Meeting Gamers

Some of you may not know me well enough to know that I travel for work. A lot. While I'm a bit of an introvert I do enjoy meeting and talking with new-to-me people. Especially gamers. So I was pleased to meet another gamer on my most recent trip.

He was working the desk at the hotel I was staying at in downtown Phoenix. I had approached him because I needed information about getting to the airport the next morning to head home. As he answered my questions I noticed he was reading over a character sheet. An Order of Hermes character sheet from Mage: The Ascension, to be precise.

I asked him about it and he confirmed that he was playing in a Revised edition OWoD Mage game with his friends. I told him how cool that was and how much I love the original setting for Mage. We talked for several minutes about his game, the OWoD setting and getting back into play after a long absence. Talk quickly turned to technology, ebook readers and the iPad.

Eventually the client I was training arrived for our lunch meeting and I had to go, but, like a cheap whore, I scribbled down the URL to this blog and passed him the note. I walked away feeling very glad that I got to spend a few minutes during a long business week getting to talk about games with a fellow gamer.

This got me thinking about recognizing other gamers in the strangers around me. What could I do to let others know that I played RPG's to elicit further connection and interface? Is there an RPG 'gang sign' I can throw? Maybe some d20 bling? Obviously wearing my D&D t-shirt proclaims me as a member of the gaming set, but that is not exactly business attire when I'm working.

I think the simplest way to make that connection is reading gaming materials in public. Just as that character sheet clued me in that this fellow was a gamer, reading gaming material in public will let others know that I enjoy playing RPG's. Actual game books are best as they are iconic (and often very big and hard to miss). If I'm reading the Dresden Files RPG on my iPad (beautiful PDF that it is) someone has a to practically be looking over my shoulder in order to see what I'm reading. Nope, actual books are the way to go.

This also has the added benefit of inviting the curious on-looker to enquire about what it is at I'm reading. If the person is a non-gamer this gives me a chance to evangelize the wonders and magic that is the fantabulous world of RPG's. Three times a year there is the Read an RPG Book in Public Week. no reason to wait so long, grab a book and do it now.

I'm very interested in hearing how other folks proclaim their membership in the RPG Federation. Feel free to drop a comment on this blog post and share what you do to be recognized.


Follow your bliss,
JJ

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Game Science Dice

GameScience Dice in action

Back at Origins I picked up my first pair of GameScience dice. After a busy summer I finally got a chance to give them a try. My oldest son offered to run Eberron (3.5) just so we could start gaming again. Between all the summer camps, travel, holidays and what-not, our semi-regular Back to Basics campaign had fallen by the wayside (as had my blog posting). Seems the only gaming I was doing was on Skype and there we used an on-line substitute to real dice.

So I dusted off Angus the Artificer and we picked up where we left off in the module Whispers of the Vampire's Blade. But before I could start playing I had an important ritual to complete with my new dice: coloring in the numbers. The opaque dice I selected at Origins (a nice dusty orange) did not come with painted numbers.

This didn't bother me in the least. See, the first (and second) set of gaming dice I acquired (and proudly still own) did not come with painted numbers either: the red Basic and blue Expert boxed sets of D&D. Those sets even came with a white crayon for the purpose of coloring in the numbers (yes, I still have the pieces of that original crayon in my dice bag; I'm working through this with my therapist); the GameScience dice did not. No biggie, I could borrow one from my boys.

(Some of you may be asking why I didn't use that original crayon for coloring in my new dice. Well, obviously, that crayon is only used for touch-up on the original dice. Yes, it is a sickness and admitting it is the first step to recovery.)

So, for the first time in 30 years I set to coloring in my dice. The artist in me settled on a dark blue-violet (I have to justify those years earning my BFA from time to time). I started with the d6, scraping the point of the crayon over each face. You see, the numbers on each die are indented, so, rubbing the crayon over these presses the dark wax into the recesses. It also sticks to the surface of the die; not very legible or pretty at this point. That is where the tissues come in.

The next step after coloring is polishing each die with tissues (a brand without lotion preferably, generic is preferred). Well, maybe not so much polishing as cleaning off the excess crayon. Throughout this process I'm turning the die over and over in my hand, feeling each side, each edge. In this way I'm getting to know each die. I notice at the edges are crisp and sharp. I also notice the rough spot where the die was broken off the 'tree' much like the parts of a plastic model kit.

This rough spot is a point of pride with the GameScience dice makers. It proves that the dice were not put through a tumbler to polish out the blemishes. Such polishing does smooth away the blemishes, but it also rounds the edges and results in unevenly-sized dice. By the way, that's also how dice with painted numbers are made: the dice are painted then polished to remove the paint from the sides while leaving it in the numbered recesses.

By the time I finished with my dice I was ready to start rolling. I gave each a few experimental rolls. I would drop each die from my hand at varying heights over the table. We were playing on a Chessex battle mat so it provided an even and slightly springy surface.

I was surprised to see that each die would bounce one or twice and then stop, even the d20. This was way cool. The sharp edges brought each die to a stop with a minimum of rolling. No more chasing run-away dice across the table. I could see that there would be much less sloppy die rolling in my future. As we played I paid attention to the results of each roll. While I did not try to stat the rolls I did feel that the results were suitably random enough for my tastes.

The end result is that I am very happy with my GameScience dice and I can't wait to get more. They have a great nostalgic quality and I can feel reassured that the dice are going to be impartial oracles. Now I wonder if the GameScience folks make Fudge dice too?

Follow your bliss,
JJ

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Origins 2010 Recap

I'm going to ease back into writing by giving my recap of Origins 2010. I spent Sunday, the last day of the con, with my boys exploring the exhibition hall, chatting with various games designers and playing a game of Dresden Files RPG. The family pass was only $10 for all three of us to get into the exhibition hall; Origins knows how to treat families right.

First I had a chance to chat with some very friendly RPG game designers: Fred Hicks, Ryan Macklin, Rob Donoghue, Jason Morningstar, Paul Tevis, Luke Crane and Brennan Taylor. Most I had met before and I was please to meet for the first time Jason (who promptly recruited me for his One Cool Thing video I posted about last time) and was able to share my recent experience with his game Fiasco. Rob was kind enough to share with me his experience reading and working with gaming PDFs on his iPad (I'm a convert now and looking to get one ASAP). It was fun catching up and chatting with all these great folks, but my sons were soon bored with dad yacking away.

Thankfully the exhibition hall had distractions to occupy them while I was talking. Doubly lucky was the fact that Ryan was looking for players for a pick-up game of Dresden Files. I had found out about the pick-up game from his Tweet the evening before. As the time neared it turned out Ryan had 4 slots open but 5 players counting me. Since I wanted my sons to experience first-hand a con game I opted to sit back and provide support as needed.

First off let me say that Ryan is a great GM. I don't know where he found the energy to run a game at the end of a long con, but he did a fantastic job. As Lead Project Developer for Dresden Files RPG, Ryan really knew his stuff. He was able to pull together some very wild ideas (a were-goat, a myth-busting organization called PENGUIN) and make it work. Ryan would go on to say the session was very Saturday Morning Cartoon-ish, but it worked, which says a lot for his mad gaming skills and the versatile FATE system Dresden Files is based on.

Let me be clear before I go too much farther that this is not a review of Dresden Files. This session was an introduction to us, but I felt very comfortable playing because of past experience with Spirit of the Century, even though I've never read one of Jim Butcher's Dresden novels. I'm coming at this from our overall experience of the game. I'm indebted to Ryan for making this such a cool play session for my boys.

I was pleased to see that my boys picked up on the mechanics of play very quickly. Their primary gaming experience to date has been D&D (Basic, 3.5 and 4). They were really sailing with the ideas of Aspects and making a fun story. Both really got into the story and their characters. They were talking about the game the rest of the day (especially El Chupacabra). This was enough to prompt me to get the PDF of the game when I got home. I'm interested in digging into the details as soon as time permits.

Now, it's not a convention if you don't spend some money. We all purchased some Game Science Dice. I've been interested in them since I saw the YouTube interview. I was pleased to see the opaque dice with unpainted numbers which hit that Red-Box-nostalgia spot. I can't wait to add them to my Back to D&D Basics campaign.

Well, that was our Sunday at Origins 2010 in a nutshell. That will have to hold me over till 2011. Next year both of my boys will be old enough to join me at GenCon. W00t!

Follow Your Bliss,
JJ

I'm back...

...from Origins 2010



Shout-out to Jason Morningstar who put this little film together.

More from me soon.

Follow Your Bliss,
JJ

Researching Cthulhu - Part 2: Books

For my next research topic it's time to delve into the deep and research the many tentacled Mythos of Cthulhu: ancient tomes of magic and dark deeds. Lovecraft's writing make reference to several books that have become staples of the genre. I'd like to use this element to add some flavor to Icosa.

As a departure from the typical 'spellbook' and to help add to the chaotic nature of spellcasting, magic-user spells will only be found scattered about in various texts rather than collected in a wizard's spellbook. Each player could have their own traveling spellbook from which to memorize, but I see these as notes and shorthand, it would not be sufficient for a magic-user to learn the spell from one of these traveling tomes. This would be the equivalent to the researchers notebook. I'm feel that this, along with few starting spells, will give the magic-users reason to delving into dungeons dark and dangerous. It also gives them a reason to have a home base where they can store their library.

These books can take many forms. They can be studies on a partiular subject, writings of many authors, perhaps an enclave or coven. They could be the mad ramblings of a magic-user whose mind has been lost or warped by the chaos he casts. So in addition to spells, the book should impart some knowledge. This knowledge is a way of slowly unraveling the mystery that is the history of Icosa. Spells in these books would be limited to one or two which are related to the nature of the work.

These tomes also help build the feel of an ancient lost world, one where magic was perhaps more prevalent than today in Icosa. This will help me introduce figures of note from history. Most notably I'd like to introduce famous magic-users through their works, ala Melf and Mordenkainen.

I believe the text of spells would be in an ancient tongue; except for possibly one ancient magic-using race, the language would be considered dead. This language is passed down from master to apprentice and would be considered secret. Magic-users could identify one another through the use of key words and phrases.

This approach will allow me to do away with Read Magic. Blasphemy you say? Isn't it required for reading magic scrolls? Well, no, because I'm not going to have magic scrolls, at least, not the one-shot magic spell variety. The reason for this is that I don't see a basis for this in any of the text I'm using as source material; magic scrolls feels more like a game element than a literary one. Magic is a language, you have to know the language to learn and cast the spells, so every magic-user will start out knowing this language.

What about clerics? Good question. My approach is that clerical spells (or prayers) would be written in a language specific to alignment. I envision Lawful clerical writing to be in something similar to Latin and Chaotic writing to be in an offshoot or distant dialect of the text used by magic-users. While magic-users could recognize the writing as coming from the same source as their spell-casting language, they could not read it and vice versa.

As mentioned above, these works would contain knowledge on various topics. This dovetails nicely with the various 'magical' tomes that increase statistics like Intelligence or Widsom (remember, in Swords & Wizardry, higher stats means faster advancement). These books could be written in other ancient languages that need to be researched and deciphered while the spell portions are written in the language related to the type of spells. this makes Read Languages a useful first level spell.

But I'm not sold on keeping Read Languages either. Without it characters will need to do research and that may lead to more explorations and lead to more adventures or be on the lookout to hire a knowledgeable sage. In an effort to keep the characters hungry and motivated to keep exploring, this idea is appealing to me.

Now this doesn't rule out a spell that would specifically encrypt text to be undecipherable. This could be used for special messages, secret tomes and such. Taken a step further, what if each version of the spell have a specific counter version in order to decipher it? This could lead to interesting adventure.

Or, instead of a counter-spell, what if it had a trigger word to display the text normally. I like this idea better because it gives players a reason not to kill everyone the come into contact with so that they can discover word they need to read the text. But, then again, if they do slay someone, that might be a good reason to locate someone who can speak with the dead.

Obviously clerics and magic-users would want to learn more languages. To keep it simple, they could learn an additional language for every point of Intelligence over 10. They could start with a default set and add others as they find the need. I see these two classes being the only ones assumed to be literate. Fighters would be assumed illiterate unless their background deems otherwise, such as a noble.

Well my sanity is holding out so far, let's see where this research takes me next. Perhaps to the land of Dreams?

Follow Your Bliss,
JJ