What a Weird World

There have been a lot of posts lately talking about the possibilities of D&D 5e- when it may come, what it may look like, who it will target, whether it will heal the world and usher in an unending age of peace and prosperity, etc., etc.  Emerging in these discussions are a couple of very different perspectives that have been with us as long as 4e has been around- one that holds that 4e basically abandoned what made D&D D&D, and another that hopes that 4e is the way that Wizards moves in the future.

This reminded me of something I was thinking of the other day, about the demographics of gaming.  I think that RPGs- and particularly, D&D- may have some of the strangest consumer demographics in the world.  D&D hits a market that is 1) almost exclusively male, 2) almost exclusively white, 3) largely above-average intelligence, and 4) seemingly roughly split between ten and twelve year olds and people in the 20's, 30's, and 40's.

There have been some polls conducted on this age group thing... the numbers, are, I think, very hard to interpret given that what we are really seeing is 'how old are the people that hang around a small number of web sites and talk shop about RPGs'.  WoTC and other gaming companies probably have more realistic numbers, but they aren't, for the moment, talking.  I can't really think of any other activity that targets the same range of ages in trying to sell products.  Video games are in a similar category, but there are decidedly video games that target younger and older games, as evidenced by the various age rating labels that the publishers employ.  There are specific games that skew older in the RPG world as well, but then you have D&D- facing on the one hand a high-turnover demographic of young gamers who will pick the game up, buy a few books, and then drop out by the time they can drive a car and on the other hand a group of often very technical-minded older players who have thirty years of history (good and bad) with a variety of products sold under the same label.

How the hell do you address that kind of demographic split?  And what are the real underlying numbers?

Background Traits for WFRP v2

I put these rules together years ago for a WFRP game.  The basic idea was to reflect the fact that, while a starting career reflects what you did as a youth/adolescent/young adult, your childhood might have been spent doing something quite different- and the Old World being the place that it is, you probably picked up a few things in order to keep yourself alive.  It also provides a little mechanical support for some interesting character concepts, like the former wealthy burgher who was reduced to thieving or banditry, noble children dumped into the church or university system, thieving urchins who went on to lead respectable lives, etc.

Background (Optional Rule): Select one of the following backgrounds at character creation.  Your background can't be changed once it is selected.

8 Reasons Why Vehicles Suck in RPG's

I was thinking the other day about games that put a lot of emphasis on vehicles- the Battletech, Mecha-style setting out there.  I had a friend that was really into them in high school, but they just never really did it for me.  I also remember looking at car chase/vehicle combat rules for Shadowrun (1e), Palladium, etc., and just sort of groaning at the complexity of them.  Vehicles rarely make it into my games, and here's why:

E6 for d20

I've never particularly liked high-level play for D&D.

For me, a lot of what makes fantasy gaming fun is the iconic bits from books and movies- guys in armor with swords (or robes, with spells) facing off against Orcs and Goblins and other similar critters.  Once it gets to the point where it is a guy in flying boots air-battling with a host of demons wielding a flaming sword and periodically becoming invisible and invulnerable, I tend to lose interest.

I suppose that is why parts (though not all) of the OSR appeals to me- the back-to-basics, no god-fighting, no MMO-style superpowers and magic armor/weapons/shoes/blankets/hats aspect.  It's probably also why I've always liked WFRP, a game where, v1 naked dwarves aside, even basic opponents had a decent chance of cutting off your arm or something equally terrible if you didn't think carefully and stay cautious about entering a fight.

That's why it was exciting for me to have E6 for d20/Pathfinder pointed out to me in a forum the other day.  It's been around for years, apparently, but entered the world during a time when I wasn't gaming a lot in general, and wasn't playing d20 in particular at all.

E6 has a simple underlying idea: you might be a veteran of a dozen combats, but being hit in the head with an ax by an ogre should still be dangerous.  So after level six, you periodically pick up new feats to represent growing training (a little better at combat, a few more spells, a few new tricks for rogues and bards), but you stop gaining hit points, saves, and other automatic escalations of the game's power level.

The result is that the game retains some of that gritty, early-level feel.  Just because you've been around the block a few times doesn't mean that you can just wade into a pack of 300 goblins without blinking.  That means that iconic, low-level threats like goblins, ogres, orcs, basic undead, etc. stay threatening without the need to add tons of templates and character levels.

The result: a game that keeps the low-level feel of grounded PC's needing to plan and prepare to fight iconic opponents, and a distinct reduction in the amount of preparation that the DM needs to do.  Similarly, higher levels tend to be where the game-breaking magic items, spells, and cheesed-out prestige class/feat chain combinations tend to appear.  Low-level game balance- which is far better play tested and far easier to predict- dominates for a much longer period.  Rituals and magic items can add some extra effects if needed, but a mage can't just wish the entire adventure into total chaos.

Definitely worth a look if you're interested in a similar style of play- you can even grab some Pathfinder-specific E6 rules someone has put together.

The End of Cataclysm

The final major content patch in the WoW Cataclysm story line is now live, from what I understand.

WoW has been banished from my hard drive for over six months now, but I still stop in from time to time with some of the major news sites (particularly MMO Champion) to see what is new in the World of Warcraft.  Lately I've been at least a little more tempted to stick a toe back into the WoW whirlpool, but fortunately the declining availability of space on my hard drive keeps this from becoming a possibility for the time being.

So I watched the new videos released today of the cinematics marking the end of Deathwings reign of terror (or, at least, reign of randomly burning people to death while questing), and found myself a little underwhelmed by it. The resolution was fairly cliched- the aspects giving up some of their power and withdrawing to let mortals fight for themselves, baby on the way for a fully matured hero, etc., etc.  This is, as some posters pointed out, the same ending as a lot of other fantasy stories- LotR comes to mind, as does Dragonlance's Age of Mortals kick-off come to mind, but I am sure that there are others as well.

I will freely admit to not being a big WoW lore fan- I played Warcraft I and II but not III, which is apparently where all the important stuff for WoW happened.  I was certainly not that familiar with Deathwing going into Cata.  As a result, he never felt like a particularly interesting BBEG to me.

Part of this was because of unfamiliarity with the lore, but part was because most of his most important activities took place off screen.  Sure, he killed me a couple times questing, but other than that?  He apparently set fire to Orgrimmar and Stormwind, causing them to become larger, better organized, and with more daily quests, which doesn't seem that villainous.

I think that really this was an over-reaction to WotLK.  Story-wise, players complained about Arthas apparently becoming a sixth member of the party too often, but his recurring presence at least established him as the main personality of the expansion.  His presence in the Death Knight starting area, the Wrathgate event, the five mans, the flashback quest chain involving his weird disembodied child-self... these all gave you a great feel for who the villain was and why he needed to be put down, even if you hadn't read the books or played WC III.

That was what Blizz did right from the perspective of a non-lore expert in WotLK; the important lore was right there, in game.  Cata seemed to assume you had heard it before, and would want to kill Deathwing just because he was Deathwing.

Pathfinder MMO Announcement

Here was my honest response when I read the announcement at EN World that Pathfinder was announcing an MMO: I winced.

Not that I don't think Pathfinder is great, but rather because I do.  Making an MMO is hard, expensive, and usually fails in one way or another.  I worry that any resources spent on the MMO (and yes, I know a different company is going to be doing the actual coding and artwork, but there will assuredly be some impact on Paizo's operations) will be resources not spent on the Pathfinder game itself.  I worry in particular about what the impact of a failure in this space would be for Paizo's financial position, and thus the future of Pathfinder.

D&D Online had a much better known property and Hasbro/WotC money behind it.  It's currently a free-to-play and never made the big splash that WotC was hoping.  Warhammer online sank like a stone soon after launch.  WoW perpetually eats everyone's lunch, etc., etc.

I realize that gaming companies feel like they need to embrace the online world in order to survive.  They're right, but I think they often think this means 'make a video game'.  I wish instead they would invest more effort in facilitating online play of their existing games.  WotC's Online Tabletop has been at 'real soon now' status for some time.  Existing 3rd party projects lack publisher support.  Meanwhile, ConstantCon shows that there is both demand and a real possibility of success for facilitating online play.

MMOs, because of their shared setting and scripted interactions, can never really match the creativity and satisfaction of a good tabletop game.  The need to keep mechanics simple enough to be resolved by an algorithm instead of a live GM limits the challenges and situations that can be offered.  New ideas mean new code, which means a limited number of ideas can make it into each release.  I'm still convinced that making a professional online product that facilitated chat-based (or VoIP-based) play with shared maps, built-in rule/monster reference and a supported forum for finding gaming groups would keep a lot more gamers active in tabletop RPGs than trying to make a slightly different take on automated D&D.

On Gnomes

I have a weird confession: I like gnomes.  Not in a way that would be classifiable in the DSM-V, but as a PC race.

The first gnome PC that I remember playing was a 2e Thief created for a game a friend of mine ran during the 7th grade.  We played during a free-form elective class that we took that was ostensibly a chess club; eventually, someone had the idea to talk the teacher into letting us play AD&D instead (on the grounds that it 'used math').  Possibly as a result, I've never really learned to play chess properly.  Further gnomes followed, most of them thieves, illusionists, or (once 3e rolled around) wizards and rogues.

I think this is relatively uncommon.  Dwarves and elves have always been popular, I think, and humans are kept in play thanks to a wide variety of fantasy archetypes and wish fulfillment vehicles.  Even halflings have their constituency, consisting of Tolkien lovers, rogue/thief min/maxers, and recovering kender addicts.

But gnomes?  Gnomes seem to consistently get the short end of the stick, both from players and from the various keepers of D&D lore.  As the latest in a long series of insults to gnomes and their boosters, WotC has seen fit to make some significant changes to gnome lore, turning them into essentially sneaky junior eladrin.

This is a very strange circle to have come for a race that started out as junior dwarves.  No other standard race has undergone anything like the level of transmogrification seen by gnomes over the years.

Rebuilding and... re-something-ing

I've not posted here in years, but I've started playing in some PbP games again and browsing through some new RPG offerings. They'll be something new here eventually, with less of a focus on WFRP (though the name will stay the same).

First Impressions of Tome of Corruption

... it's good.

Warhammer to Harnmaster Conversion FAQ

What is this?
It's an attempt to convery WFRP to be playable using the Harnmaster 3 rule system.

Why?
A number of reasons. Essentially, I really like 1) the unique WFRP setting and 2) the detailed Harnmaster rules. There are some things about the WFRP rule system that I'm not thrilled by- in both the first and second edition. Meanwhile, I'm much more familiar with the WFRP setting than I am with Harnworld; while I like Harnmaster's rules, I'm much more interested in the late Medieval/early Renaissance setting of WFRP- not to mention the joys of Chaos.  Honestly, at this point it mostly seems to have been an elaborate thought experiment.

WFRP Harnmaster Conversion Rules

Character Creation

1. Generate Attributes.
2. Select one of the four races- Human, Elf, Halfling or Dwarf.
3. Modify attributes using racial modifier.
4. Open automatic skills at either the default OML.
5. Open racial skills.
6. Generate or choose occupation using WFRP pg. 22.
7. Open occupational skills or improve previously opened skills.
8. Record starting trappings and occupational trappings; record starting wealth and (optional) buy additional weapons and armor.
9. Roll for Fate Points as normal.
   

Miniature Memory Lane

By chance tonight I stumbled across The Stuff of Legends, a site that collects info and photos for old fantasy and sci-fi miniatures. It was quite a trip down memory lane- first and foremost because I stumbled across it while looking for some info about the old Lone Wolf series, the books that first got me into gaming as a ten year-old. Stuff of Legends had photos of the old Lone Wolf miniatures created by Citadel.

That got me poking through the extensive index of old Citadel minis, reminding me of my early days playing WFRP. You can see- particularly in the Citadel C-series miniatures- how the Warhammer world started to distinguish itself from the other 'kill Orcs, collect loot' Tolkien knock-off games that D&D endlessly spawned in the early eighties.

You can spot some of that trademark GW humor in the names of some of the minis- a Rogue Trader Space Marine biker named Vincent Blackshadow, a busty wizardess named Samantha Phox (it was the 80's, after all), a thief named Rownald Biggs...

You can also see some vanished oldies from the Warhammer world. Behold, newbies, the long-vanished Fimir, the little-known Chaos Goblins, the distinctly un-PC Pygmies, the much-loved and much-hated Gnomes, and even some pre-lizardman Slann, with some suspiciously eunuch-like retainers.

Among the 'Fantasy Specials', you'll even find one range of minis that GW and Citadel would no doubt gladly forget- the (NSFW) 'Torture Chamber' series of softcore bondage porn miniatures. Nothing like tiny, painstakingly painted naked women to liven up a long evening in Mom's basement. And to think, TSR got all in a tizzy over Palace of the Silver Princess...

Green Ronin's Freelancer Benefit

Now through GenCon, purchases from Green Ronin's online store will go to help GR pay off some of the many freelancers who have done work for the company during the past few years. Much like poor Palladium (which seems to be bouncing back nicely- press release here), Green Ronin was the victim of some skimming- this time, on the part of its fulfillment house. GR has been paying down its debts, but, as is often the case, the priority has had to be people who can threaten to turn off the lights or grind the printing presses to a halt. Nice of Green Ronin to make an effort to give their freelancers their due- freelancers by and large get the short end of the stick in any time of economic hardship.

Check the Green Ronin site for more details.

Dragonlance Movie in the Offing

In a move sure to inspire strange mixtures of anticipation, nostalgia, and aprehension among older gamers everywhere, the production of an animated Dragonlance movie has been confirmed, after being hinted at by DL creators Weis and Hickman for quite some time. Check out the news here.

Filesharing and the RPG Biz

The news that Wizards of the Coast is planning to throw nearly their entire D&D catalogue into eBook format (discussed earlier) got me thinking again about the topic of filesharing/P2P/piracy/what have you.

So far, the publishing world has not gone into hysterics over the P2P problem the way that the RIAA and MPAA have with music and movies. One reason why this is the case... is that there is still no paper-slayer hardware device. iPods, CD & DVD burners, RCA & S-video output jacks on computers, and high-quality computer speaker rigs have meant that the transition of the family (or more likely, dorm room) computer into a media center has been a quick and easy one.

More D&D eBooks on the way

As reported here on GamingReport.com (it got a mention on Slashdot, too), DriveThruRPG.com has announced that Wizards of the Coast is going forward with a scheme that will eventually see almost all of the D&D library available in eBook form.

There are several interesting ramifications of a decision like this. The first thing that pops to mind for most folks is one word: ...

Piracy. It's one of the more controversial aspects of the plan to a lot of people, and doubtless part of the argument that was going on behind closed doors at WoTC. The new D&D eBooks will feature some of the same watermarking and protection technology used with the current batch of official D&D PDFs. Of course, anyone who has ever poked their head the least bit into the wild and wonderful world of file sharing knows that all of the titles that DriveThruRPG is going to be adding to its offerings are already available on the Internet through BitTorrent sites and other P2P sharing systems.

That gives consumers an interesting choice. Players and DMs who want to support WoTC's eBook scheme can now pay the same price as buying a hard copy of their books for a PDF that has fewer features than the PDF that they could get for free off of their favorite file sharing service. It's hard to say who is going to bight; while I'm sure that there are a lot of folks who would like to have electronic copies of their books in addition to their hardbacks, I doubt many of those folks want to pony up the full price of a book for the privilege. Meanwhile, the size of the market for electronic-only books seems to vary according to who you ask; some gamers are ready to go laptop-only starting yesterday, while others are pointing at their laden bookshelves and screaming "from my cold dead hands!".

Mixed into all of this is more bad news for the small hobbyist shops of the world. Rest assured, retailers don't like it when their "partners" in the publishing biz decide to cut them out of the equation. WoTC's eBook publishing scheme- which can no longer really be called an experiment- means that the nickel-and-dime counting division at WoTC has decided that the potential gains from online-only eBook sales more than offset the consequences of the bruised relationship with retailers. Wizards has the small hobbyist shop market in the worst possible position: D&D & D20 are much too big for any sane RPG retailer to ignore and kick out of the shop, meaning that retailers have little means at their disposal to show WoTC that they don't like being cut out of the equation.

Tiddlywiki: The GM's Friend

While poking through the Treasure Tables GMing Wiki, I stumbled across this little gem: a 'program' (sort of!) called Tiddlywiki that gives you a quick and easy way to create what is essentially a low-tech Wiki that you can contain in a single file.

Cutting through the technical jargon, the bottom line on Tiddlywiki is this: it's a really nifty high-tech HTML file that uses some cute tricks with JavaScript and CSS to turn itself into a document that allows you to quickly create little bits of named text content, and then quickly link between them. Editing, linking, and formatting are all a snap, and the result is a single HTML file that can easily be thrown onto a thumb drive or onto Gmail to make a totally portable Wiki.

What has this to do with gaming, you ask?

If you're a GM for any RPG, you make notes. As games get longer and longer, and particularly if you're interested in creating an immersive and complex world, keeping track of all the little details that get thrown into a game can quickly overwhelm your memory. What was the name of that inn by the docks where the PCs got into a barroom brawl? What's the name of that shady shop owner who can quickly get ahold of 'special orders'- and did he have a hunchback, or was it a lazy eye? Keeping track of details like this can be even harder with online/play by post games, where weeks or months may pass between visits to a particular location or interactions with a specific PC. Not to mention the fact that you want to jot down notes about plot points, have quick access to the stats for PCs and major NPCs, and try to remember all of the various relationships between characters and organizations that exist in your world.

Tiddlywiki isn't a perfect solution for this problem, but it is a damn fine one. After an evening of playing with Tiddlywiki, I had converted my notes for my WFRP campaign from a flat text file (that I was always flipping back and forth through) into a Tiddlywiki document that included:

• Day-by-day summaries of previous action in the campaign
• Stats and background information for all the PC's, as well as a number of NPC's
• Notes about important locations
• Plans for the future

Best of all, all of this information could quickly be linked together, and sorted into logical chunks without losing the ability to look at any piece of information quickly. Anything that referenced anything else (for instance, a mention of an NPC in a PC's background information) linked to the relevant info, meaning that anything that you needed could be pulled up with a single click. Instead of a flat file that I was flicking back and forth through, I had a file that mirrored the web of interactions and relationships between people, places, and things that actually existed in the campaign.

With a little more fiddling, I had turned my copy of Twiddlywiki into a personal WFRP Wiki, containing some of my house rules and homebrew material, ideas and NPCs for a future campaign I've been thinking about, and a number of extra bits and pieces that I've either written myself or downloaded off the web and found to be useful. Most of the effort in incorporating this material was just copying and pasting text over, adding a couple labels, and then making links where I thought they were helpful. It's made it much easier to find what I'm looking for, and I daresay even made it easier to develop new materials; instead of having to keep a half-dozen files open, I can just pop between Tiddlywiki 'twiddlers' when I need to refer to other info.

At any rate, if you're looking for a convenient way to keep track of a lot of campaign information, Tiddlywiki is a great choice. It has nowhere near the overhead of more conventional Wiki solutions (no web server, no database server, no real configuration work to speak of), but still allows some customization (in the form of JavaScript macros and presentation tweaks using CSS). Play with Tiddlywiki and see for yourself.

The Long Drought

It's obviously been a long time since I updated anything here. The long and the short of it is that I have 1) been somewhat busy, and 2) lost access to my laptop for several weeks due to a slight motherboard problem. Rest assured that both problems are now essentially under control, and there should be some updates in the next few days and hours here.

Mount & Blade

So at some point, I said I wasn't going to write about video games in this space, but I'm going to make an exception for Mount & Blade, a game that was pointed out to me by someone on the Black Industries forums. Mount and Blade is the best combination of RPG and combat action that I've played in a long, long time. It's being developed independently, and it gives you an idea of the sorts of games that we might be playing right now if developers were allowed to focus on gameplay and depth, rather than just pushing the envelope on the capacities of hardware graphics acceleration.

The combat sequences are particularly notable. Combat is... is fast paced, at times confusing, and quite deadly. There's something quite satisfying about charging full speed into a pack of footman and striking one down with a single swipe from your sword. Or smacking a galloping knight with an arrow, and watching as he briefly hangs from the stirrups as his horse charges off without him.

Possibly best of all, Mount & Blade is free for the first six levels of character development. After that, you just pay ~18 bucks to the developer if you want to play the full version. The fees fund the ongoing development of the game, so it's well worth it in my opinion.

So much for my free time.

Mini-reviews at Slashdot

Mini-reviews, mostly of some of the recent WOTC books, are up today at Slashdot, as well; as the usual barracking in the comments section.