Fate Core of Course

My first experience with small press games, indie games, free games was when I stumbled onto FUDGE. My head spun. I wondered whether the system was any good. I mean, it was free, for goodness sake. At the time all the free RPG content I knew was from the Palladium Mailing List and had almost no guarantee of being any good.

I read it, though it was weird, and then found FATE 2.0. And then the bug bit. I bought dice, even before I had a reason to roll them. I made up a strange Matrix-esque scenario just to try it out. Since then I've treasured that free PDF. And I've paid for Fate games. Spirit of the Century and Diaspora are both on my game shelf, and I've had such fun playing them.

It's with joy that today I held in my hands my signed copy of Fate Core. Such a long time after that free PDF, today I have a book. A hardcover book. A book that was refined and polished, with high quality art and editing and layout. A book that is the result of years of hard work from the developers, with countless hours (months? years?) of actual playtime in the wild.

Fate Core is here. My heartfelt congratulations to everyone involved in its production. Thank you for a great game system.

FATE Core

I'm a FATE Core backer. Woo!

It's no secret that I'm an Evil Hat fanboy. I like their games and own most of them. I'm keen to support the company - and the game - that was my gateway drug into indie games. I remember downloading the PDFs for FUDGE and FATE all those years ago and wondering what to do with them. What on earth was I going to do with a system that used Aspects? And where were the polyhedral dice?

Finally seeing FATE in a beautiful book format will be a great pleasure for me. I'll keep it next to the printed copy of FATE 2 that I have from all those years ago.

As it happens, my regular gaming group is changing to a new campaign and we're deciding the system we're going to use. FATE is a leading contender. The timing is excellent.

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.

Penny and PDF

I bought my copy of A Penny For My Thoughts yesterday. Nothing new there, I'm sure, except that I bought it at a brick and mortar store. For a little indie game that was written and published on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, this is good going.

The shop in question is a little hesitant about indie games, I feel. The best experiences they've had so far are Mouse Guard (sells well) and Dresden Files (good pre-orders). Their nervousness comes through in two areas: shelf space and PDF. The copy of Penny was high on the top shelf (almost at the roof), in front of the solitary copy of Spirit of the Century. It was the first time I'd seen either game there so I was excited enough by that. So, although it wasn't at eye level, it was still on the shelf and that's good progress. Of course I asked for a receipt so that I could claim my PDF from Evil Hat, and that launched a little chat about the Evil Hat PDF Guarantee. He was quite happy to facilitate it, even asking if I had a flash drive with me (I didn't), but was skeptical about Evil Hat's policy on trust. "Let's see how long it lasts," he remarked.

To be honest, I think he voiced what many people have thought[1]. Capitalism functions on self-interest, to be sure, but I think there's more to the PDF Guarantee than that. The fact remains that I could have easily bought the book from IPR with the PDF bundled together, but I made the choice to order it through brick and mortar. I wanted them to see how easy it can be to deal with small publishers, and also to get more indie games passing through the inventories of game shops.

Although I'm not a great game designer, I thoroughly enjoy the indie games that I own and I want to share that. Until now that's been limited to some games in my home, organising indie games events at Gen Con Oz and organising Go Play Brisbane. Buying Penny from a brick and mortar is the next step: evangelising to the game store owner and staff.

So I've bought a game from a store that didn't stock it, that is cautious about the PDF guarantee, and that lets me run indie games days in their store. If this isn't an Elton John "Circle of Life" moment, I don't know what is. And the conclusion to this whole story? Everyone wins.


1. And probably posted on lots of forums. I don't read many so I wouldn't know.

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.

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.

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.