Where Worlds Collide

I’ve lost count of the number of Stabcons I’ve been to now. I missed the first part of this one due to the charity concert in York, but managed to get there by about lunchtime to find a large room filled with a great many familar faces.

Getting there late meant that many games in which I’d liked to have played were already filled up - I noticed Mike Cule was running Vincent Baker’s “In A Wicked Age” on the Sunday, which would have been fun. Fortunately there was a slot in Mark Baker’s marathon Unknown Armies game running from 5pm until late on Saturday, so I signed up for that.

It turned out to involve time travel; what started as a tube journey early on a Sunday morning turned out as a trudge through the Fleet sewer, in which we emerged in 1829. Out attempts to get back home lead us to various times which increasingly diverged from our own timeline; at various points we killed the vampire Jack the Ripper and encountered Princess Elizabeth as a member of the British Resistance in the abandoned tube tunnels beneath Nazi-occupied London. Eventually we managed to fix the timeline, and get back to what would have been our own time but for some very bad dice rolling; everything was as it should have been except that both our London tube train and the Virgin Pendolinos at Euston appeared to be powered by Stirling Engines.

Sunday’s game was very different - Pete Crowther’s game of Toon. Which was very, very silly indeed. I wrote up a Toon version of Bug, from the Guardians of Dimension games from Gypsycon. Other characters included a 50′ high robot and a squirrel. The plot was probably impossible to summarise, but included live-action Space Invaders, a fight in a tea-room, aeroplanes getting coated in cottage pie, the Welsh village of Llandofmyfathers, and an arch-villains base in the volcanic crater in Mt Snowdon.

Next Stabcon is from the 2nd to 4th January - see you there!

One of the things I’ve been wondering when running message games using FUDGE is what do you do about Fudge points. The platonic ideal of message gaming is not to make any out-of-character references to game mechanics. I’m trying to come up with some code phrases which can be invoked in-character to enable a player to say “I’m spending a Fudge Point on this action” without explicitly saying “I’m spending a Fudge Point”.

But sometimes it’s pretty clear. In this example, Hollis, a powerful psychokinetic, has been taken prisoner. This is completely unedited game transcript; Hollis’s words and actions are written by Nicki Jett, one of my best players, and the scene setting and Guruinath’s lines are mine.

Hollis aches all over; when she slowly comes round, she’s in a windowless room with featureless grey walls; if there’s a door, it must be somewhere behind her. She’s sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair, and appears to be restrained by leather straps.

Facing her are three kandar males. Two of them look like standard-issue Karazthan security goons. The man standing between radiates an aura of being someone of importance, a handsome middle-aged kandar of aristocratic bearing, with piercing mauve eyes. The expression on his face cannot possibly be described as friendly.

“Human, you have some explaining to do”, he says, “You were captured while engaged in hostile acts against Karazthan security who were engaged in lawful activity”.

“You have now been positively identified as the human who attacked our security team on the West Side, causing serious injuries to one, and the death of a member of Guild of Victuallers”.

“Can you give an explanation of your actions. Starting with the most important question. Who are you working for?”

“Of course,” Hollis said. “I represent the Legion — actually, the Fifth Legion, and in particular Tavonoleyr Kolath Polyn d’n Miralath a’r Surene. I have been retained as an advisor on human affairs and a guide to the human quarter, and I also serve as an errand girl when needed. In that capacity, I go where he says –”

** well, not exclusively, but that is merely a semantic issue.**

“– I investigate what he wishes investigated, and I question those he suggests. However, when I am in the middle of one of these investigations, and some people *try to kill me,* like your victualler, I regretfully must defend myself.

“In the case you cited most recently, I was concerned for my employer’s safety, and I was making an effort to reduce the tension without anyone getting killed in the process. I was trying to maintain a low profile and defuse what I saw as a volatile situation.”

She glanced around the room, taking in the nature of the restraints and the positioning of the interrogators, and noting the presence or absence of edged weapons. SHe is evaluating how quickly she could get them unbuckled mentally, or slice through them if she “borrowed” a blade from one of the interrogators, and how many times she would have to bash heads together to take them all out.

The proximity and security of the exit came under consideration as well.

As Hollis’ head clears, she realises the identity of her interrogator - it’s Guruinath Zadaz, the Karazthan head of security. The man Kolath believes to be a traitor to the city.

“Ah, Kolath d’n Miralath”, he says sarcastically, “The loose canon himself. Who’s never been quite right in the head since he had a nasty blow to the head. Probably leaving him vulnerable to mind-control from a human wizard with an agenda all her own”.

“Now, tell me who you’re *really* working for. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way”.

Hollis scans the room; the two Men in Black have lightning wands at their belts, but don’t appear to have any swords or knives on their person. Hollis senses that there’s a fourth person in the room somewhere behind her that she can’t see.

“Where’s my belt pack? I have some things in there for you to see that might make things clearer.”

“Answer my questions first”, says Guruinath.

Hollis considers her options. She probably has the mental strength to break the leather straps, but will probably injure her wrists in the process. She can’t loosen the straps without being able to see how they’re attached.

Seizing the lightning wands, then aiming and firing them would require a lot of finesse, and her forte is brute force.

She scans the part of the room she can see for any suitable objects to start throwing around. The only thing she can see is what looks like a waste bin in the corner - it’s made of basket-weave stuff rather than anything solid, so probably weighs next to nothing.

One thing she does notice is that the whole room does appear to be swaying slightly. This might just be Hollis’ still being a bit groggy.

Hollis decided that the wavery effect could also mean this was not real. MAybe it was a dream, or something similar. No reason to get too goofy. She could always bash two of them together, or seize the lightning rods and use them like clubs.

“Afraid there’s nothing left to say, since I an a simple girl and doing a simple job helping the Legion. IF you try to get rough, though, I am not going to sit still for it.”

“I like a girl with spirit”, he says, getting the timing sufficiently wrong that the joke falls rather flat. “Now, you really expect me to believe that. Kolath’s a flake, and you know it. You’re using him. Now tell me who you’re really working for, and we won’t need to start using Devices”.

The room is definitely swaying. Hollis is sure it’s not just her imagination.

“Be-HAVE,” Hollis said, shaing her head and opening and closing her eyes rapidly to try and diminish the swaying effect. “I’m not working for anybody else.

“And stand still and quit swaying, would you? You’re making me nauseous. Here, let me help … ”

She reached out with her mind and seized the two on each side of Guruinath, trying to smash their heads together at the place where Guruinath’s head was located.

It would be like smacking three melons together. Hard.

Leaving her with one to deal with, if things worked out …

Hollis concentrates….

…and nothing happens. Apart from what feels like someone driving red-hot nails into her skull.

“11.4!”, says a female voice from behind her. “Unit’s only rated for 14! She’s strong”.

Guruiniath gives the owner of the voice a black look.

Hollis made the immediate segué, being analyzed, being managed, being held down by a machine with a limit.

One she bet she could blow out the top.

She concentrated, tightened up her mind, put everything she had into defeating this thing and grabbing *someone* in the vicinity, preferably Guruiniath …

Emergency, threat to her brother, threat to Kolath, death of her parents, she used them all for motivation, to kick it up to a power level she’d never achieved before.

Let’s see what their machine could handle …

I think Hollis’ player is pretty unambiguously saying “I’m spending a Fudge Point here…

It’s scenes like this that make message game RPGing so worthwhile.

Quite a few gamer friends of mine are fanatical cultists of Amber, the diceless RPG based on Roger Zelazny’s dimension-hopping setting. Robert Donoghue has some Amberish thoughts, and manages to put his finger on precisely what’s always bugged me about the setting.

For those unfamiliar with it, Amber basically posits an infinite number of universes, each one only fractionally different than the ones next to it, and the princes of Amber travel through these realities (’shadows’) by making progressive changes in their environment. This means that no place but Amber (Where you can’t do this stuff) is really unique. If you find a place you like, but accidentally blow it up or something, you just move to an otherwise identical universe where your bartender is left handed.

Now, this model works fantastically if you heartily want to buy into the idea that only Amber and its princes matter* but if you step away from that at all it gets a bit dodgy. For example, it’s hard to say any given place matters in some unique way, or to say any _person_ matters, since a replacement is just a quick shift away.

Now, my exposure to the setting is limited to reading the books, and one convention-style one-shot game several years ago which probably didn’t expose me to the game’s strengths. But I’ve always found it’s played bait-and-switch on me; it purports to be about parallel universes, but what you really get is a dynastic soap opera where all those potentially fascinating parallel universes are just insubstantial background.

A followup to my previous Actual Play post.  As before, this is an actual transcript of the message game on Dreamlyrics.com

“Quick,” Hollis muttered in mild disappointment. But now without the crossbow pointed at her, she could grab the whole person and slam him into the ceiling head first a few times. Which is what she was going to do if he was still visible…

He seems to instinctively understand what Hollis is trying to do; he drops the crossbow and concentrates on trying to avoid being dragged ceilingwards by hanging on to the stair rail. He’s pretty strong, and Hollis doesn’t have quite the right psychokinetic grip on him. But the wooden stair rail begins to creak and splinter.

“Get down here!” he cries, “Mad wizard!”.

“Not mad,” Hollis murmured. “Merely annoyed. I get that way when people try to kill me.” She shifted from trying to yank him skyward, to whipping him back and forth like a rag doll in the hands of an angry child. Since he’d tried to kill her, breaking a couple of wrists or his neck from the whiplash effect didn’t bother her in the slightest.

Sooner or later he would come loose — the sounds from the rail made sooner sound likely — and then he would be *hers*.

“We might think about backing out in just a moment …”

She could use the man to stop up the entryway while they escaped, but they needed to get him loose and get moving.

But he’s not hers just yet; she can feel him struggling, and he’s strong. Somehow he manages to brace himself, and avoids getting twisted around. That handrail isn’t going to last long, though.

Another man, this one small and wiry, appears at the top of the stairs. He’s got another crossbow.

“The woman!”, cries the big man, “Be quick”.

He aims the crossbow. 

With the new arrival Hollis couldn’t wait to wear out the handrail; she had to let go of his — so she could twist the new arrival so that his crossbow was pointed at her first assailant as he released.

“Gath, you can jump in here anythime …”

“Stop!”, says Gath, “I can explain

The man with the crossbow pays no attention.

“This is for Rik, bitch”, he says, as he looses the quarrel.

The big man lets out a strangled gurgle as he rolls down the stairs, to lie sprawled at the foot of the steps with a crossbow bolt sticking out of his neck.

By the time he reaches the bottom, the crossbow man has gone,

This starts out with a couple of opposed rolls between Hollis’ Superb psychokinetics and the unnamed NPC’s Good Strength.  Both rounds ended in ties; my NPC was lucky with the dice; I really hadn’t expected him to live this long.  When the new arrival turned up on the scene, his luck ran out. This was Crossbow vs. Psychokinetics, and the result was Terrible vs. Great. That’s a difference of -5.  Since I’m not using the extended combat rules fo this, that’s a near death, and because he’s an unnamed NPC and mere canon-fodder, it’s game over for the big man.

This is an “actual play” example from my ongoing online game on Dreamlyrics - the actual thread is here. It’s a conflict between Hollis, the psychokinetic human rebel assassin played by Nicki Jett, and an as-yet-unnamed NPC, actually guild security from the Guild of Victuallers. Hollis is searching for clues in the cellar of a tavern - the stakes for the meta-conflict were that Hollis would find a Significant Clue in return for a ‘complication’.

It’s a typical cellar of a tavern; full of beer barrels, some redundant furniture stacked in one corner. Hollis’ eyes are initially drawn to a bloodstain on the floor; enough blood for a nasty wound, not enough for someone to have bled to death.

A little searching reveals two items; a five-glerin coin bearing the head of Sarkan Vorsath of Karmork, and square black object resembling the communicators issued to members of the Karazthan.

“Aha,” Hollis whispered. “A clue. Two of ‘em, in fact.”

She collected the items and after a close perusal, pocketed them, then continued to search. aside for looking for clues, she was also trying to figure out the route the bad guys had employed, as opposed to the one Gath used to escape. She assumed that was they way she’d come in.

“Put you hands where I can see them” comes a male voice from somewhere behind Hollis. “And no funny business from you either, Gath”.

Hollis kept her hands wide and turned toward the voice, taking note of any useful objects in the vicinity as she did so. “No problem,” she said cheerfully.

The voice belongs to a thick-set human with arms and legs resembling tree trunks. Hollis doesn’t recognise the face, but she does notice he’s pointing a seriously large crossbow at her.

“Now, you two are going to explain to me precisely what you are doing grubbing around in this cellar. And that explanation had better be a good one”.

“Just trying to find my cousin Wozzeck,” Hiollis said cheerfully. “He’s not right in the head. Someone told us they’d seen him wandering around down here, so I persuaded this gentleman …” she turned to Gath apologetically, “I didn’t even get his name. Gath, you say? I persuaded Mister Gath to help me look.”

She gave Gath an imperceptible nod, then turned back. “Perhaps you’ve seen him. Stringy brown hair, about forty, with a scar right here … ”

… and with the faintest, harmless-looking flick of her fingertips along side her face, as if demonstrating the scar location, she *snatched* the quarrel right off the top of his crossbow.

Assuming that went as planned, she would flip the quarrel end for end and then drive it right into the big man’s eye.

This is a fight scene. Hollis has Fast-Talk at Fair, and Psychokinetics at Superb. The NPC’s relevant abilities for the encounter are Insight, Perception and Dodge, all at Fair, and Crossbow at Good. This guy is a professional, but nothing like the power level of a typical PC.

I decided to resolve this in two stages - first is Fast-Talk vs. Insight to see if Hollis managed to distract him. If Hollis wins, she can do the PK trick with the quarrel. If she loses, he attempts to shoot her (which would probably be Crossbow vs. PK to actually hit her, so he’d probably miss)

If Hollis wins the first contest, it’s then PK vs both Perception and Dodge - Perception to realise what’s going on, and Dodge to get out of the way.

Fast-Talk vs. Insight goes to Hollis, but only by a narrow margin. For the second contest, Hollis rolls -1 (Great) against the NPCs +3 (Superb) for Perception and 0 (Fair) for Dodge.

“Never heard of him”, he says. His reactions are far quicker than Hollis would have imagined; by the time the crossbow quarrel pierces where his eye would have been, his head is no longer there, leaving the quarrel embedded in the wood.

In the current playtest draft rules, there are two different ways you can combine two skills. In some circumstances you can use either skill, in which case you roll against both and take the best result. In others, you need both skills, so you roll against both skills, and take the worst roll.

I ruled Perception + Dodge as an “either” and used the better of the two rolls. Since his Superb beat Hollis’ Great, that means Hollis missed.

Now, in the context of this fight, I’m wondering if that approach really makes sense. Any opinions?

Warning!  This post contains tech geekery, using TLAs.

Karen Cravens wonders about roleplaying blogs and mailing lists cannibalising each other’s readership, and ponders a possible solution.

In fiddling with the next release of the software that powers the Phoenyx, I’ve been considering how to integrate blogs. A lot of us (including me, on occasion) have roleplaying blogs, and I think to a certain extent that’s drawn conversation that might otherwise go in GAMERS….

What I’m thinking is: if you’ve got a roleplaying blog (or a roleplaying section in a multi-topic blog) that has posts that would be appropriate to post to GAMERS, you register its feed, and when you post to your blog, the Phoenyx magically treats it as though you’ve posted to GAMERS as well. If you provide a comments feed, I might treat that as though the commenters have posted followups, too. (It’s up to you and your software to get the GAMERS replies treated as comments on your version - the Phoenyx can provide the feed, but I don’t know of any blogging software that’s set up to import it. Therein lies one hurdle in my plan)

Thoughts?

My immediate thought was rather than depending on some probably non-existant Wordpress plugin to read an external RSS feed and import the contents as comments, it would be better if the The Phoenyx were to ping this blog using XML-RPC with any followup comments.

I would guess there are serious cans of worms involved in a 100% two way synchronisation between the comments thread in a Wordpress blog, and a discussion thread on a web forum/mailing list hybrid, quite possibly at a social level as well as a technical one.

Anyone in the wider Wordpress world ever tried something like this?

Another iconic NPC presented for comment. This one kills two birds with one stone - he comes from a family of feuding nobles, and hold a high-ranking position in one of the most powerful guilds.

---

Alzardol Blerynthar d’n Tardeyn is a noble of Clan Blerynthar, and holds the position of a senior administrator in the Academy of Life, with ambitions to become Guildmaster on retirement of the present incumbent. As a member of the fractious Clan Blerynthar, he hasn’t managed to reach adulthood without making enemies, the most deadly of which is his half-brother Daraseth, with whom he’s feuded since childhood. He’s had to become a good duellist in order to have lived long enough, skilled in both the Nirvork duelling blade, and in unarmed combat. The score for duels with Daraseth stands at one-all; he bears a prominent scar on one cheek as a result of the last one.There are persistent rumours that something deeply unpleasant happened during his late adolescence.

Not that he doesn’t have the requisite skills for his job; by all accounts he’s a good administrator, well-versed in the minutiae of kandar law, and a good diplomat when it comes to resolving messy disputes with other guilds. Not that he isn’t prepared to be ruthless when the occasion demands; the guild will not expect anything less when its interests are directly threatened.

Lifepaths:
Noble, Guild Administrator

Keys:
Honour of the Clan, Duty to the Academy of Knowledge, Deadly Enemy: Half-brother, Dark Secret: (The exact nature of which is left for individual GMs to specify)

Principle Abilities:
Administration, Diplomacy, Kandar Law, Kandar Social Graces, Nirvork (all at Good)

Connections:
Clan Blerynthar: Good
Academy of Knowledge: Good

In Rob Donoghue’s design blog post what I want from setting, he lists three things he likes to see, one of which is faces:

Faces are what they sound like - NPCs. I am not proposing a need for stat blocks or detailed backgrounds, and most of my needs can be satisfied with a sentence or two of background. The NPCs I’m talking about are not important for who they are but rather for the purpose they serve. I cannot meaningfully interact with a government, nation, ideology or conspiracy, but I can meaningfully interact with a person who represents that group. Maybe they’re a person of authority for the group they represent, maybe they’re just an iconic member of that group, but that character _is_ that organization so far as my game is concerned. If I can put a face on the important ideas of the game, then they will mean more to my players.

Here’s one face for Kalyr. He does have a detailed stat block, at the same power level (four lifepaths) as the default level for PCs, using the current draft of the playtest rules. I’ll most likely drop him (and others like him) into the appropriate section of the settings chapter - in his case it will be the the section entitled “Religion“.

Zarvendol isn’t a very nice person. I would hope that the majority of games would see the likes of him used as a villain.

Name: Zarvendol d’n Areyn
Race: Kandar
Sex: Male
Appearance: 6’6” tall, copper-coloured skin and green eyes, hair dyed in purple and black streaks, prominent scar on cheek.

Lifepaths
Guild Background
Knight (three times)

Gifts
Extra Damage
Toughness
Talent: Quick Reactions

Keys
Duty to Temple of Kardak
Servant of The Guardian
Extremely Intolerant
The Only Good Enemy Is A Dead One

Abilities
Armed Melee Combat (Broadsword): Superb
Fast-Draw: Good
Kandar Fu: Good
Zarandar Riding: Fair
Dodge: Fair
Strength: Fair
Willpower: Good
Perception: Fair
Endurance: Good
Kandar Religious Lore: Good
Reading and Writing: Fair
Area Knowledge (home city): Mediocre
Streetwise: Mediocre

Connections
Temple of Kardak: Good
Guild of Victuallers: Mediocre

Weapons and Equipment
Fine quality Narvork sword +4 damage (includes +1 for Extra Damage Gift)
Hardened Ulsoghir hide armour, +3 armour (includes +1 for Toughness Gift)

Zarvendol is an archetypal Knight of Kardak the Defender. A xenophobic, bloodthirsty religious fanatic, he embodies all the traditional virtues of the holy defenders of the kandar race. To any human that encounters him as an enemy, he represents the very definition of the worst kind of kandar. If there’s a bloody pogrom taking place, expect to find him in the thick of it. When humans get in the way of his Narvork, he doesn’t recognise the concept of ‘innocent bystander’.

Charlie Stross mixes E Gary Gygax with the US presidential election, and gives us D&D 1st edition Monster Manual stats for the three principle characters:

John McCain (Demon Prince of Republicans.) (Lesser God.)

FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO APPEARING: 1
ARMOUR CLASS: -7
MOVE: 3″ (72″ per flight sector on the campaign jet)
HIT DICE: 200 hit points (But first you have to defeat 4d8 Secret Service Agents)
% IN LAIR: 0%
TREASURE TYPE: All your NATO base are belong to us!

And it gets a lot better after that.  Go and read the rest of it!

As reported by The Associated Press

Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69, and had been suffering from health problems for several years.

While I might have outgrown Gygax’s numbers-heavy style of gaming, it’s probably true that the RPG hobby as we know it today would not have existed without him, either in the pencil-and-paper form, or the hugely popular multiplayer online games. Without his pioneering efforts, others who came later would have had nothing to build on.

I had the priviledge of meeting him once, at Gen Con UK in Manchester back in 2000, where he was a guest of honour. I remember him as a spectator in the Steve Jackson Games demo room, where I was playing In Nomine. It was only afterwards that I realised who he was.

Update: Ken Hite reminds us that not only has Gygax given the world RPGs, but also introduced a lot of people to the writings of the great Jack Vance.

Steve Jackson adds this comment:

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson didn’t just remake a hobby. They impacted all of Western culture. Fantasy fiction would still be a backwater had not D&D built an audience and a new generation of writers. Lord of the Rings would be something taught in college English classes, not a blockbuster movie trilogy. And consider: The direct lineal descendant of D&D is Worlds of Warcraft, which is, all by itself, what? A billion-dollar business now?