Read This Book

Long time readers of this blog will know how much I adore Don't Rest Your Head. Running that game taught me to be a better GM. Running that game allowed me to explore a genre I don't watch or read. Running that game inspired me to write my own game. Imagine my delight when Don't Read This Book was announced. Imagine my extra delight this week to see that the pre-orders were open!

And then imagine my dismay when the $15 book became a $52 with postage fees to Perth.

After a brief twitter exchange with @fredhicks I slumped my shoulders and resigned myself to wait for the e-book editions to be made available. I didn't have to wait long.

@fredhicks: Given crazy high international shipping, I don't want to make folks abroad wait, so: Don't Read This Book, all digital: http://ow.ly/avBGq

Yes yes and yes! Now I have it through DriveThruRPG and am losing sleep reading it. Oh the irony!

And because I like books as artefacts, I'm going to get it in print too as soon as the postage drops. High praise to Fred for accelerating the availability of the e-books.

Chess, Warhammer Style

Turn sequence is an important part of any game. The order of initiative is established by some games to reflect the abilities of characters, and it's a common mechanism. The idea of each player taking a turn in sequence is seen as a fair system to arbitrate the activity of players. Nevertheless, it has some problems.

The biggest problem is the downtime for other players. In a group of four or more players, with complex characters in a system that allows for loads of options, any player who uses their turn to deliberate will enlarge the downtime for others. I've not yet read a game system that forbids this, meaning that the system allows for long, deliberate turns that make other players snooze or reach for books and other distractions.

Once, I heard an actual play recording of Escape Or Die! by Fred Hicks. The game includes a mechanism to help with this problem. Play moved around the circle, with each player framing a scene for the character on the left. In the background, a timer was counting down a number of minutes (one less than the number of remaining characters). If the timer expired, Doom was increased by one. The only way to reset the timer was to make a complete lap around the circle of players. Listening to the game, I enjoyed the tension of the doom clock and the chorus of "Doooooom!" when it reached zero. I also remember one player who liked to narrate long, drawn-out scenes and actions - oh the frustration! His penchant for elaboration chewed into that timer, leaving less and less time for others to play, but at the same time engaging the players because they knew they'd have less time to frame a scene and act it out.

Another choice is a game I've neither played nor read: Sons of Liberty. From what I can glean here and there, there are no turns, in the sense that I've discussed above. If you have cards in your hand that let you take an action, you can play your turn. If anyone spots an actual play recording of this, let me know. I can only imagine the potential chaos.

Board games typically make use of a turn sequence. Monotony, er... Monopoly is the classic example. It not only has a lengthening downtime, it also has a horribly demotivating death spiral. I don't play it for those two reasons. It's rarely fun for everyone.

If you're wondering about the significance of this on your favourite games, and perhaps thinking that I'm spilling a lot of pixels for no real benefit, consider changing the turn sequence mechanism of chess. Chess has alternating turns in which each player is allowed to move a single piece (complex moves like Castling notwithstanding). Now suppose you were to play chess with the same turn structure as Warhammer. Players take it in turns but on each turn can move every piece once. What does that do to your chess strategy? [1]

Perhaps take it further and apply a Sons of Liberty approach. You can move one piece at a time, but you can keep moving pieces as fast as you can move your hand from a finished move to another piece. What does that do to your chess game?

The mechanism for turn sequence has far ranging effects on the game. It's the framework for the framework, so to speak. In thinking about my own game-in-development, this is a key area I've yet to decide upon. At the moment I'm ruminating over the Escape Or Die! concept and a highly procedural concept (e.g., A Penny for my Thoughts). We'll just have to see how it goes.

Footnotes

1. Conversely, what would it do to your Warhammer strategy if you could move only one piece or squad in your turn?

A target date for the Dresden Files

After all the waiting, the folks at Evil Hat have set a target date for a release of the Dresden Files RPG. That's not necessarily the final date for when people can get their hands on a printed book of the game, but a date when people can get their hands on something playable and complete. Read the announcement for the details.

I've restrained from criticising the whole venture (DFRPG = Don't Finish a Role Playing Game?) for a couple of reasons. Evil Hat has produced some of my favourite games. They also set a very high standard for themselves. They continue to persist with gaming and the nay-sayers of the gaming community, giving great advice on designing and running games. Lastly, I don't see the point of bringing people down when they're sincerely trying to produce something good and are met with more delays and complexities than expected. I'm not their boss, I'm just a customer. My feedback is useful, but not authoritative. The DFRPG has a long history of mistakes that you can read about elsewhere. Go and vent over there if you must, but only after you've read the story.

Of course, I always wondered about whether the One Bad Egg project would distract from DFRPG. Officially it didn't - the lead developer for DFRPG isn't part of One Bad Egg. Since I have nothing to do with the creative processes of the Hat, I can't argue against it. I can only wonder. It's just horribly circumstantial that the announcement of the end of One Bad Egg was followed so closely by the announcement of DFRPG target dates.

I've also wondered whether it was a good move to delay release because Jim Butcher seems to write faster than Evil Hat. Perhaps a publishing model that included a core rule book and supplements could have been used to deal with this. A supplement for each novel in the series, or one supplement for two or three novels, could have provided an ongoing product line. Still, I can only speculate. If you know of any commentary on this, can you post a link in the comments of this post?

Overall, I think this is a good move by Evil Hat. The DFRPG has been in development for a very long time and has generated a lot of passionate and toxic argument on the internet (and elsewhere, I'm sure). With all the lessons learned in marketing (discussed at length by Fred Hicks in several podcasts over the past couple of years) I think this will be a well managed, if not formulaic, release.

My expectation is influenced by my experience with Evil Hat games, blogs and podcasts; as well as by the disappointment of the long development time. Nevertheless, what I expect is a well produced game that has great content, robust rules and admirable publishing standards. The key people behind the project have a good track record with other games and also with steady improvements in their publishing ventures. If you're a fan of the Dresden Files, I expect you'll be pleased with this game when it comes out.

And sometime next year I'll find out whether my expectations will be met. Keep up the enthusiastic work, Evil Hatters.

Appreciate

For no reason other than appreciation, I wanted to draw your attention to a few people who continue to make indie RPGs interesting and fun. This is not a complete list, but it's a recent list.

Paul Tevis - for his ongoing podcasts and the (finally!) released A Penny For My Thoughts. Knowing that it took a couple of years to bring it from idea to publication is encouraging.

Fred Hicks - for continuing to produce top quality games, despite the taxing world of new parenthood. 7 months ago I became a dad and I put a lot of other things aside for my boy. I've no idea how Fred does it.

Nathan and Marty - for bringing an Australia gaming podcast to the world. If you're not listening to it already, you should.

John Harper - for inspiring me to continue with my low page-count game design ideas, and for gorgeous layout. Gah! My visual artistry couldn't even wrangle the scraps you throw on the floor.

Many many thanks to you all.

American Convention Season

I see that the American Summer convention season has started with GTS. Everything's starting with a bang. IPR is well represented - thankfully - with a booth. Check out Fred Hicks' blog for a great photo of it.

My plan is to make use of Gencon this year to get a sense for others who are interested in my style of gaming. And by "my style" I mean the short-run games with a handful of sessions, based around different kinds of stories and different kinds of mechanics. So Gencon will be about a lot of networking with other GMs and game stores. When I can find a good venue, we'll kick it off.

GenConOz: Games on Demand

I think I've narrowed down my list for GOD to just three: Spirit of the Century, Agon, and Don't Rest Your Head. I'd honestly like to run more, but I think I won't be able to practise enough between now and then to ensure that I can run a decent game.

Honestly, I think that DRYH will be the most difficult of all of them for me to run, because it is the least crunchy of the lot. Agon has such a simple heroic premise that it's easy to ensure group motivation. SOTC is similar in that regard, but DRYH is the one that still confounds me a little.

Sounds like a worthy challenge, if you ask me.

Fred Hicks' Cool Threads

That's right, I have Fred Hicks' wardrobe! The side effect is that Fred is now nude.

Alternatively, this is a pointer to an entry on Fred's blog. If you want to see the forums that Fred watches because they have Evil Hat threads on them, this is the link for you.

You can see Fred's comments because he usually goes by the nickname of iago.
http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/305054.html