A Journey of Twelve Hundred Miles

That's how far D.B. Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants had to travel to get to my local library. Apparently the nearest available copy in the interlibrary lending system could be found in Los Alamos, New Mexico. I'm entertained by the possibility that previous readers of this tome might be nuclear physicists from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Pritchard's book is chock full of information, with most variants listed in super-abbreviated form. Randomly selected example:

MIRROR C[hess] Problem theme in which pieces move like non-stop equihoppers. Not playable.

I have no idea what that means but it sounds cool. Anyway, aside from general interest I borrowed this book primarily as research for a little article for the Chess Variants Pages. I wanted to see the variant known as Valentine's Chess, in particular I am interested in pieces named Templar. Valentine's is the oldest game I have seen which included a piece so named. Big let-down: Valentine's Templar is a well-known combo piece: Bishop plus Knight. Not much to write home about. The game as a whole has some promise, with several other variant pieces and some unusual promotion rules. I may have to do a write-up for it.

Pritchard also offers reports on two alternative interpretations of Enochian Chess. I should either update my article on it or write a follow-up piece. Meanwhile my latest original variants languish unfinished. I suppose that's not the end of the world. It's not like I'm going to set the chess variant world on fire with any of my efforts.

FLGS Shenanigans

I like supporting my Friendly Local Game Store, I really do. The owner is a decent guy who doesn't always get the respect he deserves in the local gaming community, but sometimes the dude drives me nuts. Special ordering stuff from him is a pain in the patoot. Maybe I'm just a bitchier than average customer but I believe that a good FLGS ought to go out of the way to make special orders happen. Otherwise, I'll just get my stuff from online vendors or direct from the publisher. I can't see why an FLGS owner would want to encourage me to do that, but that seems to be what happens with this guy.

That's an old complaint of mine and I don't let it get on my nerves. If I can get something off the FLGS shelves I will. If I can't find it there, I get it online. No big whup. Now there's a new wrinkle. The FLGS offers a store bonus program. Spend so much money there ($200? I don't even know.) and you score a store credit worth ten bucks. Nice program. It really helps offset the fact that sometimes his full retail prices exceed the cost of obtaining games online. I don't think about this program much, but last time I was in the store the owner mentioned something about being at or near the cut-off for a new $10 bonus. I wasn't really paying too much attention to what he said. I was too busy trying to find the Pocky display that was hidden under the Elvis action figure.

My friend John has talked about running Mutants & Masterminds and my daughter's birthday is coming up. I'm sure Elizabeth would dig having a set of her own dice that she could roll when she injects herself into one of daddy's games. So anyway, I have a couple possible purchases on the horizon that I would like to make at the FLGS. M&M I could easily get online, maybe at a discount on the eBay. I also know that my local independant bookstores has a copy, but normally if I have to choose I would prefer to give the FLGS my money. Curious as to exactly what he said last time I was in, I sent the owner an e-mail asking for a clarification. That was Tuesday.

Today I get an e-mail from the guy with a "MUST READ" flag in the title, in which he announces to his mailing list of regular customers that his sales/inventory machine has crashed and all store bonus credit has evaporated with it. Normally, that would not be a big issue for me. Easy come, easy go. After all, he didn't have to offer the bonus program to begin with. What's pissing me off is that he still hasn't responded to my email from three days ago. And if I did have store credit, I had fully planned to go in on Wednesday or Thursday and bought some stuff. Why no response to my email? Is an inquiry from a regular customer not worthy of a response? I've known this guy for maybe a decade and he doesn't strike me as that kind of jerk.

Still, I'm not happy with this turn of events. The RPG.net Store offers typical online discount prices, sells many of the oddball products I like, doesn't cause me these kind of headaches, and the proceeds help support my favorite gaming website. Why shouldn't I use them in preference to my FLGS? How much do I value the ability to flip through the game prior to purchase, especially when I have to cram my fat ass into a tiny overcrowded store in order to do so? Has the local guy given me any good reasons to remain loyal? I can't think of any right at this moment. I'm trying not to be hasty here. I'm not rushing to buy the stuff from another source. But I'm not exactly making it a point to get back to the local store either.

Huzzah! Book!

After a national scale interlibrary search the firendly local library has found me a copy of D.B. Pritchards's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. Cool! I'd like to pick it up over lunchy. Now all I need to do is get the energy to get my fat ass outta this chair.

Back to Idle Gaming Chitchat: BESM d20

Of all the d20 and Open Gaming License products I have seen, flipped through, and read about only a handful have ever interested me. Other than the 3.0 incarnation of Dungeons & Dragons I currently own only one other d20 corebook, BESM d20. BESM stands for Big Eyes, Small Mouth which is the name of the successful anime-inspired generic universal ruleset published by Canadian-based Guardians of Order. BESM d20 takes much of the mechanics for the original "Tri-Stat" version and welds it onto a set of core d20 subsystems and then adds some original stuff. One of my favorite bits from the "original stuff" category is the addition of fifteen nifty anime character classes:

• Adventurer
• Dynamic Sorcerer
• Giant Robot
• Gun Bunny
• Hot Rod
• Magical Girl
• Martial Artist
• Mecha Pilot
• Ninja
• Pet Monster Trainer
• Samurai
• Sentai Member
• Shapechanger
• Student
• Tech Genius

It is not the intention of the authors to allow all of these classes into every anime-themed campaign. When establishing the initial parameters of a new campaign a BESM d20 gamemaster needs to intentionally winnow down the above list to which classes best fit a particular game. Heck, I could envision a Power Rangers game in which Sentai Member is the only class allowed to PCs. Personally I would allow more wiggle room, especially in a longterm campaign, but I think a successful shorter game could be structured that way.

Incidentally, I think some of the BESM d20 classes would work just fine in a standard D&D game. The Adventurer is a good jack-of-all-trades, better than any bard I've seen. The Dynamic Sorcerer is a great class for folks who like casting spells on the fly. The Samurai ought to work well as a fighter variant. The Ninja and Martial Artist look good, too. I think I prefer the Martial Artist to the standard Monk. Some of the other classes could also fit in with D&D. The Gun Bunny could make a decent archer. The Giant Robot and Shapechanger classes could make for nifty PC golems and lycanthropes. And unleashing Magical Girls upon a standard fantasy world sounds like too much fun. I call dibs on playing Sailor Scout Oerth! ^_^

(That would be the first time I've used a kawaii smiley. Did I do it right?)

Some other bits from BESM d20 that I'm fond of involve the combat system. Mapless, abstracted combat is the norm for BESM d20. No Attacks of Opportunity and no 5-foot Steps of Doom. That's a big relief for me. I can dig on a decent map-based combat system, even something as complicated as HERO, but the 3.0 D&D combat just doesn't do it for me. Another change that I like is that AC has been split into a damage avoidance component and a damage resistance component. Under this plan Armor Class represents the ability to avoid being hit while things like a thick hide or armor plating shave damage points off of successful hits. You know, the way many people have wanted D&D to work for 3 decades.

So I generally like BESM d20. But I see a couple of hurdles towards actually running it. First, the powers chapter (what they call "attributes") is a 35-page info dump that's a little hard to swallow. The second problem is related a bit to the first: I'm not sure how many people own the book. I had my copy out at last Wednesday's Savage Worlds game; only Pat and the GM seemed to recognize it. Even though I usually buy the manual, I'm not against folks playing rpgs that they don't own. My real concern is that games with lotsa kewl powerz often require significant consultation of the manual in play, even more so at character generation. I've just seen too many good games degenerate into a not-so-stirring round of "Can I see the book next?"

Fortunately, I see a good solution to both of these problems. Unlike every other third party d20 publisher I've seen, GoO actually has the balls to publish free System Reference Documents online. As far as I can tell, their Anime and Mecha SRDs give you all the good stuff found in BESM d20 and d20 Mecha. Armed with the SRD files, I should be able to produce my own "Player's Guide to [Campaign Name]" that includes all the system rules! This is why Guardians of Order kicks ass.

I've mentioned my two most recent BESM-inspired campaign ideas, "Super Sentai Golemriders" and "Steel Dragons". Before tackling either of those I think I will try something smaller, like my earlier "Samurai Song" idea. Basically, "Samurai Song" would be a one-shot or mini-campaign set in a fantasy version of Warring States-era Japan. With orcs. The first edition of the (not-so-)classic Oriental Adventures serves as the primary influence. All the player characters would be samurai or attached in some way to a samurai house. A castle previously controlled by the Good Guy Samurai clan is currently occupied by the Forces of Evil. Let the adventure commence!

Obligatory Stupid Quiz Results Post

You are 30% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

Depressed

Today someone started a thread on RPG.net asking folks to talk about the coolest people they've ever gamed with.  I immediately thought about my old buddy David.  He and I go way back.  He was in my very first game group, the one I started with a D&D Basic Set and no idea what I was doing.  We gamed together regularly through grade school, junior high, and high school.  We played all sorts of games: boardgames, roleplaying games, video games.  Dave eventually assumed the role of Dungeon Master for some of our Dungeons & Dragons games.  He was a fun DM.  One of the best that I have played with to this day.  He had a great knack for finding that fine line between fudging all the dice rolls and letting the chips fall where they may.  His campaigns mixed equal parts goodnatured humor and deadly earnestness.  I really miss the opportunity to play with him.  He and I had a falling out last time we tried to schedule a get-together.  I didn't do a very good job communicating the fact that I was flat broke and so couldn't participate in lavish festivities nor did I succeed in getting him to understand my anxiety over being too far away from my family.  Heated words were exchanged in a series of increasingly asinine emails on both sides and eventually the whole thing dropped.  We haven't been in touch since.  Damn, that hurts.  I don't have a lot of close friends and David was always one of the closest.  I'd like to patch things up with him but I'm still angry at him too.  He was totally harshing on me and rather than keep my cool I lashed back.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  What makes me nuts is the fact that it was my second attempt to get together in a row that got all fucked up.  I thought the previous one was a fluke.  Now, I dunno.  Maybe we've just drifted too far apart.  Dave seemed to be acting like an asshole, but if you asked him I was acting like one too.  What can we do?  I feel like I really reached out and tried.  Heck, my wife didn't even want me to contact him the second time because she saw how depressed I got over the first fiasco.  But I felt that my good friend was worth a second chance.  That sentiment got me nowheresville, Daddy-O, as Dave seemed to be pushing for a confrontation from his first response to my inquiry.  Maybe I misread his emails.  After all, it's harder to read someone's intentions when you can't hear the tone of their voice or see their body language.  That's always the great challenge of communicating with folks over teh intarweb.  Still, I can't quite shake the suspicion that maybe Dave didn't want to hear from me that second time, like maybe he came on so strong 'cause he wanted to torpedo the rendezvous.  It's breaking my heart to even speculate like that, so maybe I'd be better off assuming the whole damn thing was my fault.

In Memoriam: Rondoo & Dante

I am shocked to report that only two characters bit the dust last night. Pat and Joe did a stellar job last night trying to fend of the Antish Horde so the rest of us could escape. Unfortunately, due to Rondoo's "Loyal" rating I couldn't take advantage of the opportunity. Sadly, my guy ended up as so much ant chow. Even worse, Count Dante was the other casualty. I feel bad about that. Joe didn't want to enter the lair of the Ants of Doom. He only sent his guy in to save me and Loren, so I'm at least partially to blame. I don't know Joe well enough yet to tell if he is pissed at me or not. Hopefully not. I like Joe and don't want there to be any bad blood between us. Dave read my blog entry in which I statted out Sir Hugh and okayed him as a replacement. Apparently I get to start with half the xp of my previous character, giving Sir Hugh 14xp. That's two advances! Nifty!

In lieu of pouring a forty on the curb, here's my three favorite stupid things I've said whilst playing Rondoo:

Upon my puny guy getting much too deep into a brawl: "I'm utterly fearless in the face of stupidity!"

When the aged Myron suggested that he and Rondoo practice fighting side by side: "What'll we call it, Old Man and Moron Fu?"

Teaming up with Myron last night: "Individually we are weak, but together we have the power of two weaklings!"