2077

Its difficult to suggest that I have been looking forward to 2077 as that would make me 108 years old and whilst that many candles on a birthday cake could be managed in principal with appropriate health and safety planning my main concern would be consuming excess levels of fire retardant. However with the forthcoming genetic and cybertec revolutions that we have all been promised my future resistance to excess aging and marzipan may well be a thing of the past.

I do very much enjoy the cyber culture, obviously such films as Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, Aeon Flux and the Matrix being close to the archetypes and I have also enjoyed the more recent interpretations such as Incorporated and the incredibly faithful Altered Carbon. Whilst we have dabbled in the realm of Eclipse Phase at the club I don't think we have actually played any other game set in that genre though of course cyber enhancement does crop up as part of the more incidental mechanics of many of the worlds we have experienced.

Existentialism is hard to get your head around but does provide many unique situations for role-players, more so when it comes to the notion of identity what with multiple copies of characters running around with varying memories depending on when they were instanced let alone all the bodily augmentations - cyberpunk provides a deeply invasive as well as a highly intimate relationship with the world around you but as with access to the raw building blocks of humanity, trauma is earth shattering when it happens.

In keeping with RPG viability and just like the latest Cthulu, the new Cyberpunk 2077 is released alongside its videogame counterpart but nevertheless stems from a lineage going back to the late '80s as I was playing it back then at Uni and have since then kept it at the back of my mind, perhaps in the near future we will be playing something set in the near future...

Term Time

One of the logistical challenges we face as a club are the large cohorts of students in and around Brighton; what with two universities and a number of colleges its quite common to get undergraduates wandering in and filling their valuable study time by signing up for a game. Whilst we are all welcoming across all species there is a corollary circumstance which means that if a GM gets two or three students in a party then they will tend to evaporate as the summer exams and holidays impact. This is one of the reasons why we get a little lighter on players over the brighter months and come the Autumn we then get more interest. It seems that in the D&D for example that a few of the younger players are suddenly not on the scene and this is no coincidence. However as we are approaching the end of our current cycle I know that at least one of the other games has broken so buy judicious use of cunning and guilt I'm sure I can draw in some other players for the upcoming finale.

All told this implies that we are probably back to three games for a while which is no bad thing as whilst there is ample room for a couple of other games it does mean running them in the bar area which I don't mind personally but one does get hassled be jukebox junkies and the occasional purveyor of raffle tickets. 

On another social note, GM Warren booked us into Dice Saloon last Sunday for another installment of TORG and it's starting to flesh out a bit both in terms of the mechanics as well as the scenario. We are in the middle of an inter dimensional incursion in New York and whilst we have just been dealing with the shock of dinosaurs, tropical forests and lizard men on the block, we have now a sense of a power structure behind an invasion and are in contact with an advanced AI from a seemingly extinct race that lost its battle against similar events. Its all getting very interesting and as always with TORG, knowing too much or too little can lead to sudden regression or evolution of ones character; its a bit like Darwinian snakes and ladders.

Don't Swallow

Well, it was a pleasure to have GM Max at the table last week. Whilst he lives next door to the club we occasionally get his presence by way of a quick social and when the stars converge he will bring his Viking speakers along and treat us to a game of something. Whilst he didn't intend to sit down and play I actually had an absent orc, in more ways than one, and given the chance to pick up a quick and easy character we snared him for a session.

I particularly enjoy low int characters myself as its a great chance to have a laugh, keep the plot rolling along whilst trundling from one predicament to another. It's a sort of near death slapstick but in the case of the Orc Barbarian, re pleat with trophies sticking out of him like a drunken game of kerplunk, he did somehow manage to swallow a water stone at some point. These stones generate water on a slow and steady basis and are placed inside a water skin for survival in arid climates or long journeys. Problem now is that the Orc will have to make a roll every time his danger sense goes off or he will wet himself.

More along the lines of new games coming up, the vaguest plans are forming. We have lost a few members to the summer suns and a couple will have moved on to even weirder clubs so I am unclear whether we have enough players to sustain another four games but provisionally we have a list of:

GM Alessio - Italian Vampires - Nosferatu I guess

GM Alex - Warhammer Fantasy.

GM Dave - Home Brew Horror

GM Max - Cyberpunk

This is not legally binding by far but with the success I have had on Meetups drawing in D&D players I will be interested if we can summon others from the ether to play some less D&D stuff. 

Tentacles Ahoy

Well, in an arid world of sand, sun and silt sea, it was a slightly ironic but a strangely satisfying feeling to pit the DnD Darksun party against a tentacle or two. They have been slowly unlocking sealed elemental portals that have arrested and warped the world of Athas over millennia and as their adventure approaches its end they have come across the portal to the elemental plane of water. Given a wide amount of scope here for a challenges I was interested as to what the Monster Manual offers by way of seafood and suckers but whilst I couldn't really find a creature that suited, oddly enough I did find an appendage.

More accurately I came across the description of a Kraken but with a challenge rating of 23, our intrepid group would hardly amount to a light lunch for such a behemoth. But it then occurred to me that I don't need to use the whole creature when just one of its tentacles will do. Put that in a column of free standing water and you get a rather effective guardian of sorts. I am not sure what the best tactic is to handle such a foe but then again, I don't really care as it not my problem.

Whilst I have my gripes with the Monster Manual, I would say its really quite a reasonable reference source but when you begin to view it as a tool using the creatures as blueprints for one's own creations, then one can see it in a new light entirely; each creature can not only be augmented or treated as an archetype, entities can be combined or, as in my case, dissected to create a new challenge. This creates a refreshing experience for players already used to the tome as well as something unexpected. And one should always expect the unexpected.

Put yout hands up

So there are various party games involving closing your eyes and then either randomly pointing in different directions, spinning a bottle or sticking something to your head. In my particular case in the D&D we have a sort of party table that involves everyone placing their hands on, charging it up using your ones life force/hit points and finally sitting in an appropriate chair in order to teleport the entire group to a distant location of choice.

Now this works all good and well except when you're a half orc who just likes to try different things. The table draws its power by draining one D6 hit points per individual until it has a total of twenty when it can then be used. After teleportation, the table then needs re-charging and so on. Now its taken the party a few goes to work out the navigation mechanics but as half Orcs only listen half the time our intrepid Cameron gleefully gets up from one seat and sits in another one jumping the whole party back and forth between two places they didn't want to go. Add to that, everyone is sitting around in a circle, counting down from three but not quite everyone is placing their hands down.

After some tears of laughter, punches in the face and sore palms, I think we can now confidently say they occasionally know what they are doing.

Efficient Sacrifices

Writing a blog, particularly for a role playing society, can be somewhat unnerving. Its often the case that as we chat over drinks I make a quick note of something I was going to jot about for the following week and then subsequently forget. In this case I had made a title of 'Efficient Sacrifices' but returning to the page I cant for the life of me remember what this was referring to. It seems like some demonic alter ego takes over for a few hours, scrawls some mad ramblings and I am left to decipher what happened and piece together a mysterious puzzle from my own past. Given that this could be the basis of a intriguing Cthulu game or Chill session, its certainly not a waste of time but as I say, indicative of someone struggling with multiple personalities. On the other hand, revising the blog is also a good way to track ones state of mind over many years.

Another thing I forgot to do was email everyone regarding the ending of the current games, It seems like musings have begun and one or two GMs are planning to end their sessions soon. In super technical terms the games run Feb-July Aug-Jan -finishing in May would be a shorter game but its only a suggestion really though as if games finish in a very disjointed fashion then people can be left hanging for a new game. Nevertheless often people will volunteer some one off sessions or bring in something from a large board game collection. In fact there are often one or two betas in play test at any one time which we occasionally run through.

The final thing I forgot this week was to pop down to the Craft Beer Company for one of their rallying cries. Somewhat randomly arranged at short notice and with a wildly varying attendance, last night's session was due to host about twenty people or so. What's interesting is that I have now successfully injected new members a couple of times by extending a D&D exclusively to that meetup event so whilst its not quite right to say we have players on tap, it would, I suspect, be true to say we can grow a lot larger if we wanted to. In this case we would have our first pressures finding GMs as to date we have been blessed with really passionate people who have experience running scenarios. This leaves an important debate for us now - how large do we really want to be ?

You idiot

So I had presumed that role players have always had some sort of aversion to bright lights,  sunshine and possibly holy items. Either way our usual pattern is to be busy over the darker months and for membership to lighten along with the seasons, so given that various Druidic rituals have now authorised summer, I was somewhat taken aback by the large contingent that turned up last week.

I believe that we had four games running at six players each meaning we're close to thirty people of an evening including GMs and more to the point there were still players missing. Our more recent internet visitors are mostly staying and I can see we have more on the way so its a tricky point and time will tell but we are at breaking point for a fifth game. I think that we'll see what happens this Thursday and make a call to arms for a fellow GM to stand forward if/when the time comes.

Anyways during the drunken preamble to entertainments last week our dear Karl was talking about a village idiot he has been playing. Despite perhaps not being the most capable or ambitious of professions it does seem like a huge amount of fun. For myself I have enjoyed particularly low intelligence characters from time to time but not really thought about playing a complete idiot as I supposed I'd be unsure what would happen if I went up a level. It was at this point Karl told me that he had in fact started the character as a hobo and only rose to the level of idiot after many years. Well, credit where credit is due.

Half Time

So is your elf half human or is your human half elf ? I suspect that, like mine, your halfling would be about fifty percent of a full ling but more than capable of punching twice above his height. Dual character classing has always been a bit of a mystery to me but whilst I baulk at the admin I can sort of understand why someone would want to make a slightly more interesting character. But to be fair any character can be interesting so I'm always sceptical about adding numbers in this respect though I believe that the formal 5e terminology is multi-classing which you can choose to do at any level.

Aside from having two professions I am more comfortable mixing genetics as it makes for a more interesting narrative and choices can be difficult for split loyalties.As in real life there is always the challenge in knowing ones self before challenging the world around you but I feel I know myself well enough now as a half Buddhist/ Arsed. Splitting ones race is not quite the same as splitting ones personality though and for multiple possessions I would imagine the political correctness issues alone would be enough to drive you madder.

By way of a footnote and half hearted announcement I should say we are now exactly half way through our games given we follow the ancient half Druidic cycle of Feb-Aug Sept-Jan sessions. As always some of the games are just getting to their first plot points having joyfully pratted around for far too long, but then again, I think that's the whole point. 

Torg

This last weekend saw GM Warren fire up a Sunday role playing session at the Dice Saloon. We do get satellite games occasionally as an interest group but more specifically for GM Warren, his vampire hunting doesn't let him come to the club nights on a regular enough basis to host a continuous game. Of course he is not the only frustrated artist out there as life and work are constantly an issue to those just trying to live day to day in a fantasy world but whilst the club is quite flexible in some part time and drop in play, the more aggressive day/night work commitments do pose an issue. Its also the case that we have regular members who subsequently move out of town but the occasional event means we can often grab them for a day, have some fun and catch up.

Last Sunday saw us book a table for a five  hour session which was quite satisfying as we barely get 2 hours at the club and reminds me what a normal game should feel like. In this instance we began a TORG adventure which is a system I have been aware of since its release in 1990 of but not actually playerd It falls into the post apocalyptic genre but is enjoying a reboot from the 2017 TORG Eternity release.

Its success comes from a quite imaginative narrative which provides distinct role playing biomes across an Earth as a result of suddenly crashing dimensions with another plane. Various continental areas have now transformed into settings for prehistoric, magical, cyberpunk, ancient Egyptian and Gothic horror realms. Whilst this is a novel attempt to be a massively broad one size fits all system the interesting feature is that if characters move between biomes then they can mentally be absorbed into that world such that reverting to a primitive biome means you can forget your technological level and suddenly be unaware of how to use a a gun. Conversely you can promote your capabilities if you move to a more advanced biome, but either way if you successfully hold onto your culture you can use it to influence the world you find yourself within.

All in all whilst its difficult to feel positive about having your character stripped of knowledge and abilities it does create some interesting game play and we shall see where the next session takes us.

The Big Picture

There is an occasionally had conversation at the club between GMs about various approaches to writing an adventure and devising an overall plot. We were chatting about this again recently and sharing our various perspectives and experiences on both sides of the GM screen.

For those new to running a game there is the default road of starting with a published module which is definitely the way to go when facing a new career and not yet having built up a game management instinct. This ticks a lot of boxes straight away regarding npc detailing and overall environment but the GM has to be very clear on the details and adhere to the script tightly as the adventure will have plot threads dependent on the cause and effect of actions within the module context. This all entails reading over a source book several times. The disadvantage, particularly so for a club, is managing the time span of a fixed adventure - the club rotates games on quite a fierce basis given that there are only a couple of hours role playing in a week, games really should end every six months. Typically campaigns can be sliced into chapters somewhat like a Game of Thrones series which is a very good way to keep players hanging in suspense and not letting fatigue set in. Having said this, I have seen several games advertised in Meetups using the exact same campaign which can be a bit frustrating if you've already done it.

So there also has to be an option of bringing a game to a climax at short notice and this can be easy or hard depending on the plot. In this respect the other way to go is to heavily modify an existing campaign of create one from scratch. For my part I prefer to build a game from the ground up and generate several sub plots with the option that not all of them have to be completed to result in an overall success - this works quite well for me as it never ceases to amaze me how long a party can take to complete one small task or how quickly they can drive though another. In addition I can manage off roading easily when I have built something myself but it can take a while for the players to build up enough knowledge and stake in a game not to feel they are just part of some GM centric ego project.

In the final analysis, its often the case that if a player is getting unhappy then you can just pay them off.

Second Sight

Having balls in a game can be a double edged sword. I would imagine one could be prone to back ache staring at them all day but on the other hand they could tell you many things about yourself you may not know, whether you like it or not.  This may be a case of  professional ethics for a hard working Seer, or perhaps knowing too much about ones own future would be enough to drive one insane. I could see how there may be an addiction issues for some content but one could permissibly have a polish over an occasional glimpse.

But dropping balls into a fantasy game is an excellent way of funnelling clues to players and whilst one can scry into the future, there is no reason that a device couldn't be a useful communication tool, particularly for realms that lack industrial transport or technologically advanced teleportation, a sort of bronze age broadband. By the same token, one can see into the past if there are important messages hidden in the history of a world, or perhaps portents from those long and mostly departed.

Clues, cues and influence have to be just right though. Too little or enigmatic information is just frustrating and equally having a demi-god at the end of the line can also be somewhat overwhelming both with regard to reverse charges as well as not being able to hang up. For my part I prefer to add a physical reference to any scrying session, items and locations, which provide a definite anchor to any speculation and a well defined jigsaw piece for a larger puzzle. And just to make sure party members don't walk around with a plot device all the time it's important to make balls nice and large.

Hammers of War

So as the sword of Article 13 hangs over Europe we have some time before individual states implement censorship controls, so there will be plenty of time for a final whinge if/when there is a clamp down. Funnily enough we were chatting about extension to Brexit last week and theorizing that in thousands of years time the UK will still be popping into the Adeptus Administratum of the Galactic Empire and asking for just a few more weeks to sort things out.

On which rather clever note reminds me that our Railway club will start to host a Warhammer 40k event over the summer. Whilst its not in any way connected to us as an RPG club we do have a fair number of budding Generals and Field Marshalls who do still have a hand in fighting such engagements on other days of the week. Role Playing can be a very cheap hobby in principal - particularly if you aren't a GM - basic tools are dice and a pencil and you can even borrow those for a session. Although a set of source books can set you back a bit, they are usually a permanent resource over the course of a lifetime so strictly speaking have a very low cost of ownership. 

Warhammer tools however suffer a rather more official cycle of obsolescence as figurines and associated terrains require upgrading to stay within the latest rule sets which is essential for competitions and events, but this will come as no surprise to long suffering GamesWorkshop customers and begrudingly they take on a standing commitment. So for myself, as much as I enjoy the atmosphere of a war room, the pastime is a little to expensive for a long term commitment but I do enjoy listening to the stories

Either way, we will see if the Warhammer table top events become a permanent fixture as I am getting the sense that our venue is vaguely becoming known for its gaming.

Politics and people

This week is a very special week for the internet and sees the passing of the deeply contentious Article 13 requiring EU countries to implement controls on referencing creator content.

It is important to stress that Brighton Roleplayers are a disturbingly friendly bunch of like minded people out for a good gaming time and whilst politics does come up sarcastically in our drunken discussions from time to time we are not in any way exclusionary to individuals of any political persuasion or either side of the Brexit debate provided no one is mobbed, tortured or burnt at any stakes.

More importantly this tome itself  is not a platform for any political preaching, bar Clerics and Paladins, so to be as unbiased as possible its important to state that many people see the EU as necessarily clamping down on theft from struggling creators - something that particularly bites the RPG industry as it's a very small market. How is the next D&D or Cthullu ever going to happen if the hard work of authors is simply ripped off.

Equally for those against copyright laws there is the deep concern that many creators - particularly news outlets, critics and free thought sites, will now be crushed as they will not be able to reference any third party content - the only messages that will go out will be those paid for by giant multinationals and pro government agencies - censorship by any other name and one of the pillars of democracy that has now fallen.

Why then is this relevant to a bunch of Roleplayers ? Well I am afraid that the law also covers this blog and whilst we will have to see how the UK will implement controls, the Blog contains references and images to many thousands of sites on many platforms over the last decade. Whilst this will be an impossible situation to re-engineer it also affects my new content as I am now unsure if I can speak of or link to anything relating to anything that someone else has created.

It would be deeply saddening to suggest this is my last post but I will just have to take some time to determine if I am allowed to continue creating as I have done so in the past as I am now frightened to do so.

Batteries

The D&D Darksun players are just starting out in earnest now after a few orientation sessions. To be fair, when you are in a broken world with broken people there is a lot to get your head around. Change can be challenging but when it comes to a completely different physics it's more like learning to space walk culturally speaking. For the inhabitants of course their world is completely normal though continuing to deteriorate. However a bit like some abusive relationships, attachment is formed as you learn survival skills and any other circumstances, even for the better, are threatening.

One of the key physics of DarkSun is how life powers magic. The original AD&D Wanderer's Journal marks a crucial difference between the Defilers, magic users who would destroy living things to power their spells and Preservers who would gently tap life force to cast their magic whilst maintaining the integrity of their environment. But to be honest, this is really just a choice of two evils in my mind - either feed on a living thing until it is dead  or feed off of it parasitically. One shouldn't judge a dying civilization too harshly perhaps but there is a Paladin in the group and in the black and white world of justice its difficult to see how any magic use can be moral. Either way the world is very well thought out as just like a drug, the temptation for mages to burn living things for power has had a runaway effect ecologically speaking.

The implications of using life forms as batteries goes quite deep and there is yet much for the party to discover but its certainly a shame that in the unforgiving and relentless gaze of the Athas Sun, solar power has sadly not yet been invented.