Vincent Baker on Clouds and Character Sheets

Vincent Baker has written a brief post on the level at which RPG play operates, and the level at which he thinks it ought to operate. If you're interested in making your game experience more about the fiction than the rules then you should at least read what he's written because in one way or another it will contribute to your RPG experience.

I take his point to mean that roleplaying should be about the story, and that events in the story should trigger game mechanisms or character sheet information rather than the other way around. Game rules should also immediately redirect the players back to the fiction in order to make events happen.

I think he has a valid point, but perhaps an incomplete one. There could be some interesting progress made on helping to identify characteristics of game rules which support this style of play so that game designers can create those kinds of rules.

Over to you, dear internet.

As you were

Go Play Brisbane came and went on the weekend. For me personally this was an interesting experience and one which achieved the three primary goals of a local indie games convention.

1. Have fun
2. Meet other players
3. Meet other game designers

I managed to arrange it so that Go Play Brisbane delivered all of this to the participants. Nathan Russell and Mark McPherson were both there, with their games in tow. We talked about the design and production processes of Dash-in Dungeons (a 3 year project!). We also met other players of indie games in Australia - all of whom are keen to play more. And most importantly, we had fun playing indie games.

The fun is the most important part of it all. Meeting other players, meeting designers, organising conventions... all these things exist to support the fun generated by play.

And for that, Go Play Brisbane was an unqualified success.

Houses of the Blooded

I bought a PDF copy of Houses of the Blooded this week. Just in case you hadn't heard, this is the new game from John Wick and is currently available for 5USD as PDF from various places. I got mine from IPR without hitch.

At the moment I've not read more than a few pages of it, so it's too early for me to give a solid opinion of it. Layouts and fonts are all very classy, and the use of PDF doesn't seem to pose any threat to the dead-tree editions. It's 436 pages, but it really should be printed with two pages to an A4. Even so, 218 pages from a single-sided printer is a big effort.

I'll have some more comments later, I'm sure.

Ack! Playtesting!

Well, now I'm in a bit of trouble. I've got my two games to a point where I need to test them some more. If I follow the example of other game designers I'd get together with some local gamers to run the games and get some feedback. So now I need to hear from you. Are you interested in doing some preliminary playtesting one or both of my games? You need to be in the Brisbane region and willing to provide useful feedback. Drop me a line at andrew (dot) mg (dot) smith (at) gmail (dot) com and let me know.

Needlepoint

I like listening to gaming podcasts and reading gaming blogs. If my consumption of media were the measure, then it would be easy to think that there was nothing else in the world other than gaming (with some philosophy and psychology thrown in for good measure). However, it's important to remember from time to time that gaming is a small, niche activity. We're almost an industry, but only in the sense of "cottage industry."

And the thing I like to think of that reminds me of this is needlepoint. Run a search at Google and you'll get over three million hits. There are corporate sites (the big evil capitalist bastards) and there are free sites (the indie needlepointers) and there are fan sites (house rules) and gatherings (mini-cons) and even podcasts.

There's more media out there for needlepoint and it's a cottage industry that's been around for centuries. Whenever I think that the indie gaming industry is starting to sound a little too pompous, I only need to think of needlepoint and the smile returns to my face.

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?

An indie summary of Gencon Oz

The first Gencon Oz was, for indie games, a good experience. We had games from Australian designers being launched, we had seminars on indie game play and design, and we had full registrations for all tables of the Indie Games Explosion. Best of all, the organisers are enthusiastic about our contribution and are keen to give us more space for larger events in 2009.

And now for some details.

Seminars
There were two seminars for indie games across the four days. The first was on Thursday night, with a panel of Nathan Russell, Michael Wenman and Robin Laws (and I got to be MC for this illustrious group) and the topic was "Steal This Trick - The indie games you should play at least once". For an hour the panelists spoke on the topic and took questions from the audience.

The second one was in the last day of the con, and wasn't actually advertised in the programme, but we still managed to get people to come. It was intended to be a session on indie game design, primarily with the guys who were launching games, but we turned it into a Game Design Roundtable as was done at Dreamation. Two games were thrown on the table and dissected by the assembled group. Both of the designers set themselves goals to have ashcans ready in six months, in time for Melbourne's Arcanacon.

Indie Games Launched
Michael Wenman came up from Sydney to launch The Eighth Sea, his game about time-travelling pirates with a penchant for making money from temporal disturbances. He ran two or three sessions every day, and was fully booked (and over booked!) for each one. The pre-orders list grew quite well, I hear.

Nathan Russell decided to only run his game - Space Rat - through the IGE, and was handsomely rewarded. I sat in on an hour of one session and enjoyed it immensely. Due to a delay in printing from Lulu he didn't have any product to sell, but he handed out stacks of postcards and flyers. He generously left me with one of his few pre-release copies to add to my library. Thanks, Nathan!

Indie Games Explosion
According to the registration table, all sessions were fully booked and even though about 10-20% didn't turn up, we had gamer after gamer approaching us and ask about empty spaces at the table. We estimate that about half of them had never heard of any of the games, and were still keen to play. We also estimate that about two-thirds finished the games and asked, "Where can I buy this game?" Unfortunately, the only thing we could do was point them to the IPR online store. We hadn't really expected people to try and buy these games from us, but they were keen. I would have loved to point them towards one of the retailers, but none of them were carrying indie stock either.

In short, the indie gamer crowd had more demand than supply and the organisers noticed. I suspect that we left our mark partially through the registration database and partially through the periodic visits from Robin Laws, Peter Adkison and the Gencon staff. I need to give a big thank you to Scott Vandervalk, Nathan Russell and Michael Wenman for bringing content to the con. I also need to point out the great support from Peter Ball and the rest of the con organisers for squeezing a non-standard event into the programme.

And now... go plan the next one.

Editorial Addition
In my original post, I forgot to thank the folks who came to the round table. Thanks to Scott V, Louise, Lon, Michael (and his wife), Craig and Danica. We'll do it again next year.

The limits of gaming

I was recently confronted with a comment on a forum that suggested some stories are easy to adapt to roleplaying games, whereas others are not - implying that there are some stories that are not worth telling through RPGs. Let me unpack this as a comment on how people play games.

First of all, this comment was not made on an indie forum. I think it's safe to assume that the poster prefers to play mainstream games, with D&D probably at the top of the list. With that in mind I would suggest that the kind of play that this person enjoys involves building character stats, levelling up the character WoW-style. So, the appeal of RPGs is the same as the appeal of WoW. When it comes down to it, WoW is the new version of having the top score at the arcade. The characters in WoW can be compared against each other and engage in PvP. Therefore, it should be considered as a competitive game and provides enjoyment for people who like competitive games.

At the heart of a game like D&D is a sense of competitiveness. There is the drive to make one's own character better than the others, to inflict more damage, to neutralise more opponents. All to be done with more power than the other characters. To return to the prompted statement it is apparent that to suggest that a plot cannot be told in RPG actually reveals that this person only thinks of gaming as a competitive activity.

And that's fine, for a certain stable of games. However, it is not the limit of gaming and I'm happy about that. What it shows is that the depths of gaming have not yet been fully explored in Australia. Looks like a good opportunity, if you ask me.

More Brisbane Roleplaying - NOW!

I don't make new years resolutions, I make plans.

My new plan is set around finding more people with which to play indie games. I'm not really looking for a campaign, but I'd really like to play different games that do different things. Furthermore, I want to run these games. It's not just playing, but running them that really interests me.

Do you play roleplaying games?

Do you live in the Brisbane area?

Do you want to try some indie games?

The comment space is yours, completely without moderation.

Supanova

I picked up a flyer for Supanova on the weekend. Last year I only went as an observer. I didn't run any games, but I took my nephew along and returned with a couple of pieces of Madman merchandise and several photos of some cosplay people. I can't imagine myself getting into that hobby, but I'm always impressed by good cosplay.

So this year I've promised to take my nephew again and we'll have a cool time, and I'm also thinking about returning at a separate time to check out some more goodies, maybe play a couple of demo games or just hunt for indie games fans.

GenCon Oz Publicity

There are only five months to go until GenCon Australia becomes real. I don't think I can convey just how excited I am about this. The chance to play games with such a wide range of people is something I can only imagine.

With that in mind there are a two things to say about it. The first is that the previous name of "Games On Demand" has been dropped and instead we're going with Indie Games Explosion. Since we're going to model the event after an existing event in the US GenCon, we may as well steal the name too.

The second item to pass on to you is that we're starting to raise the profile of the IGE on various message boards. Take a look around the usual places for indie games and you'll get more details about it. You'll also see the same details here, so if you're lazy you can just check back here.

See you at GenCon!

How I should have handled the chase in Agon

I've been stewing over this for a few days now and have finally figured out how I should have handled a particular scene in last weekend's game of Agon. This is the situation. One of the heroes (Cronos, son of Gorgos) had been scouting around a village and had set off a trap. The trap wounded him and also raised the alert that he was there, so a conflict ensued. Cronos decided to use Cunning and try to sneak his way out of trouble rather than run his way out of trouble (Athletics).

What I should have done was call for a contest of Cunning and suggested that Cronos find some creative abilities (e.g., Athletics) to add to the roll. As the Antagonist, I should have paid strife for an advantage for the pursuers because of their superior numbers and perhaps increased it to 2d8 opposition.

The second key thing that I should have done was spend more time defining the outcomes of the contest. That is, a Cronos victory should have enabled him to escape whereas a Cronos loss should have resulted in a capture - including disarmament.

And the third thing I should have suggested, but not insisted on, was invoking Hubris when Cronos lost the contest (which he did, and then refused to give up his weapons).

As the Antagonist/GM I didn't handle this very well and the story stagnated for a few minutes. I will take this as a learning experience and should know better for our second game. The guys at the Durham3 are of the opinion that it's not until the third session of a game system that everyone gets on top of the rules and makes them start to sing.

So there's only one more dodgy session to go. Yes!

The aftermath of Agon

My monthly indie game took place over the weekend and I'm happy to say that we all enjoyed it. For a first game, I spent surprisingly little time flicking through the rule book and I think that's testament to John Harper's work in keeping the concept simple. Of especially good use were the reference tables available for download from the Agon site. They saved us all a lot of time.

I won't go into the details of the first quest, but I feel that I timed it well enough. What I need to do better next time is throw more Strife at the heroes. They were simply too strong for the NPCs and minions that they encountered. With one cautious player and one gung-ho player it wasn't long before the cautious player was using the gung-ho player as a shield.

The only other snag that I feel we hit was with regards to persuasion. In a contest of Oration (seems to be the most appropriate ability), when the heroes win there was no doubt that the NPCs would have to fold. However, if the heroes lose there is nothing to force them to submit to the goal of the NPCs. I think I might need to make it more clear that when the dice are rolled, it is a branching point in the story. I think I also need to frame the scene and the contest better to ensure that the players don't simply say, "No, I'm not going to do that, no matter what the dice have rolled." I will have to be more explicit in laying out the consequences of winning and losing a contest.

Mistakes that I made

• Armour impairments can be removed during an interlude, as with any other ability
• The Shield ability should be used during combat
• Defeated minions are only worth 1 glory, without adding the Strife cost
• I didn't spend Strife correctly

Other things that I will change next time

• NPCs will be fewer and more powerful
• Objectives will be more linear

But there will definitely be a next time. Oh yes indeed.

At Last, the Agon

Today is the day I get to try out Agon for the first time. This should be an interesting exercise since none of the three of us who'll be playing have played it before. I'm especially interested to see how the competitive aspect of Agon plays out. There'll be cooperation, but how much? I'll put a play report up sometime later.