Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Meme Me Merry Myrmidon #4
Scrapped ideas for the original covers left on the TSR cutting room floor.
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Dungeon Punks
I did the cover for this. It's a self-described fantasy heartbreaker by James T. Hook. You should check out his blog where he tackles various RPG-related topics from PC death to the myths of the OSR.
Monday, April 6, 2020
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Kickstarter Schmickstarter?
I still haven't done a Kickstarter. Almost everyone in the indie RPG communities have done at least one Kickstarter, right? And I have had some visibility with Black Pudding and other ventures, so it seems natural I would do a Kickstarter. Why haven't I?
Mainly it's because I dislike committing to something on a grand scale. There, I said it.
I want my freedom to do whatever in the holy fuck I want to do in the moment. If I ever do a KS, I will complete the project before going live. But then you gotta have stretch goals, right? What happens if I have 10 stretch goals that all fund? Suddenly I'm committed to doing 10 more things? Yeah... that's when my dumbass psyche kicks in and says "Don't wanna".
Ah, it's not all that bad. I'm exaggerating. If I was as flighty and random as I claim to be I would not have any finished books. And yet I have several. And I have a slew of commissioned works present in a slew of indie publications. I'm active. Not prolific, but active. I ain't dead yet.
So will I ever do a Kickstarter? The answer is maybe. A solid, unmitigated maybe. But it will only happen when I have some idea in mind that truly requires funds. Like... if I wanna do a fancy sewn-binding hardback. Then I'll do a Kickstarter.
All that being said, I love the shit out of KS. My shelves ache under the weight of so many delicious books thanks to KS. The old era of RPGs never gave us nearly this much awesome shit. Even the slickest, coolest TSR package is just not as slick and cool as many of the great things produced today and largely funded through KS. May lord Satan bless Kickstarter and it's many wonders.
Init, Innit?
(Get it?)
So this whole initiative thing in RPGs. And please understand here I'm talking about the kind of RPGs wherein who gets to bash a motherfucker's teeth in first actually matters. I don't care if you don't need initiative systems in your Saved By the Bell RPG.
(Not sure if that sounds like a fun game or not...)
For reference, I talk a bit about initiative here, here, here, and here. So this has been on my mind a bit.
I don't like initiative. It gets in the way. It takes time. It slows things down. It is complexity that doesn't always add much to the game. But I have a really hard time imagining a game wherein there is combat and you have no method for deciding who gets to roll the dice next. So this post is me thinking out loud about the problem. It will meander. Click away while you still have the initiative to do so.
Here are the types of initiative systems I am aware of in RPGs:
1. Sides
1981's D&D codified the vague initiative system from previous versions into a very slick and simple method. Each "side" of a battle (frex PCs vs. monsters) rolls 1d6. Whoever gets the higher number goes first.
This is the method I've used most. I've played and ran a ton of old school D&D (via Labyrinth Lord, mostly) and this method, out of all the methods I've tried, works best. It is fastest and smoothest. Embedded within this method is the idea that you can work out the details on the fly. Because knowing that the PCs go first doesn't tell you which one goes first. You have to sort that out. In our Monday night Doomslakers group it works like a charm. We have mutual respect and we appreciate the story that is being told. If it feels like I should attack first, then I do. It works.
As a caveat, you can allow individuals to add their Dex mod to side init and that works fine too. So it might be the case that the PCs lost init, but Dex the Speedy, having +2, still goes first.
2. Individual
This is the most common method in D&D type games. It is the only method I've experienced when running or playing anything approaching a modern game. It is the default method for DCC RPG, for example, and for all modern iterations of D&D. And I hate it. It is the slowest method I know of. It involves the highest degree of GM-workload. And it is the most popular with common RPG players.
Is that because it's good or because it's just what people know? I suspect the main reason for its popularity is that it caters to each player's sense of individuality. It is not a group effort, it is my effort. I am fast. I am lucky, etc. It recognizes individuals. Which all sounds great, but fuck's sake it's a time sink.
I would declare my intention to never use this method again except that a lot of games have perks built into the initative system. DCC RPG has Initiative as a stat on your sheet. Ditching the method is probably OK, but you would need to consider how it impacts PCs.
NOTE: I have nothing to say about AD&D's initiative method because frankly I have never known what it is. Something about rolling 1d10, lower is better? Even when I was playing that game in high school I have no memory of how we did init! I suspect we did d6 side init.
3. The Sack
Daniel Sell's Troika! has a clever init system wherein you select objects for each PC and each monster then put it all into a sack. You draw out an object and that tells you who goes next. One object represents end of round.
I actually bought the initiative cards for this game and used it when I ran Supercalla. It worked fantastically well for me as GM. It reduces workload to almost zero. I like it quite a bit. But I do not believe the players loved it. This is because it is entirely possible for a PC to go a round or two without taking any actions. And that probably feels shitty.
It also leads to irrational results. Frex if you had two guys duking it out in mid-air and someone else trying to disarm a bomb. What if you draw the bomb dude's card twice in a row, then end of round, then bomb dude again? Are the two combatants just hovering in mid air, waiting for their turns? Sure, you could GM fiat that shit and just say who goes next. But I like to stick with a game's rules as closely as possible and having to do such a thing indicates something might be slightly broken about the system.
4. Preset
Some games use a preset init system. Frex: Holmes' 1977 D&D had a system in which your Dexterity score determines who goes first. For monsters, you'd roll their Dex on 3d6 and go. My recent first experience with Warhammer Fantasy Role Play indicates that in that game you have a set init score and you just go in that order. Our group monkeyed with Cadillacs & Dinosaurs once and it felt like that game also had a kind of fixed initiative (but phase-based?).
I'm OK with these methods. They do the job of removing GM workload and avoiding all fiddly questions. Initiative is pre-determined and you just go with it. The downside, I think, is that it leads to some possible absurdities and that it makes combat more predictable. As an absurdity, what if your PC with the highest init by a country mile is at the rear of the party as you burst into a goblin den? That guy is going to shove past everyone, get out front, and land a blow first? Maybe. Sure. But perhaps that slow little dwarf who kicked down the door will bury their blade in a goblin throat first? It requires GM adjudication, does it not?
But to me, making combat predictable is a bigger sin.
5. Phases
Some games have a phase system. I am not nearly as familiar with this. I know that Villains & Vigilantes had this method, and I believe the above mentioned C&D had one. My limited, pitiful understanding is that you would basically count down from some number, such as 10, to represent a combat round. If your PC's attacks go on phases 2, 4, 6, and 8 then you'd get 4 actions. If Mine is only 6 then I'd only get to go when phase 6 was called out. This is more-or-less the same kind of method as #4 above, but with caveats.
It's a neat idea.
6. Popcorn-Balsera
This method is based on a method used by someone named Leonard Balsera and was written into Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and later into FATE as "elective action order". I like the term "popcorn imitative".
All it amounts to is you somehow figure out who goes first then that person decides who goes next and when everyone has gone, you start over. I can't imagine that this method hasn't been used countless times in organic play over decades. I know for a fact I have defaulted to this method in games over the years, without calling it out as a method. It's just a natural way to play.
And I like it. In my other blog posts about Sand in the Bone/Dead Wizards I talk about this a lot. What I'm going for is a slightly more codified version in which there is some GM dice rolling used to decide when/if enemies get a turn between each PC action.
7. Troll Style
I never owned, played, or even read Tunnels & Trolls. So I only recently became aware of it's combat system. In it, there is no initiative. Both sides just make one big attack roll and the loser takes damage distributed between its members.
Of all the methods, this one seems to reduce combat to the simplest approach. It feels like it would be fast and furious. But at what cost? Would this method sacrifice granularity and detail? What if you had a bunch of farmers with pitchforks and one armored knight against a battalion of bastards? Would the knight's side constantly lose the roll, taking damage every round while no damage is dealt the other side? The knight lands no blows?
Of course that interpretation assumes that damage is related to actual physical strikes instead of being purely abstract, a representation of morale and fatigue. Either way, interesting.
8. None
Of course you don't have to have a codified method. You can wing that mother. GM fiat, player negotiations, etc. But I think it would be wrong to refer to this as having no system. You will always have a system. Even if you decide what it is round-by-round. Having no written method only gives you an illusion of winging it. I guarantee that by the end of one combat you will have your method and you'll use it again, until it becomes a problem.
And that's all the various initiatives I know about. If you know of other methods that are distinct, tell me about them.
So this whole initiative thing in RPGs. And please understand here I'm talking about the kind of RPGs wherein who gets to bash a motherfucker's teeth in first actually matters. I don't care if you don't need initiative systems in your Saved By the Bell RPG.
(Not sure if that sounds like a fun game or not...)
For reference, I talk a bit about initiative here, here, here, and here. So this has been on my mind a bit.
 |
| You see, it's all quite simple. |
Here are the types of initiative systems I am aware of in RPGs:
1. Sides
1981's D&D codified the vague initiative system from previous versions into a very slick and simple method. Each "side" of a battle (frex PCs vs. monsters) rolls 1d6. Whoever gets the higher number goes first.
This is the method I've used most. I've played and ran a ton of old school D&D (via Labyrinth Lord, mostly) and this method, out of all the methods I've tried, works best. It is fastest and smoothest. Embedded within this method is the idea that you can work out the details on the fly. Because knowing that the PCs go first doesn't tell you which one goes first. You have to sort that out. In our Monday night Doomslakers group it works like a charm. We have mutual respect and we appreciate the story that is being told. If it feels like I should attack first, then I do. It works.
As a caveat, you can allow individuals to add their Dex mod to side init and that works fine too. So it might be the case that the PCs lost init, but Dex the Speedy, having +2, still goes first.
2. Individual
This is the most common method in D&D type games. It is the only method I've experienced when running or playing anything approaching a modern game. It is the default method for DCC RPG, for example, and for all modern iterations of D&D. And I hate it. It is the slowest method I know of. It involves the highest degree of GM-workload. And it is the most popular with common RPG players.
Is that because it's good or because it's just what people know? I suspect the main reason for its popularity is that it caters to each player's sense of individuality. It is not a group effort, it is my effort. I am fast. I am lucky, etc. It recognizes individuals. Which all sounds great, but fuck's sake it's a time sink.
I would declare my intention to never use this method again except that a lot of games have perks built into the initative system. DCC RPG has Initiative as a stat on your sheet. Ditching the method is probably OK, but you would need to consider how it impacts PCs.
 |
| I am a special goatflake! |
NOTE: I have nothing to say about AD&D's initiative method because frankly I have never known what it is. Something about rolling 1d10, lower is better? Even when I was playing that game in high school I have no memory of how we did init! I suspect we did d6 side init.
3. The Sack
Daniel Sell's Troika! has a clever init system wherein you select objects for each PC and each monster then put it all into a sack. You draw out an object and that tells you who goes next. One object represents end of round.
 |
| Reach into my sack. |
It also leads to irrational results. Frex if you had two guys duking it out in mid-air and someone else trying to disarm a bomb. What if you draw the bomb dude's card twice in a row, then end of round, then bomb dude again? Are the two combatants just hovering in mid air, waiting for their turns? Sure, you could GM fiat that shit and just say who goes next. But I like to stick with a game's rules as closely as possible and having to do such a thing indicates something might be slightly broken about the system.
4. Preset
Some games use a preset init system. Frex: Holmes' 1977 D&D had a system in which your Dexterity score determines who goes first. For monsters, you'd roll their Dex on 3d6 and go. My recent first experience with Warhammer Fantasy Role Play indicates that in that game you have a set init score and you just go in that order. Our group monkeyed with Cadillacs & Dinosaurs once and it felt like that game also had a kind of fixed initiative (but phase-based?).
I'm OK with these methods. They do the job of removing GM workload and avoiding all fiddly questions. Initiative is pre-determined and you just go with it. The downside, I think, is that it leads to some possible absurdities and that it makes combat more predictable. As an absurdity, what if your PC with the highest init by a country mile is at the rear of the party as you burst into a goblin den? That guy is going to shove past everyone, get out front, and land a blow first? Maybe. Sure. But perhaps that slow little dwarf who kicked down the door will bury their blade in a goblin throat first? It requires GM adjudication, does it not?
But to me, making combat predictable is a bigger sin.
 |
| His init was highest. Alas, he was last in line. |
5. Phases
Some games have a phase system. I am not nearly as familiar with this. I know that Villains & Vigilantes had this method, and I believe the above mentioned C&D had one. My limited, pitiful understanding is that you would basically count down from some number, such as 10, to represent a combat round. If your PC's attacks go on phases 2, 4, 6, and 8 then you'd get 4 actions. If Mine is only 6 then I'd only get to go when phase 6 was called out. This is more-or-less the same kind of method as #4 above, but with caveats.
It's a neat idea.
 |
| Not phased. |
 |
| Eat me. |
This method is based on a method used by someone named Leonard Balsera and was written into Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and later into FATE as "elective action order". I like the term "popcorn imitative".
All it amounts to is you somehow figure out who goes first then that person decides who goes next and when everyone has gone, you start over. I can't imagine that this method hasn't been used countless times in organic play over decades. I know for a fact I have defaulted to this method in games over the years, without calling it out as a method. It's just a natural way to play.
And I like it. In my other blog posts about Sand in the Bone/Dead Wizards I talk about this a lot. What I'm going for is a slightly more codified version in which there is some GM dice rolling used to decide when/if enemies get a turn between each PC action.
7. Troll Style
I never owned, played, or even read Tunnels & Trolls. So I only recently became aware of it's combat system. In it, there is no initiative. Both sides just make one big attack roll and the loser takes damage distributed between its members.
Of all the methods, this one seems to reduce combat to the simplest approach. It feels like it would be fast and furious. But at what cost? Would this method sacrifice granularity and detail? What if you had a bunch of farmers with pitchforks and one armored knight against a battalion of bastards? Would the knight's side constantly lose the roll, taking damage every round while no damage is dealt the other side? The knight lands no blows?
Of course that interpretation assumes that damage is related to actual physical strikes instead of being purely abstract, a representation of morale and fatigue. Either way, interesting.
8. None
Of course you don't have to have a codified method. You can wing that mother. GM fiat, player negotiations, etc. But I think it would be wrong to refer to this as having no system. You will always have a system. Even if you decide what it is round-by-round. Having no written method only gives you an illusion of winging it. I guarantee that by the end of one combat you will have your method and you'll use it again, until it becomes a problem.
And that's all the various initiatives I know about. If you know of other methods that are distinct, tell me about them.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
That RPG Folder Named Desire
A continuation of this series right here.
In a Strange Land by James D. Hargrove, hardest of the Hargroves, is a pulp fantasy hex crawly game.
Layout is clean, art is very cool. It's a short game clocking in at 8 pages. Tight.
The opening paragraph has a cryptic reference to a "solo-play board game of the early 80s". I believe this might be a reference to Dwarfstar Games' Barbarian Prince, but that's just a wild conjecture since I know nothing of that particular lost artifact of the past.
Mechanics are interesting. Blows are resolved by subtracting the Fighting scores of opponents to get a modifier, then making a 2d6 roll and modifying it with the number you got. There's a table then that you look at and if your final result is on the table it will tell you how many wounds you dealt. This is really interesting to me because it means the scaling isn't intuitive. For example, if you end up with a 6 you have scored 1 wound. But if you get a 7 you score no wounds. A 12 is 3 wounds but a 13 is zero wounds.
Weird, but neat. Not something I'd be attracted to in an RPG. But I'd give it shot for fun because it is so damn weird.
Much of the other content is related to hex travel. How far can you go in a day, how much food do you have, etc.
I dig how sorcery is handled. PCs are not wizards. Sorcerers are evil, alien, sinful, wicked, dangerous. Much of what they do is reduced to a single d6 roll where, on a 5-6, they deal wounds to every PC in the group with a blast of wicked energy. Cool beans.
Seems like a fun little game. Not too complicated. Very focused on exactly what you see on the cover: pulp fantasy hex crawls.
Echoes of the Labyrinth by Scott Malthouse is a Tunnels & Trolls hack. I know very little about T&T in terms of game play, so I'm taking a look at this one as a total noob without any idea what I'm talking about.
It's a short game that weighs in at 16 pages. It cuts right to the chase by telling us that it's a traditional GM/Player game (GM = Heart, Players = Yearning Delvers... I'm down with that!) and giving us the core mechanics right on page one. In this game you only use d6s. You make skill rolls on 2d6 + mods vs. a target.
Combat is different. All combatants on a given team make 2d6 + mods roll and then everyone adds their results together. The other side does the same. Compare the rolls to see who was the victor. The difference between the rolls is divided among the losing side as points of damage, which are distributed as the losing side sees fit.
That's very interesting. Is that part of classic T&T? It's a very cooperative method, it seems. If I'm down to a single hit point and you have ten then maybe you absorb all the damage so I don't die. There's a big meta-gaming aspect to that, which is taboo in some RPG modes, but which doesn't have to be taboo. I am not sure I love it, but I do find it terribly interesting.
Characters have six abilities that are generated by rolling 3d6 each... which of course is exactly what classic D&D does. But that's expected to me since I know that T&T came out a mere year after OD&D and is inspired by it.
I like how monsters are statted-up. They just really have 3 elements. FR = Foe Rating; this is how many hit points the monster has and half of the FR is it's Combat Points (bonus to attacks). Armour = how many points of damage the creature can ignore. Special = whatever special abilities or notes it has. So monster listings are super short.
This is an easy game. Based on reading it alone I can see that it would play fast and free. I like that the game's central conceit* is that it takes place in The Great Labyrinth, which is potentially unlimited in size and scope, possessing entire cities and nations deep within it. I dig it. I would play this game.
*You know, I have seen the phrase "the central conceit of..." many times and I only assume know how to use it. I am assuming here. It's one of those phrases like "damp squib" that I have heard and never fully understood except through context. Weird.
In a Strange Land by James D. Hargrove, hardest of the Hargroves, is a pulp fantasy hex crawly game.
Layout is clean, art is very cool. It's a short game clocking in at 8 pages. Tight.
The opening paragraph has a cryptic reference to a "solo-play board game of the early 80s". I believe this might be a reference to Dwarfstar Games' Barbarian Prince, but that's just a wild conjecture since I know nothing of that particular lost artifact of the past.
Mechanics are interesting. Blows are resolved by subtracting the Fighting scores of opponents to get a modifier, then making a 2d6 roll and modifying it with the number you got. There's a table then that you look at and if your final result is on the table it will tell you how many wounds you dealt. This is really interesting to me because it means the scaling isn't intuitive. For example, if you end up with a 6 you have scored 1 wound. But if you get a 7 you score no wounds. A 12 is 3 wounds but a 13 is zero wounds.
Weird, but neat. Not something I'd be attracted to in an RPG. But I'd give it shot for fun because it is so damn weird.
Much of the other content is related to hex travel. How far can you go in a day, how much food do you have, etc.
I dig how sorcery is handled. PCs are not wizards. Sorcerers are evil, alien, sinful, wicked, dangerous. Much of what they do is reduced to a single d6 roll where, on a 5-6, they deal wounds to every PC in the group with a blast of wicked energy. Cool beans.
Seems like a fun little game. Not too complicated. Very focused on exactly what you see on the cover: pulp fantasy hex crawls.
Echoes of the Labyrinth by Scott Malthouse is a Tunnels & Trolls hack. I know very little about T&T in terms of game play, so I'm taking a look at this one as a total noob without any idea what I'm talking about.
It's a short game that weighs in at 16 pages. It cuts right to the chase by telling us that it's a traditional GM/Player game (GM = Heart, Players = Yearning Delvers... I'm down with that!) and giving us the core mechanics right on page one. In this game you only use d6s. You make skill rolls on 2d6 + mods vs. a target.
Combat is different. All combatants on a given team make 2d6 + mods roll and then everyone adds their results together. The other side does the same. Compare the rolls to see who was the victor. The difference between the rolls is divided among the losing side as points of damage, which are distributed as the losing side sees fit.
That's very interesting. Is that part of classic T&T? It's a very cooperative method, it seems. If I'm down to a single hit point and you have ten then maybe you absorb all the damage so I don't die. There's a big meta-gaming aspect to that, which is taboo in some RPG modes, but which doesn't have to be taboo. I am not sure I love it, but I do find it terribly interesting.
Characters have six abilities that are generated by rolling 3d6 each... which of course is exactly what classic D&D does. But that's expected to me since I know that T&T came out a mere year after OD&D and is inspired by it.
I like how monsters are statted-up. They just really have 3 elements. FR = Foe Rating; this is how many hit points the monster has and half of the FR is it's Combat Points (bonus to attacks). Armour = how many points of damage the creature can ignore. Special = whatever special abilities or notes it has. So monster listings are super short.
This is an easy game. Based on reading it alone I can see that it would play fast and free. I like that the game's central conceit* is that it takes place in The Great Labyrinth, which is potentially unlimited in size and scope, possessing entire cities and nations deep within it. I dig it. I would play this game.
*You know, I have seen the phrase "the central conceit of..." many times and I only assume know how to use it. I am assuming here. It's one of those phrases like "damp squib" that I have heard and never fully understood except through context. Weird.
Meme Me Merry Myrmidon #1
In a wise use of my time, I'm going to post all of the various silly, stupid, and slanderous memes I have created over the last many years. Here's the first post. Enjoy. Or at least smirk in disapproval.
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