Are you not entertained? Are you willing to pay $99.99 to find out?!

I was surprised that after getting the Warhammer RPG Fantasy flight games did not reprint the main book and many sought after source books. Turns out we now know why. Just when I thought Hasborg had done what it could to make RPG's less inviting to new players with 4th edition, turns out they were only the canary...enter FFG with the whole damn coal mine.

Your next RPG will be a 4 player boxed set...a $99.99 boxed set. Yup if you want to add players you get to buy a character's toolkit to play for each additional player. I do not doubt the value or fun that one could have with FFG's Warhammermer. There is a big question that remains unanswered: What new player will risk $100 to try an RPG?

Especially when they could get 2 (or more) video game RPG's for the same price? How do you expect to get new people into the hobby with a $100 barrier to entry? WotC failed to lower the barrier to entry in the RPG market by maintaining expensive rules intensive hard backed text books. FFG one upped them by making what appears to be a card based $100 rpg boxed set.

In the golden age I could risk $5-$15 and try a plethora of games like Ogre/GEV, Car Wars, Melee/Wizard, D&D, Tunnels & Trolls, Flashing Blades, Champions, Villains & Vigilantes, Boot Hill, Gang Busters, Top Secret, Gamma World, etc.

It was a small sum and a slim investment. The rules were easy to digest and I think for a lot of kids at the time, that was true. The closest parallel today may be TCG games. About $12 for a deck, and $4 a booster pack, so for under $20 you can check out a new game with little risk. Anyone have a RPG equal? Nope me either. Instead the rules have grown into fat text books by rules lawyers for rules lawyers.

Does this $100 represent the dawn of a new era of RPG's? The death of the genre? A bold new step in a bold new direction? None of the above really. Instead this "new boxed set for a new century" represents old school thought trying to become relevant and hip to a new generation. So they stream line game play and focus it all on quick reference cards and specialized dice, but pack it into a box with 4 rule books, 300 cards and 30 dice which is the kind of old school over kill OMG it's bigger than your cranium kind of game nerd over kill.

How about breaking it down into $15 character or class or race specific "deck" boxes and a separate $20 GM tool box? Pack them out like TCG decks in a display so you can get placed into Target, WalMart as well as hobby.

How many retailers will be able to buy multiple $100 boxed sets? Certainly no Mass retailers or even book stores would do this, so you cut out 99% of the retail market. So you are marketing a $100 boxed set to a slim section of the gaming public who probably already has a metric ton of RPG materials. Will folks buy it? Sure! But will it still be played and supported in 2 years? probably not.

Without further peanut gallery rambling...

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a new, exciting way to experience the popular Warhammer Fantasy setting. It is a grim world, constantly at war. As a hero, you will take up weapon, spell, or prayer and do your best to combat the might of enemies terrifying to behold. As the Game Master, you will make the lands of the Old World real as you craft the story, the people, creatures, and the mysteries the other players will encounter during their adventures.

Everything your group needs to begin its adventures in the Old World is included in the Core set. This Core set is an excellent way to bring new players into the fold, as well as to reward experienced roleplaying with new and exciting innovations.

• 4 comprehensive rule books provide all the knowledge you will need on the Old World
• Over 30 Custom Dice give you unprecedented options for story-telling
• Party sheets provide new skills and abilities to keep everyone engaged
• 40 different careers and 4 different races offer a multitude of character options
• More than 300 cards keep you in the game, no need to look up skills or abilities
• Three character keepers designed to hold everything your hero will need each session

Rolling up a story
Using a new task resolution system featuring custom dice, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay gives you unparalleled story-telling options. Every roll of the dice has a story to tell, providing far more information and flavour than just “you hit” or “you miss.” These dice represent the abilities and skills your characters will gain, as well as include the whims of fate. With each roll, players will be able to see how the check succeeded or failed. Did they make it through based on their natural skills or did they just get lucky as fortune intervened? There are more than 30 custom dice included to help you craft your story.

How much will you risk?
With every decision comes a risk to assess. In Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, heroes will decide how they wish to approach any situation. Do they rush in, swords drawn, in an attempt to quickly overwhelm their foes? Do they advance cautiously and appraise the situation before entering to gain advantage? Your stance, reckless or conservative, will guide your actions and the bonuses they provide. As stances can be changed on the fly, players will have new levels of control over situations.

Action at hand
Mighty warriors perform mighty deeds. You can quickly reference the full-colour action cards to see what your abilities and innate skills can accomplish, allowing players to spend more time focusing on the task at hand. From spells, blessings, and attacks to social gambits, and reactions, and acrobatics you will have the actions you need to tell your character’s tale.

More fun in a group
Every hero is powerful on their own, but when combined, heroes interact in interesting, new ways. Each party will be able to select a party sheet, which helps track and manage the group as a whole. Will the dwarf and high elf be able to put aside their differences in order to work as a cohesive unit, or will the ancient grudges be too much for them? Can the human overcome the arrogance of the high elf, and can the high elf overcome the brashness of the short-lived human? Each party sheet also provides special abilities for the party members. In this way, every group becomes far more than the sum of its parts.

More than a job
Straight from the world of Warhammer, there are dozens of careers for heroes to choose from. Every career provides valuable skills and abilities that will give adventurers a definitive advantage in their exploits. From the resolve of the Witch Hunter and the deadliness of the Dwarf Troll Slayer to the keen eyes of the Wood Elf Waywatcher, or the fiery magic of a Bright Wizard, there are many exciting paths to follow.

Quick and easy clean up
Inside the Core set are three character keepers designed to hold everything your hero will need each session. From your dice, actions cards, and character sheets to any wounds, items, or skills your hero acquires, you will have a convenient place to store everything after a session.

How do I start?
These innovations are brought to life in the Core set of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Inside you will find four full-colour books. The main rulebook introduces all the mechanics and key information you need to get started. Also included are three tomes to provide you with more information on the world, and give you new opportunities for character creation. The Tome of Mysteries is your guide to wizards and the winds of magic. Follow along with grey wizard Gavius Klugge as he gives you insight into this powerful career path. The Tome of Blessings provides information on priests and the gods they follow. Information on the Cults of Sigmar, Shallya, Ulric, Taal, and others are contained within this volume. The Tome of Adventure is a book for the Game Master, and provides valuable information on running sessions, background and statistics on a variety of enemies, information on how to get the most out of your roleplaying experience, and a complete introductory adventure.

This Core set is best suited for a group of four players – one Game Master and three Player Characters. Adding more players is easy! You can find more careers, party sheets, action cards, and components in the the Adventurer’s Toolkit.

One player gets to be the Game Master. The Game Master is responsible for crafting the story, and giving life to the adventure the heroes are about to undertake. Setting up the encounters, adopting the role of the non-player characters (often referred to as NPCs), and acting as the ruling authority for how the rules apply to the game at hand all fall under the Game Master’s sway.

Three players form the hero party, seeking out adventure and glory. They will be the protagonists, and act together towards a goal. As they perform mighty deeds, combat foul enemies, and exercise their diplomatic skills they will gain experience. This experience allows players to upgrade their skills and abilities, as well as gain new options and help define their characters’ roles within the world. As the PCs gain experience and become even more powerful, the Game Master will craft more challenging stories.

Over the course of the story, the Game Master and the hero party will perform a variety of actions, make skill checks by rolling the custom dice, and keep track of any information related to their characters.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is an experience like no other. Custom dice help you to tell the story with every roll, the stance system provides greater depth to the decisions the GM and the PCs must make, action cards keep all your options close at hand, group party sheets give each party a reason for existing and unique abilities to draw from, and the wide variety of careers give each player a variety of options when creating their character and even more options when they advance their hero.

Monkey Auto Races, a classic considerd

Growing up we were not a wealthy family. Our fun as children came from the odd mud puddle and various sticks, rocks, broken glass, and wild animals (living or dead) we might come across. Games like "Grab the rattle snake" and "How long has this been dead?" were the common games of my youth.

That is until a social worker brought us MONKEY AUTO RACING!

Originally the thought of monkey navigated automobiles stirred something, dare I say, primal in us? The size of the box, and the lack of movement from inside, left us wondering if "how long has this been dead?" might actually be our game for the day.

Removing the outer plastic wrap (and carefully saving it for use as a diaper for the baby) my father of the week handed us the game and gave us all a loving backhanding to send us outside.

With great glee we opened the box to find...no monkeys? Not a single simian dead, alive, or navigating any automobile in the box? Instead four brightly colored vehicles were enclosed along with 4 small hammer like "mini head sticks." Not a monkey to be found anywhere? My brother seeing the weird hammer like mini-sticks swiftly took a blue colored one and rapped me soundly about the head with it!

If you have not seen 2001 a Space Odyssey, there is an opening scene wherein monkey like creatures discover that a bone may be used as a weapon. Then they beat to death, out of new found glory, a fellow monkey. That shining moment (with more natural lighting, no slow motion, and a soundtrack provided by the rumble of 18 wheelers on the interstate) replayed itself thanks to discovery of the mini head stick.

A stunned moment of silence followed as we realized what great fortune we were given. Swiftly removing all the head sticks from the box we proceeded to run around and beat each other senseless. At this point, a mental image of Mint Valley Primary Schools 2003 production of William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" is an appropriate visual.

The neighbor seeing the boyish romp beginning to turn serious called us over during his mid-afternoon respite from auto repair in his front yard. We brought over our new treasure and with oil encrusted hands he made sense of the wiggly lines, angles, and circles we now know as letters and words! By strapping the small hammers to our heads, rather than the original vogue of the right hand, we could push the small cars through a flag lined obstacle course.

At this point, he unstrapped the hammer (mini stick) from my right hand (Mjolnir my friend we savaged many, wait for me in Valhalla!)and wrapped it about my head. Placing a plastic car from the box onto the ground he bade me push it with the mini stick on my head. Dropping to my knees I placed the hammer behind the car ready to see what sort of game this might be. A sharp kick to my hind quarters sent the car and myself flying. The rough guffaws of the neighbor and my brethren from that moment echo through time and haunt me to this day.

Standing, covered in axle grease and grass stains, I slowly removed the mini stick from my head. I then wrapped it around my right hand as nature intended. The Mighty Mjolnir had returned! With a Thor like barbaric YAWP from my eight year old lungs I proceeded to savage the laughing throng.

Whether it was the noble power of Mini-Mjolnir in my tiny right fist, the weight of my foot and the physical might of it striking my neighbor in the nether regions, or the power granted by the burning rage of discovering not one simian navigating the tiny vehicles withing the game, I will leave for my biographer to sort out. Regardless, the neighbor crawled like a dog back into his house writhing with pain. The field of battle emptied quickly I was left alone victorious with only one causality that day...Mjolnir, though mighty in the victory had given its all and broken in the day's combat.

Wistfully those days comeback to me now and though a lingering ache remains at finding no monkeys in the game, I can think of no finer game for instilling in youth today the lessons I learned playing it in my wilder days of yesteryear!

Excelsior!

Ancient Treasures soon discovered...

I am a big fan of board games as well as RPG's. In fact I think a great way to get people into RPG's is to start them gaming with rpg-esque board games. So www.boardgamegeek.com is the center of my board gaming universe. Reviews, images, variants, discussions and all sorts of goodness can be found on golden moldies as well as hot stuff coming soon. I have posted a couple of my own games up there, my module I did for dark City Games, as well as variant stuff such as unique counters for Ogre/GEV.

Well after years of discussion and promises...the beta RPG geek is rolling. Yup the chocolate to the peanut butter of the gaming universe is about to be added...and man is it sweet. So jump on the bandwagon before it departs the farm my friend and enjoy the ride. Geekdo is here!

Why Jonny can't role play

I've read the multitude of threads on the RPG issues. A lot of great points on multiple threads, and there are a few questions and issues that seem to have been over looked.

1) What does a pen & paper RPG offer someone surrounded by a multitude of easier, more immediately rewarding, and less socially strenuous endeavors? Especially when the same diversion (fantasy rpg gaming)can be had with the push of a few buttons or the typing of a few keys. How do you lob a 5 lb book at someone and compete with instant gratification?

2) Much like the legal system, most current games are written by lifelong gamers to impress or meet the expectations of cynical and jaded other lifelong gamers. They are often too "inside baseball" for someone to simply pick up and start playing.

3) The gaming clubhouse does not exactly have a friendly, "come on inside and play" welcome mat at the door. The elitism and arrogance one often encounters, or the odd quirks and inside jokes of a veteran group can often be isolating, off putting, or intimidating for a novice.

4) Take a look at the continued success of TCG's. One of the brilliant methods to promote their continued existence is organized play. They reward the players with content for participating. WotC I believe tried some sort of organized outreach combined with Living Greyhawk, RPGA and other elements. Trouble is it applied to the old gray gamers and I'm not sure it really rewarded new players at all. What is the draw for a new player? What is the reward for becoming a weekly gamer?

5) Barrier to entry: paperback adventure books like Fighting Fantasy, or micro games like Melee and Wizard, provided low priced, low page count, accessible entries into the hobby. Why in heaven's name would you expect a kid to purchase a video game expensive text book and spend hours reading and trying to decipher a text book sized game manual? That is 3 strikes against gaining new converts.

6) Boxed sets have a charm to those of us who started with them. We grew up playing board games which all came in boxes. Risk, Monopoly, Scrabble, Boggle, etc. All games (even Atari 2600 games) came in a cardboard box.

Times change but the RPG industry has not followed suit. Boxed games are no longer the entertainment entry point. So why not make a new boxed set to fit a new generation? Taking a page from Melee/ Wizard, why not pack a small manual rpg book with adventure into a DVD case? Include some counters and a map and sell it for $15? Make a series of them and eventually...you have a full rpg. Many RPG games could easily be translated to a grid battle game: Final Fantasy tactics, Ogre Tactics, Fire Emblem. Small, portable, DVD boxed games that teach RPG playing through micro sized pieces. IP is incredibly important to gaining traction so why not use one of the tactical rpg licenses and create mini rpg board games?

Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees, and being fans of, and blinded by, the good old days limits can limit ones vision.

Teaching an old dog new tricks...

Back in the TCG avalanche of the mid 90's, Mayfair games released one called FANTASY ADVENTURES. This was a TCG based on a stand alone fantasy card game released 10 years earlier called ENCOUNTERS. The art work was lifted from fantasy book covers and is hit or miss.

The game in a nutshell:

Each player has a party of 8 heroes in in 2 ranks of 4. Your hand contains monsters and treasures. You play your monsters against your opponent. If the player defeats the monsters, he may lay treasures from his hand on to heroes in his party. For 4 turns you go back and forth either battling monsters, or playing monsters on your opponent. After 4 rounds, the player with the most survivors and loot wins.

The way they made this into a TCG was by 1) random boosters 2) deck building. While the first is no big deal, the second killed it.

Your deck was built using the gold value of each card. So with calculator in hand you had to total up the gold value of cards in your deck and stay within boundaries for maximum card mix and gold value. What a pain in the asterisk.

Then your heroes deck was only a random 8 card draw...which you only used once at the start of the game! LAME

Recently my wife discovered (somewhere buried in the depths of the game shelves filling the garage) my box filled with these cards. She asked me to "fix" the game so we could play it. I enjoy a challenge so here's how I did it:

1) Take all of the cards and create 3 decks:
A) HERO DECK-contains all yellow backed hero cards
B) MONSTER DECK-contains all monsters & traps
C) TREASURE DECK-contains all spells, items & treasures

2) Deal 8 hero cards to each player, then set aside the heroes deck.

3) Each player selects one hero than passes the cards to the next player

4) Each player continues to select one hero card and pass the cards to the next player until each player has 8 heroes total

5) Next deal each player 3 cards from the treasure deck.

6) If possible you can attach all 3 to your heroes.

7) Deal each player 10 cards from the Monster deck

8) play begins as normal

9) After finishing a turn playing as the monsters, always draw your hand back up to 10 monster cards from the Monster deck.

10) Anytime a hero in the front rank is killed, a hero form the back rank must move up to the front rank and fill the gap.

11) for each monster you defeat on your turn draw one treasure card.

12) play treasure cards on your party per original rules at the end of an encounter

13) Keep any monsters your party of heroes kills or traps you avoid in a separate pile beside your heroes. You can discard your heroes into this pile as well.

14) at the end of the game,total the gold for each treasure attached to a hero then add 100 gold for each monster defeated or trap avoided. Player with the highest total wins.

This lump TCG is now a fun little fantasy adventure card game that plays in about 45 minutes. You can play it with 2-6 players and while it won't win any awards, it is fun and an easy casual game to teach. You can score a starter deck +540 random cards from Mayfair for $25! It's good little card game that with a wee bit of wrenching displaced the dreaded Munchkin as our card game of choice.

Finally someone did it...

I used to be a big comic book fanatic as a kid. I used to pick up Conan, SGT. Rock, Weird War Tales, Haunted Tank and occasionally a super hero book-either Captain America, Thor, or Batman. Somewhere about 7th or 8th grade my brother and I were staying with some friends, and we ended up reading The Defenders, X-Men, and Marvel Universe encyclopedias. That's when it went from occasional grocery store pick up to full blown collecting. G.I. Joe, X-Men, New Mutants, Marvel universe and tons and tons of other books. Through my sophomore year of college I was a regular user and then, well I lost interest. Fast forward 15 years and I still enjoy them but I am pretty picky about buying anything. Mostly its just trades at this point. A lot of the b/w marvel collections, the new Savage Sword of Conan collections (waaaay to racy when I was a tween for mom to okay that purchase) but not a lot of new stuff.

So as a picky reader let me make a couple recommendations:

There is really only a few series I actively collect and two of them are written by one guy.

First, think about Night of the Living Dead, or Dawn of the Dead...now imagine instead of the movie ending..the story just kept going, that's sort what The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman is like. It's a zombie series, but the horror (as in any good zombie story) is not about the living dead...it's about how we as humans interact and treat one another when the thin veneer of society is stripped away. Great story, great writing, great art, and it is a must read. Plus its in black & white, which I think is perfect for this particular story. There 10 Trades out and you can get them for under $10 each.

If you are a super hero fan I also HIGHLY recommend Invincible by Robert Kirkman. I don't want to spoil it for you but it takes what was great about spider-man (average kid gets powers) and goes through all the standard tropes of superheroes and teams, turns them on their head and manages to be thoughtful, playful, exciting, and heroic without being snide or mocking. It is a truly heroic and fun title. These are collected in trades again a little looking and you can get them for under $10.

There is talk of an Invincible movie...and HBO may turn Walking Dead into a series...so get on them now before everyone else jumps on the bandwagon.

Okay here's my "it's new and cool, so you should read it now" pick. Think about alien invasion films...like Independence Day or War of the Worlds..the aliens are beaten and the credits roll. My question was always, "So how are we going to rebuild society and government and everything else after aliens destroyed everything? I mean, yeah the aliens are toast but now what?" Well somebody has put pen to paper and answered that question that has burned in my brain for years. You too? Good. Pick up Resurrection by Marc Guggenheim. You can get the collection of the first 6 issues+the 2008 annual in one trade for $6!!! That's 184 pages of goodness my friend...call it a sci-fi fans stimulus package.

Take time to remember...

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, having its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient suffrance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their acts of pretended legislation.

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally, the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever:

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizen taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Dicey business

Recently I have followed a debate on using 3d6 for gaming (as in Fantasy Trip, Melee, Wizards, & Dark City games) versus Ye Olde D20. Originally I loved the d20, but as I work on my own game, I find the ability to use multiple d6's to reflect an increase in challenge is much cleaner and easier to teach folks than add a ton of modifiers to a die roll. Anyway, I present some of the 3d6 vs. D20 debate I have seen recently for your own perusal below. Credit is given to the original writers and their points are worthy of broader exposure I think.

In General
Both 3D6 and D20 can be used for attack rolls, and we could convert the
math such that any 3D6 roll could be roughly converted to a D20 roll
and vice versa. So, if one can be completely converted to the other,
why is one better than the other?

The answer lies partially in the mechanic of TFT character development.
The typical human character begins with attributes of 8 (with the
points to spread around, but bear with me). A 3D6 vs 8 will succeed
only 56/216 of the time. That's about 26% of the time, or about a 5 on
a D20. But the 'average' attribute for a human is 10, which succedds on
a 3D6 exactly half the time, or a 10 on a D20.

Now look at those attribute numbers, and their 3D6 and D20
counterparts. Using 3D6, a gain of 2 points gets you a 24% gain. But if
I use an attribute of 5 (for D20), it takes a gain of 5 points to get
the same benefit! (This assumes that each attribute point in D20 raises
success by 5%).

Because human (and human-like) characters have their average attributes
at 10, using 3D6 works 'better' because as one's attribute approaches
the average, one's chances for success not only improve, but improve in
proportion (roughly) to how close to the average the character is. One
improves more as a percentage the closer one is to the average. In
fact, the gain from 10 to 11 is about 12.5%, or 2.5 pips on a D20.

And because the game is mostly about human (and human-like) characters,
this works better. (I have another argument that it doesn't scale well,
that points to this average attribute thing, but stay with me for now).
Not only do those near the average get more out of their gained
attribute, those near the ends get less. So you're the greatest
swordsman -- what's another DX point really going to get you? And you,
you're incompetent, so your next point doesn't get you much, either.

Now let's look at the ends of the scale, the hoped-for triple and
double damage, and the dreaded drop and break weapon. It is not
possible with a single roll of a D20 to get a chance of something
hapening down below 5%. Yet that's an awful lot of dropped and broken
weapons (assuming that we use rolls of 19 and 20 for those). Using 3D6,
we get a dropped weapon 3/216 of the time, and a broken weapon 1/216 of
the time. We can use the characteristics of the roll to put
low-percentage outcomes at the ends of the scale -- something we can't
do (without extra rolls) with a D20.

Now let's look at difficulty.

Sure, it's easy to apply a bias to a roll to make something easier or
more difficult. But again, look at that average. If you have an
attribute of 16 (which is really high for a human), your actual penalty
with a -2 on your roll is about 8%. But the same conditions for someone
with an 11 is a hit of 25%. For a D20, a penalty of -2 is always 10%.
With 3D6, if you're really good, you can take a chance, and similarly,
if you're really bad, a penalty doesn't hurt you much.

But look again at a 3D6 mechanic for difficulty -- the extra die. With
3D6, the usual range is 3-18, with 4D6, it's 4-24. But the percentages
shift so that being average is no longer a 50% chance. Now look at the
D20. It's normal range is 1-20. But the range for 2D20 is now 2-40.
That moves the eprcentages around by a very large amount compared to a
D6. Yes, you can figure out how much to bias everything, but that's
dancing around the issue, ebcause every bias in a D20 system results in
the same percentage. The 3D6 system wins for this mechanic because it's
very easy for the GM to fine-tune rolls.

One of the things I've always liked about the TFT 3D6 system is that
it's like meta-rules. The PC figures out what the character wants to
do. The GM declares which Talents are applicable, which attribute to
roll against, and how many dice for difficulty. Then fine tune with
biases for the current situation, and roll. And if the situation comes
up again, you already know how to handle it....Neil Gilmore

Regarding how combat & armor are handled
Other people have said it but 3d6 to hit is one of my favorite things aobut TFT, and it relates to how armor is treated.

In D&D, as soon as a character can afford the best plate mail (second level, usually), that character immediately buys and wears it. Pretty much every second level fighter out there is wearing plate. In D&D, if you can afford it (and by the time they have a retinue everyone can), you load up your men-at-arms and even your peasant militia in plate armor.

In TFT, you'd be a fool to dress your peasant militia in even chain armor. The drop from an 11 or less to hit to an 8 or less to his is extreme. Add to that the fact that your peasants act last in the action round, and they're much more efficient and battle-worthy wearing no armor at all. Basically, everyone in TFT equips themselves to hover around that 10-12 DX range (with some special exceptions, like guys who want to make sure they go first in the round, or guys whose only real purpose is to stand in the front row and block opponents).

The (perhaps unintended) result is that characters and npc's in TFT are much more appropriately armed and armored than in any other dark ages/medieval game I've played. Peasants wear nothing. Mercenaries wear quilted or leather. Veterans wear chain. Elite knights wear plate. And player characters are built in a variety of ways...a Conan-type might concentrate on Strength and not wear armor despite having a lot of experience. A knightly type might pump up his dex and start with chain armor, starting with a mace and slowly working his way up to plate and bastard sword.

Bottom line: you see someone ride up to you in plate armor and in TFT you know you're facing a badass. In any other game it could just be some rich punk.

Is that realistic? Some would argue no...of course peasants would wear plate armor if they could afford it. But I'd argue yes. Peasants could NEVER afford plate armor. Historically, in an age when warriors were responsible for their own arms and armor (post Imperial rome, pre nation state), only the hardened veterans or elite members of a warrior culture (knights) were armored. In TFT, only the hardened veterans or the elite members of a warrior culture are armored. In every other game, everyone's armored. In role-playing games this is because you can't keep money out of the players' hands. In miniatures games, that's because the cost-to-benefit ratio of armor is too low. In TFT it's just right....SGT HULKA

The look, the feel, of multi-dice...

I agree with everything written about the differences in chance and
percentages between the d20 and 3d6 systems. I'd like to focus on the
tactile "feel" of the dice. I've played a lot of games that are
percentile dice based. When you shake the dice in your hand they click
and clack together and when you drop them onto a table they produce a
certain sound as they bounce around that I immediately connect with
gaming. The exact same thing is even more true when rolling 3d6. There
is simply a connection to the feel of the dice in your hands. The
poor, lonely d20 just does not give me the same feel. Multiple dice
are just more exciting to throw down than a single die. It's just like
rolling craps in Vegas. You can't wait to see and quickly add up the
numbers. While I know this is very subjective I have a feeling many of
you will identify with it. Or at least the gamblers in the group.

As strange as this may sound it's a main reason I never even bothered
to look at a d20 system....David O. Miller

Getting Rowdy

Besides gaming I have a lot of other interests in history, literature, movies, cocktails, camping, and blah blah blah...

So I am firing up another blog about all the good stuff that makes me glad I am above ground as a man every day. You have a hint of what's to come from the Quiet Man post and the Hemingway post. If you liked that-there will be more, and if you didn't-well there is one less site you need to waste time with.

http://rowdyredrooster.blogspot.com/

Diversion: The Quiet Man

Who? John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara
What? Fall in love
Where? Ireland
When? Could be set in the 30's or 40's its never really clear (film is color 1955)

Why you have to see this movie: In my book it's the best damn date movie EVER...and that's not up for debate. A Strong silent type man falls for a fiery headstrong independent woman. Instant friction and that's before her older bully brother steps in to make life more miserable. There's drinking, fighting, a horse race, a wedding, a dark secret, and hell John Ford directed it so you know its damn good.

This isn't a sappy, nebbish, for fuck's sake spit it out you lousy emasculated dishrag muppet "Notting Hill" date movie nor a more white wine spritzer HOLY CRAP where is the humor or at least some Nytol so I can sleep through this "27 Dresses."

Maureen O'Hara is not a push over woman or Dr.Phil/Oprah weak knee dithering ninny. She is confident, stands up for her self, knows what she wants and is all woman. John Wayne is..well it's the Duke, I mean outside of Clint Eastwood does it get more Archetypal American male? (hint-the answer is no amigo.)

Look at that picture my friend, that is a true man and a true woman and its a hell of a good story. So fix a nice meal for your significant other (microwave is off limits as is anything you "just add meat" to) and put some effort into it tiger!
Mix a couple of nice cocktails, dim the lights, and let John Ford and Ireland work their magic, you can thank me in the morning.

Sword & Shield: Magic

One of my least favorite portions of RPG's is spells, and magic. Part of it stemmed from the way it was handled in D&D. I did not like the fire and forget method of spell casting. I also did not like the rags to riches method of wizards starting out weak and then becoming overly powerful. As stated in an earlier post, Gandalf would be about a 5th or 6th level wizard in a D&D system that goes to level 36.

Contrast that with magic in Metagaming's Wizard. Energy used to cast spells was derived from your Strength stat so you could cast fireball as often long as you had Strength to do so. Problem was, ST was also your Hit Points so if you cast spells you weakened yourself making your character easier to kill.

Magic in D&D is then codified by classes, subdivided by level. This always seemed an awkward and artificial construct to me. Only wizards know this, only clerics know that, only druids learn this...regardless of race. The whole class codification of roles I suppose is part my problem compounded by why are certain spells only available at certain levels? I suppose this makes some sense in limiting characters from having all powerful magic at low levels...but I think it is an artificial constraint...much like the class system is in general.

So as I write my own RPG I have decided to make magic work based on energy from a stat, but you won;t be killed for casting spells. Second, magic spells will be based upon racial divisions of knowledge. Within those racial divisions will be additional divisions perhaps Black magic and white magic for humanity. Green Magic for elves, Red magic for dwarves, etc. It could even be subdivided by "culture" as well but at this point I do not know if that is a necessary contrivance in the rules-or let referees do this as they wish.

Each race then has its own "spell book" of knowledge it has built up in its culture over the ages. Yes there will be some overlap,but there will be many exclusive spells as well. This will foster (I hope) an idea that learning a new spell is something exciting, and players may even seek to teach or steal) spells from each other. My hope is rather than classes defining what spells you learn the referee in each game can make the learning of spells special, unique and exciting in their adventures. Beyond the starting spells a player chooses, there are no more automatic spells gained by players. They will be found as the players adventure in the the world, or if they are able to pay to learn them...but no magic user would ever sell a 4d6 or higher spell...

Since my whole system is d6 based, spells are classifies as being 3d6, 4d6, 5d6 and 6d6. This represents the difficulty in casting a spell. The difficulty is the number of dice rolled to determine if the casting is successful or not. The more powerful the spell, the more difficult it is to cast. While a starting character may only learn 3d6 spells at creation, a character could learn a 6d6 spell at anytime they could find one.

So my system will limit spell casting by three methods: racial knowledge, energy available for the player to cast it, and the difficulty in casting a specific spell.
I believe players will have more flexibility and unique opportunity in casting and discovering spells in this game, and I hope for the referee that provides more opportunities to create a rich world to game in.

Short Story, Tall Tales

Blame it on Hemingway. As much as I love fantasy stories and tales, often times they become so self engorged with describing details and setting scenes that it becomes distracting. The overload of detals diminishes my imagination as the reader. The end result is it pushes me out of the scene or story rather than drawing me in and making forget about the world outside.

Ernest Hemingway is, in my opinion the finest American writer. While I do not like everything he has written, the vast majority is, to my mind perfect. I think the sledge hammer for the power of fine writing, and especially Hemingway’s writing, kicked me in the head like a mule when our Sophomore lit class had the following exercise: Read the short story "The Hills are like White Elephants" and when you finish, describe what the two main characters look like.

So we all did it. We turned in our brief paragraphs and the teacher wrote on the board outlines of we said the characters looked like. No one really had the same description even though we all read the same story. So here comes the mule kick: It turns out, nowhere in the story does Hemingway actually describe the characters appearance, yet through their conversations we all got an impression (albeit different) of how the characters looked. Fucking genius.

Now flip to the opposite writing style provided by Mr. George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice & Fire series.” Friends swore I would love it’s politics, gritty combat, and low magic setting. I picked up the first book and tried to read it 4 times before I finally got into it. It is a great story and I very much enjoy it despite the overly verbose descriptions of every meal and of every outfit worn. It literally takes a monstrous force of will to drive me through these endless and needless (in my opinion) details that actually detract from the story. In fact, I might even say one could shave hundreds of pages from each novel and improve them by cleaning up the overly descriptive manner in which Mr. Martin lavishly details each meal or outfit.

So what does this have to do with gaming? I believe Hemingway’s writing style illustrates that brevity and clarity should be the goal of any good writer. In good rules and good adventures that sort of brevity and clarity translate into more opportunity for the individual or group to make the game their own. The Moldvay B/X rules accomplish this brilliantly for D&D. They provided the skeleton upon which we as players added the heart, mind, and soul of adventuring to give it life.

One of the many failings that I believe sprung from (and grew) as a result of the 1st DMG is the idea that the more rulings one creates for any event in an RPG, the better and perhaps less confusing the game becomes. Much like a novelist who insists on detailing every spice in a meal, every type of bead on a gown, or every coat of arms at a tourney, nothing is left to your imagination. Does this excessive detail make the novel better? Does having a rule for what happens if my character in chainmail falls out of a boat, and a rule for the wizard in robes, and a rule for the Paladin in plate make a game of imagination more fun to play?

By increasing the rules to cover more and more situations, one takes out of the referee’s hands the chance to be creative and to make the game their own. The more details and rules put into the books to cover any possible situation helped to create the rules lawyer. This breed of individual would be much better shown the door when the words ”game” and “fun” are in the same room with this individual. The rule for everything idea stifled creativity and imagination, and also created multiple text book sized necessary reference tomes to “play a game.”

As I write my own RPG rules set, and concept how I plan to lay out the entire line, much like Hemingway I sit back and then cut back. I am trying to parse it down to what matters in order to play the game, without answering every question nor providing every potential detail on how you should do it. I want to provide the Hemingway short story form of an RPG giving the players the ability to dream up their own worlds and flexibility to create their own tall tales using it.

Mountains & Mole Hills

WotC pulled their PDF's from the web...SO WHAT? The grumblings and consternation flooding the web are childish, selfish and ridiculous.

This stuff was available on the web for purchase for a long time. If you waited and by your laziness did not get whatever you suddenly HAD TO HAVE, blame yourself-not WotC! No company owes you to publish, or even let you have access to their stuff via PDF. You can now buy them second hand at a crazy price now or download bootleg copies which will now flood the web.

When did you suddenly become entitled to a companies back catalog? Having had access for quite some time now, why did you wait so long to get what you suddenly could not live or game without? I understand the "hey I bought it and had 4 downloads left now they took them all away I've been robbed!" line of thought. In a manner of speaking yes that is a pisser, yet I believe certain sites are giving you one last access to previously purchased titles. So problem solved, do your downloads and move on.

WotC does not owe anyone the ability to purchase their products via PDF. If you failed to get what you wanted while it was available, that is YOUR fault and YOUR mistake. No one else is to blame. Take responsibility for it, suck it up, learn the lesson and don;t make it again!

Now get out there and game man! Your own stuff you make is far better than the off the shelf stuff anyway brother!

Afluenza in Fantasy: The Trump Theory of Gaming

I don't think I will spoil the secret to say I am a fan of what would be thought of as low level in gaming in D&D. Much of this stems from my love of literature like Conan, The Black Company, Song of Ice & Fire series, The First Law series by Abercrombie, and really from being a historian.

SO the prism I view my gaming through is gritty and deadly. Magic plays a part as do magical items, but they are necessarily rare and more likely to have some sort of ability than simply be a +5 Ogre slayer. After all sting simply glowed blue when goblins were about, and it was a very treasured item.

When I think of the some of the greatest warriors of all time in our own history: Henry V, Henry III, Richard the Lionheart, Saladin, Caesar, Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Leonidas, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Nobunaga, and countless others...a single sword thrust would kill them just as quickly as it would me. Caesar was not a level 20 Cavalier with 250 HP able to laugh at dagger thrust after dagger thrust on the floor of the Roman senate after all.

Recently I can across an article in Dragon Magazine VOL I, Iss 5 which showed that one of the greatest wizards of all literature...would be 5th level Magic User at best under D&D rules. Yes, Gandalf is a 5th level Magic User. The author went through Gandalf's every use of magic in The Hobbit, and the Ring Trilogy, to discover that at best Gandalf is level 5.

So what does that say about D&D? I would argue that it shows the gross excess of power creep and over abundance of magic in the game. That sort of excess leads to a a never ending cycle of acquiring more, and it never satisfying.

Let me illustrate my point in a couple ways. First from Film:

The movie ALIEN is a masterpiece in my opinion. One deadly creature wreaks havoc on a group trapped in a ship. They had to create weapons and find a way to kill it. The terror in that one creature is exciting and visceral.

The sequel ALIENS ups the ante even more! If one is scary, an army must be exponentially more scary right? So how do we kill an horde of ALIENS? We send in the MARINES! Give'em machine guns, grenade launchers, shotguns, flame throwers and APC and rain carnage on those bugs. So the one ALIEN that wiped out a whole crew now became a creepy, but manageable target to be killed. By removing the threat level of the ALIEN by increasing the power of the characters, they needed to come up with a bigger bad guy! It required the creation of the QUEEN to really bring the terror again. So we went back to one creature being the ultimate terror.

After that, I'd argue it was game over man, game over! The franchise went from 0-100 in the span of 2 films. After that, they tried going backwards and taking away the fire power to make the individual ALIENS scary again, but that sucked. After that no one cared really. All the magic in the series was spent.

So now let's look at an example form real life. Most of us have had more than a few nights out with the boys. Beer after beer, shot after shot, until you find your self home with no real idea how you got there and about $100 bucks the poorer. You probably can;t recall one great drink from that whole night, and in fact may vow never to drink again.

Compare that experience to having a beer after doing yard work, or a beer and a hot dog at the ball park. That one beer tastes better and is perfect. Another 6 or 7 on top makes it meaningless.

So the same moderation with regards to magic and the magical in game worlds should be applied. The less magic in the world or available to players, the more magical it really becomes.

AS I work on my own RPG, I hope to impart that idea to players and referees. By creating creative and hard won magic items, they truly become treasured items. When any fool can stumble into a dark hole and come up with a magic sword, scroll, shield, ring, potion, or wand, one has to wonder why everyone isn't doing it and why would anyone bother to guard such common place items?

To keep the threat of violence a dangerous prospect for characters is an important part of the referees job. A goblin with a spear should be a threat. It may become a minor one, but the threat should never simply disappear. Controlling the amount of magic in your campaign will go a long ways towards keeping the danger real, and the magic alive when you play.