Science!

I don't know about you, but this is the epitome of Science! from Spirit of the Century.

Science! It's the best.

Thinking FU

I ran a game of Spirit of the Century the other week after finishing a six month campaign of May the FU Be With You. I run FU much like I run Spirit and that's hardly surprising. In many ways FU is Fate on a strict vegan diet. It's lighter, faster and can be blown around by hand waving. It's that hand waving that helps out so much. The link from what the players speak (that is, creating the fiction) and what the dice do (that is, forcing the fiction one way or the other) is solid and intuitive.

There are a couple of things that FU doesn't do and I don't think it pretends to do them. There will always be an element of matching the right system to the right setting and the right kind of story.

It's hard for me to criticise FU, partly because I've greatly enjoyed it and partly because I know Nathan. I wish it handled character development in some way. I hacked a house rule to let players spend a FU point to change gear or a descriptor, as long as the change was accompanied by an appropriate plot development. And I wish it didn't drive players towards being one-trick ponies. I've paid the price for having a character who couldn't use everything all at once, leaving me with a small dice pool. Defining descriptors and gear that work together is the means to munchkin the FU (awful grammar, I know). With the right combination a player can bring a pool of five dice before penalties. That kind of character, though, tends to use the same solution for every problem. It works well for characters like Wolverine (I stab it with my claws) but not so well for Batman (I investigate, I fight, I have money, I...). It can be dissatisfying to play that character except when they succeed so often.

I hadn't intended this to be a review of FU, just some thoughts that were percolating around in my mind.

Spirit of 2013

After a long, long hiatus from the game, tonight I'll run Spirit of the Century. It's an impromptu game that I'm running to demonstrate it. The group is moving to play a supers game and was going to use Mutants and Masterminds, then FU, but now I've suggested Fate I find that I'm the only one who knows it.

I'm going to use the great characters from the book itself as well as get some players to create their characters on the fly. It's a one-shot game and I need to flex its muscles for the group so that they can see how it works.

It brings me back to the days of the first Gen Con Oz. Those indie games on demand tables demanded nothing but SOTC for nearly the whole time. Let's see what comes from tonight, although I expect pulpy fun and laughs.

My Auscon Experience

The day after RPG Sunday is worth a little time and reflection on my experience of it.

I had the best start to the day because the shirt I'd ordered for the day arrived just in time. Wow. It grabbed attention, and was only a matter of minutes before someone said, "That's an awesome shirt. Where can I get one?"

To get your own, go see Daniel Solis' Cafepress site. Kudos to Daniel for making a version with correct Commonwealth spelling.

I was only at Auscon for the Sunday, but it was a very full day. Starting the RPGs at 9am on a Sunday was something of a challenge. Who's awake and keen to play story games at 9am on Sunday?!? Apparently, about fifteen people. And even though that meant I didn't get to run FU, it did mean that I could be part of a play test for Behind The Screens. Peter's got a great little game idea going there, and I'm keen to see it develop and evolve into a polished game. Seriously, people, watch for that game.

Between that and the 2pm session, I had a chance to wander the floor and see the vendors, the miniatures tables, and get a chai. The venue was exactly the right size for the con, and laid out so very well. Gaming tables in the middle completely dominated the space, but didn't overpower the trade stalls that lined the walls. Most of the product was miniatures-based, but that's not surprising, since Auscon was originally going to only cater for minis games. Ace Comics came through with the goods for RPGs (even including some Dresden Files), and I think that was in proportion to the attendees. And kudos for the staff too. There seemed to be the right number of them for the activities, spread around in the right amount.

After lunch I had the great chance to run Agon. Yes! Finally! I've offered this game at cons before and never had takers. Maybe my elevator pitch was poor, or perhaps I should also stop offering it on the same game menu as Spirit of the Century. Regardless, I had five heroes complete a quest for Hera. As far as my GM effort went, they all seemed pleased with it. I managed to test every ability, except for Music. Maybe next time for that one. I'm sure I also fudged a couple of rules, but everything seemed to flow OK and the story didn't get bogged down or lopsided because of it. Best of all, I have the feeling that even playing the game is something of an Agon, an effort. I say that, not because it's hard going, but because the characters are always getting beaten down by something in order to succeed at something else. The frustration of the characters showed on the players' faces, and that seemed like a good thing.

And in the last session, I ran the best game of Poison'd I've ever run. I was going to say that I'd redeemed Poison'd, but that just seems antithetical. The story flowed smoothly. The characters lunged for their ambitions and were frustrated by the Cruel Fortunes. There were a few things I did in this game that I'll gladly repeat next time, to help make the story work. Special thanks go to the players, for embracing the depravity of being pirates.

My only regret was not remembering that I wanted to try Sagefight. Looking back, we would have had to go outside for it. There certainly wasn't enough space inside for those kinds of shenanigans.

Overall, my experience of one-third of Auscon was positive. Allan and Mark did a marvellous job. Watch out for their next project, whatever it is. I do know, though, that the first weekend in October is going to be another gaming convention. Mark your diaries now.

Confessions of an Evil Hat Fanboy

On the weekend I bought a copy of Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies. It had been sitting on the shelf of my FLGS for a month, ever since they got in an order of some other indie games - including my copy of A Penny for My Thoughts. So I put it on my gaming shelf, in the indie section, and then paused at what was blatantly obvious from the spines.

I'm an Evil Hat Fanboy.

I don't know if someone has come up with a nickname for it (I shudder at the thought. Fan-group nicknames make me cringe: I'm looking at you, Duranees!) but it's increasingly true, with one very important and perhaps stunning exception.

I don't have the Dresden Files RPG, and I probably won't buy it.

It's not that the game is bad. It's a FATE game, and I really enjoy Spirit of the Century. In fact, Spirit is my most-requested game for Games On Demand. Based entirely on that, I expect Dresden to be a great game, with good design, good play, and good writing.

It's not that the game is expensive, especially with shipping to Australia. Like many gamers, I've bought game books that I've not used very much. The replacement dollar value of my library is embarrassing. Dresden would look great on the shelf and great inside, from what I hear about it in reviews.

It's just that I've never read any Dresden Files books. I bought a comic mini-series once and thought it was OK, but it didn't grab me enough to buy the novels and then the game. So I confess my sin against Evil Hat!

I, Andrew Smith, Evil Hat Fanboy, do not have the Dresden Files RPG and have no plans to buy it. Give me Penny, give me Swashbucklers, give me Spirit, and best of all give me Don't Rest Your Head, and I will play them as penance. May it rescue my gamer soul from purgatory.

Gen Con Oz 2009 is over!

Four days of gaming.

That's a lot of gaming. I really only did two days of it. Day 1 was all about finalising some printing and assembling a Giant D12 On A Stick. HUGE thanks go to Mark Peric and Worldwide Printing at South Brisbane for this. Great result. If you're looking for art for your game, contact Mark Peric. Here he is finishing the assembly work.

Days 2 and 3 were all about indie games on demand. So many gamers, all having fun. I was booked to run for all six sessions, but Lon Teal volunteered an extra session on Saturday morning, leaving me to wander the trade hall and pick up some minis. Bargain! Of the five sessions, I ran one game of Poison'd and four of Spirit of the Century. People love that game. I need to run Poison'd again. It was my first attempt at it, and I'm sure I made mistakes. This is one of my gaming groups, posing at the D12.

The Friday surprise was finding someone in the trade hall that stocked indie titles. Lacuna, Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard... I finally bought my copies of Monster Burner and Magic Burner. Both last year and this year, people at our indie game tables ask whether these games can be bought at the show. And now Games Paradise have stepped in. Calling cards were exchanged. Watch this space for more!

Sunday was a great surprise for me. The War Stories seminar with Mark and Nathan provoked some great questions from the audience. I just carried the microphone around, but people were taking notes everywhere. I'm looking forward to the games that come from this.

The other Sunday surprise was the Game Design Roundtable. Over two hours we managed to go through five games. One was about a royal loss of innocence, as David brought Dirty Princesses to the room. Timothy Ferguson brought a game about competitive running of a resort, complete with dirty tricks and vice. He walked in without knowing if it should be a board game or an RPG, and he walked out considering whether it should be a card game. Sam brought a computer game about giant monsters. I wasn't expecting a computer game, but the process worked well for him as well. Samuel (another one) joined in with his game idea about high fantasy mages, and was almost recruited for Ars Magica. Lastly, Steve Darlington finished off the session with his espionage game idea, and I'm keen to see whether he leaves the super powers in there.

Had a great time and have every intention of doing it all again next year.

E.G.G. Spirit of the Century

In my last post I said that I ran a game of SOTC for the E.G.G. August meetup. These are my reflections on it.

I used the session to test the adventure I'll have on offer for indie games on demand. It's a clever little adventure, playing around the numerical significance of January 1st, 1901. I brought some partially generated characters to the table, the same ones I've used for SOTC cons in the past, with phases 4 and 5 of character creation left undone so that the players get the opportunity to try out character creation. This, as usual, worked OK. For Gencon I plan to bring new characters, and also to leave only phase 5 incomplete. This ought to give more time for play, without eliminating the experience of character creation. Also, the new characters are going to have a distinctly Australian feel to them, since the adventure is set in Australia. If you want to know more, register for Gencon and for indie games on demand. The end result was the classic SOTC kind of game, over the top, with zany narration and plenty of scope for the genre to shine.

Special thanks to Nathan and Jason for taking the time at the end of the session to give me feedback on what they enjoyed and what they didn't. There's nothing quite like constructive feedback to help a GM. Nice one guys! See you at Gencon. Go register for it!

Every Gamer? That's me!

I finally managed to reach the Every Gamers Guild meeting. Fantastic! Courtesy of some smarter travel arrangements than my previous failed attempt, I made it there and back in one piece. And because of Nathan Russell, I had a place to stay.

Ostensibly, the reason I went there was to see a local piece of architecture. At Gencon Oz 2008 the Novacastrians raved about it as the shining glory of their town planning. It stood proudly (prodly?) on the shoreline, fully exposed to visitors and locals alike. A quick look below (thanks to a Wikipedia photo file) reveals the artificial construct in question.

But enough dicking around...

The game day itself was fantastic. I think I'll split some detailed thoughts into other posts throughout this week. It started with a game of Spirit Of The Century, a request from Riley. I ran through some ideas from the adventure I'll offer at the indie games on demand tables at Gencon this year. Second was my first game of Zombie Cinema in which I played a Russian housewife. Dodgy accents are fun. The gaming finished with a game of A Penny For My Thoughts, which stirred the same response from me as Grey Ranks.

And of course it was great to catch up with some familiar faces, as well as some new ones. Seems to me that Newcastle is a contender to become the gaming capital of Australia.

Indie Day

The fine people of Every Gamer's Guild are hosting their monthly game day on July 4th. In America this is Independence Day. In Newcastle, it's indie games day.

This is too good an opportunity to have an indie game with some people I haven't seen since Gencon 08, so I'll be going and running games. The sessions are only 2 hours long, so the games have to be punchy. At the time of writing, I intend to run Spirit of the Century and either Agon or Burning Wheel (perhaps The Sword).

SOTC will get a slight revision, though. I think I'll try it with only 5 aspects per character. I've found that in most convention games, about half of the aspects aren't used. Either they're not great aspects, or there are too many aspects for players to grasp in a short timeslot. I'll figure it out closer to the day.

And lastly, there is the potential for some after-hours gaming with a Secret Project I'm working on. Stay tuned.

10 Most-played Analog Games

I've seen this in a gaming blog or two, and have succumbed to the peer pressure.

1. Rifts

I played this game for years, from late in high school through to my mid-20's.  It was the inevitable follow-on from Robotech.  With more toys in each and every supplement, it's little surprise that this appealed to the style of play I had at the time.  I was a munchkin in a munchkin game.

2. Car Wars

A friend introduced this one to me in 1989 and I still have the rulebooks he eventually sold to me.  This was a great little strategy game, with crunchy design and - on a good day - a mountain of dice to roll.  Somehow it managed to capture the whole process from designing and building a car, through to the huge explosion that destroyed it.

3. Robotech

It was the precursor to #1, Rifts.  We played it a lot through high school.

4. Marvel Super Heroes

I can't remember how it happened, but we managed to get our hands on this little gem.  I've not seen it since, but I think it gets the awe it deserves.

5. Advanced D&D

My first RPG system.  My magic-user died horribly in the first game I ever played, and even though I was distraught, I was also hooked.  Since then I've spent countless hours at gaming shops and at home, just leafing through game books.  And no, I haven't yet tried D&D 4e.

6. Dungeon

This was a board game by TSR, although I think we had the Jedko print of it.  Nevertheless, it was a great little game that we played for hours, over and over again.  It was also the game of gloating and being a sore winner or loser.  Sigh!  Happily, we now have Munchkin to make fun of the whole experience.

7. Poleconomy

More fun that Monopoly, this was another way for my older brother to trounce me.  Still, eventually I figured it out and made it tough for him.  We had the John Sands red box (to steal that phrase), complete with little kangaroos.  It's interesting to see how much the world has changed since this game was printed.  Most of the companies on the board don't exist any more.

8. Spirit of the Century

It's slowly catching up with the others, and although it's a contemporary favourite, it hasn't had the hours it deserves.

9. Don't Rest Your Head

Ditto.

10. Pictionary

I hate this game, but it's a favourite in certain family circles.

2009 Wish List

It's a new year, hooray! I immersed myself in the arbitrariness of dates and years, only for as long as it took to reflect on my 2008 gaming life and generate a wish list for 2009. I couldn't really call these resolutions because I'm more opportunistic than planned with my gaming.

1. Run games for others, without necessarily organising them.
It'd be great to just say, "Hey, I want to run a game of X if you can organise the players, the time and the place" and have it happen. I think there's a prevailing perception that it's the GMs responsibility to organise everything, but it doesn't have to be that way. To that end, if you live in Brisbane and want someone else (that is, me) to run any of the following games for your group as a one-shot, let me know.
Don't Rest Your Head
Agon
Spirit of the Century
Space Rat

2. Organise another Go Play Brisbane - or two!
I had loads of fun with this and want to do it again, with more people. 'nuff said.

3. Run indie games at Gencon Oz
I had even more fun with this than with GPB. This is high on the list, and is scheduled around the time that my thesis is due. Go read Divine Trauma to follow that particular adventure. A lesser wish, tho far from a substitute, is to get to more local cons. If all goes well, I might even try to get to a Sydney, Melbourne or Newcastle con (to repay the huge favour).

4. Burning Wheel Campaign
All my gaming is convention style. It's one-shots all the way. If I was going to get into a campaign, I'd really enjoy Burning Wheel. Not sure if I'm keen to run it, preferring to play in it. Of course, I'm not sure how I'd go with timeslots (refer to previous comment about a thesis).

5. Try at least 2 new games
And by "new" I'd like to think that I'd find some gold from 2009. A worthy substitute would include good ones from years past, such as Primetime Adventures.

So that's my wishlist for 2009. Note that there's no mention of Nobles in there. As I've said before, I don't think I want to publish it; I just want to design it so that my own game skills get better. It's my DIY peek under the hood of game systems. Anyway, I hope to see you along the way as the genie grants me my wishes.

Where to play more indie games

Ever since the good response to the IGE at Gencon Oz, I've been thinking about where to host another indie game in a convention style atmosphere. Two ideas sound good to me. I can either run the event as a standalone event, just for indie games; or I can run a couple of indie games at someone else's convention.

From what little I know about the Brisbane gaming scene, it seems that there are a few places around that could facilitate this.

The Queensland Gamers Guild has gaming sessions every month, but from what I see of the schedule it's mostly for wargaming (e.g., Warhammer). Have I misread the QGG page?

Brisbane Independent Gamers seems like another option, but the game list seems to have a lot of miniature gaming.

Speak up, Brisbane indie gamers. Would you like an indie game there one day? Perhaps Spirit of the Century, or Space Rat?

Halftime at Gencon

So it's halfway through Gencon and I have to say that the con is exceeding my expectations in almost every way. The gaming has been great, but the best thing has been the response to the Indie Games Explosion. When internet pre-registrations closed (the Monday morning before the con) we had 47 places left from our 90 places available. At that point I thought we would have a lot of flexibility, and perhaps half-full sessions that we could use to run games that were more focused on a smaller number of characters. The reality, after just one day, is that we have had every table of every session full. Even overflowing at least once. I couldn't have expected it. Over and above this, I heard yesterday that all our sessions for today (Saturday) are full already, and that we might be offering one final session on Sunday. It's not in the programme right now, but at this stage anything seems possible.

This is largely due to the great work by Peter Ball. He looks tired, but he is still happy and works hard to make it all happen. I'm glad he's involved in this because he's supportive, helpful and friendly. Great work, Peter.

To close, I'm going to give a very quick summary of what I've been up to so far.

Thursday
- Met Nathan Russell in person for the first time. And from that point, I met a bunch of people from the Newcastle gaming scene, and frequenters of Imbercorvus.
- Bought some Campaign Coins. Wow. These things are great. They have good heft and are already in use for my Don't Rest Your Head games.
- Played a demo of Heroclix, and was soundly beaten by my friend Mat. 3-0. Ack! He's a great tactical player who didn't even use one of his minis.
- Played a game (or part of a game) of Cleopatra. This looks like an interesting strategy game and it has some great supporting plasticware for game pieces.
- Hosted (was MC of...) the Steal This Trick seminar, with Robin Laws, Nathan Russell and Michael Wenman. This was a great seminar, with about 30-40 people.
- Had dinner with Robin Laws. He's a great guy with interesting things to say on a wide range of topics. My only regret was the "Vietnamese" restaurant we chose wasn't all that Vietnamese. Ah well.

Friday
- First session of the IGE: I played Spirit of the Century with a great group. That adds 6 to my count of new people to game with. Some of these guys had played SOTC before, and most were from Brisbane. If I can find my notes from the game, I'll add their names.
- Second session of the IGE: 80% of the group demanded Don't Rest Your Head. So that's what we played. I don't feel that it was my best game, but the last hour of game play was pretty good, and I especially like the epilogues that the players created to close off the session. Fantastic.
- Played Grey Ranks with Peter Adkison, Robin Laws and Luke (no surname, just like Prince and Madonna). This was shakey at first, but after the first round of learning, the second and third rounds were fantastic. I hadn't played it before, but now I want to play it again. I also have to say that Robin is a great gamer, showing great rhythm between silence and speaking, between plot development and plot resolution. I learnt a lot. Thanks Robin!

And now... time to embrace Saturday at Gencon. See you there.

Why make a game?

I've been thinking more about Nobles of late and trying to answer the question, "Why am I making this game?" I could be spending my time making adventures and scenarios instead. I could be spending my time finding more players. So why make a game?

The first thing to say is that I have no intention of making money from this game. I'm toying with the idea of just giving it away as a free PDF, or perhaps as a low-cost PDF through IPR. Nobles is not (at the moment) a game of quality equal to something like Spirit of the Century, or Dogs in the Vineyard. I don't expect that it will ever get to be that good, because that's not why I'm doing it. Also, I quite like my current employment and don't really want to invest the time to promote my game and change careers to Game Designer.

Secondly, I'm designing this game to better understand how games work. I thought about trawling the Forge and reading all the threads on game theory and game design, but I would much rather learn this by doing. I want to try and design a game that includes various features, that does the thing I want it to do. By making a game, I get to learn it the hard way, but I will learn it the complete way. The end result should be better games for my players.

Ultimately, I don't expect to become a game designer (although the story of how Kill Puppies for Satan led to Dogs in the Vineyard plays with my mind a bit), but I want to become a better GM. Making a game is part of my plan. As Judd Karlman would say, this is hitting the heavy bag.

Car Wars ?!?

I know that this blog is primarily about indie games, but for a change this one is also going to be about Car Wars. Yes, that quaint little map game about gladiatorial vehicular combat. Sometime in 2007 I bumped into another Brisbane guy who likes to play the game, and now he's working on a kind of Car Wars revival. Cool. I always enjoyed playing that game. There's a lot of suspense and tension in it, and the deaths are usually a spectacle worth enjoying (in true gladiatorial style).

I think Car Wars succeeded in creating a sense of tension when it was played quickly. However, it's all too easy to get bogged down in a lot of extra rules and concepts. For anyone out there wanting to improve their Car Wars experience, play it fast. Plan your moves while the other people are taking theirs. The faster you take the move, the better the experience for everyone involved. This will happen more easily if you design your car with a strategy in mind. Take that strategy to the table and play it to the limit. Don't change your mind, just play the car for all it's worth.

This also applies to something like Spirit of the Century. When you design your character, it will have a small number of key strengths based on aspects and the top three skills in the pyramid. Play them. Play them hard. That's what your character is about, so ham it up and go for it. Is the apex skill Fists? Then punch the villains. Is it Science? Then make declarations about all sorts of things to do with the physics of the strange doomsday machine. A fast-paced game relies on minimalism rather than complexity. It may sound one-dimensional, but it's the sacrifice one makes for action. Even in film this is true. A complex story about complex characters will have a lot of dialogue and monologue. Not much action. However, make the characters simpler and you'll get more action in the film. Take this to your games and have fun.

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.

The Sky Pirates - SOTC play report

Had a great game of Spirit of the Century last night. We introduced another gamer to the world of story RPGs. Hi Vaughn. Welcome to the revolution.

In brief the story concerned Madam Bergerac, a French artefact collector who had invited members of the Century Club from London to Paris to witness the demonstration of her new artefact. By the time our heroes land in Paris, Sky Pirates had raided the zeppelin that Bergerac had sent for them and during the confusion, one of the crew - a Sky Pirate in disguise - made off with the artefact.

The mastermind was suspected to be Baron von Sturm, the mysterious German inventor. Had he stolen it? Perhaps. If so, why? Bergerac was a well respected collector of antiquities and artefacts! It is clearly an outrage that her property has been taken from her. Our heroes went in to investigate.

I won't spoil the story, but there were plenty of scenes for sneaking around castles, making quick escapes, and trying to cover tracks amidst plenty of deception. Suffice it to say that Spike Spiegel, Jack Venturer and Calo Maxwell lived to tell the tale. Lessons that I learnt from this game were many, but here are the top three:

1. During character creation, make sure that your aspects support your skills. It's hard to invoke them if they don't relate and that means you get to use them less. SOTC characters are very focused on a few key areas. It's the theme of the character, the schtick that makes it worth reading about.
   
2. Start the flow of fate points and it won't stop. As soon as the flow dries up people hoard them, so give them plenty of opportunity to spend and earn them.
3. Be careful of dead scenes or slow scenes. If the characters seems lost about what to do, start making the clues bigger. If the clues threaten to get too big, just send in the ninjas.
   

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

GenCon Australia

Barring something unforeseen, I'm going to GenCon Australia next year. The plan at this stage is to run a few indie games during the four days, probably on the Saturday. There'll be at least one session of Spirit of the Century, one session of Don't Rest Your Head and hopefully a session of Burning Wheel. Well, it's a hope, at least.

There are a couple of other people I've bumped into on The Forge who seem just as keen to fly the indie flag, so we're going to team up somehow and make an underground effort to put these games out there.

Spirit of the Century - Game on!

My next game of Spirit of the Century is pencilled in. Do you want to play? Then drop me a comment and let me know.