What do you want ?

As we are on course to rotate games shortly there has been the usual foray into peoples opinions and preferences as to how this should be done. There are a number of issues, partly the time of year doesn't help as with a few players on holiday as it takes two or three weeks just to see everyone and get some feedback. I am still of the opinion that as we are a club of no more than twenty players of an evening that we should in principal be able to sort ourselves out by the good old fashioned method of chinwagging. But to be fair as we welcome random wanderers, regular part timers and the die hards its just not possible to satisfy everyone's parameters, including those who want to GM.

As fun as a social melting pot is I have been thinking about opening up another role-playing evening for a while now, partly because Thursdays is at capacity but also because it would be a chance to test out the meetups function. Whilst this effectively makes each game an isolated experience, it is scaleable and provides a level playing field for everyone. More importantly GMs don't have to battle each other for players - they simply post and see what interest is like. I have always been concerned that splitting up a casual club into formal games would fragment the community spirit but this is certainly not the case at the Craft Beer Co as there are a core of at least a dozen players who meet regularly and we chat at their quarterly Entmoots; at the end of the day, players will migrate to the games they want to play so a formal meetup post for 4 players lets say would leave each GM with 2  back pocket flexi slots for visitors and those who want to change their minds after starting.

Like many things in life it a case of suck it and see.

Stars Without Number

By Jupiter, I do believe we have a plan. So it seems that formal notice has been given for the end of August and GMs have actually offered a number of systems albeit after the holiday season. Personally I don't know why one would feel the need to leave a perfectly respectable fantasy world by taking a break in the real one. After an initial subdued response, a number of heralds have started trumpeting; akin to a snow globe, it seems like we just needed a bit of a shake before the magic happened. Alternatively, one can think of our members as a creative pinata that just needs a good beating from time to time with a large spikey club.

Nevertheless, GM Mike is offering another instalment of his personal system which will be most excellent if his previous sessions are anything to go by, GM Jack has offered a Savage Worlds for which I have a particular soft spot, GM Fade has offered the next chapter of his D&D and I have heard that one of our newer members is interested in running a thing about something, so more on this in our next post. Also GM Jamie, who is renowned for bringing along some of his extensive board game collection from time to time, will be running Stars Without Number. 

A new one on my radar, SWN is a Kevin Crawford/ Sine Nomine OSR (old school revival) system based around Space Exploration, but in this case the mechanics are built from the bottom up as a sandbox toolset rather than a narrative and its GM and player instructions are simplified very thoughtfully. In this regard the system can be easily adapted to any particular universe. Here is an excellent overview by Questing Beast

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53s3rAbz0-8

And if you like free stuff, currently there is a 250 page free version on Drivethrough !

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/230009/Stars-Without-Number-Revised-Edition-Free-Version

Classic

To say we've played a lot of games over the years is to make quite the understatement. The genres have spanned civilisations, the narratives have traversed the planes and there have been experiences from transhuman existentialism to medieval infighting. Alongside the weird and wonderful worlds we have inhabited are the even weirder though not necessarily wonderful characters that we have played. What I find interesting is that there doesn't seem to be any particular convergent set of characteristics or classes that can be said to be optimal. In other words, there is no win button.

This is a testament to healthy games and good GMs but oddly enough we now seem to have come full circle in the D&D5e stopgap currently being run by GM Bill as it turns out that drawing a couple of characters out of a hat and another couple out of the players brains we have neatly settled onto the archetypal Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, Thief. A timeless formula up there with Classic Coke, Fish and Chips and Country and Western. Its just like Stranger Things, but less strange.

In terms of stopgap games, the call has gone out to the next set of GMs but the response seems ominously quiet at present. Ordinarily RPG clubs have regular problems finding GMs but we have been lucky so far over the years and always had a glut of people wanting to try various things. This may be changing now but I suppose its equally possible people are just stuck in Netflix somewhere..

New Spaces

Following a couple of weeks running around the country in a heatwave I finally got a day to chill so to speak on Monday. Whilst crawling out from the comfort of my subterranean lair I had the pleasure of strolling down London road with an old friend and as he is an avid war gamer and we thought we'd pop into Dice Saloon to check stock for the next version of the Star Wars table top space combat system and associated miniatures. Tuns out that Dice Saloon have gone. But not far thankfully.

Having seen retail RPG stores come and go over the years I was always a little worried about the sustainability of Dice Saloon but so far I am happy to be proved incorrect. In fact they have moved about 100 yards down the road to what is a more industrial unit but which provides a lot more space both for stock as well as experience. One of the issues with the old place was mixing the wargamers in the same space as the role players. In addition to the noise there were rather uncomfortable makeshift plywood stalls for long sessions. Whilst the plywood sections still appends the table top area there is now an additional sectioned off set of more intimate and upholstered seating which is much more appealing. Along with extra room for the stock the entire area is much bigger but vaulted in a warehouse now rather than in conventional office space. Somewhat more industrial but who cares, a bigger space means more community and overall I vote it a pleasant surprise.

In more space news GM Jon's Star trek is cautiously drawing to a close but has a few more sessions to run. The Strange will continue until next rotation and GM Bill has graciously stepped in with a three to four session D&D5e. I think actually I have worked out that GM Jon, being the avid Star Trek fan is in fact keeping his universe alive on a permanent basis as if I remember, it was at the end of the last TV series he started his game and we are already getting the next seasons trailers for both Discovery and The Orville. Living the dream.

House of Many Things

Mystery and problem solving are essential components to any RPG  of course but the context of any adventure does need to be painted in. There are a number of huge off the shelf universes that do the donkey work for you such as Tolkien, Warhammer, Star Trek etc where the GM instantly has reference material for the world which fleshes down to the minutest detail.

And detail is everything. A bit like a portrait, one simply cant ignore the background arbitrarily; its there for immersion and helps bring a world alive in a quality setting. This starts to become challenging for more thinly written systems or publishers that have focused too much on mechanics and GMs  need to deploy some tools. Typically for myself, societal power structures, factions if you will, provide a wonderful opportunity from the big movers at the top with all the tension you need for a scenario right down to the actions of optionally radical individuals. This was one of the misunderstandings of Planescape which was criticised for being too thin on content. But this was never the intention as its depth is drawn from over a dozen ancient and competing groups, some opaque even to their own followers.

Pushing the boat out even further, there is the option to explore impossible regimes such as Mageocracies (see Wizards of Thay), Necrocracies or of course collectives such as Mindflayers or the Borg. I suspect there is a system somewhere that has combined them all...

D&D Fourth Edition Version 2

Without wanting to eclipse an outstanding role playing system it's perfectly honourable in life to take a path forged by one's own mistakes. This by definition means that we all have skeletons in the closet and, necromancer's wardrobes notwithstanding, we should all judge things on their own merits by and large.

So for all the fanfare of 5e there is it's dark and twisted uncle that never comes down from the Attic; you know he is there and the bowl of blood you leave at the bottom of the stairs each evening is always empty in the morning. Ok, perhaps I'm stretching the analogy a little too far but basically 5e would not have happened if not for the curse of 4.

But this is not a D&D article. When Wizards of the coast changed the licensing for the new version 4, Paizo publishing lost the rights to its D&D periodicals. From that moment, Pathfinder was born. Released in 2008 it has not only curated the D&D tradition but spawned its own avid fan base as a sound system in its own right. But more than this, after a decade public play testing for Version 2 is underway. 

http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest

Paizo are aiming to smooth over some of the complexities of v1, speed up the play and clarify some options for higher level magic. Whilst its all understandably fluid at present, they are retaining their graphical heritage having confirmed their original artist Wayne Reynolds will be commissioned for the new graphics. Its should result in a very reassuring investment for fans whilst breaking new ground. Not something that  re-branding projects should just expect to work automatically...

Sense and Predujice

This week in roleplaying news sees the eagerly awaited Jane Austin kickstarter hits its marks. Period drama is not something that particularly twists my melon and I am not sure how I would identify someone into late 19th century literature other than from heaving bosoms and an unrequited sense of longing. Last thing I longed for was a packet of Doritos and I was suitably sated by provisioning from my local co-operative. To be fair I did really engage with the Song of Ice and Fire with respect to its intrigue plots but whilst this is more medieval fantasy, social rankings are something to be constantly wary of both in terms of improving status and avoiding knives in the back. Faction standings crop up in quite a lot of systems and interestingly for Blades in the Dark, its important that your criminal gang also maintains its respect among competitors.

The producers of "Good Society" promise tales of high intrigue, sly glances and turns in the garden that capture the countenance of Jane Austen.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/259750074/good-society-a-jane-austen-roleplaying-game

But intrigues of marriage and the struggles of juggling relationships are a bit too disengaging for me. They say that boys are interested in things and girls are interested in people so perhaps its a gender divide; these are not escapist concepts for me really unless they are on a space station....I would consider subscribing to Jane Austen in Space though provided airlocks were readily available.

I do quite enjoy the prose from Regency and Victorian works bar some of the mega novels such as War and Peace and Dickens can be a bit drab but in the right hands classic narrative can be captivating. Lovecraft springs to mind but in its most recent incarnation, the narrative to Darkest Dungeon is delightful.

"At last, in the salt-soaked crags beneath the lowest foundations, we unearthed that damnable portal of antediluvian evil. Our every step unsettled the ancient earth...but we were in a realm of death and madness! In the end, I alone fled laughing and wailing through those blackened arcades of antiquity...until consciousness failed me"

....and here is someone losing their mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GW-Y445jUc

I'm Melting

 

You cant put a price on art they say. From a Faberge egg to a urinal installation , if something is thought provoking then someone somewhere is going to pay a lot of money for it. Personally I wouldn't buy a Urinal for my lounge in the same way I wouldn't piss on a Faberge, but I digress. On the part of GMs, well, they have stories to tell and whether its folklore or fantasy lore they all have a beginning, a middle and most importantly an ending.

I am a big fan of endings myself which is why I don't particularly gel to the newer Marvel type movies that always seem to leave room for a sequel or reboot somehow but when a legendary character is killed off there is a really satisfying feeling of completion. Everything just gets more authentic when it finishes and a life story is only validated when it ends as there is no more room for doubt at that point; one can only then begin to reflect.

So it is with our games and whilst our artists will string things out as for as much quality as they can get, the games are beginning to decay and GMs must let go as their wayward children come of age. More accurately The Strange is a filler game anyway as the Warhammer finished some time ago. Part Time Gods is due for its last session next week, and whilst we finally have our culprit, we may well stretch the GM out a little further if we decide to be awkward. I have heard on the subspace vine that the Star Trek has but a month left to run which may mean that The Exalted can be brought to a comfortable pause as I get the impression GM Andras has more to tell, but the Universe has entropy to collect and we cant wait until the last photon evaporates.

Culture

Culture is an odd thing. People grasp onto it as among other things it offers a sense of identity and people fight to protect it along national boarders that define who is who.  However, paradoxically no matter how tightly a civilization holds onto its characteristics they will inevitably change. There is a natural law at work I suspect and the same can be said for communities, role players being no exception.

People have their 'ways' of course but I have been wondering if Roleplaying is a cultural phenomena that comes and goes with a civilization or whether it is something deeper akin to the performing arts. Ancient Greece has waxed and waned but their tragedies remain and something similar will be the case for our club. Not to say we are tragic of course but we do have quite a diverse membership. It was Glen who told me that there was a fairly recent BBC article on the resurgence of Roleplaying (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42874044 "The revival of a Geeky Pastime") and we are indeed getting a constant trickle of people at the club it seems. What is interesting is that the summer months are usually a quiet time as players book holidays and crawl out of their cracks in the earth to see the light.

The BBC affords quite an archive of its articles and a cursory search exposes pieces going back to 2004 at which time "In the age of iPods whatever happened to D&D?". Wizards of the Coast paint their picture of course and despite a few wobbly releases they firmly assert that it never really went away and they may have had a point. Either way if civilization collapses you can rest assured that your investment in plastic dice will remain quite secure.

The Inquisition

Everyone has a breaking point. This is a principal that has driven both sides of the intelligence war for thousands of years from spies to their inquisitors. Latter day politicians continue to sell waterboarding as an interview technique and purgatory on Earth comes in the form of eternal detention where guests somehow never quite qualify for the full and fair trial of civilised society. Don't get me wrong though, this isn't a political tirade nor is it moral ambiguity. Torture works. Indeed it is considered an art by those who you never want to meet and whilst I have a soft spot for psychopaths, we do not sadly have one to hand in the Part Time Gods.

We have been trying to crack a murder case and for better or worse we have captured a suspect along with a sympathiser. When I say suspect I refer to someone manifesting divine powers he shouldn't have whilst trying to kill me in person. This has naturally led to little room for doubt. Sadly my character is not the brightest blue collar worker to grace the sewers of New York so after a couple of weeks of punching people in the face, it's beginning to look like a case of faked identity as our guests really don't seem to know what is going on. Things will not go well but when a killer can appear to be anyone who then can you trust and how can you trust what you see ?

But to be fair, it all comes back to the principals of spycraft; never tell people more than they need to know and if possible, recruit agents without them knowing. Deception is also an art.

The Stream of many Eyes

A significant shift in tectonics has occurred this week with respect to this years Wizard's of the Coast live twitch "Stream of many eyes" broadcast over the last weekend. Its an important annual event for WotC in terms of engagement and being spread over three days it was also a chance for the designers to sit down in roleplay sessions with some of the internet's more ubiquitous GMs and players from Critical Role.

There is also a sort of implicit keynote during the intimate fireside chats with the brand director Nathan Stewart, as well as some more formal round tables with the D&D architects from the company as a whole but also a healthy dose of cheese as WotC actually built a complete studio in the Waterdeep theme to showcase some of their community initiatives.

The big news though is that "Next month we're going to talk about a couple of different settings that people can start playing as early as this year,". The implication for new world settings is profound in that it could be finally the time we see re-released and updated source books for some of the most loved D&D titles. It may be that only some of the old worlds will be brought back but we are waiting with baited breath for any of the following 5E content: Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Darksun, Dragonlance, Planescape

So keep your many eyes peeled.

Very Strange Indeed

Interdimensional heroes tend to come and go over the years but its worth mentally noting in the background where they actually appear from and where do they disappear off to next ? It's a narrative that underpins all sorts of adventures and characters such as Quantum Leap, The Matrix, Sapphire and Steel, Dr Manhattan, Rick and Morty and Mr Benn to name but a few.

It is a brave GM that stretches themselves across several universes but providing that the detailing is in order than a party can be afforded some scope to follow their whims. Bearing in mind that some environments are a life's work, Tolkeinesque commitment isn't necessarily required to deliver an immersive experience; just make sure your party are kept busy. But sometimes you can get away with sheer shock value, at least for a while and GM Alexi has initiated his first dimensional jump of The Strange into Tellytubby land. This shocked me and I'm not even playing in it.

The sheer impact of the reality does start to give way to logistics as of course Tubby language is very primitive but I understand from the players that more complex communications can be achieved using ones built in monitor. Given of course that the entire universe consists of a small green hill, I trust their dilamma will be short lived. Where they will jump to next will be anyone's guess, though if I were to guess....

Slings and Arrows of Outrageous fortune

Not entirely inappropriate for a Star Trek rpg, we are indeed quoting Shakespeare now. However I actually refer to last weeks Exalted antics and it was a relief to have back at it after our GM returned from his holiday to put another chapter of the adventure on the table. The quandary of last session was to devise a plan to steal some rare and magical tree petals from the walled and patrolled garden of an influential town chief.

Planning is usually an excruciating and mostly irrelevant pastime in role playing but whether it was by the alignment of the planets or just that no one felt like arguing the toss we concocted an elaborate plan off the bat which comprised shooting at some branches from the other side of the wall and collecting the shavings downstream from a small brook running through the property. A sort or covert remote tactical topiary siege. All that would be needed for the house guard was a small distraction which I was very happy to provide by way of a conga involving as many bar flies as possible.

Problem is that how do you prune a tree from a hundred feet away. Well oddly enough, swiss army arrows have been around for centuries for all sorts of tasks from fire cage heads to rope cutters and as much as I try not to learn new things it was quite interesting to discover what our ancients did with their bow skills. History aside we did appear to be completely successful but the amount of personal mana I had to use in order to manipulate several guards and a long line of drunk people did mean I finished the session with the glowing head of a powerful deity...oh well, perhaps no one will notice..