RPGaDAY 2015: Days 10-12

Day 10: Favorite RPG Publisher

I had a hard time with this one, cause I don't really have a favorite publisher. I feel like I'm a little too new on the scene, and also that the publishers that I do know, I don't really know. But then I have been starting to meet a few designers at a very few cons, and although exciting to see the different work that's coming out, I still have no favorites.

So with that, I went googling. And I like Stephanie's answer (which was Evil Hat Productions), so I'll leave it here for people to read.

Cause I got nothing right now.

Day 11: Favorite RPG Writer

Jim Pinto (just so I can sound even more like a fanboy). I like his writing style. It's a little abrasive, and has a little attitude. And he uses stellar fonts.

Day 12: Favorite RPG Illustration

Wow, this one is so very hard. I started with the Basic D&D red box that was graced by Erol Otus, and loved many of his other works:

How much time did I spend staring at this image?

And then of course I loved Larry Elmore's stuff, including this lovely Star Frontiers cover from it's box set:

I really wish he'd done a few with Vrusks and Dralasites, but they only got the black-and-white cheesy shit, in the manuals.

But if I had to choose one piece of art, it'd be the WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING (from the 1E MM):

That's some scary shit when you're 9 years old!

Jackercon VII: Distress on Life Liner 928

Jackercon

What is it? Jackercon is the free, online role-playing game convention that rears its beautiful head every couple of months, when a certain D.T. Pints (an active member of the Happy Jacks RPG forum community) gets motivated enough to whip it into shape. It's an extension of the rabid fan base of the Happy Jacks RPG podcast. 

To date, Jackercon usually appears about once every 3 months or so (sometimes with longer gaps). It is scheduled for roughly a week, and relies on the HJRPG forum members to just up and volunteer to schedule and run games using G+ and Google Hangouts.

The best place to get current information about Jackercon? Probably the G+ Jackercon community.

Attendance

Current attendance is not particularly high, and suffers from the usual problems whenever anything is both online and free. It is all too easy to "commit" to a game and then flake out (mostly as a player, but every so often as a GM). This happens with some amount of regularity, unfortunately.

But there have been Jackercons where the attendance was higher, and D.T. Pints has made it known that his mission is to get more participating (which is surely a simple task, as he works on an Alaskan fishing boat, and recently became a new father).

Themes

Each Jackercon has had a theme associated with it. Sometimes the theme is conspiracies, or TPKs, or space madness. For instance, some previous thematic titles include:

• JACKERCON VI: AND SO THIS IS DRIZZTMAS!

• JACKERCON V: "In Space No One Can Hear You..."

• JACKERCON 2013 PART DEUX: "WRATH OF THE PANTSLESS"

  ...and so forth. That said, adhering to the theme is hardly mandatory.

Jackercon VII

The 7th Jackercon in the series occurred the July 18-25 week of 2015. Although I've gotten to play in 3 Jackercon games in prior years, this was my first time running a game.

As far as con games go, the games I've run thus far are my Lego-driven Savage Worlds games, and I didn't really plan on going any different this time around. But how to run a game with lots of physical props using an online medium?

Running Distress on LL928, online

Distress on Life Liner 928 is a Star Frontiers / Savage Worlds / Lego mashup, which up until now I've run a half dozen times (at cons and for friends). This was the game I wanted to run for my fellows in the HJRPG community. 

Originally I was considering using tools like Roll20 (which plugs in very nicely into Google Hangouts) to create a space ship for my game, with suitable PC and NPC tokens.

I knew Roll20 allowed the use of audio tracks (which is also a big part of my game). Roll20's plug-in for music is connected to Soundcloud, which initially I thought might be a stumbling block, but I was able to work around it for the most part. (Although I couldn't upload all the tracks I wanted, and unfortunately it doesn't come out at all in the Google Hangouts On Air recordings, so you don't get that flavor in the actual play recording).

However Roll20 did have its downsides. I couldn't quickly figure out how to use the "fog of war" components to hide and reveal rooms, and I just didn't have the time prior to Jackercon to up-skill in the technical know-how.

So, I resigned to what I initially thought was a second-best course of action... and which turned out to be the best course of action: Use a web-cam to give the players almost the exact same view they would have in a physical game.

And so, for your viewing pleasure, here is the Hangouts on Air recording for Distress on LL928. I will warn that if you plan on ever playing this, don't view the whole thing, as there are spoilers. The first hour or so is character generation (which is definitely a little slower online than in person), and spoilers aren't really an issue. You can also skip around just to get the flavor of the game.

Special thanks goes out to Kurt (D.T.Pints) and Jules (kaitoujuliet) who played in the game, and definitely Kurt for making Jackercon happen, over and over again. I definitely hope to play in the next one, and maybe run some more goodness.

RPGaDAY 2015: Days 7-9

Day 7: Favorite Free RPG

Lasers and Feelings: onesevendesign.com/lasers_and_feelings_rpg.pdf

OK, I haven't actually played it yet, but I did listen to one actual play, and I've read the one page worth of rules.

It's not often you find a game with just one stat. And I love the scenario generation.

Day 8: Favorite appearance of RPGs in the Media

Whenever Chris Hardwick makes off-hand D&D comments in shows that aren't about RPGs. Like when he's talking about the Walking Dead to just normal people and mentions things like "alignment" or mentioning characters in the show as "The Paladin, The Fighter, and then here comes back the Ranger", as if everyone should just understand what those words mean.

Day 9: Favorite media you wish was an RPG

To be honest, kinda had a hard time with this one. Ghost Writer. From where this gem comes:

Seriously though, it's a bunch of young teenagers solving crime Scooby Doo style, but with a ghost that must be communicated with through writing, and which can help them. My daughters been watching it ad naseum, and it'd make a great kids RPG.

RPGaDAY 2015: Days 4-6

4. Most Surprising Game

I'll say a game I played at GoPlayNW: Forget Me Not by jim pinto. (No, I don't know why his name is always lowercase, but he's a level 20 Font Master, so maybe that has something to do with it.) It was the most surprising because I thought I wouldn't enjoy it, and it ended up being one of the most entertaining games I had played that weekend. So lovely I bought the card deck and plan to run it with friends, and maybe at the local con here.

5. Most recent RPG purchase

Got to be The Warren, as the Kickstarter just finished successfully a few days ago.

6. Most recent RPG played

I'm going to assume the word "played" is important here (as opposed to GM'd). For me, that'd be The Carcass, also by jim pinto. 

I was playing this with my usual gaming group, which includes my friend Howie, and we have a tendency to try and break jim's games, so we decided instead of running the game as intended (as members of a post-apocalyptic tribe where the leader has died), we'd run it right as the apocalypse was occurring. 

The premise: We are all members of the Caltech Spelunking Club, currently in some tunnels under Los Angeles, as the city is succumbing to some unknown apocalyptic situation after a large explosion. The neutral tribe: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The hostile tribe: The Mexican Cartel that has been using these tunnels to transport drugs and guns around the city. Started well enough, but collapsed under some player confusion and fatigue.

RPGaDAY 2015: Days 1-3

RPGaDAY

Per Dave Chapman of the Autocratik blog, which I heard about through Stephanie Bryant (fellow gamer from Strategicons) of the Mortaine blog, #RPGaDAY is a RPG hash tag-o-thing.

It's supposedly to celebrate GenCon and August, but for moi, it's more appropriate for Strategicon here in LA. Especially because by early-August GenCon is done and dusted, but this builds beautifully to Strategicon which is just after the end of this month (and which I am keenly looking forward to).

The idea is that you blog or write or twitter some RPG related Q&A thing every day, and here's the graphic that describes these questions:

The blogging thing is fairly new to me, and a little goal of mine (for now), so why not...

1. Forthcoming game you're most looking forward to

It's funny, but for some reason, The Warren, described as a game where "players take on the roles of intelligent rabbits trying to make the best of a world filled with hazards, predators and, worst of all, other rabbits". It just sounds like a game that could either be so very kid friendly, and yet also so viciously dark and grim.

2. Kickstarted game most pleased you backed

As far as card / board / party games, I really love the Worst Game Ever by Jeff Siadek. But if I have to stick to RPGs (which is, I guess, the point of this exercise), I'd go with Jim Pinto's Protocol games. I missed his GMZero kickstarter (although I've purchased most separately), and still like those games more, but regardless I just love supporting his particular brand of RPG design.

3. Favorite New Game of the last 12 months

Been playing Dungeon World for probably just over 12 months, so that can't count, by a hair. I'll go with Microscope, because it's just something I'd like to try and run for others, and I think it might be more generally accessible to casual role players (of which I interact with more than a few) than some other GM-less games.

...and what about you?

A dedication to the Happy Jacks RPG podcast

Back into the table top RPG hobby

When I started getting back into role playing games (RPGs), about 5 years ago, it was because some old college friends were talking about how they always had heard of Dungeons and Dragons when they were young, but had never played. "Interesting!", I thought, and before I knew what I was doing, I was giving them an offer to run them through a game. Of course I hadn't played in over 15 years, so actually delivering on that would take over a year of research, not to mention the day-to-day distractions of work, and new fatherhood.

Happy Jacks RPG podcast

A big part of that year-long journey was the discovery of the Happy Jacks RPG podcast (also found on iTunes here). It's a podcast created by Stu Venable, when he started getting back into gaming. The content is very game master (GM) centric, so it was exactly what I was looking for when getting back in the hobby. 

They have 20 episodes per season, and I think they were just starting season 3 at the time I started listening. Now, some 5 years later, they are on season 15 (which is over 250 episodes, which can each be up to 3 hours in length). Along the way I've become somewhat of a fanboy.

It was one of the first RPG podcasts I tried to listen to, and one of the few I could bare. (Honorable mention goes to Fear the Boot, a distant second.) Many have compared the vibe to hanging out with friends, and shooting the shit about games, beer, and other random, related topics. I relate to that completely. 

There are now more than a few consistent hosts, however Stork is longest running since he was there on the very first episode (and almost all of them since then). But there are other consistent folks, such as Kimi, JiB (who also regularly appears on the Savage Worlds Game Master Hangout), Gina, and more. Special guests occasionally grace the 'cast, including The Angry GM, and the LARP ladies (Aya, Twin and Mowi), which mixes up the fun.

The forum

Somewhere along the way I joined the Happy Jacks RPG forums (participating regularly as user "tomes"), and joining their dedicated chatroom during their live podcasts (which occurs almost weekly). It's about the only forum of any type I regularly visit, except for probably a few at work. Even the work forums get replaced every few years, so I think Happy Jacks is probably the most consist forum I use.

The quantity of douchebags is high, but only in the best way possible. There's been very little in the way of flame wars, and it's mostly just a great GM sounding board.

Strategicon

 And so somewhere along the way, my friend Howie (one of my oldest friends, and also my main gamer buddy) joined me in exploring the world of game conventions. Living in L.A. we checked out Strategicon, at the behest of the Happy Jacks podcast. After all, they live in various parts of the greater L.A. area, and talked about the con frequently. And so we went, Howie and I, in August of 2012, to Strategicon Gateway.

And what do you know, I actually got to play with these cats. But even more importantly, without them as an inspiration I don't know if I would've adventured as far as I have now,  playing in so many other games, in so many other systems, and with so many other people. And only a little later, I would run my own games at Strategicon, and then elsewhere.

Gaming

The truth is, the game I ran for that first group of college friends petered out after a short bit, with us running 3 sessions over the course of 1.5 years (yes, really). However, they can now all say that they have played D&D! And occasionally they do ask when we'll be playing again.

Separate from that, however, I have now run two additional campaigns, one in Savage Worlds, and one in Dungeon World, with the latter spanning over a dozen sessions. I've never run or played in anything that long in all my life, even in my gaming youth, so it's been pleasant getting back into this thing.

Experience Points

All this rambling is just my way of saying, "Thank you, Happy Jackers". Thanks for putting me back on this excellent road. And given that the Happy Jacks RPG episode 000 was recorded six years ago today, Happy Birthday to Stu and crew!

And if you see me at a game convention or otherwise, just remember: Please stop talking to my experience points. But do say 'hi'.

The Happy Jacks RPG T-shirt design. Go and collect them all! (all one, that is)

GoPlayNW 2015 - Sunday and Monday

Breakfast the second

Another breakfast. Can't remember much as this was three nights of 5-hour sleep in a row, so it was starting to drag on me. 

First game: Carcass

Straight into it... ran into Jim again in the morning, and Jerry and I got co-opted (willingly, of course!) into one of his games. His friends Ian and Sarah joined us, and the five of us launched into The Carcass. In Jim's own words: 

The Carcass is a roleplaying story game where players take on the roles of the last members of a dying post-apocolyptic tribe. The leader is dead and the members are now on their last legs through the broken wasteland.

I played it once before, when Jim was down for a Strategicon in L.A., but it was a relatively large table (7 of us?), and I remember enjoying his other games more (at that time it was George's Children and Dying Memories, two very excellent games).

But I gotta say this was a great little ride. I felt like my character was more of a supporting roll, more so than a center-stage character, but I really just loved the whole table dynamic and the resulting story. Despite the relatively bleak topic, and immediate rivalries, I just remember being extremely entertained and laughing considerably. And of course it's always fun being the direct antagonist to Jim's character.

The story itself was interesting, with our prior leader dying in child birth. We were tree dwellers, known as The Hunters, living in a symbiotic relationship with The Growers. What do we hunt? Well that brings up the other tribe: The Breeders. As giving birth to healthy children is a scarcity, we hunt men from that tribe to use for breeding purposes. A fun exploration, with very memorable characters (including the sarcastic Leaf, and burly Smabb).

Edit: In the prior post I mentioned drama points when describing Ship Lanterns. As Jim has pointed out, my memory is shoddy, as this was really a mechanic of Carcass. So here it is: I really liked how drama points were spent not into the middle bank, but instead paid from one player to another (to their "foil", the player who later narrates how things work out for them). It definitely makes you consider how you want to spend those narrative points; advantages and disadvantages. And it bit me in the ass. At the very end of the game I was about to grab control, when Smabb (Jerry) bought out  a disadvantage, and passed a handful of tokens over to my rival, Mercury (Jim). And I ended up murdered to preserve their agenda. Fun!

A game of Carcass

Second game: Numenera

After a quick lunch, we returned, and Jerry ran some of us through a Numenera one-shot, including Soren (from my Friday night game) and another random traveler. Numenera is a Monte Cook designed game, and has a combination Scifi + Fantasy setting. The "numenera" is effectively "technology", although technology that is beyond our comprehension, bordering on the fantastic and magic.

I was curious about the system since I had heard conflicting things: both positive and negative. After discussing with Jerry a concept for a game I want to run for some friends, he mentioned that Numenera might be a good system for it. That piqued my interest further, and so here we were.

We had a relatively short slot (3 hours), so used the straight pre-gens that came with a pre-made adventure. The adventure, despite being pre-canned, was actually interesting and had a good twist. I played a nano, which is effectively a wizard / engineer who works well with the numenera (i.e. technology), and I specifically chose that class so I could get a feel for (what I think is) the essence of the setting. 

Although Jerry claims the mechanics of the game are relatively simple (and I can't argue too strongly against that, compared to games like D&D and GURPs), it's definitely not as simple as something like Apocalypse World. I do love how the character sheet evoked some weird-o sci-fi feel.

Jerry ran a fun game, and gave us a really good taste for the setting and system. 

Third game: Forget-Me-Not

Another Jim Pinto game. It was Jim, Jerry, Soren, and myself.

I have to admit, I was not excited going into this game, really due to my own shortcoming: I have never watched Twin Peaks. "What!?" you exclaim? Or maybe, "So what?" you ask.

OK, so what is Forget-Me-Not? It's one of Jim's original GM Zero games; a bit of a narrative card game. The background (perhaps not too dissimilar to one of your favorite David Lynch creations):

“In the remote town of Northern Falls, Rebecca Ashwick has been murdered. But no one seems too keen on solving the murder, not even the residents…”

And a little more:

Set in the fictional town of Northern Falls, [it] allows players to take on the roles of various key figures in town — the Sheriff, the Town Drunk, the Heiress, the Reporter, etc. — but no one owns any of the characters. Each scene is played different from the last, as we explore the confusing and weird behaviors of the people unaffected by Rebecca Ashwick’s death.

This game was absolutely fantastic. My initial concern was that I wouldn't be able to bring much to the table without that background. But the fact is, almost anyone can do justice to the story, because the game guides you in crafty ways. I won't go on about details, but I will say that I probably laughed hardest all weekend at this game, and that says a lot.

Splendor

The con was winding down. And that's when a random passerby started chatting with us, interested in gaming. Before I knew it, we were playing another game of Splendor. I was pretty exhausted, so didn't really have patience to teach the game, but kudos to me for being patient and introducing someone into the hobby. Seriously, it was hard. 

Con Wrap-Up and Drinking

From here there were a few groups that were getting together to share in chit-chatting. Jim took off, and Jerry, Soren and I ran into Andy (from Friday's game, and of GeekGirlCon fame), Chris (also from Friday's game), Max, and various others.  We ended up at 8 oz burger., and despite the wait, that was some excellent grub. Beer selection superb, and lots of great "what was your favorite game?" and "what did you play?" type conversations, which would only interest the folks there.  Extra props to Chris, from which an unreal milkshake came about, and to the staff, that allowed us to stay until way past when we should've been out the door. 

But alas, it was time to go. The con was over. Or was it?

Monday

Actually, yes. The con was over. However Monday was just a super relaxing day, involving numerous walks and conversations with Jerry, and visits to Stumptown, game stores, and more. Although we had to check-out at the dorm around noon, they allowed everyone to store their stuff behind the front desk, just like a hotel. We eventually found ourselves in the dorm lobby, waiting for Jerry's final moments before he had to go to his train.

That's when we ran into Morgan Ellis (of Fate fame, who I had played with once down at a Strategicon, and seen there many times) and Stras. Jerry left, and then Morgan, and then Stras and I just had one of those amazing conversations that lasted about 4 hours. So many conversations, such an interesting dude, and again just inspiring as far as the folks behind the scenes in this wonderful RPG world we live in. I got to hear amazing stories of Andy's Mad Max: Fury Road Dread game from Saturday, and  Logan Bonner's Refuge in Audacity, both of which I am sorry I missed.

Just goes to show, you think you've had a great convention, and played so many great games, and yet there is always more excellent creativity and fun to be had. Inspiring.

The rest of my trip involved visiting a long-time friend in Seattle and hanging out with her family, and even a trip to Ray Gun Games. But it all had to come to an end, and eventually I had to head back to San Jose. 

Thank you GoPlayNW. You will always have a special place in my heart, and I will strive to make it again, one day.

Raygun games, with my friend Ryan and his daughter Ella in the background.

GoPlayNW 2015 - Saturday

Breakfast and con meals

Glorious breakfast. I have to say the dorm cafeteria food at the con was pretty nice. As part of the convention cost you get tickets for breakfast and lunch. The tickets are a little restrictive sounding, in that they say you are only allowed to have 1 hot item, and 1 salad bar, and 1 fountain drink, etc. So no, it's not all you can eat. But the food amount that you get is still plenty (more than I could eat at times). And the cafeteria had at least a few stations, so there was always a bit of variety, and the simple standards (like burgers and sandwiches and a pretty decent salad bar).

First game: Ship Lanterns

Ran into Jim Pinto (of postworldgames fame), who I've played with a few times at Strategicon, and I kept in touch with when coming up to the con. He coerced me (without too much resistance) into playing with him, and I likewise coerced Jerry into joining us. We got a few more players. And then we launched into Ship Lanterns, a protocol game.

Now, as far as a description of the protocol system, here is the one from drivethrurpg: The Protocol game series uses vignettes, interrogations, interludes, and ensembles to tell a story. Each story explores disparate characters dealing with adversity and isolation in a dramatic fashion.  There are a few mechanical devices, including a deck of cards (as the randomizer which provides story framing and other input), as well as tokens that represent drama points (that are spent by the players).

Ship Lanterns specifically deals with "wish-fulfillment gone awry and set in a Southeast Asian village. Children gather on a bridge to throw cherry blossoms into the water, asking the river spirit (Thuy-Tinh) to grant their wishes. Characters take on the roles of children, dealing with the results of their wishes."

The Protocol system immediately allowed us to define all sorts of relationships between the characters, including lust (which sounds like it could be dangerous when playing children) however all the players really played the shit out of this game and it never got weird (without us wanting it to be weird). Of course it was a Jim game, so it did get dark... one NPC had a coma, and was later murdered by one of us as a sacrifice, a wayward soldier gave a kid his gun, all but one character had sad endings, and the one happy ending involved a kid stepping on a land mine.

This was my second (or third?) time playing a protocol game, and I definitely have a better handle on how the system works. The part which initially confused me (and takes a little time to sink into my skull) is the difference between the different scene types (vignettes, and the others that come in this game). But once you have that down, it rolls well.

If you like narrative driven games, and you haven't gotten to play with Jim, I highly recommend doing so.

Lunch

Again, food was good. Great salad bar, and I think I had the black bean veggie burger, but with bacon. Delicious. Also, we had a nice big group of folks, and again everyone was easy to mix and talk to. Great crowd.

The Lottery

For the second game on the Saturday they have a special version of The Donut (introduced earlier), called The Lottery. Instead of calling for games, they let all participants place their name tags into a "hat", and then draw them in groups of 4 (or roughly four, depending on the total number of participants).  These groups then find a table, and play. What do they play? Well, obviously that's up to the table. You can see how this might go awry, however it seemed to work pretty well.

Not interested in this level of randomness? No problem, there are still sign-up games, and of course you can just grab people you like and go gaming, separately.

But I wanted to give this a try, and ended up with a group that consisted of Lucien (one of the same players from the morning Ship Lanterns game), and two others. One guy mentioned he could run Microscope, and I expressed interest, since I'd never done so.

Second game: Microscope

Have heard about this for a while, but all I knew was that it was a collaborate exercise in world building. Check the Microscope website at Lame Mage Productions for details, but here are a few summarizing statements: 

• Mock chronological order.
• Defy time and space.
• Build worlds and destroy them.

That pretty accurately sums up most of the feel of the game. I've played The Quiet Year before, and found this game equally accessible and well structured. There are definitely specific mechanics and rules in place that  restrict the way narration and collaboration occur, but specifically to benefit the ability for everyone to share narrative control. You can see how it's been playtested many times by many people to produce a fairly simple structure that yields beautiful exposition.

I won't go into the details of our game, but we decided to explore a sci-fi setting, where magic is introduced and begins to gain in power (however, is incompatible with technology). One "bookend" - the frames between which the game is explored - is the discover of magic, and the other is the "Magical Singularity" where humanity ends, which wasn't defined any further than that, at the outset. In the end we had an eons-long history of empires coming and going, struggles between magic and sci-fi factions, and eventually the discovery of a an alien plant race (that provided the magic through its seed pods). The Magic Singularity? That moment when the alien species combines itself with humanity (hence now they are "singular"), which ends both individual races to produce a galaxy spanning, magic wielding, super-race. Fun!

Microscope crew

Dinner

Dinner was included the first night, on Friday, but the after that it is only breakfast and lunch. So Jerry and I ran into Soren, and took him along with us. The streets were a bit mad, since just north of the University is the local gay district, and what do you know... the Supreme Court made a pleasant ruling that just happened to coincide with the Pride festival! So the streets were busy. We scoped out a local gastro-pub called Quinn's (thanks, Yelp). The beer was very good. And as always love eating with Jerry, because almost every meal is family style.

Sunset from the 8th floor of the dorms.

Third game: One Night Ultimate Werewolf

We returned back for the last official game of the night. Jerry had brought One Night Ultimate Werewolf, a party game not dissimilar to Werewolf (which itself is similar to Mafia, if you know it). A bit of a deductive party game where players take on the side of the villagers, or of the few werewolves who are trying to eat them up. Except instead of taking exponentially long (based on number of players), One Night Ultimate Werewolf can actually be played in a fairly short round.

As opposed to being played over many "nights" (rounds), this version is played in one quick session, and involves everyone (you don't need a dedicated narrator). After 2 or 3 rounds you quickly get it, and yep, I definitely like it much more than the traditional version.

It was definitely what I needed at about this time as well, as my mind and body were a bit fried, and I don't think I could've done an RPG justice.

Saturday wrap-up

We didn't play for too long, with many players about in the same shape as us: exhausted. Jerry headed back to sleep, but I stuck around for a little bit. Many folks were either wrapping up games, or playing other small ones. I taught some folks how to play Lost Cities. I ran into Jim, who's game didn't go quite as well as he would've like (read: got to hear him rant for a bit, always fun!), and finally went back to the dorms. It was hot, so shower and sleep, then woke up around 3am to take another shower, and then back to sleep.

GoPlayNW 2015 - Friday

The short story: I was taking my daughter up to San Jose to visit my parents for 2 weeks, and discovered that GoPlayNW, a table top RPG-based game convention based in Seattle, was going to happen during that middle weekend.

• Free babysitting = GO.
• Friend Jerry from Oregan can make it = GO.
• People on the GoPlayNW forum seem cool = GO.
• Friends to stay with after convention = GO.

All systems launch!

Going to Seattle

Up and at 'em. A 6:30am flight from San Jose to Seattle for the min-max win (minimum price, maximum time at Seattle). Travelling with lots of gear is a pet peeve, but I was planning on running my Lego-based Star Frontiers game, which has lots of moving parts. It was worth it in the end, but meant I had to lug my stuff around for a bit.

It's been 11 years or so since I've been to Seattle. The most obvious difference was the Link light rail. Just $3 for a straight shot into the city during rush hour? A godsend. Doesn't get you to Seattle University (the location of GoPlayNW), but that's only about a mile away from the downtown light rail stations… I mean, you can walk that in like 20 minutes right? Do not be deceived! Seattle, much like SF, has a well deserved reputation for being hilly. If you have luggage, make it easy on yourself. In my case I used a Lyft (aka a smaller Uber), for the first time in my life; my brother works for them and was trying to convince me to take them.

Lyft PROTIP: If you sign up for it, wait until you get to the city of choice, since – as of this writing – you get 3 free $15 rides, however only in the location where you initially sign up. I signed up in San Jose, so couldn't use my freebees here. I had my friend Jerry sign up in Seattle when he got here, and that worked out quite well for us late in the weekend, when we actually needed rids. (You likely won't need any while at the con itself.)

Getting to GoPlayNW

Fortunately, unlike hotel-based cons with hotel check-ins, at GoPlayNW you can "rent" a dorm room for the weekend, and they care very little about check-in times. I was able to get in my room when I arrived there around 11am, and that meant time for a cat nap. Yes, I'm that old.

Jerry took the train up from Oregon, and landed around noon time. He unfortunately didn't heed my advice (which I hadn't quite formulated yet) and walked the mile to the school with his heavy luggage. After a sweaty hug, we settled for a bit, and then headed down to the dorm building lobby, where we slowly started to meet folks that were here for the con.

We immediately were approached by friendlies! This is a theme that would be pretty consistent throughout the weekend: Don't know that person? Say 'hi'. Someone doesn't look included? Include them. It was so unbelievably refreshing and pleasant. And the caliber of gamers was just very high. Lots of people with interesting perspective, experiences, and motivations, all with a heavy love of gaming.

I brought a little collection of board games in case we had downtimes that needed to be managed, and it immediately came in handy with some 2-player Lost Cities, and a few sessions of Splendor.

Initial meetings and friendlies in the lobby of the dorm. A game of Lost Cities in the fore.

Because the con was relatively small in scale (about 120 people), it had a very intimate and relaxed feel. There was a "formal" dinner on Friday evening, although there was really not that much "formal" about it, just some yummy eats, and more friendly conversations. Other than how friendly folks were, something that impressed me was that after these great little conversation, I'd then find out that the person was actually someone I was familiar with, or have designed a game I had heard of. This was like a little hippie game nexus! (to borrow the "hippie" game parlance from the Happy Jacks RPG crew and forums).

I'll give a special shout-out to Max (who has posted his write up of GoPlayNW 2015 here), who had a specific goal of welcoming folks who looked new / lost / alone, and have since found inspiration from that for future con attendance.

The Donut

Dinner over, and time for the first game, in this case one I was running. I had 2 pre-registered players, Jerry and Chris. And that's when I was introduce to The Donut.

Now, some games are setup ahead of time and have a sign-in sheet, similar to other conventions I've been to. However, there were about 20-30 people standing around with no game to play. Interesting. So, The Donut is a little thing they do before a gaming slot runs to solve this problem. Any GM with a sign-up game and missing players comes up, and then they ask for volunteers who want to run games. Effectively it's a "games on demand" type setup, but the GM pitches the game real quick and says how many players, and the organizers try to ensure it looks like there are enough games for the number of lost souls. Then they just let all the folks find their games in a mad-dash of chaos. And it works, beautifully.

The Donut

Distress on LL928

So, after all that I got Soren and Andy, 2 more players, and we were off to play. This was my first time running my game with some new tweaks (from my initial game build), and I think they definitely worked out to smooth some kinks that I found in prior runs:

• Character creation was all handled in one phase, instead of an initial race/stats/skills phase and then later an equipment phase (which ate some time).
• The story complications (i.e. hidden backgrounds and motivations for each character) were tweaked to be easier to read and use.
• Story complication for Dralasite character was made more palatable.
• All the players are "new" members to the Scrap and Salvage vessel, meaning they are all coming in with little experience in this line of employment, which works better in evoking the theme and feelings that everything is a little out of their depth.

All in all the game went well, and finished about 30 minutes after midnight. That's probably the shortest run of the game I've handled thus far (a total of 4.5 hours). The players seemed happy, and in the end that's all that mattered.

The crew of the Life Liner 928.

Off to the dorm room, and to find that it was really a hot box, and the windows were completely misleading since they did nothing to bring the slightly cooler air from the outside, in. In the end we probably got about 5 hours of sweaty sleep. It was an unusual warm Seattle week, so if you come on a future GoPlayNW, you probably (maybe) won't have the same issue… at least I hope not. 

Triple feature (part 2): Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max (2 of 3)

Excellent treatise on feminism. Just kidding. Great movie.

[SPOILERS AHEAD] Would you want to run this scenario as an RPG? Probably not as is, I mean that's so hard to live up to. And yet, again, it is so suited for it. You have such a great mix of characters: the captured loner, the fleeing rebel, the war boy who wants to prove himself, the breeding stock. And also such a great premise... I mean, the movie is one long chase scene, but that means it's also like an inverted dungeon crawl: the goal is to "escape", but going through various obstacles (or rooms): first the neighbors in the eastern dessert, then the storm, then the mountain pass, and then the swamp, and finally reaching the green place. The green place can be the ending, or of course you can twist things, similar to the movie, and go from there.

I was thinking along two lines:

1. Playing a pseudo mad max scenario, like lets say all the PCs are "law abiding" citizens in a local town earlier in this timeline, and the neighboring villains are out to get you. But then there are others who have done this sort of thing well, such as Jim Pinto with the Protocol game Carcass.
2. You could run a scenario where the PCs are originally at odds, like these ones in this movie. When they succeed, it doesn't end up with them killing each other, but slowing each other down in different ways. If you look at that initial chase scene with Nux driving Max as the blood bag, and following Imperator Furiousa with the breeding stock, they aren't all on the same page. Could you start a scenario where you have the PCs as adversaries for the initial scene, and get them to play against each other for some time before being confronted with a shared goal and direction? Each time they screw each other, it just makes their real opponents (such as the chasing army, the other villains in the wastes, environmental hazards) catch up?

That's about as far as I thought about it... but as you'll see in a post later about GoPlayNW (in June), someone has taken this and really ran with it, and to awesome effect.

Tomorrowland (3 of 3)

Not too much here, but I'll say this. I had very low expectations around this movie, and was pleasantly surprised.

The movie plays with time travel-type concepts, and I remember thinking something interesting about that, but you know what? It was the third movie of the night and by then I was a bit fried. 

I did meet a friendly homeless guy named Martin on the way home though, and had a nice half hour conversation about life and travel and places around the world, and that was pleasant.

Triple feature (1 of 3): Poltergeist (2015)

It was Thursday, and this week that was my "night out". J and I alternate... one watches the kid, and one goes off and does his or her thing. A "night out" doesn't always mean out per se, and sometimes one of us uses our night out as a night in; working on a craft, or game, or whatever. And quite often my night out is when the gang comes over for RPGs or board games.

But this night, was a masturdating night. I headed to the multiplex with my bag full of snacks:

• Flask of Kahlua for the movie coffee (combined with their French Vanilla creamers = decadent)

• Half-eaten bag of some Trader Joe's flavored popcorn that J hadn't liked

• Bag of Japanese sweet and salty crunchy snack with seaweed in it

• Block of Srircha chocolate, recently delivered from a Think Geek order

• Some Lego chocolate bricks

• Flask of port, to go with the desserts (normally saved for movie #2)

Ready! On the menu for tonight, three movies. Keep in mind I was just coming off of a very excellent Strategicon last weekend, so of course I was looking at the whole thing through the eyes of a role playing gamer. And so I give you: three movie reviews by a gamer.

Poltergeist (2015)

It didn't get very high ratings, and most reviews were comparing it to the original, with the original winning the fight. So obviously I was a little worried going in. I really think it was pretty good. The characters played their roles well, and I didn't feel like any of them overwhelmed the others... each played their part, and if you look at the movie from the aspect of trying to figure out what is going on, there are very few obvious holes in the story, and it gels well.

[SPOILERS AHEAD] It seems like the story is really about the house being in a position that makes it a meeting place for a combination of intersecting powers.Imagine a house built on a graveyard. The developers said they'd move the bodies, but instead only moved the tombstones. There is a tree on the house property that is so old it's been there before ANY of these homes, and there seems to be something angry, or otherwise unusual, about it. And of course there are massive electric poles right behind the back yard which are humming with energy. All these intersect, and cause... something? Great setting for a horror game.

I watched the family in the movie, and decided if I ran this as an RPG, I'd go with Dread, and use the following PC choices (where each would have a standard Dread leading-questionnaire):

• The parent lost their job so they need to move into an "affordable" house, and this is the only one available in the price range.

• The teenager is a fan of parapsychologists TV shows. 

• The lead parapsychologists looks for these haunting and such for a living, however also used to be married to the famous parapsychologist on TV. Your relationship with them isn't bad, and the ex-spouse is the one you call for help when you're out of your league.

• The parapsychologists assistant just graduated from high-school, and instead of college is hoping to make a name here. More scientifically-driven, they have found that all the events thus far can be solved by looking at things from a logical standpoint.

• The kid is closest in age to the youngest daughter, and due to the kid's young age, and therefore sensitivity, gets to experience the house's weirdness first, and first-hand, before the others. Questionnaire should definitely define things like what their favorite electronic-based toy that they dig out prior to unpacking. Also something that keeps them up at night (in the movie they use the clowns, but it could be anything, really).

The main NPCs, mainly because they can all drive the plot forward, would be:

• The spouse helps move the story along, can be put in danger or killed, or otherwise freak out, not believe in the weirdness, etc.

• The youngest daughter talks "to herself" at appropriate times and acts weird (i.e. is able to communicate with the poltergeist), and gets captured by the poltergeist later in the game (maybe after some failed attempts, depending on how the PCs react to things; e.g. in the movie the the kid (her older brother) runs away at some point to get his parents and tells her not to move, and is really too scared to help her... beautiful time to have her captured. If he tried to save her, that'd require some serious guys, and some serious block pulls.

• The famous parapsychologist from TV gets to be knowledgeable and helps provide some key information to the PCs. They also seems to know what they are talking about, but also do something unscientific and generally weird. I think this can best be defined by the lead parapsychologist PC or the teenager PC questionnaire.

• The poltergeist, which is really a bunch of angry dead souls who are able to communicate to our world via the electric emanations, but are only really able to communicate with those that have less formed brains (the youngest of a group). Their goal is to try and convince the youngest daughter to come into a portal, with the intent of then trying to follow her out of it, to escape this deathly world they're in. 

Additionally, any of the player (PCs) can be NPCs if you have less than 5 players. What's perfect is you can borrow their general motivations or attitudes from the movie.

I've got more thoughts on this one, but in general you can follow some of the same plot threads as the movie. You can start with the family just moved in. 

• You'd want to introduce the parapsychologists early, maybe by setting up a pre-story of having them getting a call from the prior owners, but not getting too far before those prior owners took off, or disappeared (can be part of the questionnaire).

• There are certain things that would work well, like revealing that the real estate agent neglect to mention the people disappearing (it's not technically a death so no need to legally mention that, right?), or the graveyard (technically it was "moved"). These things can be revealed by other PCs via questionnaire items (or NPCs if no one chose those roles).

• You can bring in the TV parapsychologist either if he is called, or for another reason (maybe he's felt a disturbance and knows everyone here is our of their league). The TV parapsychologist can know some things, but you should leave room for doubt on his authenticity and knowledge, and you can make him purposefully wrong on some things to flavor that.

• Definitely only the youngest should be able to more easily navigate the world of the dead (as in the movie) without massive block pulls... the older the PC, the more constant they need to pull to prevent going absolutely mad by the onslaught of the disturbed souls of the damned.

The more I've been thinking about this, the more I'd love to run it. Obviously it'd be good if people haven't seen the movie. If it takes a long time to get my shit together, it shouldn't matter, because by then people won't even know what I'm playing off of (as long as I don't call the game "poltergeist"). Work in progress...

Coming next: Mad Max: Fury Road

Painting cheap plastic toys to use as RPG minis

I like running RPGs with minis. Not always... I mean, a great game of Dread, or one of Jim Pinto's Protocol games, or some Apocalypse World and other games I've played, all of these can be fabulous without miniatures, found solely in the mind's eye. However, in general, when running things like fantasy RPGs and campaigns, miniatures can be fun.

I've bought my fair share of minis in the last few years, and actually have painted more than 60 of them, but still have many more in the queue, and sometimes I just feel burnt out on the painting deal. However, being a relatively new miniature painter, I was surprised by what a huge effect the wash has on painting. Wash refers to a paint, normally dark, which is of a fairly watery consistency that is used to give shadows a painted miniature. The first time I painted a mini I had some simple paints, but didn't have a wash, and looking online I found a recipe for do-it-yourself wash (which consisted of dark paint, water, and elmer's glue). It worked, but I quickly moved on to the ones that are put out by the larger mini paint vendors, and haven't regretted it.

All said, buying real miniatures, and of course painting them, can be costly in terms of money, and especially time. But I have found a nice cheat. I've ran into a few cheesy looking plastic kid toys, including little animals, dragons, and such. Although you can use them as is, they tend to be a bit garish... brightly, and poorly, colored. However, applying a dark wash takes it down a notch so that it has a darker, more realistic look. Additionally, the wash allows you to hide what is normally a fairly crappy paint job. 

Check out this example of a little plastic dragon, on one side as-is, and on the other side you can see where I applied a dark wash:

Boom, a perfectly usable miniature, for the cost of a few pennies and a few minutes of your time. So far I've done this with a few plastic animals and dinosaurs I've found, with good effect. In at least one case, with a small coiled snake (which would make a great giant snake compared to a 25mm mini) the toy was too brightly colors... In that case I simply painted the snake with a better color and then a wash, and within a few minutes the cheesiness was removed, and I had something that was nefarious looking.

A perfect spot for short order heroes

In one of our last RPG sessions, I had the gang run into a few (NPC) refugees fleeing from the lizard army that is decimating the area. I wanted the NPCs to have some personality, and who knows, maybe one or more of them would be important in the upcoming sessions, but I didn't want to put that much work into it. I mean, just coming up with some names was hard enough.

Fortunately, I have my deck of Short Order Heroes, put out by Calico Games. I picked up a copy at one of the last Strategicons here in LA, since these guys are locals. I love the artwork, it's very clever and often cheeky. These cards can be used to run its own game, as I witnessed when I brought my 5-year old daughter to a con and we joined in a round of kids playing. I mean, it was a game where the players ranged in age from 5-11, and the GM was like 11 years old. It was awesome:

That said, I didn't use the cards in that fashion, but in another way it can be used, which is to generate personalities. I write down 4 names, place the minis next to them, and in front of my players draw 2 cards each, and voila: 

Now they can start addressing various NPCs, and instead of the me having to pre-plan or remember personalities, it's all laid out there. I'm sure there are many times you'd want to pick the cards behind "the GM screen" (not lay your cards on the table, so to speak), and have the NPC personas come out in play. In our case they had decided to take the refugees along, and we made the next day or so an "interlude" where we assumed they sort of got to know the folks. In that sense this helped since this was effectively how they would have quickly judged the NPCs, but still leaves plenty of room to play different personalities, needs, wants etc. And it helped me quickly define their professions to suit. Tara is fierce and loud. Great, I made her someone who can watch herself, brags a bit, underestimates her foes and the PCs. Lert is foolish and organized. OK then, he's taken on the role of "leader" for the refugees thus far, but only in name, and doesn't really know how to make any good survival decisions. And so forth.

And while I mention my first use of these cards in games, I will bring up that there are a few more days, as of this post, for their next Kickstarter: Short Order Heroes Theme Packs.

Lego-based role-playing games: An introduction to microfigs

I will readily admit I haven't done too much research into how other people have used Lego in RPGs, however I have starting doing so for about 2 years now, and have some thoughts on the matter. And maybe that'll be useful to you.

Minifigures, and their problems

So, I've heard of people using Lego minifigures as miniatures for RPGs, and of course I can see how that is attractive. Don't need to paint anything, and with the modern batch of Legos there is a huge variety in Lego minifigures, weapons, and all sorts of good stuff. Lego bricks are interchangeable, so you've got a way to easily configure and reconfigure the settings, over and over again. In addition, you can use exisiting scenery with little modification, as minifigs aren't too far off the standard "25mm" miniature scale (but enough to look a little odd)

The downside is that Legos are expensive, for those making their own scenery. Why would you make your own scenery? Part of that is aesthetics. If you are already using the cartoonish look of Lego minifigs, using realistic trees and hills and other miniature scenery could be distracting. Additionally, one of the charms of using Legos is indeed that... Legos! Why stop at the figures?

Of course there are knock-off Brick systems (Mega Blocks and Kreo being two of the largest competitors), however their quality is mixed.

Also, using minifigures as miniatures means a full-scale dungeon would require a shit ton of bricks.

I would argue that although minifigures look a little cartoonish, if you are coming into this proposition open to that, or even embracing it, than that shouldn't be an issue.

Introducing microfigures...

Microfigures are even smaller Lego guys, which are generally used as pieces in the Lego board games that have gained some popularity in recent years:

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The great thing is they come in a variety of forms, since there are Lego board games that span genres: fantasy, space, modern, and so on. There are even archaelogists from the 20s from Lego's Pyramid-type games (Cthulhu, anyone?)

The obvious advantage here is that using these as miniatures means you can scale-down your Lego settings. Dungeon crawl? Easy, as a 2x2 stud space will easily work as a 5' square. 

Where do you get your hands on these babies? Well, that's a little more work. Obviously you can go purchase the prohibitively expensive board games, just to get your hand on a dozen or half-dozen microfigs, but that'll cost you dearly. Fortunately, with places like BrickLink, online, you can get your hands on them for slightly cheaper (the $0.15 - $1 range for most microfigs). It's not the most intuitive web site, and requires a bit of work to navigate, consolidate purchases, and generally shop, but it's probably the most economical way to get your hands on rare or specific pieces.

That's what I did about a year back. I sunk a not insignificant amount of dollars on a large collection of these guys... probably about $60 all said. However, I put together enough microfigs to populate two full games (which I've run many times - in the case of the Dungeon crawl - or plan to run many times - in the case of the Space game), and still have plenty of microfigs to spare for future scenarios, without having to move them back and forth between settings.

So, toss the minifigures?

Hell no! The greatest combination is using the two. The microfigs are the miniatures for the game environment. But the minifigs? They can be used as excellent avatars!

Here's an example of the character selection for my Yendor fantasy dungeon crawl games:

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Each minifig has a corresponding microfig (which looks pretty similar in color and look). Most of them could be made male or female simply though hair, although there were a few (towards the top there) where I made the whole avatar and microfig different, such as in the case of the Barbarian and Wizard/Witch pairs.

So, that's the basics in getting started, for me.

Next? Understanding scale and settings. And after that? Ensuring you  don't think that Legos themselves are a substitute for a good game and scenario.

A new web site

I've got a new web site. Yippee! It's been a while since I've had a personal little corner in the world wide web, and I think I'm going to like it here. Nice and cozy.

So, what do I offer here, that hasn't been offered elsewhere in this wide world? Probably not much, just a little slice of my brain on a topic I'm pretty happy to share: games. 

"What games do you play?" 

I play a variety of board games. For a while it was Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne, and a number of others. Recently Splendor is one of my favorite "board" games (although it is all cards and poker chips, sans board).

But recently, after a 20-odd year hiatus from table top role-playing games, I've gotten back into them. What is that? Well, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is probably the best known of that genre, and a google will help you more definitively answer that question.

The only issue for me is that traditionally D&D is a bit more "crunchy" (i.e. mechanically and rules complex) than I was really looking for, especially since many of my players are close friends who aren't traditional role players and don't care to manage that much game minutia. Fortunately, many indie games abound, and although I first had a stint with the Savage Worlds system, I am now running a game using Dungeon World (which is very narrative-heavy and rules-light). 

For the last 3 years I've been attending the local game convention here, Strategicon, which runs three times a year near the Los Angeles airport (LAX). I've played with many an amazing GM at the con, although I know that even that is a small bit of the greatness that permeates this hobby. That, combined with my religious listening to the Happy Jacks RPG podcast (and participation in the amazing HJRPG forum) has begun to codify some of my gaming tenants and preferences, but I'm always ready to blaspheme a bit.

"Why games? Aren't you sufficiently grown up now to <blah blah blah>?"

Sorry, I kind of tuned you out after "games". Games = Play = Fun = Learning = Life.

We've been playing games with our daughter now for a few years, and it is definitely the easiest way to enable learning of many different types, in my opinion and experience. And I'm sure I can wax philosophical about games some more, but there are plenty of resources out there in internet-land to answer this question for you.

So, without further ado, or introductions, here it is, my little corner of the virtual world.