Strategicon Gateway 2016: Friday

Another Strategicon Gateway comes and goes! This is my four year anniversary for re-joining my role-playing con-going siblings of the world. The first included great memories of a 7-hour Cthulhu game, RPG overload, and learning to play Wiz War, and Pit-mute (playing the Pit card game with no talking).

Preparations

Other than my Fallout Shelter game (written in prior posts), I was going to be responsible for our re-introduction of Games on Demand (GoD) on Saturday. In preparation, I brought a whole new bag with games at the ready: Fall of Magic, The Skeletons, Microscope, Downfall, The Quiet Year, Dungeon World, Legend of the Elements, and more.

As per usual, I headed a night early, stayed at my friend Howie and Lisa's place, and we ended up playing a round of Citadels (the card game).

Friday 2pm: Fallout Shelter RPG

Friday at 2pm I ran my Fallout Shelter RPG game, with 4 players including Morgan Ellis (a local RPG super-hero; no pressure). During the game, a father with 2 kids swung by, as his game was delayed due to a late arriving GM. The kids just stuck around watching for a while, probably entranced by the Legos.

We did a "roses and thorns" at the end, to review the good and the bad.  There were things they liked. The thorns included some excellent feedback around making PC-specific moves for the various roles, which is a great idea. Also limiting the PC-questions (I had 3 each, which gives too me too much information that I don't end up incorporating into the scenario). Some felt like less time in the Wasteland would be good

On my end, I felt like I didn't run this nearly as well as the 2 sessions at Go Play NW. Partly, it felt a little too easy, compared to the more brutal sessions at the last con. Maybe the PCs just rolled well.

I'm running this again for the Art of Story Through Gaming meetup this coming weekend, so maybe I can make some of these suggested changes and see how it goes.

Friday 8pm: Delta Green

This game was GM'd by Aaron Vanek (of Cthulhu film festival fame, and whom I've played with at the Art of Story Through Gaming meetup in LA, as well as at Big Bad Con 2015 with his Songlines game). It is a scenario that he's running as a playtest for someone else.

Players included Jim Pinto, Ryan (who I play The Quiet Year with the next day), Ben (who runs Animalia on Sunday), Howie, and myself.

Overall, the game was fun due to Aaron's familiarity with the setting and running Cthulhu games. His voices for various characters was great. The other PCs were into it, and brought their various personalities along, which made for some fun dynamics.

System-wise, I'm not a fan. Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG itself is not a system I'm that into (despite loving the settings and scenarios), and Delta Green is not much different. Although there were some things that were interesting (like losing massive amounts of stat points after sanity loss) and a few other brutal mechanics, overall there is too much crunchy mechanics for me... I'm a systems lite sort of guy. Personally, I'm more into Dread as a perfect horror and suspense system.

We ended the game around midnight.

Friday midnight gaming: The Quiet Year and Lego

A while later I run into Dimitri, and a new friend Andre from Sweden. We have a drink at the bar, and then off to look for some open gaming. I offer a few options, and we settled on The Quiet Year. Specifically, a version that I've wanted to play test for a while, which is to use a Lego Creationary set instead of drawing on paper.

Andre is not an RPG-er, so we went with settings he was comfortable with, and settled on a pseudo-Game of Thrones setting after the White Walkers have trashed the continent. In our case we are a little community of Wildlings up in a protected area of mountains.

The Legos... they worked so well. They're 3-dimensional, with vibrant colors, and can easily fit all the same criteria of a standard game, such as forcing you to make things quickly (in this case by limiting the number of blocks, which is similar to the standard guidelines of drawing things that are less than an inch in size and take less than 30 seconds).

We didn't get through a full year, more like half a fleeting Quiet Year, but everyone got the flavor and had a good time.

Dimitri on left, Andre on right.

Totem poles, dead kings, Bengy producing worms, and sexy procreating rovers. What's not to love?

A Unified Theory of Music in RPGs

OK, the title is a little pretentious, maybe? But, in all fairness, for about the last 3-4 years I've been running RPGs with music. Not all of them, but most of them. And I have a few thoughts on how to do that successfully, so will pen them here.

Define "successfully"

So, what does that mean, using music in RPGs successfully? Obviously there will be different takes on this, however my definition of successful follow these main objectives:

• Music should enhance the player immersion in the game. Keep in mind that the players will bring whatever attitude they've got, so like any games, don't expect them to come in with the exact same outlook and attitude as yourself. That said, choosing tracks that evoke the feeling or ambiance you are trying to convey can help steer the mood.
• Music should enhance the GM immersion in the game. You are also a player, as the GM. I've found that the right track can enhance my immersion in the game as well. A well placed high-pace track can get me pumped for a combat or other high-stakes encounter. Also, plan how you will manage your tracks, because no one wants a GM who has to stop the game just to change tracks. This will pull everyone out of immersion, and have the opposite effect your are looking for!
• Music should not be distracting to the players (or the GM). This is the most difficult aspect to get right. You don't want the music to drown out the players or their thoughts. It should enhance the mood, not be distracting. The easiest way to deal with a track that starts out well in helping create the mood, but quickly gets in the way, is simple reduce the volume until it's time to change to something else.
• Music should never get annoying. This is perhaps the most important aspect, and closely tied in with the previous point. I keep it separate, however, because this is the next level of bad selection, where the song isn't just a little distracting, but outright annoying. This can easily happen when a song is too sharp, too loud, or just too repetitive.

A word on immersion

Many groups feel like they get plenty immersive, and have no need for music. That's great! If that works for you, and you have no desire to complicate your life, then keep on rocking on.

Additionally, I've heard of other GMs playing flavorful music (heavy metal, thematic world music, etc.) in the background while playing RPGs, and sometimes, sometimes, the music just hits it perfectly... a climax in the music that coincides with a climax moment in play. Sounds awesome, but also sounds mostly random. This is not what I'm talking about in this article. I'm concentrating on something a little more planned, and intentional.

As far immersion is concerned, I've found that music can definitely inspire the mood at the table. Looking for something mellow and expansive? Music that evokes wandering in the wilderness? A track that gives you that unsettled feeling of being in the dark underdark?

Example tracks

Here's an example of some tracks, and what I think of when I hear them:

• Noble empires: Islands of Green by Benjamin Bartlett
• Travelling by land: Trader's Life (from Fallout) by Mark Morgan 
• The dark underearth: Underground Troubles (from Fallout) by Mark Morgan
• Humid forest full of life: Rain forest by Plate Mail Games
• Tense explorations of ruins or crypt: Ruins from the Full Metal Jacket soundtrack

To me, the most important aspect of these tracks is that they don't easily get annoying. The cadence (or speed) and volume doesn't change dramatically, or at odd times. There is no pressure to change the story according to the music; instead the music plays a role in the background.

To that end, I normally play these tracks in a single-song loop, so they play over and over. That way I can control when I move to the next song, based on the pacing or scenes that the players are in, in the game. This makes it easy to control the tracks, but does require you to have tracks that do not get repetitive.

Background audio loops

There are places to get thematic background tracks for many situations, such as from Plate Mail Games by Wes Otis. In many cases these are perfect, as they are 10 minute tracks that loop seamlessly. Within that track there is a strong attempt to capture the mood and sounds, but without repetition, so that it avoids getting annoying. It helps that Wes is an expert sound guy with a depth of professional experience, and a huge collection of such tracks. You can find his tracks on Drive Thru RPG, if you haven't already purchased many in one of his prior kickstarters. He also has a new arrangement with Monte Cook games, with specific tacks for use with Numenera and The Strange.

You can sample the 10 minute loops for about 30 seconds a pop. And there are 100's of tracks.

There are some DYI tools out there as well, where you get to mix and match the type of sounds you want. For example, the Ambient Mixer provides a number of different settings, each of which contains a few appropriate sounds, that can then be customized for your needs.

The Ambient Mixer for "Studying at Hogwarts", with sounds for fireplace, background chatter, flipping through pages in a book, and more.

One example of an attempt to create a specifically tailored album for an RPG is The Last Parsec. This is a Savage Worlds space setting by Pinnacle, and as part of the Kickstarter for the game, they released a soundtrack, which you can now purchase separately. Personally, I don't find all the tracks that useful to me, as many have too much of an orchestral feel, but track 2, Beyond the Last Parsec, is a very evocative 5 minute track, and I've used it in a number of sci-fi and fantasy games.

Movies and soundtracks

In theory, another place to go is movie and video game soundtracks. In practice, it is very difficult to find tracks that don't change volume, cadence, or mood in a distracting manner.

Sometimes you find a gold mine, such as the Fallout soundtracks by composer Mark Morgan.

Most soundtracks are built to enhance the movie, however, and they therefore pick up pace and volume during key movie scenes, which may be inappropriate during an RPG where we don't have any planned timings. A soundtrack for a movie such as Lord of the Rings sounds like it would be a great place to get audio, however it's much more difficult to find songs that meet all of my required objectives.

Making concatenated tracks

Sometimes you can find great tracks, but they might be short. A short track isn't a problem in itself, but can more easily get repetitive and annoying. A good example is the No Escape soundtrack (by Marco Beltrami & Buck Sanders). There are some great high-paced tracks there (see tracks 6, 7, 9, 2, and 16), but at 1-2 minutes in length each, they would become very annoying very quickly. However, if you string a few of them together (for example using a free tool such as Audacity), you maintain enough variety to create a solid 9 minute loop, where the overall pace is similar, but the beat and style changes enough to keep it feeling fresh. 

A slightly different, but similar approach, is to cut a track by removing an aspect of it that might not fit. You might have 6 minutes of brilliant, thematic music, and then some climax which just ruins it. Using a tool such as Audacity can make it easy to remove those parts. You too can be an audio engineer!

Finding thematic mood music in other genres

And then sometimes you just find good music. I tend to go with instrumental tracks, as lyrics can more easily distract. This can range from classic blues or jazz, to hip hop and slow techno beats, to various international "world" music tracks.

Here's some examples: 

• Intense space chase: Mistico by Faust and Shortee. These two are hip hop DJs, and so many tracks on their Digital Soul album are amazing.
• Tribal combat: Gamal Gommaa by Sahara Saidi. This is a bellydancing track. If you get the full version, check out the temporary pace change that works magic from 2:35-3:35, which gives you that little breather you need to prevent overdose.
• Creepy space medical bay: Hologrammic Dub (track 5) by DJ Spooky. There are many amazing tracks on the Songs of a Dead Dreamer album.

Playing well during game time

OK, you've collected a number of tracks. Now what?

During game time, I want to ensure that I can easily choose the track I want, on demand. This could be putting all the songs in one special playlist on my phone, or using a custom soundboard app on my phone or tablet to load specific tracks for use.

Have the tracks named appropriately. You can list them by name, if you're very familiar with the titles or artist. Alternatively, use a custom title if that helps you quickly find them, or attach them to your session or game planning. Titles such as "Orc combat scene", "Travelling between towns", and "The great forest" make it easy to hit the correct song. I normally go for a two-pronged approach, with titles such as "Orc combat (Gamal Gommaa by Sahara Saidi)", since I have a decent knowledge of the tracks, but also want that scene or game reminder of where they belong.

As an example, here is a partial view of a folder where I store tracks for a Star Frontiers space game I ran. You can see the tracks were renamed to be "in order" (roughly the order of scenes, however the players could easily skip whole parts of the ship), and always had a title, for example with track 2: "Distress Call", and also a list of songs, in this case "Hyperspace". In some cases there are multiple songs concatenated one after the other to play in a loop.

In conclusion, and what to watch out for

I won't say that everyone needs it, but I have found that in general, the audio I have used has garnered positive feedback. There are a few things to watch out for:

• Mixing it up: I've found going back and forth from the simple "background audio" tracks which are very simple, to the more flavored (and sometimes high-paced) tracks, is very useful. It gives everyone little breaks from the intensity of the music. The longer role-played scenes usually benefit from mellower tracks. The high-intensity tracks can work for combat, assuming your combat doesn't last an hour. If you are playing games with long combats, try starting with a high-intensity track to set the mood, but then settle back into a background track for the long haul.
• Volume controls: If you find the music is starting to get annoying, or a track is unusually loud or quiet, be ready to adjust the audio on the fly, without having to stop the game. Have those audio controls within reach so that you can make those changes immediately and seamlessly.
• Audio track controls: Be ready to change tracks. Does your phone or tablet have a screenlock function that turns on automatically? This may make changing tracks time consuming and distracting. Adjust those before game time begins. Do you need to quickly be able to move to any one of many tracks? Look into a soundboard that plays music tracks, instead of a long playlist that requires you to scroll around looking for the right tune.
• Get an X card, for music! The X-card is normally used to allow the table to skip a topic that some might find objectionable. Make a music card! If someone taps the card, reduce the volume or stop the track. Alternatively, just make sure that everyone is aware that the music is there to help, so if anyone finds it distracting to please speak up so that the game can be made better.
• Experience and practice help immensely. Try it out. Make some mistakes. But always ask for feedback from the table afterwards, specifically about the audio, so you can get better.

One other thing: Having music inform the game

There is also another, possibly different take on all this, although I've only so far seen, and made it work, in one scenario: Just have the music play. Use the highs and lows of the music to actually inform the game and the story.

The example being Dread: Mad Max Fury Road (which I wrote about here, here, here, and here), a scenario I stole from Andy Munich, and have run a handful of times since. In this case, the entire soundtrack of Mad Max Fury Road plays in a loop, and as it does so, the GM uses it to guide the story. When the music gets mellow, the story slows down. When the music starts pumping, the narrative gets going, and shit goes down.

Would love to find similar instances where this works, but so far have come up empty... would love to hear from others if they have made something similar work.

Indie Dev Club LA Meetup and Grabbag Microgame

Indie Dev Club LA Meetup

One of the folks who've I played with through the Art of Story Through Gaming meetup is Omowale. She's quickly become one of my favorite gamers: curious, open to new games, and most importantly: present (the key ingredient for the best of players!)

She also runs the Indie Dev Club LA meetup, out there for (mostly) computer game developers to meetup, chat, brainstorm, and network. I decided to check it out.

The meetup is currently sponsored at Pivotal Labs in Santa Monica area. They do similar work, they sponsor the meetup location, and free grub! Wale also says they are shy-people friendly, which is a super bonus. What's not to love.

I went with my friend Sonia, who was open to trying a new experience, and we weren't disappointed. Folks were friendly, and food and drink were provided. One member showcased a prospective kickstarter video for a VR (virtual reality) project he's kicking off. He also had a demo version with mini-cardboard viewer. 

Grab Bag: A Microgame

I was quickly able to get people to playtest a micro-game I've been wanting to try. I tried it a few times with my wife and daughter, enough so I had a few hacks as well. Grab Bag is a game put out by Josh Jordan, in conjunction with Stephanie Bryant's Threadbare RPG (a PbtA role playing game I like to summarize as Toy Story in the apocalypse).

Grab Bag involves players taking turns grabbing colored tokens from a bag, in order to determine a winner of the Grab, and a winner (possibly the same, possibly different) of the Bag. The Grab is the person who grabbed the most tokens. The Bag is the player who's most represented in the leftover tokens in the bag at the end of the game. 

The interesting thing is that players will bet on "Grab" or "Bag" at the beginning of the game, which doesn't decide what they will win, but instead decides what they have to give to the winner of the respective game (Grab and Bag). If you bet Grab, you have to provide a favor to the Grab winner. If you bet Bag, you have to provide a secret to the winner of the Bag. Strange, but very cool and thematic as a microgame in a game about toys.

I started by creating a bag of tokens a few days earlier. I have a box of leftover board game tokens, so used this as a starting point. I tried getting similar objects among the various player colors, and mostly succeeded. Each of 5 players (colors) is represented by 9 tokens:

A bag of tokens; 9 tokens in 5 colors

We played only a round, and although the game works for 2-5 players, we didn't get all around the table before we ran out of tokens. Not really a problem, as the game has rules around this, but if you only play the once, someone doesn't get to grab things out of the bag, which is obviously not the best. That said, if you play twice, everyone should get a chance to have some grabbing action.

Also, as I mentioned to Stephanie as feedback, it helped immensely by creating player identifying tokens (poker chips) that matched each player color. This provided two things: 1. It allows easy identification of which player is which color, and 2. You can write "Grab" and "Bag" on the two sides, to easily track what each player has bet on.

Grab Bag showing player poker chips with betting on them, and their respective collected tokens (which shows Red and Green tied as winners of the Grab, with 7 tokens each), and the results in the bag as the leftover tokens (which shows that Red wins the Bag)

Everyone thought it was a cute and quick game.

And out...

From there we moved on to Splendor, and many conversations.

I highly recommend the meetup if you are into game development especially from the perspective of video game development and project management, and are in the general LA area.

Legend of the Elements: 1/5 Character Creation

Legend of the Elements and Avatar

I recently got my kickstarted copy of Legend of the Elements, a Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) version of the Avatar: the Last Airbender franchise of graphic novels and shows.

Because the daughter and wife got very into that story a year+ back, I was hoping this would serve as a good RPG to test run.

The Wife, The Daughter, and RPGs

The wife has already played in a few sessions of a Savage Worlds fantasy game I ran for some friends a few years back, but that petered out long ago. Also, she wasn't too enthused by the game mechanics and elements of the story, so her RPG experience is currently rated as "meh".

The daughter has played in a few RPGs thus far, which includes my Lego-themed games from the last 2 years, and a few RPGs at the local Startegicon and Girl Gamer Gathering game conventions. Trying to play RPGs with her one-on-one has thus far failed in that she wants pretty much total narrative control. This means it can be fun to play "story", but less so any formalized role-playing game. GM-in-the-making? Maybe.

Anyways, we had a free time slot, and instead of plunging into a board game (the usual endeavor), I pitched this RPG, and we sat down for a little bit of character creation.

A fifth of character creation

First, they had a look at the playbooks, of which this RPG has a great variety of very thematic ones. All four of the traditional "benders" (known as "shapers") from the shows are available: Watershaper, Airshaper, Earthshaper, and Fireshaper. There is also a Spiritshaper, and a set of other cool characters choices: The Warrior, The Monk, The Peasant, and so on.

The daughter chose the Spiritshaper, and the wife chose the Peasant. Although the wife already had that look of impatience in regards to the character creation, she's never really had an experience with the PbtA playbooks. After they chose certain looks (that part of the sheet where you describe your eyes, or clothes), which mechanically are irrelevant, I would ask them questions about it, as is great practice with PbtA. "Strange eyes... what do people find weird about your eyes?" Before long the both of them were enjoying the process. For example, my daughter's character "Willow" (a favorite name of hers, I've noticed) has eyes with swirling purple clouds. 

We spent about 10 minutes just fleshing out these initial details, and they seems to dig it, but that's about where we ended it.

My plan was to run them through one of the sample adventures. The book comes with two: The Red Mountain (a quest about seeking a guru), and Festival of the Four (a quest about tension at a yearly celebration), both of which are just skeletons of quests that comes with leading questions that use the player's answers to frame the scene.

Overall I'm liking how the game is looking, and it definitely appears to emulate the style of the show very well. Up to the fact that there aren't even really mechanics for traditional RPG attrition / damage (such as hit points). Instead there is a use of Tags that can cause a PC to go through Mild to Medium to Severe states, which are increasingly precarious positions. For adversaries, there is no such set of tags, so it's really very narrative driven. Although this won't work well for any min-maxer among you, it's perfect for those interested in the story first and foremost, and especially for creating kid-friendly games. It's the latter that I'd like to experiment with this system.

More another day...

IndieRPG night: Mad Max Fury Road Dread

Mad Max Fury Road Dread

It was time for another ASTG meetup! Harry and Wale from previous meetups arrived, and my neighbor Lucas joined in. 

I pitched a bunch of game options, and everyone was the most excited to try Mad Max Fury Road Dread, discussed in a prior post: such as running it at Gateway 2015, and then creating some character sheets for it.

In this case, it was a Friday night, which meant we could start earlier, and that the kid (at 7.5 years old) could actually stay up, and she asked to play with us.

Being so long since I've run it, you start to wonder if it'll work anywhere similar to how it did in the past. I started with getting the players to tell me what kind of crew they wanted to be. They settled on a band of wanderers who prey on others, normally by befriending them and then waylaying them in the wastes.

Everyone created 3 characters a piece:

• The kid as Zero, Negative One, and "A"

• Wale as Stern, Cent, and Alph

• Harry as a family consisting of Molly, Sebastian, and Little Susie

• Lucas as Billy Silenus and twins Meg and Mel

Session

We started with the customary request for armaments and gear, which I try to make relatively hard and brutal. We almost had loss of life there at the start and the players already felt a bunch of tension.

I had the players help me answer questions about terrain they were travelling in and that was around. I borrowed an idea I saw from John Aegard (I believe... I'll try to find and add the link later) which had to do with Dungeon World and using sticky notes to create the map. Still allows for movement and having "blank spaces". This worked well, and soon we had some desert, as well as a "spring" of sorts, and a bunch of large rocks which was a meeting point for a trade / market gathering that was coming.

I started the scenario with the group already tagging along with some victims, a group in a van heading to trade goods at the rocks. My intention was that the van would also be the target of a raid, and so even though the players were there to get them, they'd end up defending them, perhaps (or at least fighting desperately for their lives, which they did). We had some good encounters and combats and chases, and dynamite was had. The kid even got to have one of her characters shoot off a MIRV, of sorts (really more of a bazooka or rocket launcher), and was able to take down a very large trailer truck off a very large cliff.

Feedback

Everyone agreed that the game itself was very fun (I even got this comment a week later at the next meetup as people were reminiscing, always a great compliment and sign). As far as negative feedback, Wale echoed the sentiment that many felt, that perhaps fewer characters would make for greater worry about loss of life. Part of that I think was due to pacing, but I think toning it down to a smaller group could work very well (e.g. 2 characters / player, especially if you know you won't be playing very long; that said we played over 3 hours). It would've also been easier to give characters a little more attention if there were a little less of them... as it is, it's up to the player to do anything of interest, but I'm barely able to keep track of them all.

The kid, being the youngest, did cause play to slow down at times, and in retrospect I think if you know this going in, creating fewer characters would help do the trick.

Would've been great to tie in things a little better, such as having the raiders attack because these folks had stolen from them, or some other more interesting and cohesive narrative, but I think all in all it wasn't necessary to have a great time... and the fact that I didn't have to plan a thing for the game just showed me how much of a great back-pocket game it is. 

The character sheets went well, but index cards would work as easily. The game and sheets are definitely going to be an ongoing component and highlight of my ready-to-go folder for cons.

Go Play NW 2016: Sunday, and onwards...

I had one or two requests (or sad lamentations) that folks had missed my Fallout Shelter game on the Friday, and so on Saturday I started to see about setting up a second run. And so...

Fallout Shelter RPG: Take 2

I grabbed Soren and Andy (who played in my Star Frontiers game last year, discussed way way back), and then was able to poach Ian and Sarah, who I got to game with the prior year as well (in Jim Pinto's Carcass game). Their main concern was whether or not they needed to know any Fallout Shelter trivia. I approximate a need for 0% knowledge, so they were in.

The donut hadn't even really gotten moving, and that worked for us, as we were able to snake the really cool glass window room in the center of the main floor. Private for audio use, but flashy for showing off all the moving parts!

The big difference for this game was that my players wanted to hit lunch and the next game slot on time, and we only had a 3 hour slot for this session. That's pretty tight, as I've always run it in 4 hours plus, and that still feels abbreviated.

But we kept it moving fast, and tight. And I definitely ratcheted up the difficulty, and started really using those hard moves. I had a blast running this, and I just love how much everyone loved getting mangled. By the end we had a TPK, except for Sarah's character (the Wasteland Explorer) who survived the final fight long enough to hang out in the upper levels of the vault until she starved. Good times!

This solidified my belief that all my recent changes have enabled the game to be run more solidly, and that enabled a quicker and more satisfying play. 

Protocol: Le Carnival

I had lunch with my Fallout Shelter crew, and Andy was planning to then run his Mad Max: Fury Road game (with large Lego war rig and miscellaneous vehicles included!) I was a bit fried from running my game, and needed a few more lunch minutes, and Jim was planning to run a Protocol game.

I hesitated. I did end up sending some satisfied players (including ET, who had to get to work) over to Andy, but played with Jim. We were joined in addition by his friend Nate. The first 5 minutes I was feeling regretful. And then the game got going, and I forgot about regret... it was that good.

Protocol games use a standard deck of cards as the randomizer, which informs all sorts of character traits and scenes, such as motivations, relationships, the types of scenes, and their locations.

We had a quick discussion over which, of the dozens of available scenarios and skins, we wanted to play. We decided on Le Carnival, described thusly:

Le Carnival is a story roleplaying game about the human oddities (freaks) of a carnival during the Great Depression era. The Carnival travels the backroads of the Midwest farm belt and the Southern states, visiting towns far off the beaten trail. Characters are carnival freaks who hopelessly seek a degree of familiarity, clinging to the idea that somehow the Carnival is family. In fact, the “Brotherhood” of the Carnival is based only on who earns the most for the ringmaster, creating a twisted sense of meritocracy. The only true currency: fleecing the clueless rubes in the uneducated reaches of America.

We had a "dwarf", a "strong man", "the human torso", the "tattooed lady", and a "contortionist". Needless to say, the game spiraled into darkness quickly, and I remember one of my first scenes as the "dwarf" was pushing the human torso Bob (played by Nate) in a little wagon, for a little journey from the safety of the back-lot of the circus over to where the normal people were. I basically used him as bait so that the mean teenagers wouldn't pursue me when I had to flee. It continued to be brutal from there.

I always have a hard time grokking scene concepts such as vignette and interlude (as Protocol defines them), but I think they are finally starting to sink in. Although even so I'll make sure to ask Jim over and over again next time, just to see his frustration. 

Jerry, Jim's blurry middle finger, Nate, and Derek as carnies.

Atlas Reckoning

And then there is Stras (which I finally learned how to pronounce correctly... as in Josh with a "Str" replacing the 'J'). I met him the prior year at Go Play, not through gaming, but through a 6 hour marathon conversation on the Monday morning after the con was over. We blabbed non-stop about gaming and have communicated lightly through the magic which is G+ ever since.

He had mentioned his plans to create Atlas Reckoning even back then... an RPG around giant fighting mecha, the last bastion of the human race, and big aliens. What's not to love?

Fortunately he grabbed me, and we had Sean, Ross, and Lucien? (please correct me if I've gotten that last name completely wrong!)

All I know is that everyone was super stoked to play, and Lucien (name pending) even went up to his room to change into a Battletech shirt in preparation!

This game was super solid. Half of it was insane mecha to mega-alien combat, facilitated as a card game, but combined with uber interesting battle-tech like game mechanics. And then the other half consisted of the beautiful prose that is emotionally heavy story gaming. It was straight-up watching an awesome anime.

Shit, check out the character sheets and mecha sheets!

Super nutso amazing... playbooks for the characters, and then shared mecha sheets.

One of the really interesting aspects was how Stras has baked into the game the concept of "sync", where a giant robot can only be piloted with 2 humans. Part of this process is a brain-meld, which causes information to spill forth from one person to another. There is even a bit of sync game which is performed when first getting ready to pilot the robot, which is in itself a little chunk of genius.

Sean and Ross trying to work together... battle ensues!

My only criticism of the game would be that it is a bit too meaty at first play, and I think some aspects are a little overwhelming. This isn't to say that Stras should chop that down, as it looks perfect for long-term campaign play! But, perhaps a paired-down version of the character sheets for con-game play would be more digestible?

Lucien (name pending), Ross, myself, and Stras (the bloody genius)

8oz Burger - A Tradition

Last year as con end, a crew of us ended up at 8oz Burger, a short walk from the con. Andy decided to facilitate such a plan again, and we actually had a reservation this time! A large crew headed that way, and a large crew ate and blabbed.

The food is outstanding: burgers, brussel sprouts, etc. I just realized I forgot to order one of their excellent milk shakes, but shit that whisky was amazing. Can't complain.

The 8oz Burger crew... with Jim Pinto conveniently just to the right of frame.

But Wait... There's More! Murder Hoboes Part 2

You thought it was over... and you were so wrong.

Various good byes were said. We walked Jim to his car so he wouldn't get mugged, cause goddamn wouldn't you love to mug that guy? I pleaded with him to give me his Murder Hoboes test cards, and he conceded (as long as I also purchased another one of his products, King for a Day... always an excellent salesman!)

And lucky me! Back at the dorm lobby, about 10 folks were playing a random game. Everyone was looking tired, but again I felt the buzz. And I am so glad I was able to pitch and force a few arms and start this game...

I got Stras, Andy, Gavin, Dan, and Soren to join in a game of Forget-Me-Not: Murder Hoboes. Jerry and I just helped facilitate, and played one or two odd NPCs as the game went on (Jerry squawked like a bugbear once). 

This was the hardest I laughed all con. Everyone cried of laughter at one point or another. It was truly an unreal experience. I would pay serious money to see comedy shows this funny.

Forget-Me-Not: Murder Hoboes... not available yet, sucker.

Andy (standing), Jerry, Soren, Stras, Gavin, and Dan, from left to right. 

After that... sleep.

And We Out...

Another Go Play NW comes to an end... Jerry and I go hit Cafe Presse for breakfast, running into another gamer group for some quick words. And then back to the dorm, some heartfelt goodbyes to him and Dan, and then a train ride to Seatac.

And so it ends, until next year...

Go Play NW 2016: Saturday

A Post World Games Day

After a lovely breakfast at Seattle U dining hall (included with the dorm stay), it was off to see the Donut, that little circle of lovely people getting games going. This is something that happens regularly at Go Play NW, where a facilitator gets players and game masters together for gaming action.

A donut!

But as has happened in the past, Jerry and I were waylaid by one Jim Pinto, the designer behind Post World Games of various ilk, including some of my favorites: George's Children, Dying Memories, Carcass, and Forget-Me-Not. He also formalized a game system known as Protocol, a very rules-light / narrative-heavy system with dozens of thematic playbooks.

At GoPlayNW 2015, we played one of these Protocol games known as Ship Lanterns, "a story roleplaying game about wish-fulfillment gone awry and set in a Southeast Asian village". It was one of my most memorable games of that con.

I was not disappointed in what was to come...

Forget-Me-Not: Murder Hoboes

The original Forget-Me-Not is one of my favorite games. Easy to play, easy to run, easy to learn. You get a narrative not unlike Twin Peaks, and always riotous laughter. Jim recently Kickstarted Forget-Me-Not: Florida, a Florida-man-esque version. But he also had an untested play-test version of a fantasy skin: Murder Hoboes.

The premise is that we share playing a set of 8 fantasy (trope) heroes, having a difficult time getting any of our quests done, including the dastardly Dungeon of Doom.

It was so good. So many laughter tears were flowing. I've told him before, I think this system is so simple and elegant, and I think this is the skin that most RP gamers would just understand. It wasn't until Sunday night, though, that I'd see just how true that was.

Heaven's Collapse

Jim then brought out a game he designed that places the players as those in the royal court during an event not unlike the Rape of Nanking, a very unpleasant event (of many) in our human history.

We start by each drawing two character cards: a princess, a general, an arms dealer, captain of the city guard, a royal bodyguard, a doctor, a seer, and so on. Each has some simple arrows which you can align to create bonds with the neighboring characters and players. Simple and elegant character bond mechanic! There is one main character in the narrative which is not played by any player, and that is only the most powerful one: The Queen.

After some initial setup scenes, any further events that occur are drawn from a card deck randomly. As the active player, you frame the scene, and which characters play in it; this does not have to include oneself.

After each scene, there is a short interlude scene that involves two players, and which adds a really interesting flavor to the overall narrative.

And then more scenes and interludes, until certain events get triggered (the queen becomes ill, or someone is arrested, etc.). 

We were all a bit impressed with just how perfectly the events seemed to play out. It felt like there was nothing random about it, as if they were chosen to tell a very precise and meaningful narrative. I'd be very interested to hear if it was just luck, or amazing design on Jim's part (I'm sure he'd prefer it be the latter!)

Note that although the game is set in a fantasy world, with odd names to protect any particular real-world country or participants, the events that are used are all very real-world scenarios that have occurred during that tragic time in our history.

Dark? Yes, indeed. But not just a meaningful and excellent game; a very well-thought out system.

Interesting ways to create bonds... character cards in the foreground, and events just above.

Praxis: Black Monk

Jim, ever working on more, has created a new game system he currently calls Praxis. This game was a playtest for one Praxis scenario, known as Black Monk.

Jim made sure we were aware that this would be a bit of a strange narrative. Given that the world was in a place where time had little meaning, death almost none at all, and the sun hadn't set in who-knows-how-long, it already started to promise oddities. Characters included the Prisoner, the outsider, and what I played: The Mule Skinner. And each character sheet had strange, leading questions that you answered, which again played into the theme.

"Odd" is an understatement. The game was very, very weird, but again, interesting and simple narrative mechanics, and some "win" type mechanics that reminded me of playing George's Children and Dying Memories. 

Dinner

Dinner is not included except for Friday. Jim, Jerry, Derek and myself (who played all the prior listed games) went off to Barrio Mexican Kitchen and Bar, a short jaunt. So good. The Habanero salsa was killer. The variety of tacos grand. The drinks excellent.

All I'm going to say about this is that Jim was incredulously exclaiming about how ridiculous it was to schedule a few hours for dinner... "aren't we all here to game!?" But ours lasted about 3 hours and that was mostly his doing. No regrets, though. 

Myself, Jerry, and Derek. Jim is represented by his hand and spoon... I am sensitive to his irrational need to not be photographed. You're welcome, Jim.

Fall of Magic

Dinner over... the four of us start on a game of Fall of Magic. This may be one of the only times I've played a game with Jim that wasn't one of his! (OK, we did play half a game of Fiasco, once.)

I love this game. We did get some good fun in there, with Jim and Jerry playing the old guard, and Derek and I the young pups on the quest... but Derek had to bailed out about an hour in. Then Jerry and Jim were falling asleep at the wheel. We got a bit of fun, but then it was time to call it quits and let these two go find a bed.

Late night hangout

As folks were later retiring, I was still a-buzz, and ran into some friends in the lobby, including Dan, Andi, and some friends I was yet to make, like Gary and Nate. They invited me along, and we went to go grab some drinks, and wax nerdy.

It was cold, I was in a T-shirt, and Cafe Presse (where we ended up) had no indoor seating for us. But luckily I reduced my surface area, and was able to comfortably survive as we all rambled like excited school kids, with interspersed moments like pleasant sighs. As the bar was closing, we retired to one of the dorm community rooms, and there met a few more, and rambled further. This type of ad hoc chilling is one of my favorite things about the con.

And then off to sleep for 4 hours until the next round of gaming...

Go Play NW 2016: Friday

Go Play NW... What Is It?

Go Play is a relatively small game convention that has been occurring annually in Seattle for about a decade. I've only been once before, in 2015. The focus is primarily on role playing games, and specifically those that tend to be known either as "indie games" or "story games".

The games tend to have more of a narrative focus (as opposed to being mechanically complex or collaboratively weak), although that is my generalization, as there are some fairly complex and meaty games in that mix. What most participants share, from my perspective, is a wild love for RPGs, with a tendency to explore games that provides a heavy social element which requires strong player presence.

The convention also attempts to be very socially inclusive (gender, race, so forth), however the makeup of the Pacific North West is very white, so it on the surface actually looks less diverse than the cons I'm used to going to in Los Angeles. That said, everyone is extremely friendly and welcoming.

Leading Up To...

I got to Seattle a few days prior with the daughter. We visited with some close friends, had a blast, and I even got to introduce the two adults to RPGs via The Skeletons... details in prior post.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the night before, my friend Ryan took me to a local shop named Phoenix Comics and Games, where an active session of Story Games Seattle was in progress. I have heard of this story gaming meetup for years, and have met a few folks who regularly participate, but not being a local, it had a legendary air about it. And I got to stumble into it unawares! After my initial shock, I got to chat with a few folks, including a few who were heading to the convention the next day.

A picture of the Phoenix and Story Games Seattle that night, which I totally stole from Ben Robbins (I think?)

Friday meant it was time to ship the daughter to my parents' place, and then off to Seattle University, where Go Play NW is hosted. You can pay extra to get dorm rooms on campus, and some various meals included, mostly breakfasts and lunches. This worked great the prior year, except for the horrible heat and hotbox dorm rooms... but this year the weather was very pleasant, so you won't hear me complain about any of that any further.

Jerry... And Many More

My friend Jerry was taking the train up from Oregan, and as I was heading to the dorms to meet up with him, I ran into Dan, a fellow gamer who was also a Go Play first-timer the prior year. I grabbed Jerry and our empty bellies, and headed to meet Dan (a fellow Oreganite) at Juicebox. It's a vegetarian (vegan?) joint, and was perfect. We didn't order too much, since Go Play also has a welcome dinner scheduled for Friday evening at 6pm, for those that make it in time.

And this set the tone... 3 kids rambling about gaming, and occasionally other topics. Also catching up since the last time we all saw each other a year ago.

From there back to the dorm, running into more folks (many "famous" within the indie RPG circles, which is to say not famous at all), and then a nice yummy mini-buffet in the large ballroom which would be the location of most of the gaming during the weekend.

Friday night banquet!

Go Play NW 2015 was mostly played in a different campus building, with more smaller rooms, but 2016 was based in Campion, which is the same building as the dorm rooms themselves. This was conveniently close, and allowed most of the games to run in a very large room with about 20 large tables. The audio wasn't distracting (no horrible echoes) so that was good. Also, many times folks would just head upstairs to the little common rooms that were available on most dorm floors, which allowed for privacy if you needed it.

Friday 8pm - Midnight: Fallout Shelter RPG

I tend to like running my games at the starting line, and this con was no different. I grabbed my 4 players, including the aforementioned Jerry and Dan, and we grabbed one of those private common rooms. This game has audio, so that would be distracting and rude in the large ball room.

This was my first time running it with my cleaned up version, including Area Moves, which I discuss in more detail in this prior blog post. 

It ran fantastically. I loved my changes... just so much more of a smoother ride for me to run, and the players had a grand ol' time. It was excellent to see all that work organizing my game differently pay off so well.

I have to give mucho kudos to all 4 players, as we finished around 30 minutes past midnight, but they stuck around and really helped provide all sorts of great feedback (audio levels, audio quality, difficulty level, and so forth). I didn't know it at the time, but I was to run this again on Sunday morning, and all that talking helped make that a better game for me to run.

Fallout Shelter RPG: Round 1, Friday... from left to right: John, <damn, I forget>, Dan and Jerry

Off to bed. The dorm room bed was still shit, but with the lower temperatures, this year it was totally bearable.

The Skeletons in Space: A Very Short Playtest

The Scene

Being in Seattle early last week, in preparation for the Go Play NW 2016 game convention, my daughter and I were staying at my friends Ryan and Sarah's place.

The first few days involved our respective daughters getting to know each other, getting their daughter to bail on her previously scheduled summer camps, and me providing the kids only the best education that comes with summer break goodness.

Welcome to Capital Hill! Lyfting, Walking, and busing about the city.

Summer courses at Raygun Lounge University

The Premise

I discussed the premise on a prior blog post: Basically, run Jason Morningstar's The Skeletons story game, but in space, using space-inspired audio, and with a dash of Lego. I had already done a bit of work on the soundtrack, chose a small manicured set of Lego bricks in the appropriate old-school space blue, added a few dashes of color and various thematic computer screens, and a selection of miniatures (which is to say, Lego space mini-figures).

I brought it in case the opportunity presented itself at Go Play NW.

The victims

The prior year I had just introduced Sarah and Ryan to the modern world of board games, with a few small pieces such as Lost Cities, and some kid-friendly games such as Rat-A-Tat-Cat. 

I returned to find a whole shelf-full of all the craziness that the hobby encourages. Even more relevant, they contained all that enthusiasm that comes with this hobby.

We got around to the subject of role playing games (which is what Go Play NW is all about, and half the reason I was here). Although they have no experience with RPGs, Sarah remembers when we were neighbors growing up, and how we introduced her younger brother to Dungeons and Dragons and would play with him all the time. Unfortunately we never included Sarah, and in retrospect I'm not sure we aren't sure if it's due to the boy-girl rift, or some other reasons.

The daughters were tucked in, and the adults were free. Both Ryan and Sarah expressed an interest in playing, and I pitched them a number of options: A short Dungeon World session. A game of The Quiet Year. And the one we went with: The Skeletons.

The game

Setup was great.  We had a discussion of the scenario. I mentioned an example of "fungus creature taking over our brains", and Sarah was opposed to that due to: Triggers. 

I will stop here and say that I was remiss in mentioning triggers to the two of them prior to starting. There was no harm-no foul, since we were doing pre-game discussion, but how bad would that be if we were half-way through the game and I maneuvered the story to drop that bomb. Yikes! Extra reminder to self: X-cards and veils and lines-type discussion extra useful with any players you've never played with!

Sarah proposed a crystal-based alien that has somehow controlled us (details unnecessary at this point), and that was enough to start.

Using Lego bricks as lines, we sketched our spaceship: A larger central room, and two side alcove-rooms. We placed a few terminals. Our crystalline creature was prominent in the center. We all placed our space people in various locations. Ryan added a similar, but different, crystalline creation attached to the outside of the hull, which may be related, or opposed, to the main creature. Also undefined at this point.

At some point (possibly just a little later) we decided on artificial gravity due to this area being a tail end of a long, spinning, space station / ship.

We drew our skeletons, mostly with space suits being a thing, and were ready to start.

Sssspppaaaccceee.....

Audio engaged. Play unfolded. A few questions had to be tweaked (things that have an obvious old-fantasy feel that don't sound quite right in space), but those were few.

We got through the initial quiet period, then an intruder, and another quiet period, but not much more than that, as some of us adults were getting sleepy due to Adulting.

But damn, was that a blast. They both loved the experience, and were very engaged. I was very impressed with how quickly Sarah just dive bombed into the experience; you would never guess she isn't a regular RP gamer. Ryan had an initial trepidation with figuring out the parameters around this strange social hobby we have, but then started to jump into it. I can't help but think: Another 2 are born to the hobby.

Newborn RP gamers! Me in the reflection.

The Synopsis

All said and done, the experience was great. Here's my summary:

• I have confidence this could work to great effect, and am looking forward to more play!
• Mental note: Remember the "lines and veils" conversation with unfamiliar players.
• Gravity and air / vacuum should be part of the scene-setup conversation, if applicable (this could always be played out on a planet or other non-ship scenario).
• I had enough time to review the playbook / character sheets prior to the game, and after this first test, I don't think changing them is necessary (at least until after a full game test).
• Instead of literal skeletons (because we are going sci-fi), you could do more of a zombie-like scenario where the flesh is not fully decomposed. Especially because part of any mind- or body-control may include all sorts of strange preservatives or other mechanisms... robotic, biological, or otherwise. This means some questions need to be tweaked, possibly.
• Audio was good, but mostly untested. We didn't find it distracting and it seemed to enhance our experience.
• I think the title "The Space Skeletons" might be a better short-form. Maybe.

Thoughts?

Fallout Shelter RPG: Area Moves

Cleaning up Fallout Shelter RPG

I was working at cleaning up some of my Fallout Shelter RPG game. Something that has inspired me heavily is the Discern Realities podcast, as I'm hearing so much interesting things around area moves and environmental type moves.

First off, in regards to the results, remember that this hack doesn't use a 2d6 roll, but instead a simple d10 + Stat modifier + Outfit modifier. 

To that end, I decided to simplify some of the mechanics of the game, and specifically make it easier for someone else to possibly run the scenario. I got one request from my friend Andy, and I think what I sent back made a lot of sense to me, but would probably be a little less intuitive and friendly to others.

Also, I've been unendingly impressed with the Servants of the Cinder Queen module, and I find it's format just perfect as a GM, so planned to model my updates toward that look and feel.

Examples of an Area Move

So, one of the first things I did was reduce my list of generic moves, which included moves that could not be used at any time, but were specific to rooms. As an example, here is a move associated with the Power Plant room:

---

When rushing a power room, roll +Strength. On a 5-7 choose 1. On a 8-10 choose 2. On a 11+ choose 2 and gain lucky Caps.

• Gain 1 power
• Prevent someone else’s failure
• Gain lucky Caps

---

I purposefully leave open the 1-4 result (a failure), open to GM moves, which I've listed separately in that area (again, similar to Servants of the Cinder Queen). Also, because rushing a room can be performed as a group activity, I'm giving people the option of helping each other, in case failures result, however at the cost of additional resources or Caps, which adds some contention in the mechanics.

The Wasteland was part of my earlier game that sometimes became a bit long, as I liked to explore that aspect of the RPG, however constant feedback was that people preferred that shorter, in lieu of more vault activity. So, here's a new area move for The Wasteland:

---

When traversing the wasteland, roll +Luck. On a 5-7, choose 1. On an 8-10, choose 2. On an 11+, choose 2 and find a Lunchbox item.

• No need to consume water.
• No need to consume food.
• Avoid danger.
• Find Caps.

---

This is much simpler than my prior mechanics around this part of the game, and simplifies the struggle to balance encounters and resource management. I'm really excited to see how this plays out at GoPlayNW, when I'm first running it.

I also think reducing many of these moves to this simplified text and character choice allows me, as the GM, to provide more player agency, if desired... some of that "How does that look?" type questioning that the players then get to answer.

The New Look

So how does it all look now? I've used many of the same headings from Servants of the Cinder Queen, such as Connections, Impressions, Details, Discoveries, and GM Moves, when putting together my Fallout Shelter RPG scenario. There are also many bullet point lists for ease of use, and Area Moves, when appropriate. 

As an example, here's a spoiler-free view of one of the areas, when approaching Vault 321:

The new Servants of the Cinder Queen-style ripoff for my Fallout Shelter RPG game.

And all that just makes running the game that much easier, however it doesn't mean the game I'm running is static. All these put together creates one scenario (of many possible scenarios) for the game. You can also easily use PC generated content to have a significant impact on the scenario, if you so choose.

Testing time!

And in a few days, it's off to GoPlayNW 2016, where I'm running this at the con. I've got 4 players signed up, and we'll see how it all pans out.

The Skeletons... with Lego Creationary... in Space...

First, The Quiet Year

I had a brain fart a week back, when I was cleaning up my office (aka man cave). I have a box of Lego Creationary (the Lego version of Pictionary) that I picked up at a thrift store for $5. I'm not too excited about the game itself, but didn't just want to pour all those Legos into the great Lego pit that is my home.

So, I've taken it, and now I have a box of Lego for use in The Quiet Year. I bring a few base plates, although it can be more creative and fun to play without that, and just use the table! I mean, come on! Three dimension map! The pieces are very simple, but like The Quiet Year, the point is to draw simple and fast, and these Legos suits perfectly for that level of abstraction.

I think similar to The Quiet Year mandating pictures about the size of a quarter and taking less than 30 seconds, I would mandate each "drawing" creation take up to 6 pieces.

I haven't run it yet, but I have it packed for game cons a-coming and want to play test it with some folks.

Next, The Skeletons... with Music

Now it gets really exciting. I've been working on a series of soundtracks for The Skeletons role-playing game (discussed in blog post past). I've garnered about 20+ tracks, and categorized them into the game's four different phases.

Ambient tracks serve very well for the three different Time Passes phases, when you may be sitting in silence for 30 seconds to a few minutes. and also as Intruders.

More paced and flavored tracks work well for the Intruders phase, when action and disassociation occurs.

I have setup 5 separate curated tracklists, that I've named Classic Crypt, Desert Sands, Eternal Soldier, Moving Death, and Space Desolation. I very much want to test these out, as Harry and I both agreed that our session of The Skeletons with background music was very fulfilling.

I'll post the track titles at some point after I do a little testing and finalizing, in case people are interested.

And finally... mashup: The Skeletons + Music + Lego

The plan: To run The Skeletons. In a space scenario. With my Space Desolation tracks. And use the Creationary set as the means for the players to "draw" the ship. You can use pieces like lines to outline things. You can stack things on each other. And I'll even provide little minifigures in space suits, if that takes your fancy.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a genius... but who's kidding who here? 

Feel free to steal the idea! I'd love to hear how it goes if you do anything like this. If not, maybe I'll see you at a con coming soon (Strategicon, GoPlayNW, Big Bad Con...)

Dungeon World with kiddies

Not an ASTG meetup

I had an Indie RPG night planned, but due to various illness, busy-ness, and unresponsiveness (the horrible nesses), it had to be postponed. Kind of bummed because I was hoping to push that Dungeon World + Microscope madness, but now it'll just have to wait, and meanwhile the memories of all that fade.

Emerald Knights Comics and Games

I was already driving around the area, so went in to one of my larger, local gaming stores, Emerald Knights Comics and Games in Burbank. They have a huge collection of comics, and very nice collection of board games. The RPGs that are stocked are the main D&D and Pathfinder fare, with some sprinkling of other larger options, but no indie press stuff. They have a full wall of Reaper minis though, so you can shop and pick things that look fun.

I picked up a few comics, since my daughter is just now starting to get deep into graphic novels. Was looking for Ms. Marvel (heard good things) but it was sold out, and ended up with Captain Marvel for her (on good recommendations), and the first 3 volumes of Rat Queens (for me).

They have events various nights, and I've been here before to do some board game nights. The board game regulars are pretty much board game only. And Thursday night wasn't an RPG night (apparently that's Wednesday). The second floor sits in a circle above the store, so you can look down on the shop. It contains a set of tables used for various gaming, and tonight was wargame night. Lots of tables playing Inifinity (I'm not really familiar with it).

I tried to poach some people, and was looking successful in getting one or two, but in the end they got busy with other things. I did get to read a bunch of Rat Queens though, and that got my juices flowing for some gaming...

A group of kids

I ended up sitting next to a table with Richard (I'm guessing he's about 18) and his younger brothers and cousins (3 kids ranging in age from 8-10). They were all playing Magic, and it turned out older brother had played D&D before. Before I knew it, I had them create some Dungeon World characters (a Cleric, a Paladin, a Ranger, a Thief), and we had about 30 minutes to run through a quick adventure before the store closed.

I worked with each kid, during downtime in the Magic game, to create characters, since I knew we were running short on time. I was absolutely fascinated with how remarkably quick and easy it was for these youngsters to get a character in shape... all said about 5 minutes a piece (and of these youngsters had ever played and RPG; Magic being the closest they've gotten).

They had fun with the bonds, but we weren't really fleshing anything out in any deep way... it was more just to get the kids laughing, poking fun at each other, and having some silly ties. That sounded successful enough to me.

In the end I just did a little thing where they were assigned as a group to go relieve some soldiers from Keep Thornbrush. I figured they'd be on their way there, and possibly get there late, where creepy stuff could start happening. 

I stole an idea I heard Jason talk about on the Discern Realities podcast recently: When Undertaking a Perilous Jouney, question the various players... What is the Scout worried about encountering? What landmark is the Trailblazer looking for? etc. It worked out great having them narrate prior to rolling, and got them immediately in the frame of doing things, rolling dice, dealing with consequences. We started with some fog...  The Scout answered about watching for thieves in these lands, and of course, with the fog and limited visibility, they all got tense. They all loved it that the Quartermaster flubbed his roll, and therefore the ranger's bear got into the food supplies. The Trailblazer answered that he was looking for the mountain, the landmark which meant they were on their way up to the keep. Well, he also rolled poorly, and so they got lost in fog, and got there late, so had to use adventuring gear for torches.

And then zombies. And bites and debilities. And then a nervous transaction with the keep's guards when they got there. And the scared soldiers there ask, "Wait, aren't you the reinforcements that were sent to help us take care of the ghost?"

But 30 minutes rolls quick, and that was all we had time for... but the gold was the look in those kids eyes when they were playing, and the invariable question: "When are you coming back? When can we play again?" Awesome.

Their older brother said he could run it for them. I gave him the link to get Dungeon World for $10, and now it's in his hands. He's a bit heavy handed and seems a bit adversarial in style, but hey, weren't we all at one point?

At any rate, hoping the sparks will fan the flames for more gamers in future days.

ASTG: The Skeletons

I setup an Art of Story Through Gaming (ASTG) meetup this week for my Indie RPG Night series. Issues #2.

Lots of folks couldn't make it, so it was just Harry and I. And I've been trying to get a few 2-player RPGs in the back pocket for just such an encounter.

The Skeletons

This weeks adventure: The Skeletons, by Jason Morningstar (and Bully Pulpit Games). Described as such:

The Skeletons flips the script on the classic dungeon crawl— here you play not the intruders, but the guardians, cursed to spend all of eternity defending a tomb. As time passes, both the tomb and its guardians will change. Ferocious battles are fought and won, and the skeletons slowly remember who and what they once were.

I read through the rules a few weeks back, and one thing that impressed me was the concept of time passing. During many points of the game, time will pass, and that informs how long the players then sit, in the dark, in silence (or with appropriate ambient music playing).

I also liked the way the play seemed smooth and simple, with questions and cues. It has a feeling similar to The Quiet Year in how the way the game directs you towards a narrative, but with a scenario randomizer (in The Quiet Year it's a shuffled deck, The Skeletons it's more like multiple choice choose-your-own-adventure). After that, it's answering questions and creating scenarios in a narrative-driven fashion.

The Crypt of the Six Guardians

You start play by collaboratively drawing your crypt. We never had a name for our crypt, but I'll call it the Crypt of the Six Guardians because there were 6 alcoves total in this rectangular chamber. The "sarcophagus" wasn't a normal shape, but instead had the look of a large, circular, hinged, stone vault door on the floor of this chamber. There was one large archway which had been mostly blocked by a large boulder; this was the main passage in. And there was a set of stairs that went under the "sarcophagus"... to who knows where.

There are 7 skeletons (i.e. characters) you can choose from. Harry chose the skeleton Headless ("Your skull is long gone but it doesn’t matter. You carry an iron mace and a holy symbol."). I chose Outsider ("Your bones are unlike the others. You carry a weapon that suits your frame, and fearsome armor."). The skeleton sheets have a lightly drawn skeleton, which you then overlay details upon. That was a fun element that combines art skills (or lack thereof) with thought processes that start giving the skeleton the beginning of some personality.

Unlike many games, you don't create a backstory for your character, because your character has no memory of their past. Instead, this is something you fill in as you play the game, and begin to answer some of the questions on the sheet.

We went through all three phases of the game, from The Unsealed Tomb, to The Time of Dust, and through The Desecration. Those phases really lend an interesting mood, starting with strength and power, and time passing somewhat quickly... and then leading to long periods of darkness in between events, and the degradation of the crypt and the skeletons.

Slight confusion

The only hiccup was some confusion on the Skeleton sheets, where it says "Answer these as time passes:" for the list of questions. Because the game has a specific mechanical construct called "TIME PASSES", I though that was when the questions should be answered. However during a separate game construct known as "INTRUDERS", it says "Everyone answer one question if they wish", and I believe it's referring to these Skeleton sheet questions. I think the phrase "time passes" on the Skeleton sheets here is confusing. We settled on answering those questions during the INTRUDERS phase, which looks to be the intention.

If that's the case, a different phrase should be used on the sheets. (Although I haven't thought of a good suggestion!)

Props

I like that this game is played with only a sheet. The instructions say a d6 is needed, but we never saw its use. Maybe we didn't encounter a specific question that used it?

We decided to use skeleton minis to represent our characters, as Harry had a bunch lying around. I think it added some fun flavor to the experience, and would recommend it if you have them about.

Musical selections

We both though that the music enhanced the game. The key is obviously choosing the right set of tracks that support the experience. In this game I curated songs off the cuff from a large playlist of "RPG tracks" that I've created on my phone).

I ended up using the following:

• My loop of tracks from the official Full Metal Jacket soundtrack (tracks 9+11+12+13+15). In retrospect, Leonard (track 12) would be an excellent time passes track all on its own, which includes a subtle water dripping type sound that pervades the track for a good underground cave / crypt feel; it plays about 6 minutes long. Ruins and Attack (tracks 11 and 13) would loop well together for an encounter.
• Various tracks from Mark Morgan's Fallout 2 soundtrack (such as Underground Troubles, City of the Dead, Vats of Goo). These worked very well for time passing, and just in general. You could just use tracks like this for the entire game without issue.
• Hologrammic Dub by DJ Spooky, for one encounter
• Analog Wormz Seguel by Mr. Oizo, for one encounter (this one with tomb spiders)
• Sahra Saidi by Gamal Goma, for the final encounter (this was the one that led to our demise; a seasoned group of adventurers... or is just that we've weakened in our old age?)

I think the track Beyond the Last Parsec from Harry Mack's The Last Parsec soundtrack, would be a good one with a little more life (maybe an earlier time passes scene, or an encounter that's a little more "spiritual"). I was looking for it during game, but couldn't remember the name.

Bonus material

One: We took a quick look at the Echoes of War Variant by Sara Williamson, which is included in the game PDF, and it looks like a cool variant. You could just as easily play this instead, as it's simply different flavoring for the same basic game.

Two: I wanted to use this session to help with the world building we started in the prior ASTG meetup with Microscope. And this session with The Skeletons works perfectly. We just created the crypt and backstory for a main part of the Dungeon World session I plan to run for these players in a few weeks.

Running future sessions

I would definitely love playing this game more. Running it a con or game shop could be problematic, as I really think the darkness and a lack of distracting background noise would provide the best experience. However if you are going to someplace like Big Bad Con, with private rooms unlocked due to a successful Kickstarter, that could be a great place to run such a game.

Two guardians

Strategicon Gamex 2016

My 12th Strategicon in a row. There should be a badge reward or something...

New to this one, Jim (aka the head honcho for RPGs) changed the at-con signup process so that only the next 2-3 slots of games would be available at any given time. Friday at 2pm allowed you to signup for Friday 8pm and Saturday 2pm games, however you had to come back a few hours later for the Saturday 8pm game sheets to be available. There was still online registration ahead of the con, but Jim has ensured that only 1/2 the slots fill up with online registration for any given game. All in all, a reasonable accommodation, and I personally think it worked well during the weekend.

Friday 2-6pm: Fallout Shelter: Finding the Descenders

GM: Me.

This was my game for 2016 as mentioned on prior blog posts including Orccon 2016. Players included:

• Brian as Cass, the Food Engineer

• Dimitri as Dr. Maxwell Ricofermi, the Scientist

• Dorian as Fox, the Wasteland Explorer

• Nick and his son as the two-headed Bevis and Butthead the Ex-Overseer

My game is limited to 4 players. It's a hard limit because I have 4 character sheets made out of Lego, but also because I know it becomes too hard to manage after that number, and that degrades the experience. Although limited to 4 players, Nick and son wanted to play; Nick was going to sacrifice his spot for his son (this being his son's first Con as well), but we settled on this hack, where they helped play the same character. It worked well enough.

I wanted a different scenario than prior games, and settled on one that involved "Bob", a vault dweller that emigrated to the other vault. Everyone's questionnaire reflected this by filling in information about "Bob".

As in some prior games, I spent too much time in the wasteland. It's not really a problem, as there can be some fun flavor and role playing, but it does not use the vault itself as much, and if you have a 4 hour slot, I find the players in retrospect want more vault action.

That said, everyone had a great time, and I had a blast with this group, having played with almost all of them in the past. Everyone died due to deathclaw attack in the end. 

Friday 8pm-midnight:  The Extraordinarily Horrible Children of Raven's Hollow

From Jesse Burneko's blog on the subject, here is a description of the game:

The primary inspiration for this game is Edward Gory’s “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” with a dash of the comic “Lenore.” The game is intended to produce a quick grim fairy tale about horrible children who bully each other into dangerous acts that likely lead to their demise.

This blog may be a bit outdated, as it mentions dice, and apparently the mechanics were changed to cards at some point. The players are mischievous children, and play involves a competitive / cooperative card game against everyone else at the table, as well as various adults (NPCs) of the town. It's a GM-less game, and Gretchen Burneko played with us, and did most of the explaining.

I had a great time playing this game. I loved that you play a mechanical card game at the same time as needing to explain in the story how the move looked. The story begins to blossom as time goes on. Each individual event allows every player a chance to intercede for good or ill, but during your turn you normally only have the ability to change who is winning the combat. The card mechanics are at once simplistic, but also allow for some strategy and nuance.

Each card has some number values that are important in the way "combat" works between players, but also have a location listed on the card. Because those locations (e.g. The Graveyard, The Crossroads, etc.) repeat, and must be used in some of the story-driver elements, the cards begin to influence the narrative in interesting and random ways.

The downside was that we had a total of 9 players. Although the game handled it fairly well (it is supposed to support up to 10?), it led to a long session of about 4 hours. I think it would do better as a 5-6 player game (at maybe 3 hours), and look forward to giving that a try at some point. I think you could play this with inexperienced role players to great effect.

I've talked before about postworldgames' Forget-Me-Not game, and although many things including the mechanics were different, the overall feeling of playing a card game and coming away with an intricate story remain.

Saturday 9am-1pm: T.I.M.E. Stories: Pariah Missouri

I've been interested in playing T.I.M.E. Stories, a game put out by Space Cowboys, of Splendor fame. I'd heard something about it being role-playing-esque, and that there is a function of time travel and solving mysteries. But that's about all I knew.

Introducing Andy, who I have started gaming with regularly at this con. He's the author of the Pariah Missouri graphic novels, and after I introduced him to Dread a few cons back, he's been running it like mad.

Andy is a bit of a mad genius. First off, he's got a graphic novel that is a Deadlands-like setting with darkness and magic prior to the Civil War, in the South of the USA. He's taken it, and created a whole scenario for T.I.M.E. Stories. It includes his graphic novel's art as the setting pieces for the game (each distinct location includes a number of cards that create an actual picture of the location). The mystery is fully fleshed out, and the game plays out as a cooperative choose-your-own-adventure mystery, of sorts.

For those familiar with T.I.M.E. Stories, Andy's scenario has additional elements that the base game and expansions could, but don't, have. These include a mechanic for day and night time on the overall map, with locations that appear only during one of those phases. There are some additional cool elements that he's overlayed onto the game.

I won't be rushing to buy the actual game, because I see it a little limited in my groups, and I'm not as big a board gamer as much as RPGs at the moment. That said, I'd recommend this game for those that like collaborate mysteries, and I definitely recommend his version, and hope to see it published. (He's got meetings with Space Cowboys... crossing fingers!)

Saturday 2-6pm: A Time to Harvest: Episode Two Description (Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed)

This Call of Cthulhu scenario was run by Arthur Severance. Apparently it's part of Chaosium's attempt at organized play (similar to Pathfinder Society). From Chaosium's web site:

A Time to Harvest is a campaign unfolding over six months, which will be offered free to all members of The Cult of Chaos, Chaosium's Game Master and Organized Play Program.

The Pros: The GM had most of the scenario ready in his head. The props included many pictures that had a '20s feel on index cards that the GM had put together that helped us digest the overwhelming amount of information. The scenario is very fleshed out, so would do well (possibly) in a long-term campaign.

That said, this was outweighed by the Cons. I was not really a fan of this game. I play Call of Cthulhu for different reasons than organized play. I don't think organized play, in and of itself, would deter me from enjoying such a session, however the session ran information-heavy (tons of NPCs and material), and the GM had to pretty consistently refer to the module notes. Part of the problem stems from the scenario, as having the GM "wing it" can break the story and mystery. Now, as a player at a con game, I don't care too much about the consistency of the story arc, as much as I care about a loose consistency in my individual game. Also, being based on '20s America, it wasn't a very diverse set of characters (if that is an issue in your gaming).

But really it was the constant need of the GM to refer to notes, the mechanical nature of some of the investigation elements, and the occasional retcon the GM thought it necessary to have the story "make sense", broke more than a bit of the immersion for me. 

I'll be avoiding these games in the future. I think they can possibly be done well, and for some gamers they may be quite enjoyable as is, but they feel too much like organized D&D and Pathfinder to me. And that's not what I'm looking for in general, and especially with Call of Cthulhu and horror games.

Saturday 8pm-midnight: Grace Under Pressure (Call of Cthulhu)

On the other end of Cthulhu...

The door to the room were closed. Odd. I open the doors to find a table at the far end of the room with green and blue glow sticks. There are sounds of engine thrumming, mixed with the occasional bubble sounds; a submarine. A man with a fez, a large squid across one side of the hat, sits behind a screen, looking like a flight attendant. I look down and see schematics for a very future-looking submarine. It might as well be a spaceship.

Sitting down, I could feel the oppression of thousands of pound of ocean above me.

The game description gives a good feel for where this starts:

You are on the sea floor, 1500 feet below the surface. Around you is only cold and dark, the sun's rays bring nothing to this world. The pressure in this lethal place is over 600 pounds per square inch. You and your companions are aboard the RSV Wallaby, a prototype research vessel on its maiden voyage. You are not alone.

Ronjon, the GM, throws down a head of information: ship schematics, detailed list of equipment in each chamber, and article about this prototype research vessel that looks like it was printed from an internet article (with ominous advertisements peppered randomly around, if you cared to look). Overload, but in just the right way.

This was the maiden voyage, and none of us are particularly skilled marine biologists... we're mostly either the tech backbone of the ship, or those responsible for its funding. 

The players all got into it. The game had excellent pacing. People started dying around midnight. I jumped out around 12:30pm, since I had some folks ready to play some late night gaming, and my character goes down. I expected the rest to succumb shortly. I was wrong. My friend Howie continued playing, and they were able to pull together and somehow get out of the worst of the craziness.

I highly recommend this game. Absolutely brilliant.

Grace Under Pressure

Saturday Midnight - 3am: Dungeon World

I had a crew who'd mostly never seen much Dungeon World, and wanted to get the flavor; and a few who just wanted some late night gaming. I had 6 players total including Andy, Keith and Brandie, Bob Quinterro and a few others.

The first half of the session was a bunch of character and bond creation.

I had an idea for the second half, which involved a little girl adopted by monks at a monastery. Let's call her Annie. I was thinking maybe she's about 5 years old, but also is a bit of ... spirit? Baby doppelganger? And the holy church is sending their holy warriors out to get her, and she's appeared on their radar.

So instead of just giving the players the ability to make Bonds with each other, I also had them make Bonds with little Annie. And then I threw them into the shit, with a holy cleric threatening her life. Good times!

I have to admit that Brandie (one of the players) was a whisky and ginger ale having angel, and I'm a little fuzzy with the details of how it all played out. I distinctly remember that I was able to hold my alcohol enough to have a coherent story, and the players said they had a good time, so hey!

Sunday

Time to go pickup the daughter. We hit the pool, which was a bit frigid, but fortunately there was a hot tub as well. We ran into another father-daughter pair who incidently had come over from Boston... and it was their first con! We chatted them up and convinced them to join us for the miniature paint-and-take. 

The last time I painted miniatures with the kid, she didn't have the dexterity to do a very good job, but this one came out pretty impressive! I didn't help her at all.

After that, we grabbed a few bites from the Gamer Bytes booth in the main game room. They have hot dogs and chicken strips for exorbitant prices, but at least they aren't horrible. Found out that an apple costs $3. That's some fine bullshit right there.

Showed our new friends Marc and Ariella how to play a few games, including Towers of Conspiracy, and Condottiere, and they brought Lost Cities. 

Some Lost Cities; utterly pleasant being able to just sit back and watch the kids play, with NO interaction from the adults (except for some scoring help).

Sunday 8-10pm: No Thank You Evil

We convinced our new friends to join us for our scheduled 8pm game, No Thank You Evil run by GM Matt Chapman. The game is designed by Shanna Germain and Monte Cook, ran as a Kickstarter a year back, and is listed as "a Game of Make-believe for Creative Kids and Their Families". I funded it at the PDF level, but have otherwise not had time to look at it, so wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.  I was also surprised that the kid actually wanted to sign up for the game a few weeks back, as mostly she's only wanted to play in the few Lego RPGs I've run.

Ariella had never played an RPG, and so Marc and her joined us, along with a father-son pair (Jesse and Johnny) who I've seen around in the RPG area of Strategicons past.

Matt did a pretty great job corralling the kids (and adults) and giving us a good feel for the game. We did a module that comes with the base game. The pieces that come with the physical copy of the game are nice quality, and definitely add to the experience, but don't strictly look necessary.

It's definitely a system I'd be happy to run the next time around, so it's on my short list to prep and test run with the kid and some of her friends.

No Thank You, Evil!

What impressed me was that after 2 hours of gaming, with the game drawing to a close, the kid wanted more. She was disappointed that all the loose ends weren't answered, and actually complained that it felt like we "had only played for 5 minutes". I am proud, indeed.

After that it was time to say goodnight to all, and especially Marc and Ariella, who we wouldn't see as they were flying out the next morning.

The biggest bummer was seeing Andy and crew about to start a late night Dread game, which unfortunately I couldn't join.

Monday 9-11am: Beware the Boogeyman (GURPS)

I have always wanted to play in a Monday game by Mook (a Strategicon regular, and of How to Be a GURPS GM fame). He's always running a session to close out the con. I've played in a few games with him over the years, including his Dungeons and Dragons cartoon game (amazing!). And now I got to play not only in a Monday morning game, but also with my daughter! And with JiB, another regular, friend, and awesome gamer. 

The only bummer was that Gina was supposed to join us (JiB and Gina usually finish the con with Mook's Monday games), and unfortunately she was feeling sick.

But we did have a blast! The premise was:

When the sun sets and the children sleep, the Boogeyman tries to feed on their nightmares. Luckily, the children have you to protect them: a cat, a dog, an action figure, a toy dinosaur, and their imaginary friends (a furry monster and a unicorn). Can you successfully confront the Boogeyman and put an end to his reign of childhood terror? 

The kid played the toy dinosaur: Z-Rex. I played a hand-me down toy soldier. And JiB was the dog, Barkley. An attack by goblins, a dealing with Morpheus of the dream lands, and a confrontation with a dragon and then the Boogeyman.

Also, here's Mook's own blog post about this game, which he ran three times for various groups, at this convention.

And out...

I did have a few regrets: Didn't get to play with Stephanie who was running her ThreadbareRPG (I so wish she had it going on Sunday so the kid and I could play!), and many other awesome GMs and players out there (you know who you are, or not).

From there we grabbed some eats, and then went to the game auction, which was in full swing. We watched for a bit, and I bid and won a brand new, shrink-wrapped Machi Koro for $16. We sat down and had a few plays, but then decided to head on out.

The future looks promising. All I gotta do now is work on my gaming-with-youth skills, and then I can run and play with the kid at more of these things.

Machi Koro action!

World's Collide: Microscope with Dungeon World and a Cinder Queen

Microscope Explorer

Ben Robbins, the writer of Microscope, also came out with an add-on to that game through a Kickstarter (and now available product) called Microscope Explorer. I got the kickstarted deliverable in the mail just recently, and it couldn't have been at a better time.

OK, that's a lie. It could've been better if I had received it just a little earlier because the first part of the book contains some good tips for running Microscope in general which would've been useful when running the last session. Although maybe it's better to learn through trial and error and reading, so I'll just consider all that a learning experience.

The book has a few modifications to the base game, but I haven't really gotten to those sections yet.

The part which I did just finish is a section called "World Building: Games Collide", which describes tips for using Microscope in world building.

Servants of the Cinder Queen

So, I want to run Servants of the Cinder Queen, a little Dungeon World module I helped kickstart a while back. I love the design and flow of this adventure module. Each area is linked to the other just through hints in text (not some convoluted map), and there is the framework for the bad stuff that will happen if no one takes care of this evil (a "front" in DW parlance), with clear steps on how it will proceed ("grim portents").

The adventure's description is:

There once was a monastery perched high on a slope of the mountain called Hvitr’s Horn. The warrior-monks who dwelt within were dedicated to Hvitr—lawful god of storms and justice—and entrusted with the stewardship of holy artifacts and texts. But above all else they were gatekeepers; for Hvitr’s Horn was an active volcano, and thus (like all active volcanoes) a gateway to Ellorash, an elemental plane of fire.

Sample pages from Servants of the Cinder Queen; very Dungeon World specific, lots of bullet points making it easy to run with, as a DM.

Games Collide with Servants of the Cinder Queen

In Microscope Explorer,  the World Building: Games Collide section describes the process, pitfalls, and suggestions around using Microscope to create a playground that will then be used for another RPG.

Ben outlines six basic ways to adapt elements from the Microscope history for the game. I found no need to use CREATE (to create something new), REMOVE (to delete anything), or REVISE (to change something in the history). That is good; that means I can use the Microscope history we created almost "as is".

I decided to use EXPAND (to add more detail) in one case, and IGNORE many of the historical details (to possibly revisit in later adventures), and FOCUS (emphasize / make it central to the adventure) for many of our scenes for this particular quest.

Here's a summary of most events (and some scenes) from the Microscope history, and whether or not they will be used:

• IGNORE?: Foo the Lizard King dies (scene: Drudari summoned a demon by which Foo was stolen into the stargate portal)
• EXPAND: An innumerable hoard of gods and demons enter through the gate.
• IGNORE: The fall of the first empire
• FOCUS: The stargate collapses (caused by a great sasquach)
• FOCUS: Using an ancient artifact, Dromlus unifies the city-states and starts the second empire.
• IGNORE: Lumptorious Lumpround (the halfling bard) discovers giant Sasquatch footprints 
• IGNORE: Demand for Sasquatch hides spike
• FOCUS: Sasquatch hide, when touched, cures all illness.
• FOCUS: Scouts of the third empire discover a long abandoned cave of Foo the Lizard King. 
• FOCUS: Rebel forces of the third empire find artifacts from the homeworld (A diamond recorded shape)
• IGNORE: Amid earthquakes, three new islands appear in the steaming sea.

Applying these to the module

Now to adjust the Servants of the Cinder Queen adventure to make it fit roughly with our history:

• The Cinder Queen is a demon that can enter through the gate. I was playing with the idea that it would be Foo, the Lizard King, who was tossed into a stargate, and then is now coming back with horrible powers. Not sure that I'll go through with that. Might be cleaner to just have it be a creature similar to the "hoard of gods and demons" that had entered the game long ago, when it was open.
• I may have the Cinder Queen cult be led by a lizard man. I like the idea of the saurians and the Sasquatch as diametrically opposed in some fashion in this world. In this case the fire vs ice can be used effectively enough in mimicking the Cinder Queen subtexts. Or perhaps just a human rogue (maybe from the rebel forces?) who is possessed by some item he/she found in those catacombs?
• Instead of module's storm god, which helped seal the door to the cinder queen, I like the idea of a cold-based Sasquatch cult. They seemed to have a god-like reputation during our history, and I envision them sort of like the Yeti in The Last Parsec, but maybe with some mystical quality. It'll be nice to take the "Sasquatch", which started with a little bit of a silly feel in our Microscope session, and end up giving them some gravitas.
• I may have a Sasquatch hide or otherwise cure-all type item, if appropriate, to help heal some characters at the end of the journey. (A power hinted at in the history; maybe it'll be red herring?)
• The history's scouts and rebel forces will be the ones who discovered these caves at some point in the past. In some way they will be related to the PCs and their positions in the army of the third empire. Their legacy will be giving the PCs some rumors of what lies in the caves (skipping the rumors provided by the "old crone" character in the local town).
• I may use the history's "diamond recorded shape", whatever that means, as something big that was discovered and visible to the PCs prior to the adventure, or some kind of recurring symbolism.
• In the Microscope palette we said an enthusiastic "yes" to "artifacts from the homeworld", so I'm planning to make the magic items - even though they may have similar powers to those described in the module - reshaped to give this feel.

Most preparations done. Now to see how it all plays out...

ASTG Indie RPG night #1: DW character creation and Microscope

This was the first night for the Art of Story Through Gaming meetup (hopefully of more than one) in a series on Indie RPGs, that I was trying to get going. We had four takers: Harry, Wale, Phil, and Aaron showed. We first decided to play around with Dungeon World character creation.

Dungeon World

Dungeon World is a game using the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) engine, which emulates classic Dungeons and Dragons in tropes and feel. Because the most of these folks hadn't played much of that system, and because I've had such a great experience with it in the last year, we created some characters: 

• Wale as Starry, the Druid of the Blasted Wasteland
• Phil as Searlock, the entitled Wizard
• Harry as Asp, the Thief, and spy
• Aaron as Sanguinius, the Paladin of somewhat feeble intelligence

We decided to go with a setting I've used before, which is simply: The characters have been conscripted (willingly or not) by the army of a large empire, for use in special missions, in a campaign on the border of a large military conflict.

It was especially fun seeing the players come up with Bonds, which is one of the best parts of the character creation of this system. Each character sheet comes with some sentences that you fill out, which creates relationships with the other characters. Some examples:

• Starry: "Searlock smells more like prey than a hunter", and "I have showed Asp a secret tire of the land".
• Searlock: "Asp is keeping an important secret from me."
• Asp: "Starry and I have a con running" and "I stole something from Sanguinus"

All good seeds for creating inter-party relationships, conflicts, and adventure goodness.

Before long, however, we decided to jump into Microscope, as some players had mentioned a strong interest in seeing how that system works. 

Microscope

Microscope is a system for history and world building. Because we just started to make Dungeon World characters in a setting as described above, we decided to play with Microscope in fleshing out that setting.

The first thing you do in Microscope is define some key setting pieces:

• Setting: The history of a world that was colonized 2000 years ago by humanoids through a "stargate". These humanoids include at least factions that can be called "human", "elf", "dwarf" and "halfling" (as per the Dungeon World character race choices).
• Bookends of history: Exploring the timeframe that starts with the "Pre-history" through "The Third empire", which comes just before the time we are playing in the above Dungeon World game.
• The Palette: YES to city-states, artifacts from the homeworld, sasquach, native sentient lifeforms, inhuman ancient gods, dashing swordplay, rebel forces, magical storms, plentiful ritual magic, and water is scarce. NO to dark elves, gnomes, god-caused apocalypses, and laser weapons (i.e. no laser guns and no light sabers).

We didn't get too far, going through only one full round of play (although with 5 players, I don't think Microscope would easily go through many rounds unless you have lots of times, or experienced players; in this case everyone was new to it). We had enough to define a few periods, and had two role playing sessions, and everyone got a good feel for how the system worked.

We ended up with the following periods, events, and scenes:

• Period: Pre-history [DARK]
  • Event: Foo the Lizard King dies, leaving no heirs behind. [LIGHT]
    • Played Scene: Q: How was the stargate involved in Foo's death? (at the Lizard King's Castle) A: Drudari summoned a demon to kill Foo, and Foo is killed sacrificing herself for husband Baf. [DARK]
• Period: The First Empire [LIGHT]
  • Event: An innumerable hoard of gods and demons enter through the gate. [DARK]
  • Event: The fall of the first empire [DARK]
• Period: The Arrival (of humanoids) [LIGHT]
  • Event: The stargate collapses [DARK]
    • Dictated Scene: Q: What caused the stargate to collapse? (refugees are rushing through the gate) A: A great sasquach broke the archway. [DARK]
  • Event: Using an ancient artifact, Dromlus unifies the city-states and starts the second empire. [LIGHT]
• Period: Search for the abominable Sasquatch [LIGHT]
  • Event: Lumptorious Lumpround (the halfling bard) discovers giant Sasquatch footprints glowing white. [LIGHT]
  • Event: Demand for Sasquatch hides spike as people believe it has magical powers related to stargates. [DARK]
    • Dictated Scene: Q: Why do people believe Sasquatch hide is magical? (In Mystik, a bar where criminals hang) A: Sasquatch is killed in a bar fight and its body, when touched, cures all illness. [?]
• Period: The Third Empire [DARK]
  • Event: Scouts of the third empire discover a long abandoned cave of Foo the Lizard King. [LIGHT]
  • Event: Rebel forces of the third empire find artifacts from the homeworld. [LIGHT]
    • Played Scene: Q: What is the artifact the rebel forces found? (Abandoned cave of Foo) A: A diamond recorded shape. [?]
  • Event: Amid earthquakes, three new islands appear in the steaming sea. [LIGHT]

The first "focus" was stargates. The first "legacy" was Sasquatches. The second "focus" was chosen as "artifacts from the homeworld", however we didn't get far enough to get much into that one.

Microscope session

Wrap-up

One thing I enjoy in retrospect is that I have a starting point for playing with this shared history and experience in creating a Dungeon World campaign or game. Playing with the same players would be that much more enjoyable because they now have a vested interest and attachment to the world, as I can pick and choose interesting bits to work into the fiction (assuming we get to play in this world again).

I've always heard and thought of using Microscope as a way to world build for a campaign or gaming session, but this is the closest I've come to actually doing so. We'll see what, if anything, becomes of it.

A Quiet Year for ASTG

ASTG

I joined the Art of Story Through Gaming meetup towards the end of 2015, in time for a general get together at a comic shop on Melrose that included an awesome game of Cthulhu Wars (a Risk, Diplomacy, and Cthulhu mashup).

Since then I ran my Lego Star Frontiers one-shot for a few members (Aaron and Wale), but have been too busy to get anything going with any regularity. Hopefully that's about to change. I just started, and plan to run an Indie RPG night once/month... hopefully with regularity.

What games? I've got a list that I want to play, but also leave it currently open to discussion or desires by the participants. Also, more than one has mentioned they'd be happy to run things, so we'll see how it all plays out.

A Quiet Year

Starting with something light and fun, I ran The Quiet Year for friends Harry and Lucas. We went with a dry, arid environment. The resources chosen? 1. Sunshine. 2. Cactus fields. 3. Shoes. Of course shoes ends up being in abundance, as there is a large cargo truck, overturned, full of shoes. 

During the game we had an abundance of Fuel, which helped us cause some various problems, more than anything. We had a sinkhole which turned into an fire ant hill. We had shoe armor. We had evil scholars from the local library. We had lots of man-eating coyotes.

All-in-all, we had a good time, but a full game of The Quiet Year does end up running around 4 hours, and by the end I think we were all a bit fried. 

We agreed that to play more regularly, you'd probably want to go with the "fleeting" version of the Quiet Year, which has you remove 3 cards from each suit. This would mix up things and prevent something which would start to feel repetitive with the game.

That, or it would be excellent to have alternate question cards. Anyone working on that? I've thought of doing something that would be more little kid-friendly (not necessarily in theme, more in the scope of the questions and wording). 

A full Quiet Year for ASTG

200 Words finalists

The Finalists were announced. Some of these are just superb. Here was the blog announcing the finalists. No, I didn't make it, but honestly, I don't think I should've. There was some really good gems in there.

Some of the ones I really like include “HEAVY METAL WIZARD SORCERORS” by Alessandro Dellamotta, “Drink Tea. Forget.” by M. Quintanilla (you could just as easily play it with booze and at night for a change of pace), “Stardust” by Daniel Adams, “Time Travel Thaw” by Armand Kossayan, and the supplement “A GM’s Guide to Session Prep and Play” by Ole Peder Giæver. 

Given the short form games, I didn't believe, going into this, that I would want to play that many of these games. I'm glad to see I'm wrong. I've got one or two on the short list for an upcoming Indie RPG night. I can already see a timely scenario for HEAVY METAL WIZARD SORCERORS where they have to defend themselves against the The Purple Prince of Pop.

200 Words

I heard from a few friends on my G+ feed about this 200 word RPG challenge. Looks like it was started last year in 2015, and in fact a local LA con-goer / friend won! (Stephanie of Mortaine fame.)

Having played many more small form RPGs this last year, I thought why not give it a go. I have submitted my game, which I originally called We Are Character (since the players all take turns playing the same character), but which I've renamed We Are Cadavre Exquis (due to playtesters observations that there is similarity to the Exquisite Character game of surrealistic artists). This makes it sound extra artsy-fartsy.

I first play-tested it with my daughter, who loved it. I think that's due to its very simple nature and the control she has during play (so far she hasn't gone too much for GM-run games). I think the simple story cues are just enough for her to handle.

I also play-tested it with 3 adult friends on a game night, and got some cool feedback that way, including a few of the modifications that I added at the bottom, including the ones I called "Poem" and "Synchronicity".

After reviewing many of the other submissions, up on the G+ community feed for the contest, I have to say I'm both impressed, and intimidated, by some of the awesomely cool ideas spewing forth. Impressed by the creativity and the way some of the concepts and ideas have been so concisely summarized and distilled; intimidated because my idea seems so simple and basic and almost lackluster. But don't get me wrong, I still like its simplicity... for no other reason than my daughter keeps asking me if we can play!

Here's my submission (at 195 words) for the 200 Word RPG Challenge, 2016:

“WE ARE CADAVRE EXQUIS
GM-less story game where we take turns playing the same character.

RULES
1. Separate card deck into Diamonds (RESULT) and Clubs (ACTION).
2. Shuffle decks separately. Place face down in two stacks.
3. Choose an adventure start:
“Opens the door into the depths…”
“Heads into enemy headquarters…”
“Enters the desolate space station…”
4. Go clockwise while cards remain:
a. Reveal Diamond card.
b. Look up RESULT cue.
c. Use cue to describe result of last action, in ONE sentence.
d. Reveal Club card.
e. Look up ACTION cue.
f. Use cue to describe next action, in ONE sentence.
5. When cards run out: next player describes the ending.

CARD CUES
# - RESULT - ACTION
A - Key - Fall
2 - Blue - Discover
3 - Cloud - Fear
4 - Rough - Break
5 - Portal - Hurt
6 - Root - Test
7 - Energy - Hear
8 - Pain - Fly
9 - Arms - Pound
10 - Dark - Fire
J - Light - Cut
Q - Hook - Run
K - Ground - Face

MODIFICATIONS
SYNCHRONICITY: Reveal both cards before describing results.
POEM: Rhyme as a couplet, sestina, or in style of haiku.
CUSTOMIZE: Create your own adventure start or cues.
WORLD-BUILDING: Change character to: city, culture, planet...
EPIC: Do not limit player sentences. ”

Girl Gamer Gathering 2016

About 6 months ago (or more?) I started hearing about another new con that was attempting to spring up here in the LA area: Girl Gamer Gathering.

Being the father of a 7 year old gamer, as well as someone who is a fan of inclusiveness, and wanting a more diverse hobby, I was drawn in. I knew that I would be bringing the kid for the full convention, so would be on "babysitting" duty pretty much the entire time. That's why I ended up volunteering to run at least my Fallout Shelter RPG... I knew she could play in it during that 4 hour slot. Other than that, we'd just be there for the ride, and scope out the scene.

Friday

Well, months later, it arrives. Unfortunately right after we return from a trip overseas, with the accompanying jet lag. And also unfortunately right at the end of a week where I was feeling like I had been either sick with a soar throat, or suffering from some severe hay fever. But onwards we go...

The con was held in Ontario (California, not Canada), which is about an hour East for us; although ended up about 1.5 hours on Friday afternoon.

Friday we just scoped out the scene. The kid wanted to hit the pool. First we hit the registration desk and got our badges. Then discovered the pool was frigid and the hot tub was out of order, but went in anyways.

We made it!

The con had a Con Suite, which was open over 12 hours a day (anywhere from about 10 or 11am in the morning, until 11pm to midnight, depending on the day). The Con Suite was a standard room configured for use as a hangout area. It had both generic snack food like chips, hummus, sandwich making gear (PB&J mainly), veggies, and candy, as well as appliances such as toasters, coffee maker, and electric tea kettle. It was such a refreshing thing to have. Although you could get better food in other places outside the con, everything was provided for free, and the space was excellent for relaxing and meeting people. We visited it constantly and consistently throughout the con.

Everything was on one floor, which was terribly convenient. They had an open gaming room, which is where most folks would swing by to play board games. There was a little library of sorts, and many folks brought a variety of games to play.

Saturday

We woke up before 8am to get breakfast. The hotel claimed that everyone, including kids, would have to pay the $13 all-you-could-eat buffet, or order off the menu, but when I went downstairs the nice staff let me feed the kid with my personal $13 buffet order. The kid and I played a little Towers of Conspiracy.

Breakfast

We were supposed to start around 9am, but being the first con, timings were a bit disorganized.

Ready to run!

Caoimhe was the RPG coordinator, and she told me that folks would probably be waking up a bit late and a 10am start time was more reasonable. All good... we wandered around, and even got a new kid, Liz, to join us for the game. All up, it was Noah, Alana, the kid, and Liz.

Character creation!

Four vault dwellers

From there the kid joined Alana's Short Order Heroes that she ran, in the same room. I was extremely impressed that this 10 year old managed the table the way she did, especially because it was laden with a kooky bunch of older teenagers that sometimes didn't let her or the kid get much of a word in edgewise. Kudos!

After lunch at the Con Suite, we spent various times going into Open Gaming.

Open gaming room

Looney Labs were special guests that were in town, which is to say Andy and Kristen Looney. They're probably best known for Fluxx, and I've played with them and in some of their games at Strategicon. We ended up playing a bit of Loonacy, which is a great alternative to Spot It, including classic Loonacy, retro Loonacy, and even Ugly Doll Lunacy!

Playing classic Loonacy.P

Playing Ugly Dolls Lunacy!

Looney Labs also showcased many of their pyramid-based games, partly due to the fact that they planned to kick off a Kickstarter on their Pyramid Arcade set in the next days (which, writing this now a few days later, they've already funded).

There was a room especially for console gaming, which looked interesting, but I have to admit the kid and I didn't spend any time in here the entire weekend.

This was the one tempting game, as it was something that supported up to, like, 8 players. Didn't really find out much more than that though. I feel like a Ludite.

 A little later in the day, Noah ran a game of Short Order Heroes, which this time was attended by the slightly younger youth, including all of my prior players. It gave me some time to wander around and chat with Aaron Vanek and Kirsten who were running the LARP room. At one moment I came back in the room to hear all the kids cackling like crazy. It was awesome to see a little of the next generation of gamers.

Love the Strategicon advertisement here.

Late night came about, and then it was games such as Werewolf. The circle is a lot smaller than the Strategicon circles of 30-50 or more... much more manageable here. It also allowed me to get out and about while the kid played with Alana and others.

And finally a little One Night Ultimate Werewolf, which I had brought a long. After that the older girls were talking about playing Cards Against Humanity, but made some joke about Apples to Apples. The kid and Alana heard it, and were very excited, and kudos again to the older girls for taking them under their wings, and playing a few rounds in the open gaming room.

I didn't play, but instead filled the role of the kid’s dictionary for any particular big words or weird concepts.

Sunday

Unfortunately Sunday started with the kid feeling a bit sick to her stomach, but after having a very light breakfast, she begged to stay longer. We ended up playing a game of Little Wizards with Alana and the GM (I forgot her name!) was pretty great for a kids table, although the kids ended up getting a bit distracted for this long-form game. I think Short Order Heroes was more up their alley.

A few more rounds of this or that in the open gaming room, and a round of goodbyes to all our new and old friends, and it was time to head out. The kid passed out in the car on the way home, and unfortunately ended up sick the next day, but we didn't regret this awesome adventure.

Very happy to hear that GGG was a success, and they plan to run it again next year... so until then!

Code of Conduct

Another thing that I think GGG does very well is their Code of Conduct. Their section "Privilege Awareness" is one of the best, most concise versions of that I've seen. I also love that they have an "Encouraged Behavior" section as a set of guidelines on how to participate given the code of conduct.

The whole environment was encouraging and calm and wonderful. I can't wait for the next one. There was some concern that the naming of the con might be seen as very youth focused, however most of the con felt like the standard adult fair, so I wouldn't judge it that way.

Can't wait to see how it grows and changes for next year, and hope to be a part of it.