Location, location, location / Have you ever been there, or just seen it on TV?

I live in England, specifically just outside Manchester inn the North West. I'm originally from Leeds in Yorkshire, and was apparently conceived in Scotland. I'll spare you the finer details of that last point though. I wish I didn't know, you certainly don't need to.

I digress. Already.

Most modern or future RPGs are, by default, set in America, no doubt due to the fact that most RPG publishers and authors are based in America, are from America or live right next door in Canada.

I also imagine that a significant proportion of RPG players live in The States as well, which is why so much is set in the States.

Now, the problem is that when it comes to games set in other countries, there is usually an accompanying source book, and that source book usually contains some fairly erroneous preconceptions.

Back for the oWoD game lines of Mage: The Ascension and Changeling: The Dreaming, White Wolf release Isle of the Mighty, a source book for the British Isles. It was an absolutely brilliant book for the mythic elements of the game. The in game history was great, the plot hooks and story seeds engaging, the Mage and Changeling politics interesting etc.
The actual information on the UK and Ireland was... flawed. British culture was viewed through an out of date lens and translated across to the 'Gothic Punk' setting, which meant that everybody in London either wore a bowler hat and worked for the civil service or was a 1970's punk with a safety pin piercing their genitalia. If you lived in Scotland, you had red hair, hated the English and wore a kilt.
It was entertainingly stereotypical.

For the nWoD, White Wolf released Shadows of the UK which did a fairer job of representing the UK, but still prompted the occasional derisive snort with its sly references to Wombles and its assertion that Diana had become an avatar of British Guilt.

But it occurs to me that I set a vast majority of my games in the USA, and have only spent two weeks in Vegas. I watch an awful lot of American TV and film, which is my primary source for games.
I am probably guilty of the same assumptions and short falls. I'm running games using stereotypes and tropes i've lifted from TV, and have no real idea of what life in the States is actually like.
I don't understand the High School and College system, the political system or cultural differences. I can put on a bad accent though.

Are there any USA sourcebooks out there?

Game design by idiots, part II

Oh, how I love the way that Google Buzz doesn't link into Google Blogger...

Sam H - System wise, I like the idea.
In terms of implementation, perhaps have x number of skill slots, and the player can fill them as they first come across the need. This allows relevent skills to be useful early on (and thus preventing early death). For character advancement, new blank skill slots?

Stats - I'd let Strength apply both physically and mentally. How do you envisage the bad things for running out of a stat?

I like all the settings apart from 01A, because like you I don't see how it works

Good feedback, Sam. The idea of having instantly assignable skills is interesting, and i've seen something similar used for languages in Gumshoe games (in which you just state that you know X number of languages, and assign them as and when the need arises). 


My thinking behind the free form skill system, which I didn't articulate in the last post, is that there exists a contract between player and GM. As a player, if I buy a skill, I want, no, expect, the opportunity to use it, otherwise I expect the GM to have a quiet word and tell me to spend my XP on something else, and possibly suggest an alternative that the group may require in the next couple of sessions.
I also expect GMs to tailor challenges within a game so that they are challenging to a party, and don't require specific skills the party do not possess to overcome.
Let me rephrase that - that don't require specific skills the party do not possess to survive. There's nothing wrong with non-essential encounters that require a specific skill set to beat, as long as the main plot or the characters survival do not depend on success.
Failure builds character.

I digress.
A contract between player and GM. 
I have started writing up my system, and in it I explicitly state that a player and GM must agree on a skill as it is chosen - what it is, how it works, what it covers and most importantly that the player character is allowed to take it. 
By buying the skill, the player agrees not to take the piss, and by allowing it, the GM agrees to give the player opportunity to use it. 
This is a bit deus ex machina, but plays out like a TV serial in which a new mcguffin, fact or ability is introduced at the beginning of the episode, and oddly becomes crucial to the resolution of the plot about ten minutes from the end.


So, at character creation, I have specified that players should initially choose two skills, one which they think would be useful to the group, and one which they think is cool.
The GM then designs the game sessions to call upon these skills. All other actions should then be achievable through a basic die roll or through the expenditure of Strength, Sanity or Luck.


Also, failure on a dice roll does not have to mean that a character does not perform the action - they could still scale the wall, but twist their ankle as they climb down the other side, or hack into the bad guys computer and access his files, but download a virus at the same time.


The uses of Strength and Sanity are pretty interchangeable, you just have to come up with a reason why Sanity is applicable to the physical action you are attempting, instead of the default Strength. 


Strength also acts as a characters hit points / health levels, so it's best not to burn the one stat at the expense of the other. 


What happens if you run out of either stat?
Here's an extract from my notes:

Running on Empty

What happens when a character exhausts their reserves of Strength, Sanity or Luck?

A character can lose Strength due to two reasons - they can burn it, or they can sustain damage. If a characters last point of Strength is lost due to damage, the character falls unconscious for 1d6 minutes. After this time they regain consciousness, but are weak and in great pain. They can only walk slowly, or crawl, and any sudden or vigorous exertion will cause them to pass out again for another 1d6 minutes. Any further damage sustained whilst on zero Strength permanently reduces the characters maximum Strength score. Once a characters maximum Strength score is reduced to zero, they die. Trying to burn Strength whilst in this state counts as physical exertion. If this is attempted, the character does not gain an additional d6 for their roll, and passes out upon completion.

If the final point of Strength is burnt, the character does not immediately lose consciousness, but is totally exhausted, and does not have the energy to run or exert themselves. If they sustain any damage whilst exhausted, then the character will pass out for 1d6 minutes and lose a point of their maximum Strength  score and all affects described above will take affect.

When a character loses their last point of Sanity, they become emotionally exhausted, tired and unfocussed. They are quick to tears and quick to anger. 

If a character suffers further Sanity loss whilst on zero Sanity, they can develop and suffer from any number of severe phobias, extreme rage, obsessions, compulsions, ticks, delusions, experience paranoia or fall into a catatonic or fugue state, depending on the situation that caused the Sanity loss.

Running out of Luck does not impose any mechanical penalties, and a character can still function as normal, they just cannot benefit from burning Luck points. The Narrator, however, may wish to torment the character with a run of bad luck, unfortunate coincidences and fickle fate until the character regains at least one point of Luck.

I do like the concept of 01A, I just think it would work better as a hack of another system rather than shoe-horning it into this one.
Conceptually, it's a sci-fi mystery thriller. It's almost a superhero game, where all characters share the same origin - their mothers were artificially inseminated by the same alien/enhanced/bio-engineered/non-human (delete as appropriate) donor. The characters slowly realise that they are more than human, that they can do things and that there are numerous secret organisations - Government agencies, scientists, corporations, religions etc - that want to use, study, understand or destroy them.
So, setting wise, it would be a struggle to remain hidden whilst being hunted, not knowing who to trust, and trying  to discover the truth behind their parentage.
I know what I mean.
I think it would run better if the players didn't know they were playing it.

Anyways, good feedback and questions. Cheers Sam.

Lost / Changeling / Fear Itself

In an earlier instalment I mused on the idea of using the Changeling: The Lost rules and setting to run a game based on the Lost TV series.  This may or may not have been influenced by the two things having semi-similar names. Who knows...

Now, having read Fear Itself and had a little time to think on it, I have decided that it would be a far superior setting for any theoretical Lost inspired games.
Why? The book itself features only two antagonists - Mystery Men and the Ovvashi. The Ovvashi are demons that torment tramps (for that popular 'homeless urban survival horror' genre), whilst the Mystery Men are Q-like, god-like beings that can alter reality and do so with the sole aim of tormenting innocent humans. The only real weakness that Mystery Men have is that they adhere to various rules - either because they have to,or because they choose to.
The Fear Itself rules also make use of flashbacks during play, and require all players to define The Worst Thing (their character has) Ever Done as well as deciding which of the other PC's they like the best and dislike the most, which are all familiar devices used in Lost itself.

So, in this theoretical game, we have the following:
The PC's are caught in a contest between two Mystery Men (Jacob and the Man in Black/Smoke Monster) who use their powers to inflict various limitations and benefits upon the local environment (such as how to find it, how to leave, how to arrive, how certain bits of technology work, how people recover from illness, how time works in relation to the rest of the world etc) and to set various tasks and responsibilities for the PC's (press this button every x minutes, or something really bad will  happen). They also engineer coincidences and enigmas to madden an confuse the PC's.
The game itself would attempt to feature a flashback per session that focuses on one character and allows for development and plot progression.
Sessions would be driven by either investigation into the local environment and the unusual properties it possesses, or by a task imposed by the environment or by conflicts between characters. At times one of the Mystery Men will step in to progress their agenda against the other Mystery Man or to torment one of the characters.

Tom Cruise vs Emperor Palpatine

I would like to start this post with an assertion: Star Wars is ace!
I mean, don't you just love the imagery, the look and feel, the cross genre cool.
I mean, check this out and tell me that you're not stirred.

Star Wars is awesome. Specifically, Star Wars Saga Edition Roleplay Game is also awesome. It's award winning, for one (Ennies 2008 Gold Winner Best Rules, Best d20 Product, Best Game. Silver Winner Product of the Year), and rightly so.

Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG products have traditionally been used as a testing ground for new D&D rules, which is a little odd considering Lucas Arts charge through the nose for the license, so you would have thought that the rules used would be tried, tested and definitely not experimental.
However, WotC have been using SWRPG as a testing ground. The 2nd Edition was a bridge between D&D 3rd Ed and 3.5, and resulted in some aberrations and jarred a little in places.
Saga Edition is no exception, and straddles 3.5 and 4th Ed.

The only difference is that it rocks!
They've kept all the stuff that worked in 3.5, and introduced all the stuff that works in 4th Ed. The result is a really easy rules system, multi classing options that make sense and Jedi that don't piss all over the other classes.
I love it.

The only downer is that due to the RPG market being in some form of vegetative state, and Lucas Arts demanding so much money for the license, WotC have decided to drop the game.

Not to worry though, there's still stock on Amazon, and my wishlist includes many Saga Edition books. Buy them now before they become rare.

However, onto the the actual point of the post, hinted at by the title.
Hands up if you've seen Valkyrie. It is also ace.
After I watched it, my immediate thought was 'Wouldn't this make a great Star Wars game?'
And it would.
Concept: The players are all high ranking Imperial officers - Moffs, Admirals, Generals etc. The Emperor has just dissolved the Senate, disintegrated Alderaan and allowed the largest, most expensive and most ambitious space station ever built to be destroyed by rebel fighters.
These are dark times, and Emperor Palpatine is leading the galaxy down a path of madness and destruction. He, and his enforcer, Darth Vader, must be stopped. The Empire must be preserved.
The players plot to assassinate the Emperor and Vader, and to take control of the Galactic Empire.

I originally saw it as a letter writing campaign, but wouldn't really know where to start with that, let alone run it.
It would have to be high intrigue and involve meticulous planning by both myself and the players.
It would also be fantastic.

Edit/Update: Well, WotC have now discontinued their Star Wars RPG pages. It's the end of an era. Everybody hand their heads during a moments silence...
On the topic, Will Hindmarch has blogged a post (is that the correct terminology?) regarding why Sci-Fi doesn't sell, which is kind of relevant to this topic.

Deep fascination with game design... Crunch vs Smooth

A couple of weeks ago I tried to drum up some interest in this blog by spamming a bunch of my gaming buddies, new and old, and basically begging them to follow it.
I've received a couple of replies, and one, from Andy Mason, made me think.
He said he'd add it to his RSS feed, but as he didn't share my deep fascination with game design, he didn't see himself commenting that regularly, all of which is fair enough, however it did surprise me, as I've never seen myself as preoccupied with game design, or even game crunch.
In fact, this blog was not supposed to be about design, it was supposed to be about play.

So what went wrong?

When I started nook.geek, I was happily playing every week at my local gaming group, and really just wanted a medium to froth about what I think are cool ideas and moan about the world not understanding my artistic vision (or not liking zombies as much as I think it should).
Then, pretty quickly, the world turned (hello unexpected pregnancy and potential redundancy) and weekly gaming stopped.
Which is where I think things changed. Rather than plot out countless chronicle ideas i'll never run or generate dozens of characters i'll never play, I decided to start writing a system.

I've quickly discovered that writing your own system can bog you down with details and questions almost straight away.
I mean, I started with a nice idea about what I thought should be in a cool game, and then started trying to think of a way to express that with mechanics, but not complex mechanics, and then suddenly i'm spending hours trying to think round combat/damage/defence mechanics and what exactly should a gun  or a knife do?

Which is what I always hated when running store bought games. In fact, I recall banning certain firearms from my 1950's vampire chronicle simply because I couldn't be bothered with the various gun rules.
Thinking on it, I stuck with the White Wolf / World of Darkness games not so much because I liked them (I do), but because i'd learnt the system and therefore did not want to have to learn another one.
I also developed a hatred of D&D 3.x simply because the system got so number heavy, with so many different permutations and exceptions.

So, yeah, i'm surprised that i'm spending so much time on crunch, as i've always preferred smooth.