The Bloody Hand

Ubercon 2009

2009-11-08T21:34:33Z

We're back from Ubercon 2009. It was a great, low-stress convention. Well, low-stress once we managed to find the place! New Jersey traffic patterns were as inscrutable as ever.

Friday night, I ran Mouse Guard for four great players. One had read the game, but it hadn't quite clicked in his head. Two were very familiar with the comic, and had looked at the game, admired its beauty, but refrained from purchasing due to its novelty. And one just liked my event description.

I ran "The Pirates of Rustleaf" scenario that I debuted at Dreamation this year. My dice were hot, and I was scripting very well. Thus, the vicious redfurred pirates overwhelmed the Mouse Guard and stole the shipment of grain they were guarding. The guardmice had to steal it back! It was great! We even did a conflict about sneaking into the pirate cove and stealing back the grain barge as a "Chase" style of scripted conflict.

Everyone had a good time. The couple who was on the fence said they're definitely going to pick it up. The guy who had read the game said during the game "This is a really tense game. Every decision you make matters." Maybe I have figured out how to run MG.

Saturday morning belonged to Mechaton. Since I had to take care of flu-ridden family members most of last week, I didn't really get far enough on my Mechaton role-playing to use it. Which was just as well. I had one player interested in blowing things up with LEGO mechs, and Kat and Michele joined us for brick-smashing fun. Plus, I handed out at least a half-dozen cards directing people to Vincent's UnStore.

I got to chat w/ Bill White a bit before the afternoon slot, and it's always good to catch up with distant friends. We also talked a bit about Dreamation registration, which we will begin discussing online soon.

Saturday afternoon saw me running InSpectres. I had four players, all new. Three of them had fun. The fourth left after the 2nd mission because it wasn't enough like Toon. Admittedly, I was feeling pretty tired during the 2nd mission, and didn't run with as much zest as I would have liked. InSpectres requires a delicate balance of Stress rolls vs. Skill rolls, as well as a willingness of players to listen to one another and build off each other's ideas. This makes it tricky: It's usually OK, but when it flies, it soars.

In the evening, Bill Segulin came by for dinner, so we got to catch up and eat some tasty Thai food at the Mie Thai restaurant in Woodbridge. Not sure that we'd go back there again, but it was a great dinner.

I had no players show up for my 8pm Ganakagok game. Not terribly surprising. Ubercon is very much a GAMER convention, so interests are more conventional than at a Dreamation or DEXCON. Kat had four players for her Serial Homicide Unit game, so I didn't want to join that and make it too crowded.

All was not lost. Bill was still around, so he, Michele, and I broke out Zombie Cinema. After reading such rave reviews after last GenCon, I have been looking forward to it for a long time. We made a tale about two day traders and a social worker fleeing a zombie incursion in a Manhattan office building. Both Bill's and my characters were killed, but Michele's made it out by disguising herself as a zombie pushing a hot dog cart through the streets.

I was a bit disappointed by the game play. It felt as though the game set up the guard rails on the outer perimeter of "what a zombie story is" and then said "Make up a zombie story. You know what to do, so get to it!" There wasn't much system input into play once the game started, and we found ourselves stretching for inter-player conflicts just so that we could roll the dice and proceed on the board. I was hoping for a little more oomph.

This morning saw the ladies doing a bit of shopping, us getting thwarted by TWO closed entrance ramps, and finally making it home. I'm very glad we went to Ubercon and look forward to doing it again next year.

Mechaton Role-Playing

2009-11-04T13:00:35Z

I'm scheduled to run Mechaton at Ubercon this weekend. But it's scheduled in the role-playing room, so I felt I should do what I could to add RPG elements to the wargame. Here's my notes-in-progress. All comments welcome, including "Cool idea," "Lame idea," and "Happy Birthday."

MechAcademy: Finals Week.

Only the best and the brightest make the cut to train at MechAcademy. Young men and women learn to operate the most cutting-edge mechs and hone their skills in defending the United Worlds from the murderous onslaught of the Nebula Confederation. It's finals week, and it's time to prove you've got the right stuff. Will you graduate with honors, or be scrubbed? Will go to the graduation ball with your secret crush, or be the laughing stock of the senior class? Will you be assigned to the flagship, or end up a desk jockey?

Structure

The basic setup is going to be two final exam battles fought at the school. The first is going to be for "Mechs vs. Conventional Forces" class. All the players will essentially be on the same side, and I'll fight them w/ tanks and the like. This will allow players to familiarize themselves w/ the rules, and get comfortable w/ their characters.

Then there will be some role-playing scenes about advancing personal goals and preparing for the last final exam battle: "Mech vs. Mech Combat." The players will each be out for themselves in an effort to secure glory and their personal goals.

DUTY: To defend the United Worlds from the murderous Nebula Confederation.

Goal Points

Each character has a Duty goal (same for all characters), a Team goal (same for all of a single house), and a Personal goal. Each station in each combat has points you can win toward achieving those goals. However, you can also spend the points to help you in the combat.

In battle you can spend points like this:

Spend 1 point to bump up 1 die 1 point before placing it into a category. No more than 1 point per die per turn. Cannot bump a d6 to a "7" or a d8 to a "9".
Spend 2 points to reroll 1 die before placing it into the grid. No more than 1 point per die per turn.

When you spent points, you need to describe how that goal is helping you now, or how your current actions are making it more difficult for you to win that goal.

For non-combat scenes, they'll play like Enrichment Scenes in WGP... The player decides what they want, and bids points to get it. I bid points about how much I don't want them to get it. Winner gets their Stakes, loser gets both bids worth of points. Ties go to the player.

After the final battle, we'll survey overall number of unspent points in the various goals, and use those to describe epilogues.

CHARACTERS

Team Inferno

Character Name #1 - To take Character Name #3 (my secret crush) to the graduation ball.

Character Name #2 - To prove I can be trusted even though my father defected.

Team Tsunami

Character Name #3 - To prove I deserve everything I got, even though my father is chancellor of MechAcademy.

Character Name #4 - To be the first clone assigned to the flagship.

Team Celestial Fury

Character Name #5 - To be the first in my family to pilot mechs, rather than just repair them.

Character Name #6 - To prove that a self-aware robot can pilot a mech as well as a human.

One bright spot of interaction

2009-10-31T01:15:49Z

The only time I can recall online discussion of a game of mine making me smile was an ancient RPG.net thread that called FVLMINATA the "worst initiative system of all time." I relished the fact that I had outraged someone's (several people's, actually) sensibilities.

I'm a moderate at heart. I'm not in-your-face. I'm not offensive. But I still can't wipe the smile off my face when I recall that thread.

Should I be doing more of that kind of thing? Should I be more assertive and controversial? I dislike when people generate controversy to garner attention. I find it cheapens any interaction.

But I've still got some assertive, controversial things to say. I just say them nicely. Serial Homicide Unit says to society and fanboy culture: "Your fixation on violence and identification with criminal behavior is wrong. It is sick and twisted. You're on the wrong side." It is a subversive game that puts the lie to its genre.

And nobody plays it.

Maybe I should be more controversial for the most American of reasons: To make more money.

I don't know the answer to this. I've got to ruminate on it some more.

Halloween 2009-part 1

2009-10-30T13:27:10Z

Our town's annual Halloween parade was canceled due to weather. So, we all got together and carved some of the 13 pumpkins that I bought. The rest will be carved tomorrow, on Halloween itself. Here's the pics!

Nearly 7 weeks since I posted

2009-10-23T12:13:25Z

The internet is beginning to think I abandoned it. Quick survey: Is it better to post nothing, or to post about my inability to write?

Serial Homicide Unit review on Game Cryer

2009-09-08T22:07:33Z

Gerald Cameron posted a review of SHU on Game Cryer I LOVE it when people grok what we were aiming for. It's thought-provoking and well-written. Check it out!

Suburbs or Wild Kingdom?

2009-09-03T12:17:23Z

I was taking my morning walk around the neighborhood at about 6:45 this morning. Still half asleep, I glanced two squirrels running down a tree trunk. One caught the other, and they began to roll around in the grass. Strange high-pitched squeals came from the ball of fur. A few seconds later the squeals stopped, but the thrashing continued.

A few moments later, a third squirrel hopped over a fence and chased one of them back up the tree they had come from. The other didn't move. The two squirrels in the tree chattered loudly, shaking branches all over the place. Soon enough, one of them fled the tree. The other stayed up there, crooning piteously.

Overtaken with curiosity, I approached the place where the other one lay. Sure enough it was a small squirrel, about a third of the size of an adult. It lay bloody and motionless. The crooning in the tree continued for a long time.

A dirty trick in D&D

2009-08-28T15:11:27Z

I've taking over DMing duties for our Sunday D&D game. I noticed that all of the PCs, except for two, had 2 magic items apiece. So before the last session, I had those players browse the books and choose a magic item that they wanted. I said I would put it in that day's scenario so they could find it.

Where, exactly, did I put it? In the hands of the cultists they would be fighting, of course! Bruce's paladin even took a critical hit from the mage wielding Carl's Staff of Magic Missles. Bloodied him in a single blow, I think!

I wonder what dirty trick I'll come up with for this week's D&D game?

A new game idea

2009-08-20T19:56:30Z

Look at me. I'm positively a posting fool today! I just started a thread in the First Thoughts forum at the Forge about a game idea I hope to be working on in the near future. I'd appreciate any input:
Making the epic of history come alive

How best to exchange info?

2009-08-20T12:57:32Z

A follow-up to yesterday's Dreamation discussion. I just posted this to the Forge thread discussing the new Dreamation policies:

Just this morning, I was thinking what games I might possibly run at the con. I thought "I like running Ganakagok, but I'm not sure I'd want to run it twice. Maybe Bill White's in the same boat and we could split a slot." This is all well and good for me, who knows Bill and can simply e-mail him. But not everyone has those same connections, or knows what others' interests are. There ought to be somewhere that I could make this information known and seek out other GMs who could supplement my games, and vice versa.

Could we just add a page to the wiki to do this? Is there a better way?

So, folks out there who know technology better than I do, what are your thoughts on that last issue. What's the best way to do this?

Dreamation Policy Change

2009-08-19T12:06:24Z

Everyone who's thinking about attending Dreamation and offering to run games should read this thread on the Forge. Vinny is soliciting comments on some new policies that will be in place for the convention. I think these are the building blocks of an even better Indie Games Explosion in the future!

Where has the summer gone?

2009-08-12T16:02:09Z

It can't be August 12 already, can it? I packed up a bunch of Serial Homicide Unit and sent them off to GenCon with Michele. I hope everyone has a great con. Last year I was happy to get away from the stress of the big GenCon trip. This year I'm missing the opportunity to see everybody.

My summer's been pretty quiet since DEXCON. Did some swimming. Watched some movies. Celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, and baby showers. Did some last-minute layout for Mr. Edwards. Worked. Saw a Shakespeare play (Antony and Cleopatra) I had never seen before.

How has your summer been going?

Tradition!

2009-07-22T14:01:59Z

My Pappy--my father's father--passed away in 1998. I think about him now and then, but not too often recently. He worked at a slate quarry and lived on a few acres out in the country with two ponds (big enough to swim in) he had built himself. Last night I remembered that for many years he also raised minnows in those ponds, and sold them to passing fishermen as live bait.

My dad loves woodworking. Before he got sick, he'd make wooden toys and trivets and wooden flowers. He'd sell them at consignment shops, craft shows, and the like. He was working full-time and overtime at the airport during those same years.

We never discussed it--we Millers are men of few words. I never realized before that my game publishing has precedent in my family: Working a full-time job to support one's life and family while also making a bit of money by pursuing one's passion on the side. It is an insanely happy realization and left me with a smile on my face all day.

DEXCON 12--Too much to do, too little time

2009-07-14T19:24:49Z

DEXCON 12 was only half a con for me, due to my inability to get any time off from work. It was a good time, but I couldn't seem to get up a head of steam that would have made it a great time.

From my perspective, the con seemed to run smoothly. I was told that attendance was good, but with the new, larger venue, I couldn't really mentally compare it to previous DEXCONs. The con staff did an excellent job, as always.

We got stuck in the fifth circle of h--I mean, one of the renovated hotel rooms. It was clearly designed by someone who thought functionality was for the weak and only appearance mattered. I can't think of a positive thing to say about it, actually. Hopefully the entire hotel will not be done by Dreamation and we can snag a non-remodeled room.

WEDNESDAY
Kat and Michele went to the convention on Wednesday night. I didn't.

THURSDAY
Thursday was Kat's birthday. We stayed in touch all day by phone and text message, and after work I surprised her by driving out to Morristown to have dinner with her. We had a nice dinner at an upscale Thai place with Michele and Joanna (who had brought Kat a batch of birthday cupcakes). I then drove home because I had to go to work the next day. It was a busy day, but well worth it to spend some time with my sweetie on her birthday!

FRIDAY
Friday was a full day of work, followed by rushing to pick up Dalys, a few last minute items, and navigate New Jersey traffice once again to get to the con.

I got to sneak a look at the proof of Bill White's awesome Ganakagok. It now looks as good as it plays, and the cards sure are pretty.

We arrived with enough time to unpack before my 8pm game of Serial Homicide Unit. Playing were Dave Petroski, Michele Mishko, and Luke Crane. The room was far too noisy to use Russell's excellent recording, so I taught the game from memory. This reminded me that I *need* to make a rules-teaching summary because I always forget something important.

This time I forgot that the profile should be something that the players can all potentially care about. So we chose "Wealthy Tourists renting huge seaside homes in a beach town." Nobody minded much when the serial killer started picking them off. We made a decent case as the investigators, but that sense of tragedy that I love so much was missing from the game.

Afterward, Luke and KAJ and I talked about the game. Luke said some things that I've known, intellectually, for a while, but that become much more concrete when spoken by somebody else. Most notably: "SHU is not a gamer's game. Don't sell it to gamers. Get it in non-gamer bookstores. Plug in to the murder-mystery market." Easier said than done, but important to make the effort.

SATURDAY
While I was tempted to play in Luke's experimental Poisonous Ambition scenario, I wasn't feeling my inner orc. Instead, I checked out a game that I've been hearing good things about for the past few years: Misery Bubblegum. Tony Lower-Basch has crafted the game to emulate the melodramatic goings-on of shojo manga--which means it can be easily stretched to any sort of melodrama with love triangles, gossip, and the like.

The scenario we played was "Space Station Trinity" about a hospital space station that provided treatment for all sides in an interstellar war. There were amusing characters and secret desires aplenty, from my hospital administrator who was actually a spy, to Sean DeArment's android Nurse Betty who wanted to be human.

Unfortunately, I came away with only a glimmer of understanding about how the game worked. It seemed that we were creating melodrama because we all knew how to do that, but I didn't quite feel that the game was enhancing our melodrama much. BUT, I think it WOULD if I understood the game better.

Y'see, Tony had previously mentioned that he'd had maybe 6 hours of sleep out of the previous 96 hours. The man was tired. So, when I didn't understand something, I was prone to let it drop rather than push the issue. But the game has intrigued me, and the cards look great, so I'll definitely have Michele buy a copy for me at GenCon.

The 2pm slot found me running an old favorite: inSpectres. I brushed up on the rules over lunch since it's been over a year since I've run it. I think I misread the Teamwork rule, which made for a game that was less difficult for the players than it should have been.

But, I did have 6 players, and everyone seemed to have a fairly good time. Some were new to narration-trading games like InSpectres and some had played several of InSpectres' descendants. They created a franchise called DUCK! Paranormal Consultation Specialists (or something like that. With 6 players (and a bit of rustiness on my part) we got off to a slow start. We only got through two missions, rather than the usual three I race through in a convention game. The extra franchise dice from playing characteristics given in the confessional put the 2nd mission in the black, despite me stepping up the stress rolls. Regardless, the team managed to put to rest a group of ghostly Royal Canadian Mounted Police that were pursuing a long-dead outlaw. And they also defeated a cult of worshippers of the Elder Gods based out of a local women's shoe store.

It was only well in the 2nd mission (about 2.5 to 3 hours into the timeslot) that the players' contributions began to build on one another and reincorporate previously introduced elements. I think that's partially a function of six players needing to get used to one another's input and patterns. Plus, while the Confessional was used to hand out a lot of characteristics, it was almost never used to open up plot twists. This was almost certainly because I described the plot twist use of the confessional horribly.

In retrospect, I recall that most of the characteristics handed out from the confessional formalized bits of characterization that the receiving player had already made, rather than adding a completely new angle to the character and making them stretch for it. I see now that in previous games, the "out-of-left-field" quality of the characteristics got the players into the habit of riffing off one another's input more quickly.

I like that I've been running this game now and then for the past 6 years and i still learn new things about it!

Saturday dinnertime resulted in an urgent note to self and others: DO NOT go to the super-convenient pizza joint directly across the street on a weekend. Their staff can't handle the influx and the service is terrible.

Saturday 8pm found me doing something I said I wouldn't do again: running Baron Munchausen at a convention. Fortunately, someone else was running several Munchausen games at the con, so I didn't experience the onslaught of a dozen players wanting to play.

However, while we were settling in, the exact same player who had taken his story beyond the pale at Dreamation 2008 came up and asked to play. Before I could say anything, another of the players welcomed him to the table with a smile. I wasn't quite sure how to handle the situation. Dredging up issues from 18 months ago on the spot didn't seem like it would improve anyone's mood or play. Instead, I stressed the honour and nobility of the tale-telling characters, and readied myself to take control of the situation and stop the game if the need arose.

It turns out that the need did not arise. The defining difference between this session and the ill-fated session at Dreamation was the presence of two women at the table. When the player in question started to move his story in a racy direction, my blood pressure rose and I started figuring out just what to say, and much to my surprise, he said "and then things transpired which are best not discussed in mixed company" and that was it. Women rock!

Plus, they tell better stories that I do. At least the tale of how the Lady High Executioner started the French Revolution on a bet was far more concise and infinitely better-told than my own long, rambling tale of how I saved the Czar's daughter from the Moon-men while at the same time accidentally inventing the spatula. Also of great interest were the Captain's tale of how he had surfed off the edge of the world, even though we all know the world to be flat; and the Grand Imperial Emperor's tale of how he invented the tomato. But the champion tale of the evening was that of the Iron Chef: Explaining why it was that when the Colossus of Rhodes had become animate and traveled to Africa, that the Iron Chef fled in the opposite direction all the way to Antarctica. It was quite a tale, involving the world's most poorly located curio shop (at the South Pole), a king's ransom in chocolate, an elevator to Mars, and the blinding of half the African continent.

The remainder of Saturday I spent with Dalys in ::gasp:: the Board Game Room. Therein, a stray comment from Michele led me to realize one vital piece that the revision of With Great Power... will require. It will need to TEACH people, through play, how to set better Stakes.

SUNDAY
With both Kat and myself coming down with colds, Sunday was filled with chitchat and farewells. I can't wait unti Dreamation (when I will hopefully actually have time to enjoy the convention!).

With Great Podcast...

2009-07-03T17:28:01Z

Scott Dunphy's Story Shtick just started a three-part series on With Great Power... Check it out!

Origins 2009--Low-key and loving it!

2009-06-29T04:53:05Z

It's about an hour and half since we arrived home from Origins 2009. I sit here with more caffiene than blood in my veins and try to unwind enough to go to bed. It was a great con. Attendance looked light, but the folks that were there had a good time. Here's my high points of the show:

Tuesday
A rush to pack and an error made months ago with the rental car was a bit of a scare, but by the time Bill arrived, everything was A-OK. Got to bed late, but raring to go in the morning.

Wednesday
The Drive. Michele was battling a cold, so we took plenty of rest stops. I didn't mind because we had no booth obligations and therefore no deadline. We left at a sane 7 AM and arrived about 4 PM, which allowed us to eat at the fabulous North Market. My pad thai was hotter than I could stomach, but that proved beneficial later on. We got checked in, taught Michele how to play Euchre, and got some sleep.

Thursday
Both Kat and I wisely scheduled our Thursday games to begin at noon, so that we would avoid the early-morning lull that sometimes occurs when there's a hiccup in the registration system. This time, there was no hiccup to worry about, but there was also a noticeable shortage of attendees. Even with a huge swath of the breezeway missing due to renovation, the place didn't feel crowded enough. I think I got a picture of the crowd present at the opening of the exhibit hall, and it wasn't nearly as large as it's been in the past.

Anyway, I kicked the day off w/ dropping off 5 copies of SHU with the ever-gracious and ever-upbeat Andy Kitkowski. He and his boothmates allowed me to grab a bit of space in his booth to make SHU available for sale. It was greatly appreciated.

At noon, Kat ran a new WGP... scenario, and I ran Ganakagok. I had 2 players: Cary and Amber. Thinking that 2 characters would be too few in the reaction rounds, I also made a character myself. In the end, it added nothing to the game, and I wouldn't do it again. The game was good (as always), and I even found a few ways to improve the text that I had overlooked while editing.

After dinner, I hung out a bit w/ Luke, Thor, Jared, and Jamey. We caught up on RL stuff. I got to see the tail end of Jamey's satirical Nicotine Girls hack. Plus, we playtested ... Yonder Knights! I never would have imagined playing that in my wildest dreams! The game doesn't really work, but there was much discussion and diagnosis of exactly WHY it doesn't work, which was really super helpful.

Friday
Friday started w/ both Kat and I having 10AM games. Hers was, of course, some incredible, amazing WGP... and mine was SHU. I had two great players: Todd and Lisa. We stopped a serial killer whose profile was that he was hunting down children's entertainers. As often happens, the kinda silly profile did not impede the drama and tragedy of the inevitable deaths. I can't think of a game that I enjoy more consistently than Serial Homicide Unit.

After the SHU game, I checked out the maiden voyage of Luke and Jared's new seminar: Practical Game Design. It was a clear and informative roadmap to take someone from the Three Questions to being able to judge whether dice or cards will do the job their game needs done. It gave me much food for thought, particularly in light of the previous night's unfun playtest.

One of the great disappointments of this year's construction was the closing of the kitchen in the Krema Nut Company store. NO PEANUT BUTTER MILKSHAKES! However, Thor's clever cell phone knew of the company's headquarters store 2 miles away. Being New Yorkers, they were going to hoof it. But with my power of Rental Car, I got us to the peanut-flavored heaven and back again in air-conditioned comfort!

Friday evening saw a nice dinner w/ Kat, Bill, and Michele, and then chatting till midnight w/ the NYC crew.

Saturday
Saturday was supposed to be my busiest day. I was scheduled to run SHU from 10AM to 2PM, and help Luke run a seminar from 1PM (fun scheduling error!) to 3PM, and then run Ganakagok from 8PM to midnight. Unfortunately, I had no players for SHU, which gave me far too much time to shop. I looked at every booth and still had time to spare before the panel.

The self publishing panel is, as Luke likes to call it, a firehose of information. We ran right up to the full 2 hour mark, barely stopping for questions and could have kept going. It's a thrill to give that panel.

Afterwards, Luke was running a demo of Mouse Guard for a reviewer named Ben and his girlfriend Danielle. I sat in to bring the group up to three, and got to deliver the killing blow to a vicious milk snake that wanted to devour us all!

A surprising one-on-one dinner w/ Kat followed, which allowed for a nice de-stressing to occur.

After that, it was back to frozen lands of Ganakagok, where 6 players showed and we made a great myth about the splintering of the island and its fertile ground floating into the sunlit worlds.

Sunday
Today started with some great news: Mouse Guard won the Origins Award for Best RPG! Congrats to Luke and the Burning Crew for another game well-designed (and one I can actually play this time!)

Then there was just last minute shopping, lunch, The Drive, and now this. An excellent weekend in an excellent city at an excellent con. You can't ask for more than that.

Serial Homicide Unit--Download a Demo!

2009-06-22T14:11:29Z

The audio demo of Serial Homicide Unit is now available here.

Russell Collins, our esteemed narrator, has produced a brilliantly atmospheric and informative demo that is FULLY PLAYABLE. The recorded instructions are a bit longer than 7 minutes. They provide step-by-step instructions for playing a brief demo of Serial Homicide Unit. The demo is provided in MP3 format, and is 13.5MB. Feel free to link to this demo from wherever you think appropriate.

Try it for free. Protect the innocent. Hunt down a killer.

Wow, that's high-quality creepy!

2009-06-20T13:14:50Z

I just listened to the upcoming free demo of Serial Homicide Unit. Again, Russell Collins has used his vocal and musical talents to drive the dread of our game right up your ears and into your brain.

Look for it to be available for download on Monday.

DEXCON is nearly here!

2009-05-28T00:15:04Z

The registrations deadline for DEXCON 12 is nearly here. See Kat's LJ entry for all the details. Kat's in charge of the IGE this time. I've worked several 55 hour weeks this month, and there's no sign of it letting up.

Back to the grindstone...

Not what you normally think of as a "D&D movie dream"

2009-04-24T12:32:11Z

I had this dream about running a variant of D&D 4th edition. Instead of fighting monsters to gain treasure and glory. You were fighting Hollywood movie executives to get your movie made and into theaters. It was like D&D meets The Player. It had classes, and all the same powers and whatnot, just reskinned for the Hollywood "development hell" setting. It had things like "I'm using Storyboard on the suit. It's my daily power and he's already bloody, so let's hope I hit." The maps were little conference rooms. In the dream, my friend Bruce, who plays D&D with us solely for the tactics, enjoyed it just as much because all the tactics and stuff. Weird.

On another note, I missed Bard's Day again. Yesterday was Shakespeare's 445th birthday. Four centuries ago, he was closing up his career, spending more time in Stratford. Only had a few more plays, and a few more years in him. Regardless, happy belated Bard's Day!

Moments of Judgment--AAARRRGGHH!

2009-04-14T16:26:41Z

Vincent is drilling into the nitty-gritty of how Points of Contact work over on anyway.

In his most recent post, he calls attention to the "moment of judgment" that is required when providing mechanical teeth to wholly fictional input. In most traditional games, this often applies when the GM hands out situational modifiers for tactics, weather, etc.

In reading his comment about how many recent games deal with the problem of these judgments being potentially biased by "commoditizing" them. That is, players spend game currency or the like to buy the verdict of the judgment. I find myself drawn to this solution repeatedly.

Why do I commoditize or avoid as many moments of judgment as possible? Quite simply because whenever I have to make them, I feel like I'm wrong. 20 years of playing these games, I still always feel like I'm wrong. If I decide against the players, I feel like I'm being mean or cheating. If I decide for the players, I feel like I'm being a pushover or not challenging the players enough. Even when everyone agrees with my decision. I hate it.

This probably explains why--despite my admiration for the intricate construction of Luke's games--I failed as a Mouse Guard GM. MG and BW depend heavily on the exercise of the GM's judgment. And I find that taxing in the extreme.

No big conclusions here, except about my own psyche. And, if you're interested in RPG theory and not reading anyway, you should!

Incarnadine Press--Sales 1st Quarter 2009

2009-04-02T11:06:49Z

It's been a very long time since I did this. Back in the ol' days of 2005-2006, everyone was doing posting their sales numbers in service of the community. Nowadays, only drivingblind posts sales numbers. Since I'm at the complete other end of the spectrum from Fred, I'm going to post my numbers. In order to get a complete picture of SHU sales, I'm also including December 2008.

	WGP... [PDF]	WGP... [Physical]	Serial Homicide Unit [Electronic]	Serial Homicide Unit [Physical]
Dec 2008	0	3	5	0
Jan 2009	0	1	13	12
Feb 2009	4	2	4	13
Mar 2009	0	2	1	0

I've got ideas about how to mitigate that downward trend, but I haven't been able to gather the wherewithal to make any of them happen.

How's things in your publishing?

Little Game Chef -- Done!

2009-03-29T01:31:39Z

I just submitted a game for Little Game Chef. I hadn't planned on entering, but I had a few nearly-sleepless nights this week, and a weird, geeky little game flowed out of me. It's 110% derivative. I don't think there's an original bone in its tiny, 2-page body.

The contest is anonymous, so I won't post the name of my game right here, right now. Anyone who wants a copy, e-mail me. I don't know if it's a straight game or a parody or what, but I just read it aloud to Kat and was laughing so hard that tears rolled down my cheeks. I've got a grin plastered on my puss that I haven't felt in a while. Even if I never touch the game again, it was FUN to write.

Post-comic book day hangover

2009-03-16T16:10:05Z

My head is still fuzzy from all the story (good and bad) I imbibed yesterday. After an absence of several months, Kat and I stopped at the comic book store and picked up our haul. It's quite a mixed bag.

Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, Issue 3(?)
Beautiful illustration, as always. It's been 3 months since I read the previous issue, so I can't recall exactly what Saxon is so pissed about, but the Kenzie-Sadie-Saxon story is good enough. Having recently studied the MG map in preparing for the game I ran at Dreamation, the length of the underground river strains credibility, but if I can swallow talking mice, i can certainly swallow that. What confused me is the Leaim-owl fight. It seemed that our redfurred ball of fury severed the owl's spinal cord in flight, causing the bird to crash. That makes sense and is awesome. Then the owl gets up--I don't get it. Maybe I shouldn't think too hard and just look at the pretty pictures.

Comic Book Comics, issue #3
Damn, but Fred van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey can make nonfiction fun! I first started reading their work called Action Philosophers where they give humorous--but accurate and insightful--biographies of philosophers and summaries of their work. If that appeals, they offer free previews of all their comics on their website!
Comic Book Comics is their history of the comic book medium, from its origins as compilations of newspaper strips nearly a century ago, through the formation of the comics code and beyond. I find it interesting and entertaining. I had know idea that Jack Kirby had gotten into so many legal scrapes over the decades--and seemingly lost them all! This one lets me think AND gives me gorgeous, fun pictures. Highly recommended.

Astonishing X-men #28(??)
I generally like Warren Ellis' stuff when he's not dealing with superheroes. Transmetropolitan was great. So is Fell, when it comes out. This whole storyline feels like filler. It doesn't really matter to any of the characters. Plus, I hate the art. It conveys neither tone nor action nor character. Entirely not my cup of tea. Gotta remember to call the comic store and cancel this one.

Death Note, vol. 12
A manga about a guy who can kill people by writing their names in a magic notebook. Much cooler than it sounds. Volume 12 is the final volume and I've been anxiously awaiting this story to be OVER since volume 5. It ends very well, but volumes 6 to 11 have felt like filler; like the writer had pulled off the ultimate you-will-never-expect-it twist at the end of volume 5, and then had to improvise what to do next. I liked the live action movies better. But the art is gorgeous. It takes a lot of talent to make interesting pictures about people thinking.

Wonder Woman, issues #27-29
What a disappointment this series has become. I guess it's inevitable--all Wonder Woman series become disappointments.
This time, the story in the writer's head might be pretty good, but it's not being told well. The information we need to appreciate what is happening and what decisions are being made is not being conveyed by the words and pictures on the page.
For example, there's a cut-rate Doomsday wannabe called Genocide killing people and destroying property. We don't know what this thing is capable of. We know it beat the crap out of Diana in issue #26. But now we're supposed to be REALLY afraid of it because it has Diana's lasso. But three issues have passed and we don't know exactly why. Genocide blows up a building, now that it has the lasso. How do we know it couldn't blow up buildings BEFORE it had the lasso? We don't. I don't know what these characters want, or understand the obstacles facing them. I want to *get* it, but maybe I'm not supposed to think so much and just look at the pretty, pretty pictures.

Powers: Cosmic trade paperback
We started reading Powers a year or two ago by picking up the trades when we could afford them. What a great, thrilling, meaty story it is. It's too much, and too good for me to parse it all right now.

There were some more things in the haul, but I haven't read them yet. If we cancel WW and X-men, we'll be left with NO superhero books in our pull box. I've been trying to look at other titles to start, but our comic store makes it so difficult. They have everything you could ever want: superhero comics, independent comics, action figures, manga, magazines, RPGs, back issues, collectibles, DVDs, used CDs. However, you can't take a breath without knocking over a stack of *something.* I can't physically browse the store, and so can't expand the pull-list.

The other option is the comic store at the mall that we left 8-9 years ago because they kept putting our pulled comics back on the shelf after 4 weeks. What's a guy who wants to read comics to do?

Putting Teeth into 4th Edition

2009-03-09T15:47:11Z

I'll be posting a little more about our D&D game this week. Kat did an awesome thing in yesterday's game. She inserted an encounter in Keep on the Shadowfell and gave the thing TEETH.

Here's the setup: We've done two encounters in a row, and the entire party has used its daily powers. But, we've learned that there's a damsel in distress being sacrificed RIGHT NOW. What else can we do but charge in and save her? We know with all our dailies and about half our healing surges gone, it's going to be a tough fight.

Kat tells us right off the bat that she'll die in 4 rounds if we don't get her out. So Michele, playing our Eladrin rogue with high initiative and all kinds of teleporting powers gets to the damsel in the very beginning of the very first round. She uses two move actions to get there, and is about to use her minor action to cut the cords binding her to the sacrificial altar. Rescue is lookin' good, right?

Then Kat says "If you *don't* cut her loose right now, you can use one of your daily powers again." That's teeth! Michele, feeling impish, opts for the daily power, and the damsel continues to bleed. Kat uses this trick several times in the encounter on several players, and although we defeat the undead guarding the damsel, we almost *don't* get her out of the room in time because of all the delays

4th Edition is so full of player resources, playing with ways to deplete and refresh them is fertile ground for putting choice--of both the gamist and narrativist flavors--into the players' hands.

How have you played with resources to good effect?