It's been over two months since I posted anything to this blog, and while I use this space to think through some of the gaming-related ideas going through my head, there are a few of you out there in inter-web land that visit this space and interact with me. To those that do, I apologize for my absence.
There has been a serious lack of regular gaming going on in my life, and that has a lot to do with my general mood and lack of posting. I'm getting back into the swing of things with an on-line game of Apocalypse World, my Dresden Files game is shrinking to just be me and my boys, I'm figuring out what to play with my regular face-to-face group, and I may be running some old school fantasy games at a recently opened FLGS. Things seem to be picking up just as we head into the holiday season, when life in the States seems to be at its most hectic.
So what have I been doing with my time? I've been looking inward, using the time for thought and introspection. Another birthday has come and gone, the boys are a year older and one more step closer to moving out of the house, and my wife grows more beautiful with each passing day. I'm looking to see where gaming fits into my life without taking it over completely. I'm looking at the purpose of this blog and whether it has any beneficial impact in the grand scheme of things.
Only time will tell. I promise to keep those of you that do stop by to read my meandering thoughts posted.
Follow Your Bliss,
JJ
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Showing posts with label On-line. Show all posts
Showing posts with label On-line. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Digital Frontier - Part 3
A couple of posts ago I mentioned that Rob from Accidental Survivors invited me to play in an ongoing play-by-wiki game over at Obsidian Portal. This is a take on play-by-forum (which I did a little OWoD Vampire forum play back in the day of Prodigy) and was sparked by a post from Ken Newquist over at Nuketown.com. Rob is running the game using Mutants & Masterminds. So, as promised, here is the low down...
The Game
Mutants & Masterminds (M&M) has been around for a while now and has cemented it's position as the premier D20 supers game. The game is versatile and well supported in it's second edition. I've yet to come up with a super I couldn't stat out using this game system. I've game mastered and played both the 1st and 2nd edition IRL and had a great time doing so. I could go on and on about the game, but this post isn't so much a review of the game as it is of its application to the play-by-wiki (PBW) approach.
Let me make note before we go much further that Rob has stated that the current game is an experiment. Based on suggestions that Ken made in post at Nuketown, Rob is bringing the game to life over at Obsidian Portal. We all, players and GM alike, are feeling our way through play. Some elements are more collaborative storytelling and others more game-y.
First things first: the characters. We created Power Level 6 heroes. This sets the tone and feel for the game. PL 6 is below the typical starting level of 10. This fits in the range of street-level characters; these 'supers' will either be highly skilled/well-equipped 'normals' or possessing some small set of powers. This fits in nicely with the setting Rob chose - Freedom City.
Freedom City is normally home to some heavy hitters in the M&M world, but Rob has chosen to set the game during the setting's Iron Age. The year is 1985. In our world, comics were darker and populated with all manner of anti-heroes. This is the world into which The Raven was born.
Technical Aspects
I'm a self-acknowledged min/max-er when it comes to M&M. I like to feel that I get the most out of every power point. This leads to some intense character creation. In the past I've used a spreadsheet program for doing this. This time when I used it didn't seem to work very well when it came to the powers sheet. I may have too new a version of Microsoft Excel. I did not try the Open Office version.
Upon suggestion I tried Mutagen! a free Java applet for M&M character creation. The website that offered a download is now gone, the yahoo group is all but a ghost town, I don't believe the program is in active development, but I got my hands on a copy. It had a short learning curve and seemed to do the trick. The stat block in the character page (linked above) for The Raven was generated using this app.
Now the PBW is very similar to play-by-forum (PBF). You post something that relates to what your character is doing. The cool thing is that we're all editing the same wiki page of text. We build the story interactively. The down side is, like PBF, there can be down time between posts since not everyone has the same amount of free time. I have been guilty of that as I was away from my computer for a week, so The Raven didn't do much.
One of the things I had to get used to was how much I should write. I started off only writing a few lines, basically explaining one action. Rob pointed out that we had more authorial control and should expand. I loosened up and seemed to have found a nice rhythm.
Obsidian Portal also includes a die roller. We've used this in a couple of combat situations to relate the effectiveness of an attack or skill use. I'm interested to see how it gets used when more of the players are involved in the same scene.
I'm also able to create my own pages for things like my alter ego's apartment. and list off some supporting characters. The linking feature of wikis proves quite useful. For example, if Rob introduces an organization into the story, he create a page relating what is known about that organization without slowing down the narrative.
As a result of Rob posting about his experiment, Obsidian Portal upped his membership to the Ascendant level. This means the campaign gets forums, email notification and more maps. We're in the process of trying out all the fiddly bits. I recently posted the first two forum topics and we'll see where that goes.
After a little bit of back story development, Rob is kicking off Vol. 1, Issue 1 of Freedom City: Shades of Grey. Something very cool about this is that it looks like he is running two stories side-by-side. My thought is that the two groups of heroes will eventually meet up and interact together. But the possibility always remains to easily spin off a side jaunt or Shag & Scoob (spit up the party) if need be.
So far, smooth sailing. I'm in a mind to try running a PBW myself. If I do, I'll be sure to post it here.
Follow Your Bliss,
JJ
The Game
Mutants & Masterminds (M&M) has been around for a while now and has cemented it's position as the premier D20 supers game. The game is versatile and well supported in it's second edition. I've yet to come up with a super I couldn't stat out using this game system. I've game mastered and played both the 1st and 2nd edition IRL and had a great time doing so. I could go on and on about the game, but this post isn't so much a review of the game as it is of its application to the play-by-wiki (PBW) approach.
Let me make note before we go much further that Rob has stated that the current game is an experiment. Based on suggestions that Ken made in post at Nuketown, Rob is bringing the game to life over at Obsidian Portal. We all, players and GM alike, are feeling our way through play. Some elements are more collaborative storytelling and others more game-y.
First things first: the characters. We created Power Level 6 heroes. This sets the tone and feel for the game. PL 6 is below the typical starting level of 10. This fits in the range of street-level characters; these 'supers' will either be highly skilled/well-equipped 'normals' or possessing some small set of powers. This fits in nicely with the setting Rob chose - Freedom City.
Freedom City is normally home to some heavy hitters in the M&M world, but Rob has chosen to set the game during the setting's Iron Age. The year is 1985. In our world, comics were darker and populated with all manner of anti-heroes. This is the world into which The Raven was born.
Technical Aspects
I'm a self-acknowledged min/max-er when it comes to M&M. I like to feel that I get the most out of every power point. This leads to some intense character creation. In the past I've used a spreadsheet program for doing this. This time when I used it didn't seem to work very well when it came to the powers sheet. I may have too new a version of Microsoft Excel. I did not try the Open Office version.
Upon suggestion I tried Mutagen! a free Java applet for M&M character creation. The website that offered a download is now gone, the yahoo group is all but a ghost town, I don't believe the program is in active development, but I got my hands on a copy. It had a short learning curve and seemed to do the trick. The stat block in the character page (linked above) for The Raven was generated using this app.
Now the PBW is very similar to play-by-forum (PBF). You post something that relates to what your character is doing. The cool thing is that we're all editing the same wiki page of text. We build the story interactively. The down side is, like PBF, there can be down time between posts since not everyone has the same amount of free time. I have been guilty of that as I was away from my computer for a week, so The Raven didn't do much.
One of the things I had to get used to was how much I should write. I started off only writing a few lines, basically explaining one action. Rob pointed out that we had more authorial control and should expand. I loosened up and seemed to have found a nice rhythm.
Obsidian Portal also includes a die roller. We've used this in a couple of combat situations to relate the effectiveness of an attack or skill use. I'm interested to see how it gets used when more of the players are involved in the same scene.
I'm also able to create my own pages for things like my alter ego's apartment. and list off some supporting characters. The linking feature of wikis proves quite useful. For example, if Rob introduces an organization into the story, he create a page relating what is known about that organization without slowing down the narrative.
As a result of Rob posting about his experiment, Obsidian Portal upped his membership to the Ascendant level. This means the campaign gets forums, email notification and more maps. We're in the process of trying out all the fiddly bits. I recently posted the first two forum topics and we'll see where that goes.
After a little bit of back story development, Rob is kicking off Vol. 1, Issue 1 of Freedom City: Shades of Grey. Something very cool about this is that it looks like he is running two stories side-by-side. My thought is that the two groups of heroes will eventually meet up and interact together. But the possibility always remains to easily spin off a side jaunt or Shag & Scoob (spit up the party) if need be.
So far, smooth sailing. I'm in a mind to try running a PBW myself. If I do, I'll be sure to post it here.
Follow Your Bliss,
JJ
Friday, April 16, 2010
Digital Frontier - Part 2
Well, I was able to join Rich, Arnold and Scott to play a game of Fiasco, by Jason Morningstar, (you can download a preview sample of the game here) as part of Rich's Monthly Pick-up Game. This was another on-line playing session. Fiasco has been described as 'Coen Bros. the RPG'. The tag like for the game says it all:
I think Fiasco was a great game. Technical difficulties aside (see below), I think it was easy to learn and fun to play. I had no problem picking up what to even though I did not have game book as a reference. I have listened to several podcasts that talked about the game prior to playing and was able to look over the setup 'oracle' before the session so that did help. It also builds on a skill-set common to many indie games (scene setting, pushing the plot to get a reward).
The game is best played with 4 players (which we had although others were slated to play but had to drop out due to technical or scheduling difficulties). Each player uses various tables in the setup to build and define relationships and aspects that will come into play in the upcoming game. The setup tables are referred to as Playsets. These Playsets are grouped by an overall description of where and/or when the story of the game takes place. Our group decided on using the McMURDO STATION, Antarctica setup (even though it was actually played like more of an Alaskan outpost by tacit agreement).
One of the neat aspects of the Playsets is the almost infinite flexibility and re-playability of the tables. I heard that players around the net started drifting the game by building their own Playsets. Bully Pulpit Games is showcasing a different Playset every month. (Interestingly enough, the oracle-like Playsets makes me want to play In a Wicked Age).
Play progresses around the table with each player taking a turn at setup but allocating values of randomly rolled dice to the various aspects of the Playset. Once that is done players take being the focus of a scene. The play can decide to start the scene and leave the outcome up to other players (which determines the color of die that will be awarded - White if the outcome is good for the focus player or Black if it is not) or letting someone else start a scene so the focus player can decide the outcome.
In the first two rounds around the table players give the die from the outcome to one of the other players at the table. Then the players take these dice and allocate them to the Tilt (much like they did in the Playset), which may dramatically change the direction of the story. This is followed by two more rounds for each player around the table before the outcome is decided each character at the end of the game.
Technically I got hosed with my final score of 0 (subtracting the totals of two sets of colored dice), but I really enjoyed the outcome. I wasn't so much into the game aspect of watching what color dice I collected and worrying about where to push my dice. It really was a fairly invisible mechanic. I was much more interested in the story that was being created.
I think the ease of play in learning the game speaks volumes about the strength of the game as well as the players facilitating this session. I believe I was the only one who had no prior experience with it. Even then, I was diving in very quickly in scene framing and lending to the madness of the story as it unfolded.
I love the gm-less aspect of the game. Minimal setup and shared world-building makes this a perfect pickup game. I could easily see it being a fall back for a regular group when some of the players can't make it. I think the freedom of minimal mechanics made the game sail. It is amazing what you can do with so little framework. It really pushes the paradigm and definition of 'rules light'.
On this one play of the game I can enthusiastically recommend it to any that have found enjoyment in creating rousing adventures when everything goes pear-shaped. I won't go into the specifics of the story (ask me some time you see me at a convention), but I will say there was much laughter generated throughout play.
Technical Aspects
Rich set up a Google drawing doc to track relationships and other aspects of play. Overall I think this approach worked well. I believe Rich did most of the editing during play, although the rest of the players did attempt to edit as well which led to some duplication of efforts. I think having everyone be responsible for a specific aspect of that doc, such as relations and objects added by that player, might have sped setup.
I like that there is now an artifact after the game to be able to look back on (published to the link above). It would be interesting to see if there would be an easy way to expand that document to include the changes that happened as play progressed, like adding in each of the NPCs and their relation to the main characters and eventual fates.
Again we used the dice roller at Catch Your Hare. This worked very well for tracking and allocating dice to the Playset, Tilt and Outcome. We also made good use of the chat feature within Google Docs so we didn't have to keep switching back to the Skype chat window post links and track events.
Technical difficulties were limited to some awkwardness in having all of working on the same document and Skype breaking down for some players. Apparently it's not a Skype game unless someone can't get tuned in. I had the same difficulty at the end of the session I mentioned last time regarding the Skype signal. The audio really went down hill after 12:00am. Thankfully we were wrapping up at that point.
I enjoyed gaming with this group of players. I'm sad that some of the players who wanted to play were not able to due to technical or scheduling difficulties, but there are hopefully more opportunities to game with everyone.
Next month we are talking about playing Polaris. I am very psyched to play this game (provided everyone else is on board as well). Another gm-less game, w00t!!
Follow Your Bliss,
JJ
A game of powerful ambition & poor impulse control.The Game
I think Fiasco was a great game. Technical difficulties aside (see below), I think it was easy to learn and fun to play. I had no problem picking up what to even though I did not have game book as a reference. I have listened to several podcasts that talked about the game prior to playing and was able to look over the setup 'oracle' before the session so that did help. It also builds on a skill-set common to many indie games (scene setting, pushing the plot to get a reward).
The game is best played with 4 players (which we had although others were slated to play but had to drop out due to technical or scheduling difficulties). Each player uses various tables in the setup to build and define relationships and aspects that will come into play in the upcoming game. The setup tables are referred to as Playsets. These Playsets are grouped by an overall description of where and/or when the story of the game takes place. Our group decided on using the McMURDO STATION, Antarctica setup (even though it was actually played like more of an Alaskan outpost by tacit agreement).
One of the neat aspects of the Playsets is the almost infinite flexibility and re-playability of the tables. I heard that players around the net started drifting the game by building their own Playsets. Bully Pulpit Games is showcasing a different Playset every month. (Interestingly enough, the oracle-like Playsets makes me want to play In a Wicked Age).
Play progresses around the table with each player taking a turn at setup but allocating values of randomly rolled dice to the various aspects of the Playset. Once that is done players take being the focus of a scene. The play can decide to start the scene and leave the outcome up to other players (which determines the color of die that will be awarded - White if the outcome is good for the focus player or Black if it is not) or letting someone else start a scene so the focus player can decide the outcome.
In the first two rounds around the table players give the die from the outcome to one of the other players at the table. Then the players take these dice and allocate them to the Tilt (much like they did in the Playset), which may dramatically change the direction of the story. This is followed by two more rounds for each player around the table before the outcome is decided each character at the end of the game.
Technically I got hosed with my final score of 0 (subtracting the totals of two sets of colored dice), but I really enjoyed the outcome. I wasn't so much into the game aspect of watching what color dice I collected and worrying about where to push my dice. It really was a fairly invisible mechanic. I was much more interested in the story that was being created.
I think the ease of play in learning the game speaks volumes about the strength of the game as well as the players facilitating this session. I believe I was the only one who had no prior experience with it. Even then, I was diving in very quickly in scene framing and lending to the madness of the story as it unfolded.
I love the gm-less aspect of the game. Minimal setup and shared world-building makes this a perfect pickup game. I could easily see it being a fall back for a regular group when some of the players can't make it. I think the freedom of minimal mechanics made the game sail. It is amazing what you can do with so little framework. It really pushes the paradigm and definition of 'rules light'.
On this one play of the game I can enthusiastically recommend it to any that have found enjoyment in creating rousing adventures when everything goes pear-shaped. I won't go into the specifics of the story (ask me some time you see me at a convention), but I will say there was much laughter generated throughout play.
Technical Aspects
Rich set up a Google drawing doc to track relationships and other aspects of play. Overall I think this approach worked well. I believe Rich did most of the editing during play, although the rest of the players did attempt to edit as well which led to some duplication of efforts. I think having everyone be responsible for a specific aspect of that doc, such as relations and objects added by that player, might have sped setup.
I like that there is now an artifact after the game to be able to look back on (published to the link above). It would be interesting to see if there would be an easy way to expand that document to include the changes that happened as play progressed, like adding in each of the NPCs and their relation to the main characters and eventual fates.
Again we used the dice roller at Catch Your Hare. This worked very well for tracking and allocating dice to the Playset, Tilt and Outcome. We also made good use of the chat feature within Google Docs so we didn't have to keep switching back to the Skype chat window post links and track events.
Technical difficulties were limited to some awkwardness in having all of working on the same document and Skype breaking down for some players. Apparently it's not a Skype game unless someone can't get tuned in. I had the same difficulty at the end of the session I mentioned last time regarding the Skype signal. The audio really went down hill after 12:00am. Thankfully we were wrapping up at that point.
I enjoyed gaming with this group of players. I'm sad that some of the players who wanted to play were not able to due to technical or scheduling difficulties, but there are hopefully more opportunities to game with everyone.
Next month we are talking about playing Polaris. I am very psyched to play this game (provided everyone else is on board as well). Another gm-less game, w00t!!
Follow Your Bliss,
JJ
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Digital Frontier - Part 1
When I was talking about my New Year's resolutions one of the things I wanted to do, but don't think that I mentioned it there, was to do some on-line role-play gaming. I've recently had the opportunity to do some of that thanks to Rich Rogers over at Canon Puncture. Rich invited me to play in a monthly pick-up game on-line. Last month we played a great game of Mouse Guard and this month we'll be trying Fiasco.
In addition, Rob from Accidental Survivors invited me to play in an ongoing play-by-wiki game over at Obsidian Portal. This is a take on play-by-forum and was sparked by a post from Ken Newquist over at Nuketown.com. This game is run using Mutants & Masterminds. (More about this soon)
The Mouse Guard game was played using Skype. This allowed us to join an on-line conference call so that we could all converse. This worked very well at first. I'm pretty sure that I didn't have the latest version of Skype since I use it so infrequently. I didn't want to chance running an update right before play for fear that it could make matters worse.
The call worked well and the three of us (myself, Rich and Arnold) were able to get up and running very quickly. As the game wore on, I noticed more of a breakdown in the connection. We were on-line for over two hours on the same call. It could have been my laptop, it could have been the software, but it was extremely noticeable by the end were I was missing about 30% of the dialog. I was able to keep up, but if we had gone on much longer I would have lost much of the dialog. Needless to say I will be updating before we next play.
Skype also let us text each other for out-of-character discussion. This was especially nice for posting links and other relevant information. This was not used very heavily but it did help as a way of keeping track of various conditions of play.
For Mouse Guard we also used a dice roller at the Catch Your Hare! website. This was a great tool. It allows multiple players to all log into the same dice rolling session. Each of us could also color our dice so that it was easy to tell whose dice they were (we chose our dice color based on each mouse's cloak color). It also allowed for multiple labels to be placed around the screen so that dice could be pulled aside and still be visible for reference. On occasion there was a little delay when someone would 'roll' before I saw the dice, but no real hang-ups; there was a 'set password' button that acted as a screen refresh.
An interesting aspect of this play was player discussion without the GM (Arnold) listening in. When it was time for Rich and I to plan our scripting for the various encounters, Arnold would remove his headphones and step away from his PC to plan his moves. This was, in a sense, stepping out of the room.
Overall it was great fun for a number of reasons. Rich and Arnold are great players. It was my first time gaming with them both and I had a blast. It was also my first play of Mouse Guard. I had read the book, but playing brings a deeper understanding to the game. The adventure Arnold wove was fun and challenging. I would not (and will not) hesitate to game with both Rich and Arnold again and I definitely want to play some more Mouse Guard too.
Tonight we gathered again in the digital world to play the GMless game Fiasco. Me, I love me some GMless games, so I'm excited beyond belief. I'll be sure to update here very soon. Look for a post about Rob's play-by-wiki game as well soon.
Follow Your Bliss,
JJ
In addition, Rob from Accidental Survivors invited me to play in an ongoing play-by-wiki game over at Obsidian Portal. This is a take on play-by-forum and was sparked by a post from Ken Newquist over at Nuketown.com. This game is run using Mutants & Masterminds. (More about this soon)
The Mouse Guard game was played using Skype. This allowed us to join an on-line conference call so that we could all converse. This worked very well at first. I'm pretty sure that I didn't have the latest version of Skype since I use it so infrequently. I didn't want to chance running an update right before play for fear that it could make matters worse.
The call worked well and the three of us (myself, Rich and Arnold) were able to get up and running very quickly. As the game wore on, I noticed more of a breakdown in the connection. We were on-line for over two hours on the same call. It could have been my laptop, it could have been the software, but it was extremely noticeable by the end were I was missing about 30% of the dialog. I was able to keep up, but if we had gone on much longer I would have lost much of the dialog. Needless to say I will be updating before we next play.
Skype also let us text each other for out-of-character discussion. This was especially nice for posting links and other relevant information. This was not used very heavily but it did help as a way of keeping track of various conditions of play.
For Mouse Guard we also used a dice roller at the Catch Your Hare! website. This was a great tool. It allows multiple players to all log into the same dice rolling session. Each of us could also color our dice so that it was easy to tell whose dice they were (we chose our dice color based on each mouse's cloak color). It also allowed for multiple labels to be placed around the screen so that dice could be pulled aside and still be visible for reference. On occasion there was a little delay when someone would 'roll' before I saw the dice, but no real hang-ups; there was a 'set password' button that acted as a screen refresh.
An interesting aspect of this play was player discussion without the GM (Arnold) listening in. When it was time for Rich and I to plan our scripting for the various encounters, Arnold would remove his headphones and step away from his PC to plan his moves. This was, in a sense, stepping out of the room.
Overall it was great fun for a number of reasons. Rich and Arnold are great players. It was my first time gaming with them both and I had a blast. It was also my first play of Mouse Guard. I had read the book, but playing brings a deeper understanding to the game. The adventure Arnold wove was fun and challenging. I would not (and will not) hesitate to game with both Rich and Arnold again and I definitely want to play some more Mouse Guard too.
Tonight we gathered again in the digital world to play the GMless game Fiasco. Me, I love me some GMless games, so I'm excited beyond belief. I'll be sure to update here very soon. Look for a post about Rob's play-by-wiki game as well soon.
Follow Your Bliss,
JJ
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