran, game designer for Nobilis.

Welcome Back / Getting Out There.

Hallos again, players.

It's been a while!  I've been planning a return to blogging (see the last post, over a year ago, suggesting just that thing!), so here we go - a weekly blog, published Wednesdays, talking about a variety of games, movies, books...basically whatever nerdy thoughts I have that week.  I really want to get back into a regular writing schedule - a writing groove, if you will.  If you somehow find this blog, feel welcome to comment - my hope is to have real interaction with other people about there about these topics, in a way that isn't lost in a comment thread with eleventy-thousand other people.

Unless, of course, we get eleventy-thousand people reading this blog.

Besides writing, I've also been playing around with a few other ways to talk about and show off my nerdy interests.  Now, you may know I play video games - particularly MMORPGs, but since the last time I wrote regularly, I've picked up a few other games, like Minecraft (of a few modded varieties), Overwatch, and a smidgen of Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone.

Yes, I seem to be a Blizzard fanboy.

Fanman.

Whatever.

The point is, I have new games to talk about, but also new games to STREAM.  Yup - I've got myself a decent microphone, an alright webcam, and a Twitch account.  The experience has been...different.  I haven't often had people interact in chat while I've been streaming (so far just Minecraft, WoW and Overwatch), but when they do?  It's usually just to spam abusive, racist or sexist crap.  I did have one awesome interaction with someone from Europe who decided to check me out.  This is mostly awesome to me in relation to the others, but also in the fact that it was someone who shared an interest with me from half a globe away.  Striking up a conversation with a stranger about anything has been a terrifying idea for so much of my life, so it's amazing that I could randomly, casually chat with someone from such a distance away about a thing we both found fun.  I like Twitch, but I must confess that even after streaming several times, I'm still a bit shy.  I need to stream more.  Maybe I should work out a schedule for that, too.

And after streaming, I've been uploading the videos to my YouTube channel - partially in order to save the streams I've done (Twitch only holds onto them for a month, maybe?), but also because I myself have been going to YouTube a lot more for geekish news and content.  What started as a way to get info about the alpha for World of Warcraft: Legion ended up introducing me to a host of channels from content creators about games, comics, and general nerdy news.  I'd like to venture into the world of YouTube videos myself soon - proper videos of me talking to a supposed audience, rather than just copies of my streams.

Baby-steps.  Let's just get the writing thing down for now.

So, since I lost wrote regularly, my life has changed drastically, and got itself sorted out again.  I'm not really going to go into all of that here, but old posts may refer to situations and people, and new posts may refer to different situations and different people.  Crap like that can happen when I forget to update my blog for 4 years.

I'm also currently running another Nobilis campaign with a fantastic group  of players - most part of my old group, with one newer player - as well as playing in two D&D campaigns - one 4e game that I've talked about in the past, and one 5e game that's going pretty well.  I have tons more to say about all of that, so I'll save it for later - just wanted to keep you all in the loop.

Related articles

• Twitch co-founder discusses the site's efforts to move beyond live gaming content (techcrunch.com)
• Azeroth Burns With Excitement for Legion! (blizzard.gamespress.com)

Gritty Antihero Haiku

Shadows hide your face.
Your party doesn't trust you -
and well they should not.

Introducing: The New Guys.

It’s been my experience that the party never stays stable—there always comes a time when someone has to drop out, or wants to change characters, or someone is added to the group.

To be fair, as a player I’m the guy who seems to want to change characters all the damn time.  But party/coterie/familia rosters tend to change even when I’m not playing, or even involved with the game at all.  So there, it’s not just me.

When it is me, it’s usually two things.  Either I overestimate how much/how long I’d be interested in playing a certain character concept, or something else catches my imagination so completely that I form a new concept and have that stuck in my head so fully that I just need to play it.  Sometimes I see that the party needs some role filled, and I think about changing to meet those needs—but one of the above reasons is usually behind the change, too.  Sometimes what I’m playing just doesn’t fit the group.  This isn’t often an actual problem, though—unless, again, I’m bored or I’ve latched onto another concept.

I suppose I rarely come up with concepts that can’t work with most parties.  In D&D terms, I tend towards lawful, if dark, characters.  Even if the character has had problems working with others in their backstory, I try to write incentives to join the other PCs, and have ideas for how I’ll interact with each.

Changing rosters seems to be pretty easy in D&D games.  You get back to town, and someone bows out to settle down, or moves on to another region.  Sometimes they die, either by planned out fiat, or purely by the die rolls.  You find someone else in the dungeon—the last survivor of a lost company of adventurers, or a lone traveller captured for nefarious purposes.  Someone comes to town because of the local problems, hoping to make a difference or a least a few gold pieces.

In World of Darkness games, the issue is similarly easy.  The current plot/baddie has attracted another Vampire/Werewolf/Frankenstein/Wizard who wants to do something about it.  Or perhaps the plot/baddie has a hostage.  You lose characters when something else in the World of Darkness calls to one of you—it’s something they have to do alone.  Or someone falls to the current baddie—proof that this world is darker, and that drama over their death would be pretty interesting to play out.

Other systems and settings aren’t much different.  Mo matter if you’re running or playing a game about super heroes, pulp adventure, or a gritty cyberpunk future, chances are one of the situations above will work for your group—but this is yet again one of those areas where Nobilis stands out.  Since the PC group is supposed to represent the aspects of creation owned by their boss (Imperator), whether that’s an angel, devil, dragon or god, certain character changes can strain the framework of the game.  Characters can die, even in Nobilis, so it’s possible to retire one Power of Lies, and come up with another concept that uses the same estate—a brand new Power of Lies that is different in key ways.  Actually, I think this is one of the more intriguing aspects of the game, that an Estate can be served/embodied by completely different people.

And while that sort of character change works out well for the game, others have to be handled carefully.  What if a player wants to drop their current Estate and play something new?  What if a new player joins the group, but noone’s leaving?  Bring in new Estates to an established game leaves the imaginary audience (maybe the players and GM, too) wondering “How does that work, exactly?”  It’s up to the GM and player to work out exactly what’s going on in the continuity that makes these changes possible.  Did the Imperator always have these facets of creation, and just didn’t have servants for them?  Did they gain them in some way?  If so, how?  Did another Imperator die, or forfeit them?  Does the Imperator actually have the new Estates, or do they still belong to something else, something that is working with it—or at least alongside it?

These are issues I had to resolve in my newer Nobilis game recently.  I loved the opportunity to add a certain player, and I like the new characters, but when this sort of thing happens in Nobilis, you need worry about a lot of details ahead of time.  You need to know what’s going on in your Creation.

Of course, a roster change in Nobilis can be lots of fun, if you do have those answers and the characters don’t.

Sad (Stories) Say So Much.

It turns out my game can be a bit of a downer, some sessions.

Yes, I'm referring to Nobilis, again. Time and again, Suriel (the PCs' Angelic Imperator) has lost something. He's lost Atlantis (his home) and his Familia (the PCs starting the game), near the beginning. When he got that back, it wasn't long before he lost face with his brother angels for hiding one of their own from Creation. And then he got kicked out of the Coucil of the Metatron (think elder Angels) for hiding perhaps the most feared and dangerous of the Fallen in a similar way. He stood up for the Grigori. He's lost a few more Nobles since. And now it turns out he was actually killed over 7000 years ago and transformed into an what was supposed to be an enemy of Creation. Fortunately, he's the Angel of Loyalty, and still has a job to do. After that's done, though...

I'm in my third year of running my Nobilis game, my third year with Suriel. I've known it wasn't a happy tale from the get-go--the subtitle, "Legacy," implies it, if you think. The game started with a handful of PC Nobles who were destined to lose. I told each the players to have an Anchor--a more human, more limited character--handy to play sessions with different scope than the typical Nobilis game. And then I told each player individually that their starting Noble characters weren't really their main characters--that they'd switch to their Anchors full-time at some point. And halfway through the summer, I killed the whole group, and their Anchors got their jobs as the Powers of Waves, Rock and Roll, Loyalty, the Subconscious, Discovery and Masks.

I could go on listing the losses the players have suffered, but it would take a while, and it's not the point. I like the heroism spurred on by this sort of tragedy, and the PCs have risen to meet the challenge. I love the heroes who have every reason to give up, to cut their losses or to at least get hung up on them, but don't. They go on anyway, even though they know it's going to hurt even more before they are done.

My girlfriend and I are playing in a Changeling game together as a brother and sister who were kidnapped by the Fae as children--our brother at age 4, her character at age 5 and mine at age 8--one night after another. The growing horrible knowledge that these things aren't your brother and sister, and that something GOT them in the night, and that your all-knowing parents couldn't tell the difference...it's just too much fun. And to come back physically a 11-year old after a handful of years (maybe) in captivity to find that around 30 years passed, and that those things took your life from you...now that is a hero's origin story if I've ever heard one.

I've been kicking around an idea about D&D clerics and paladins, especially the later. It seems most concepts for those classes involve a great deal of education--they imply well-to-do if not noble families. Heck, the paladin class isn't complete without the Knowledge (nobility and royalty) skill. What of the peasant who shows up to the Temple with his jaw set, telling people he wants to be a paladin--that he knows he's been chosen? He's tested, or course--even if they aren't normally, he would be. Senior paladins and/or clerics react with at best patronizing looks and helpful advice (that they're all sure he needs), to at worst outright scorn (because he's taken a child's game too far), but he knows it's real. He passes the tests his way--technically legal, but with unexpected twists and use of a commoner's strength, perseverance and wisdom. His peers think he's doomed, or a blight on the order, or a little brother they should protect from the real evils of the world. That'd be an interesting paladin to me.

Start from the mud. Maybe even fall in it a few times, just so you know which way is up.

~j

Everyone Plays, Everyone Wins.

It's a saying that I think we forget sometimes when we game, and it bears remembering--and not just that last half.

When we play a typical table top RPG, there are the Players and the Gamemaster--or whatever it's called. Starting a game requires character concepts from the players, but also a game concept from the GM. It's important that all of that exists, and that it works together. Players expecting a hack & slash style dungeon raiding game generally won't enjoy a high drama political intrigue. A GM should always make sure the players know what the idea for the game is, and help them build concepts and characters to fit into that idea. Getting everyone on the same page isn't the first step, but it can be the most important. Also, GMs should be willing to bend things to what the players really want in a game. If it doesn't completely ruin the concept (and the fun) for the GM, the game might improve if they're willing to take some cues from the players and include ideas and situations that the players seem to want, based on the characters they come up with.

That's all prep work. In order to gt to "Everyone Wins," everyone has to, well, win. I'm not suggesting a Monty Haul game, but for the right group at the right time, those work too. I'm reminding people what the job of the GM really is--to help bring things together, to fill in the story, not to be the enemy of the characters, or to thwart they're wishes. It's trivially easy to beat the players' characters--the GM can simply make crap up that they cannot handle, or keep throwing bad times at them until all the characters simply quit in-character or the players quit out-of-character.

Help them win. Challenge them, and if they for whatever reason betray the agreements you made before the game began, feel free to have them lose if they don't respond to out-of-character conversations. Feel free to set them up to lose for the sake of story, but make sure the players know what's going on--make sure they know that the current loss is to help set them up for better stories after.

Sometimes, players' expectations for a game differ, or playstyles differ, or characters clash. That's when you need to shine. If the game concept is still going strong, and the characters aren't clashing with that, and everyone's living up to their end of the deal, it's your job (and your accomplishment) to help everyone to feel like they've won. That's how you win--when everyone leaves the game smiling, thinking how cool they were, how cool everyone else was, and how cool the story is so far.

A heads up, though. Sometimes, winning means that the character loses--players will let you this when they feel that they want to fall or fail in order to continue they're character's story. If it all fits, everyone still wins.

Portray the antagonists, don't be them.

~j

Night and Wordy.

Probably not too wordy.

I've got Pandora set with a few channels, and on one of them, Weird Al's White and Nerdy has played a lot. It got me to thinking--yes, Weird Al caused quasi-serious thought--about nerd culture and how so many people like the same sorts of things.

Chances are, if you could think of yourself as a nerd, you're at least comfortable with computers. You probably have some specialized knowledge, like programming. You probably have some sort of web-page dedicated to yourself or your projects. You may have at least tried D&D or another table-top RPG before, not to mention MMORPGs over the internet. You know who Weird Al is. You probably have a favorite comic book, even if you call it a graphic novel. Heck, you probably have a favorite comic book and a favorite graphic novel. You've seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and probably more Monty Python. You've at some point thought about and compared Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, and Battlestar Galactica.

Interesting trends. I suppose other sorts of people have their lists of interests, it just doesn't seem as wide and as specific as the interests of nerds. It may make us easy to identify, yes, but that's a plus, too--we can easily sense the presence of one of our own.

Nerd-dar. Yeah.

~j

Daleks vs. Rikti.

So, as a gamemaster, I can't come up with all the cool stuff in the world for my games. I need inspiration. As a nerd, I know of a ton of cool things that I can include--and since my players are mostly nerds, too, they can appreciate them.

It's the fine art of writing homage, and it works for gaming, too. And I'm convinced that the people who wrote Aliens vs. Predator know what I'm talking about.

Actually, that's a great example, since that completely original idea came out in comics first. Comic books stories are shameless, and honestly, I like some of the stuff they come up with. Vampires, magicians, space aliens and mutants all fight evil together in the pages of comics.

Appropriately enough, a few years ago I ran a super-hero game I called Heroism 101. The setting was a slightly comic-book version of the University of Illinois campus at Champaign/Urbana. The tone was a sort of Spiderman/Buffy, and included characters like the hitman from Gross Point Blank and "Secret Asian Man" who was actually called the Master Thesbian, but the joke stuck. Yes, his super power was acting. As I was playing City of Heroes at the time, the metaplot involved the impending invasion of the alien Rikti race, built to model what they could do in the MMORPG.

All this was fun as hell.

And why not? RPGs are only a few steps from playing with action figures, where Luke and Han join Snake-Eyes to fight the evil alliance of Destro and Vader. We (sometimes) try to create realistic people for our characters, with wants, and hopes--but they have to live -somewhere-, know some people, and do something. In fictional stories we tell together for the fun of it, what's the difference if their surroundings seem familiar because we've really been to that place, or because we've read about that particular Wardrobe a few times?

What's important is to keep the tone consistant in the game--things can get campy quick. Which okay for a campy game, but less so for a game of high drama. You don't want to bring in things that will actually lessen a player's (or another player's) fun. As players, be forgiving as long as the tone isn't violated.

Just don't involve Captain Kirk. It never helps.

~j

Wanted: Bad Guys

As a gamer, I've discovered something recently. Roleplaying games need bad guys.

I should have come to this conclusion awhile ago--I probably did and forgot. It's frustrating when everything is in shades of grey. You want your character to be able to dole out some justice, whether in a fight, or in an argument, or whatever. It's nice to be right--even if your character isn't good.

I got to hear about a former character of mine recently, and how a new gamemaster was playing him. It was severely disappointing. Fortunately and unfortunately, I was forced to take a step back from that character, and the distance has helped me not get into a large argument with the gamemaster in question. This isn't even in the game I'm playing, not really--same continuity, but different actual game. It's not really in my face. But he's being played quite differently. Instead of an agreeable guy who wants to work with others to make things work, he's a mustache-twirler--nearly a caricature villain. And, if I heard correctly tonight, he's dead now.

But sometimes that's very much what a game needs. He wasn't a nice guy, believe me. He was about power--specifically, how much he could gain. His methods weren't too bad, comparatively...until his "revision." There -are- other villains in the game, but they're played/portrayed as nigh-untouchable. My old character's defeat brings a confidence boost, and sense of a job well done, and a sense of being good guys.

It's a problem in the game I run, I think. I've tried to make most of my characters in the game more-or-less believable human beings (when they are, in fact, human). That doesn't really give my players anyone to strive against righteously, and may cause them to be unhappy with the game for having no option but to strive against (mostly) good guys. It's not fun to constantly sacrifice and concede to non-player characters, to compromise over and over. Sometimes you just want to win, and you want to be right--and the player characters usually want to be -in- the right, too.

I'm not suggesting everything should be easy, or everything should be black-and-white. Certain things should be easy. Maybe, though, it's better story for the players' characters to lose. Maybe they should question whether they should be striving against some situations and/or some characters. But without the clear win here and there, and the clear villain once in a while, games can feel alot like you're playing Real Life--only you're forced to roll dice to see when you need to pay rent.

Yeah, Ick.

Also, I know I threw around alot of gaming lingo in this post. Sorry. I tried to keep it all in plain speech for the unwashed masses, but sometimes terms are confusing. I'm a gamer. If you read this, you're probably know that, and may have had some chance to familiarize yourself with the aforementioned lingo. I'm probably not going to stop after this post, so look it up!

~j