In Which The Warlock Lauds the Commendable...

So, last post was something of a downer, no?  It's easy to criticize, easy to point out the negative.  By nature, I tend to be a bit cynical--then again, who among my generation isn't?--but there's a lot to love within the pages of today's roleplaying games.  Let's pull some of my favorites!

The Doom Pool!

Roll that Doom Pool!

Chalk one up for Margaret Weis Productions' Marvel Heroic Roleplaying for an absolutely fantastic mechanic.  Even the most experienced GMs sometimes balk at having to make a judgement call on complex environmental actions, and even the most worthy of players sometimes chafe at the concept of 'GM fiat'.  For me, the Doom Pool mechanically addresses this difficulty in a simple, but effective manner.

Making your way through a burning building?  Roll against the Doom Pool to avoid falling debris or smoke inhalation.  Weaving through girders while flying?  Roll against the Doom Pool!  Need to make that super-science device extra-fast?  Doom Pool!

While it's not a be-all, end-all device, the Doom Pool serves as a quick outlet for all those times where a GM might be stuck.  It keeps play at the table moving and keeps the GM with his players, rather than referencing a rulebook.  Really, any mechanic that provides a quick resolution fits here:  the Savage Worlds "common knowledge" roll, the WEGS "frozen roll".  They're great!

In Text Fluff!

Now, this one's a spot of divisiveness.  Some gamers love the atmosphere and mood that in-text fiction brings, while others tend to loathe it.  While I tend to view rpg books more as instruction manuals than fiction collections, the occasional bit of in-character fiction really hits home the ideas and themes behind the game itself.  Plus, it pushes those archetypal ideas that form the core of a setting.

While I have issues with their fundamental rules-set, the Fantasy Flight Games' publications of Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch really capture the essence of what it means to live in the Warhammer 40K universe.  While they have a ton of material from which to generate this setting info, the tone and descriptions in these books blend the world and the mechanics together beautifully.  If only the rules themselves weren't such a mess...

Focus!

This, above all else, is something that I've been reveling in.

Burned spies kill vampires?
There's a game for that...

So many games for so long have been about "universal" mechanics.  d20, GURPS, even Savage Worlds, all try to wear so many hats that they fail to focus on one particular sort of game.  As I mentioned last entry, Savage Worlds makes for a great system for pulp and action, but I'd never want to use it for a horror game--it's just not built for that genre.  But GURPS?  What's the purpose?  Why this system?  Yes, I'm sure you could run a horror game, a sci-fi game, and a fantasy game with it, but why would you?

The print-on-demand and PDF era of publishing has granted us not just the freedom of choice, but also the ability to enter new genres and tell new stories using systems built specifically for genre-emulation.  Want to run a game about down-on-their-luck boxers?  There's a game for that.   Want a game that focuses on the backroom dealings of Japanese samurai families?  Yup, a game for that, too.  Want to be a former CIA agent hunting vampires?  Yes, you're covered.

The Kickstarter Revolution!

Yes, print-on-demand and PDF are great.  But, as I'm finding out more and more, getting a product off of the ground takes start-up capital.  Kickstarter and other crowd-sourcing sites like it have become great ways for rpg designers to not only come up with said capital, but also to publicize their works.

That'd be great in and of itself, but what's best comes right alongside the Kickstarter revolution:  the discussion and analysis of an industry that, for a long time, really hasn't had any intellectual critique at the marketing and distribution level.  Now, it's a daily occurrence, through Facebook groups and message board discussions aimed not just at the design and development end of role-playing games, but also how to take a game and make it into a clean, published product in a cost-effective, efficient manner.

It's that type of discussion that really pushes forward revolution and innovation.  While I can't say that every product has benefited from these discussions, they're a massive benefit to any would-be developer.

In Which The Warlock Makes a Major Alteration...

So, let's talk about something that I haven't brought up in quite a while:  Dungeon Slam!

I've occasionally broken out DS! now and again in the last year or so, but I haven't exactly been doing a whole lot of substantial revision on it.  The biggest issue keeping DS! from being a "real game" is the run-time:  I can't seem to get it under two hours without making major changes to the game mechanics and the way that chance is involved with the game itself.

Risk--has anyone finished that game?

That's a major problem, because few games run longer than two hours while maintaining an element of fun.  Ask yourself, when was the last time that you played a game of Risk for more than two hours, before the novelty of Risk wore off and a clear winner was evident, and everyone else worked to stave off that winner for an extra hour or so.  Don't get me wrong:  Risk can be fun, but it often takes so long to play that few manage to ever complete that game.



A session of Dungeon Slam!
from Origins 2008.

Similarly, Dungeon Slam! also suffered from a pretty major issue that many rpgs also suffer from:  Contested Roll Syndrome.  Contested rolls--also called opposed rolls or contests--have a propensity to slow games down immensely, as they make every chanced encounter (which are fairly common, natch!) into a minimum of two dice rolls, rather than one.

Imagine, if you will, a "static" system like Savage Worlds or even d20.  Each dice roll is compared against a number, which varies based on the difficulty of a task.  Modifiers are then made based on the circumstances facing the situation and the person acting within it.  However, in a system based on contested rolls--such as Dungeon Slam! as well as Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and several other games--that static modifier is replaced by another roll, on the act-ee's part.

While you'd figure that this wouldn't slow down the game too much, once you start adding in modifiers, re-rolls, and other chance-altering mechanics common to most games, the game slows down to a crawl, which brings us back to the core problems with Dungeon Slam!.  It simply takes too freaking long.

But, with its numerous problems and several competitors on the market--Super Dungeon Explore, Munchkin Quest, and Dungeon Run come immediately to mind--I've decided to put Dungeon Slam! on the shelf indefinitely.

That said, writing Dungeon Slam! hasn't been a waste in any sense of the word.  In fact, I learned a lot from the act of writing it--particularly in how to structure a game and how to format a prototype for Publisher and Adobe.  And, there's a lot I can take from the best elements of Dungeon Slam!...

• The PvP race structure.
• The item upgrades mechanic.
• The open-board motion.
• The ability to actively screw your neighbor without specifically engaging them.
• The fundamental stats and mechanics (minus the opposed rolls).

And, friends and neighbors, that's just what I've been doing for the past two weeks.  I've been reformatting the best bits and piecees of Dungeon Slam! into a new game with a new genre and idiom...

...but to see the fruits of my labors, you'll have to tune in for the next entry!

In Which The Warlock Comes Up With a Backup Plan...

For those of you playing along at home, you may have noted that I haven't been talking much about our romps in Deadlands on Friday night.  Truth be told, it's been quite a while since we've actually had a session of "The Flood"!  Real-life issues took their toll, between our trip to C2E2, some illnesses, and a few alternate obligations, resulting in over a month of missed sessions!

Yeesh!  That's a lot of time.  But, many groups face the same situation--what do you do when you need the whole group present, and it just hasn't happened?

For us, the answer is usually board games.  Arkham Horror is a particular favorite, as two sessions of that can fill an entire game night for us.  Lately, we also broke out Innsmouth Escape and had a blast with Munchkin Axe Cop.  These are usually good for single night sessions where we're just looking to unwind after a long week, but occasionally we just get the itch for some actual dice-rolling RPG that a board game just can't scratch.

The PlatinumChick and I, after years of running games for conventions, have quite the library of one shots.  Under normal circumstances, we tend to use these sorts of nights for playtesting.  Most of my WEGS games and several of our other one-offs get tested with our home group when a few players are missing.  Again, that's good for most circumstances, but when we don't exactly have a lot of one-shots to test this year, due to the Origins date change, that leaves that option out in the cold.

So, the question has been:  "What do we do now?"



Straight from the comics, onto my gaming table! 
Iron Man and the Avengers take on Carnage in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying

The answer, interestingly enough, arose from one of my recent reviews:  Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.  After going to see The Avengers a few weeks ago (and again a week later...), we were all really high on some superhero goodness, and I was eager to give the system a run.

So, with no prep at all, we decided to delve into the book-built scenario, based on Brian Michael Bendis' "Breakout" arc from "New Avengers".  Serendipitously taking on Bendis' Avengers--Iron Man, Captain America, Miss Marvel, and Wolverine--we dialed up the action as the SHIELD/Riker's Island prison known as "The Raft" exploded with an EMP pulse.  With Iron Man in the in the sub-basements upgrading security and the rest up top, examining some new holding cells with Maria Hill, we started with the party already split....and Carnage making a beeline for Iron Man!

The nice thing about all this?  I've already managed to lay down enough plot hooks in one session to provide a ton of possible "episodes" in the future.  Where did Carnage escape to, after attacking Iron Man?  Who was at fault for the explosion?  Who were the infiltrators in the northwest guard tower, and what's their relationship to "Mutants Sans Frontiers"? 

While we're hoping to get back to "The Flood" this week--with the Battle of Shan Fan, no less!--we'll be revisiting MHR off and on, when we have missing members.  And, it's already looking to be spectacular!

The Warlock's Review: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (First Impressions)

As I mentioned in my C2E2 recap, I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of a game that I've been eyeing up for quite a while:  Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, from Margaret Weis Productions.  While we haven't had a game night to give the game a whirl, I couldn't help but put down my first impressions of the product. 

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
from Margaret Weis Productions

First off, this book is gorgeous.  Obviously, one of the biggest advantages of any comics-licenced property is the massive stable of art that the layout gang is able to pull from, but the choices here are really inspired.  Pulling from some of the best of Marvel's bullpen over the last decade or so, MWP really raises the bar for the feel of a full-power comic book.  The book itself emphasizes this feel, coming in a graphic-novel sized full color paperback that almost feels like you're reading an Avengers trade paperback.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is nominally based on the Cortex+ system, used by MWP in the Leverage and Smallville rpgs, though takes a few different spins with it.  A pseudo-dice pool system, MHR rates a hero's powers, skills, and natural distinctions on a scale of d4 up to d12+, which are rolled together.  The two highest dice results are added together to get a result, which is opposed by the target's roll, while a third die type represents the effect of the attempt.  The higher the die type, the more effective the attack is.  Any die showing "1" is called an "opportunity", which allows the opposing faction a chance to act in opposition.

Coupled with this, the hero can conditionally add in more dice to their pool by creating assets and power stunts, through various "SFX" unique to the Hero's power set, using Power Points, and through the hero's affiliation.  Is your hero on a solo mission?  Toss in your solo die.  Are you paired-up with a single other hero, Heroes for Hire style?  Add in the buddy die.  While I like the concept of affiliation--particularly for emulating various types of combat and encouraging players to "split the party" and achieve multiple objectives simultaneously--it's easily the most discardable mechanic.  A multitude of system hacks already exist to refit affiliations into other cases.

Also of note is the "Doom Pool"--a set of dice representing the tension and conflict built into the given scenario.  As players roll opportunities, the Doom Pool begins swelling, allowing the GM--called The Watcher--to trigger villains' abilities and add dice to their attacks.  From a wicked GMing stand point, I love this mechanic.  While it took me a touch to understand all of the uses of the Doom Pool, it really makes for a neat way to make things hard on the PCs.  Plus, use of the Doom Pool typically refreshes heroes' Power Points, which gives the players an incentive to take risks and try stunts, even if they don't pay off.

Hawkeye and Thor! 
We want stats!

The rules for MHR only take up about 120 pages, while the remainder of the book consists of a mini-campaign arc based on Brian Michael Bendis' "Breakout" arc from Avengers and a series of datafiles on popular Marvel heroes.  While I was fairly pleased with the sample adventure, I did have some questions in my mind about the heroes contained within the datafiles.  While the typical Marvel mainstays are there--Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Captain America--there are several notable absences!  No Hulk?  No Thor?  No Hawkeye?  No Wasp or Giant Man?  Is X-Men D-lister Armor really that important as to include them over some of the original Avengers?  Same thing with Sentry, particularly considering he's considered to be an NPC during "Breakout".  While supplemental "event books" are already in the works, based on "Civil War", "Annihilation", and "Shadowland", it would have been nice to see some of the classic Marvel stable, as opposed to more obscure characters.

I also worry somewhat about the ability for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying to portray a darker, more visceral game.  While the game is perfect for encouraging over-the-top action of the current era in comics, I can't see myself running a Watchmen-esque game using this system.  I guess that's good for me!

The PlatinumWarlock's first cosplay?
Time will tell!

However, I also thought of another style of game that might just be great for this:  a Masters of the Universe game.  The over-the-top stunting and team-based mechanics really would make for a great representation of He-Man, working with the various Masters against Skeletor's forces.  I've been meaning to do one of these for a while, and this system just might be the ticket.

Plus, it'd give me a chance to show off my latest--yes, another one--project!  For a few years now, the PlatinumChick has been slowly nudging me towards doing cosplay with her.  And, after seeing some of the great costumes at C2E2, I think I finally know what I might do.  I'm going to start working this month on a Man-at-Arms costume, complete with armor, mace and big-ass blaster!    I'll be sure to keep you guys updated on my progress, of course.  Pics or it didn't happen, right?

Anyway, as for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying?  It's a fantastic little system, with the flexibility of an ICONS coupled with the storytelling capacity of Marvel comics.  While it has a few flaws--set to be remedied in upcoming supplementals no doubt--I'm definitely looking forward to giving this one a whirl!

In Which The Warlock Brings the Wind Back!

Whew!  What a whirlwind weekend in the Windy City, fellow gamers!  C2E2 was an utter blast, with a ton of things to do, people to see, and swag to pick up.  L-Train, the PlatinumChick, CosplayKit managed to drive up on Thursday evening, with Kit's husband David joining us on Saturday after flying in.  And, man-oh-man...what a time!

This was only our second time out at C2E2 out of the three years it's been held, as WittCon conflicted with the date last year.  However, even after only three years C2E2 has really swelled, born upwards on great support by Marvel and TopCow, among others.  The McCormick Place is a really great venue, even if the price for parking and the like is a bit of a shocker.  There's tons of space and lots of brilliant views out over the Great Lakes for photography and more.

I spent most of my Friday hopping between panels.  There were several that I had designs on visiting, but the most useful for me was undoubtedly The Legal Aspects of Becoming Famous--How to Protect Yourself and Your Creations, hosted by Michael Lee--a noted intellectual property attorney.  Lee did a great job of running through a solid introduction to copyright and trademark law, as well as what the up-and-coming creative mind might have to do to protect himself!  This one really gave me a lot of faith about what I need to be doing in terms of Cold Steel Wardens.  Definitely, within the span of this year, keep your eyes peeled for some news on that front!

Black Canary meets the woman
who redefined her!

The PlatinumChick, however, spent the days hunting down her favorite artists and writers around the main show hall.  She was squeeing with delight after meeting up with Phil Hester and Adam Hughes, but the real treat for her came on Saturday, when she got to meet up with her comics idol:  Gail Simone!  Also, she broke out not one, but two of her costumes, going as Black Canary on Saturday and Speedy (Mia Dearden) on Friday.

I was honestly somewhat astounded, though, at the crowd.  While Friday and Sunday were about what I expected, Saturday was utterly jammed!  I had intended on sitting in on the Marvel Television panel, as I'm a huge fan of the new Marvel animated series, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.  However, when I arrived at the room--20 minutes early, mind you--the line for the panel stretched all the way down the hall, into a nearby atrium, around the walls of that atrium and down another hall!  I was flabbergasted and, unfortunately, walked away.  Guess I'll just have to wait for the new episodes like everyone else!

A new venue for some
upcoming freelancing?

If there's one complaint that I had about C2E2, it's the lack of a real gaming presence on the show floor.  While Wizards of the Coast had a fairly large presence two years ago, there were no games going on and only one publisher--Margaret Weis Productions, the producers of the Marvel roleplaying game--in attendance.  I wasn't about to let that opportunity slip, though, as I picked up their corebook and managed to even chat up Cam Banks--the lead designer on Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.  I'd absolutely love to take a crack at putting out Rise of the Midnight Sons as an 'occult' themed Marvel event for them...maybe it's time to make some submissions?

Cam Banks wasn't the only game designer there, however.  L-Train and I sat in on another panel, The State of Play in Tabletop Roleplaying Gaming, hosted by Kenneth Hite (of Trail of Cthulhu and Fiasco fame, among numerous other games) and Will Hindmarch (one of the lead designers on Green Ronin's Dragon Age tabletop game).  While a little more casual and q-and-a than the prior panel, the two really put down some great ideas and reflections on what they called a "mini Golden Age" for RPGs, here in the era of Kickstarter, PDFs, and print-on-demand.

After three full days of walking, buying, and eating our way around Chi-town, I think we were all well and truly ready to get home.  While I'm a little worried about next year's dates for C2E2--April 26-28th, dates usually common to FOPCon--I'm looking forward to another go-round!

For some visuals of all the mayhem--and a ton of pics of the great cosplayers out there!--take a look at my Facebook album here:  C2E2 Album!