Science Fixin'

Holy crap, I have a blog?

Sorry, people who actually read this tripe. This has been an insanely busy year for me, and may yet have its own surprises to come. I won't wax nostalgic about games that have come and gone within the last seven months, and rather talk about something I decided to work on going ahead.

In the last week or so, it became clear that the people I game with online from time to time were pretty burnt out on fantasy stuff. I can't blame them. The tabletop RPG market (and arguably, other markets) is over-saturated with fantasy junk. With the coming of D&D Next, which Harbinger has blogged about at great length and with his usual analytical zeal, the collective tabletop gaming community is holding its breath to see if this will be a stinker or a breath of fresh air.

Back to the point, for many of us who need the occasional chicken dinner instead of steak, there's an unfortunate dearth of good standardized science-fiction RPG rule sets. Most of them are extremely specialized for particular settings, and rightfully so. In order to properly communicate and support a theme, the rules should be designed right alongside of the setting. This is largely why I consider the SIFRP system to be such a great system -- it feels like Song of Ice and Fire. I think that genericizing it for a Birthright conversion was actually a mistake in the long run; there were some fundamental problems that my conversion had in regards to properly supporting magic rules, and plugging in another system's domain management ended up being more trouble than it was worth in practice.

In exploring sci-fi RPG systems, I came across a couple of gems. Eclipse Phase and Traveller both looked great, but not quite what I was looking for in settings. Fading Suns, while also a near-sell, had certain setting overtones that I found unappealing. I felt that ripping out the systems and plugging them into a custom setting would be unfair, and lend itself to inconsistencies that would crop up like unpleasant cancers during play.

Rather, I've opted to do the unthinkable in the copious amounts of spare time that I have. Of course, you can't see my sarcasm-face right now.

That's right, I'm gonna make a system and a setting. Shoot me now.

So here we'll delve into what I think makes good science-fiction RPG material, and solicit the thoughts of you, my tiny audience of near-friends and occasional wanderers who blunder into this bizarre club scene and try not to laugh at the awkward geeky dancers.

Let's start with the bare bones. Here are initial thoughts on what I desire in a setting, and the system grows off of that.

• Scientific accuracy somewhere between Speculative Science and One Big Lie on Moh's Scale of Science Fiction Hardness.
• Space travel that is risky and scary with many potential dangers, but not so irritating or expensive that players would never experience it until a dozen or more sessions into a game.
• Some playable alien races that would not be disgustingly human-like for no real reason, unless I decided to go with some panspermia theory stuff. Additionally, the inclusion of a synthetic race -- whether this means robots or synthesized biological beings, I have not settled on.
• Space opera isn't really the goal, but nor is grimdark everything-in-space-murders-you.
• Varied political structures and entities, not a one-galaxy-government.

This is a pretty tall order. Designing the governments, homeworlds, cultures, et cetera of non-Earth-human species is a rough task that can easily veer into the Planet of Hats territory. As I mull over these first few (admittedly broad) points and come up with a skeleton, I will have a better idea of what I expect the system to be like.

Which brings me to that particular thorn bush. For a while, I've been enjoying the way the Infinity tabletop wargame handles futuristic combat. A buddy of mine at work and I have mulled over conversions into tabletop RPGs, and the system lends itself really well to adaptation. I don't intend to just wholesale rip this, but I do like using its theories as a basis. It's slick, easy to understand after a few false starts (unlike other futuristic combat wargames where the rules are a quagmire). The concepts of firing lanes/suppressive fire, AROs, and orders are very appealing and make for some great tactical maneuvers (lay down suppressive fire so a guy peeking out from cover gets shot at, while you maneuver a T.A.G. or drone around the other side and engulf him in flamethrowery goodness).

In a future post, I will lay out the basis for a system and some more fleshed out concepts for the setting itself. I've got some reading and research to do in the meantime!

Game Changers

Scheduling concerns, moving players, and other circumstances have spelled the end of my Birthright campaign, for which I am terribly sad. However, it has ended on a victory note for the players, and the whole experience gave me valuable insight on the setting and what makes a good story within it. It has taught me a few poignant lessons.

Firstly, when presented with the ability to explore every corner of the map, as it were, players will generally take it. This is especially true when that map will change, metaphorically, through the progression of domain turns or scene changes. Birthright had the benefit of being the game I have run where I was able to utilize the most descriptive scenes and vivid explanations. However, it sometimes caused the segments to drag when some of the players wanted to explore every aspect of the scene.

Second, SIFRP is very well suited for intrigue-based games, but when you have an aspect of play that is adventure-themed, it breaks down in usefulness. Don't get me wrong, it's still one of my favorite systems, but the sheer lethality of characters with high combat skills means fights are generally over with a quickness. It is difficult to challenge the heroes without introducing an ever-more-powerful array of monstrous badasses. I'm pretty sure Caterina, the group's swordmistress, was angling towards being able to beat the Gorgon in a fight.

Lastly, the magic system suffered from being both too specific and too vague. I chalk this down to my relative inexperience in gamemastering SIFRP to the same extent I have other systems, so when it came to ad hoc rulings I often found myself straining. The player utilizing the system was also far more interested in the visual/story elements than the raw mechanics, so maybe it didn't get the workout that it needed.

On the other hand, I've been having an opportunity to play with Pathfinder of late, and I found that while I am still not hot on the system (they fixed a lot of 3.5 D&D issues but did not even attempt to resolve how grossly overpowered casters are in comparison to... well, everyone else in the upper levels), they do one thing with amazing detail.

Their core setting design is really cool.

Sure, it's very obviously a lot of transplant cultures on a world that is strongly hinted at to have once been Earth, but they make a great grab-bag of mini-settings within the larger world. This sounds like the idea of Forgotten Realms, and I've tried to draw the parallels in my mind, but I find myself considering Pathfinder's Golarion setting vastly superior. I think this is solely because I don't have to even think about the wretchedness of constant setting reboots and the presence of author-insert NPCs from numerous books over the last two decades.

The production value of the setting guide, the Inner Sea World Guide, is super impressive. Fourth edition D&D books are usually pretty spartan and utilitarian for the sake of clarity and efficient/cheap production. Every page of the Pathfinder books is richly colored, with gorgeous fonts and artwork. They're pleasant to read, if a little weighty. The Monkey King dropped off his copy of the core rulebook for me to read the other day, and referred to it (quite accurately) as the Pathfinder Brick.

Quite a pretty brick though, and nice to read.

I was unfair.

It occurs to me that I might have been unfair in my intense reflexive dislike of The Old Republic. Anything that is mega-hyped instantly gets that reaction from me, and it's a bad, close-minded sort of reaction to have. While I'm still not terribly convinced that I want to group with strangers again, this isn't a TOR-specific problem; MMO players from all games tend to be fairly sociopathic and bigoted.

Getting out of the starting area for the Empire was a welcome change. The choices in my quests became a lot more compelling, less a matter of cartoonish villainy versus saccharine goody-ness and more a genuine choice on how I want to proceed with the disposal of enemies of the Empire. MUCH better. I like being able to still be Light-side (because I don't like wanton slaughter for no reason) while still being pragmatic and practical (execute the right traitors as opposed to everyone who could be one).

I am sad that I haven't gotten the option to force choke a bitch yet though. Perhaps I don't really have that ability.

Aside from some painful balance issues (the current iteration of the Sith Juggernaut, ostensibly a tank, is woefully inadequate to even do his own at-level quests), and rather weak PvP (queue at level 10, get stuck with level 40s; sure you get equalized HP, but they still have ~30 more talent points than you!) that is focused around stuns, roots, and total lockdowns, the game definitely has staying power in the tumultuous MMO market.

I expect to enjoy it and stay subscribed for a while, but I'm a fickle beast. I just need to find time to play on multiple servers with the people that asked me to play with them. I already have my tanky Sith Juggernaut. Perhaps I'll try a bounty hunter next.

(Can you tell I just watched the Robot Chicken Star Wars specials recently?)

Yikes, December already?

The holidays are never a good time for gaming. Especially as you get older, and you have all those family obligations and such.

So as a general update, the Birthright session's last game of the big chapter keeps getting pushed back due to scheduling conflicts, but this coming Monday should spell the end of Aeronos. The prideful unicorn awnshegh whose loathing of arrogant maidens who seek to tame him has turned the beast into a murderer. Numerous villages throughout southern Roesone and the Erebannien have felt the wrath of Aeronos, and it's up to the players to put a stop to it on behalf of both Marlae Roesone and the Elf-Queen Liliene Swordwraith of Aerenwe.

Planescape has been on hold since October because my schedule is crap and trying to get the gang together in one place has been tough. I'm hoping to bring that back with the coming of the new year.

Another side project I'm working on is a science-fantasy hack of SIFRP, as I've alluded to in a previous entry. I got some interested nibbles from my online gaming group, so I'm in the process of developing a setting and modifying some rules. The system of magic I utilized for Birthright, while good for that setting, doesn't seem appropriate here. The mixture of magic and technology might come off as slightly bizarre, but that's the fun behind these settings. They're sort of designed to be a bit absurd (quick, man the blaster turrets and get our priest up from below decks to shield us from dragonfire!).

That's half the fun!

On a computer gaming note, I started playing Star Wars: The Old Republic last night. I've put in about 10 hours so far, and I hate to be That Guy, but there are some things that are fundamentally wrong with the way they make players deal with each other.

I started out as a Smuggler and ran through a good portion of the starter area on my own. The quests are fairly basic, nothing to write home about. I found it a bit tedious to listen to the dialogue after a while, but I can't really complain about there being a, you know, reason that I'm going to kill ten rat-Separatists.

The choice quests are interesting, but Bioware seems to have fallen into the trap that they did in the Old Republic console RPGs. My dark side choices are almost invariably, "Let's kill him!" or "I snap this puppy's neck! Muahahaha!" rather than having any sort of insidious or manipulative undertones. It makes being a dark side character sort of lame.

This led to my first nerdrage moment of my play experience; my groupmates, random people I picked up while questing, forced me to stand by while they murdered an NPC I set out to save.

I got credit for my light-side choice. Okay. That's fine. But going back to the NPC for him to cackle madly at my evil nature... yeah. I don't want to group with any people anymore. What's the point of an MMO where I loathe the other players I group with for making my choices for me?

I'll get over it, but it was among the most irritating MMO experiences I've had, which are crowned by my brief hour-long dalliance with Rift. It's not driven me away from trying TOR yet, but it sure discouraged me from grouping with anyone else. I'm sure they had a reason for building it this way, but I'm darned if I can figure out what that reason was.

The Academy

This one is heavy on the anecdotes, but it was on my mind and I wonder if such a theme would be successful or brutally mocked by players in the current day and age.

About ten years ago, I ran a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for the group I was DMing for at the time, and it was of a decidedly different scope from the games I had run up until that point. In my halcyon days of gaming, I was big on the world-saving plots, the huge Lord of the Rings style wars and battles, and big enemies that were unmistakably evil. This campaign was short lived, but different and very much enjoyed by the group at the time.

I wonder if it would have the same effect these days without generating too many obligatory pop culture jokes, though.

The characters were students at a grand magical academy in the city of Ravenstar, which was recognized as the center of wizardry in my homebrew campaign setting. It was a magic-infused citadel of learning and academics in an otherwise war-torn and grim world. The players christened it the "mage game" due to the arcane focus of their players. All of them played characters who had some degree of magical training, with a single "exception" played by my friend Dan (he instead opted to play the guard of the academy who always wanted to study magic, but whose family couldn't afford to sponsor his enrollment; he eventually learned magic secretly through the other students/players).

Together, the players (anywhere from sixteen to twenty in age) had adventures between classes and nipped off to explore ruins on the nearby Isle of Crows at the behest of dubious instructors. This might sound familiar to you. I didn't even know those books existed at the time (I think only Philosopher's Stone was written at the time?).

Anyway, if you've at least moused over those links, you'll notice the thematic parallels. Unintended, but good luck getting such a game past players these days without getting the incessant jokes about both Dalaran or Harry Potter.

I think 4th Edition D&D lends itself very well to the concept, though, and if I had more time to run games I might try to spark that campaign again. In particular, the division of roles and power sources makes a balanced party possible while still being arcane in origin.

What would a campaign like this need to call on the themes properly? Aside from a giant spiked d20 thrown at the heads of people who make "You're a wizard, Harry!" jokes whenever people ask who someone is?

Well, the theme wasn't intended to be childish, but it certainly did have hallmarks of various school-setting TV shows and anime, which I was pretty big into at the time (yes, I had an anime phase; I am sorry). I was also a college student, so of course...

That's right, I used a cat meme. Bite me.

At the time, I only alluded to the individual courses the players had available to them; they were based off of the schools of magic and magic item categories from 3rd Edition D&D. That wouldn't really work so cleanly in the current edition iteration, but I'd want to be more specific anyway.

In a hypothetical new incarnation of the concept, the players would choose courses at the academy that suit their skills and powers. The courses, and their success therein, would act as a form of alternate advancement for the players through the course of the campaign, in the form of boons. Haven't really plotted out what they'd be yet, but it's something to fiddle with in my free time.

Part of me thinks the game was received so well due to the setting details and not so much the theme of the campaign. There was a creepy island of ruins and towers that the instructors wouldn't tell anyone about and forbade students from venturing there. It's the allure of doing that which you are forbidden from doing that seemed to drive the players there time and again to go dungeon-romping after they bribed the ferryman.

This could be the nostalgia filter coloring my vision, though. I suppose such a campaign would need to be presented to the right players to be successful.

A Challenge!

So. I was called out.

Harbinger has goaded me into putting out more about the magic system that I've been utilizing, the same one that we worked on a while back. There are a few reasons for its current incarnation, which I shall preface here. One, the group I am working with enjoys things that are elegant and rules-lite, so I have opted to keep things fairly simple. Two, I simply hadn't had much iteration time to work on it, and I really just see what I can do from session to session to improve and take notes. Three, I want to be sure I have a much stronger basis for suggesting and implementing a change before I present it to the players, who have by now become so entrenched in their roles that any shift would be highly disruptive.

The basic skeleton system, SIFRP, only tangentially mentions magic in its core rules (in fact to say that it has no real rules for it aside from a few Qualities). As Harbinger rightfully points out, utilizing existing Abilities for the casting of magic poses some issues. Any schiester with a high Deception could purchase a Quality and instantly become an extremely-talented illusionist (or whatever) with no downtime or real barrier to entry aside from said purchase. It was necessary to create a Wizardry and a Piety Ability for arcane and divine casters, respectively.

Creating a spell requires that the player and Narrator determine the following attributes of the spell:

• Complexity
• Category
• Qualities

A spell's Complexity determines the number of Qualities and the Composure/Health cost of the spell, as well as how difficult it is to cast. There are four tiers of Complexity; Simple, Intermediate, Advanced, and Master level spells. Generally, casting a spell is a Challenging action (beat 9 or higher on your Wizardry dice), but Master level spells are Formidable (12). Failing to successfully cast an Advanced or Master spell can still drain your Composure, but these spells have the potential to be extremely powerful in order to offset the risk (however minor) of failure.

Categories allow the player to determine the effect. These include Banes, Boons, Conjurations, Control, Divination, Force, Recovery, Thorns, and Wracks. Most of these are fairly self-explanatory in general purpose (Wracks are your standard attack spells, by the way), but the player and Narrator work together to determine the precise intended effect. This requires a bit more Narrator involvement, but the player tailors their spells to fit the character, which is way more interesting than "I cast Magic Missile." No offense, 4th Edition.

The player then chooses the spell's Qualities. All relevant spells have the Close Range Quality by default (since it is so necessary to the very nature of the spells, it would be kind of a jerk move to require that a Simple spell's only Quality be devoted to that). However, based on Complexity, the player has access to things like Long Range, Explosive (to affect adjacent targets), Legion (to affect units), Piercing, or Vicious.

Put it all together, and you've shat out a spell. I say shat because it's not terribly complicated, is open to a lot of abuse if you throw together a team of munchkin players, etc. But I'm playing with responsible folks who are more interested in story than power, so I feel less obliged to bind the system in enough duct tape (edge case rules) to prevent leaky pipes.

This cuts down on a bit of variety at the same time it endows creative flexibility. If a new, cool kind of spell concept is thought up by a player that is not contained within one of the categories (which I tried very hard to make comprehensive without being cumbersome), I have to ad hoc the rules until I can draw one up. It also draws out the creation of the spellcasting character in question, unless the player knows well in advance that they'll want to play a caster and plan accordingly.

Ultimately, it still has flaws. I'm not convinced it's the best even for the rules-lite team for which I am running this game. But it's serviceable. It will get some more work though as I develop (on the side) another conversion using this system; a science fantasy setup that gives me the double whammy of not only incorporating technology into the system (and advanced tech at that), but also sorcery and reworking the team-character generation aspect (functionally, the group's vastcraft).

My work is never done. Of course, if I stopped making more work for myself... ;)

The Wheel Turns

Been a couple weeks since I've posted, but here's the dilly.

- Birthright continues to go well. After a stupendous end to the tournament's jousting competition, where the player character jouster faced down a seriously badass knight from the nearby militaristic realm of Ghoere in a magnificent six lances passes before finally unhorsing him, the players are ready to turn their eye to more domestic affairs. Their actions in the tournament, from relinquishing the arms of defeated knights without demanding ransom (as is their right), as well as maintaining a very firm neutrality in the intra-Anuire politics and scheming, have dramatically increased their reputation amongst the neighboring domains.

- Planescape prepares to play its third session today. In it, the players will learn just how odd the influx of transients to Sigil really is, learn more about the factions to which they need to tiptoe around or join, and unlock a larger plot that they may pursue alongside their personal aims.

Birthright in particular has created a quandary. The sessions do not flow quite as I originally suspected (run one adventure session with a domain session attached to the end) as the games are somewhat short due to our respective time constraints, as well as a desire to "explore the whole map" before it changes.

What this has caused is the domain management system, which was systemically imported and adapted from the 2nd Edition D&D version (don't cringe, it still works pretty well!), does not get the limelight it deserves. It feels... unwieldy compared to the streamlined nature of the base system we are using, and I find myself wondering if the players really grok it. It's complicated, for sure, but the base SIFRP system has its own flaws.

The problem with SIFRP's realm management is that it is not prepared to work on the scales that Birthright can (and by all rights, in a classical campaign, should) rise to, at least in its basic form. The difference between a mere few points and its next highest category of implied ownership can be staggering. For example, the difference between 51-60 Lands score (the whole of the North, of which House Stark were the wards), and 61-70 (the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms) is so vast that either the acquisition of Glory at that stage of the game needs to slow to a crawl, or some serious liberties need to be taken with the system.

When Harbinger and I originally kicked around ideas for the conversion, his arguments ultimately swayed me to use the 2nd Edition D&D domain management. It does have a greater degree of granularity, and its advancement was measurable and had an immediate impact on your domain. This is not the case in SIFRP, even though it is leaner and easier to understand.

I have thought about considering a switch, but the flaws of each approach have left me in doubt. I will need to decide eventually, however, and while the game is still in "beta" form, I still feel obligated to deliver an excellent experience.

And so the indecision continues...