My next online game?

I’ve been thinking about what RPG I’ll run next after my current online game. I mean its not anywhere close to ending, but I’m finding 4e rather heavy for online play. I’m more comfortable with rules light systems now, after playing CoC for a year now, and a session with the full BRP rules. I’d love to run Call of Cthulhu online I am not sure how much interest there would be. On the other hand, it is rules light enough the players don’t really need copies of the rules, so we will see. Anyway I noticed a thread on Google Wave about free RPGs for online play. While there wasn’t much interest in it I added some Retroclones and a couple other games, as I figured it could be useful. I was going to cross post it here, but I then realized you could get almost all of it from other sources much faster. They did miss Microlite20 as its not a retroclone, but a stripped down d20 system. I’ll link to that wave if someone shows me how.

Anyway I started thinking about what I’d like in a rules light game:

• No arbitrary restrictions: For example if class/level based there shouldn’t be ‘no elves can be rouges’ or ‘no dwarf mages’. Other things I don’t like are maximum level limits on demihumans. They just feel restrictive and unfair to me.

• No holdovers from early D&D (Or at least few of them): AC should go up. There is no reason for it to go down (that I can think of anyway, I guess nostalgia). I’ve heard arguments that it makes more sense if you just have a track on your character sheet like people did back in the TAC0 era. However you CAN just write the same thing if AC goes up.

• Preferably nothing obviously broken out of the box. I’m still trying to figure out how the autofire rules in BRP got past the editors (+5% to hit per bullet, roll to see how many bullets hit? Ummm yeah…. So firing 8 bullets gives me +40% to hit and I hit with 1d8 bullets. Biggest complaint with the system so far.) On the other hand I don’t think 3e or 3.5 was broken out of the box. Sure there will always be some edgecase that the games doesn’t do well, or one class will be a hair more powerful, thats fine. I just don’t want everything busted when I sit down to play.

• If there is magic I want it to be useful outside of combat: My biggest problem with 4e right now is that in reaction to all the ’scrying and teleporting broke my adventure’  magic isn’t that useful outside of combat in 4e. It takes forever to cast and is skill based. Some combat powers are useful outside of combat, but still. I like solving problems through creative solutions. Sadly in old editions of D&D each non-combat spell you carried took away from your combat spells so I usually could only have what scrolls I could afford. Really this has been a trend for a while as I noticed it in 3e as well. I’m guessing it was due to some of the stupid stuff I saw on the net from old editions (flying battering rams, gnomish flying machines powered by oil of blasting)
  • On the other hand magic shouldn’t take over the game like it had a habit of doing with high level 3e, where most of the time was spent buffing

• While I normally love battle maps I’m spending too much time on them in my 4e game, even with Rich’s great silverlight map. So something position-light would be nice. I know 4e can be run sans-map, but its still reasonably position heavy. Same with 3e, though less so (most combats became stand around & hit it anyway)

• Characters that are statistically different from one another. Back in 2e two 10th fighters looked very similar. Wizards got new spells so each one would have a different selection, but if you had two in the party they’d probably swap spells anyway. I want some way to customize characters as they level. Skills, feats, proficiencies something.

• Characters have to be able to advance. While this is kinda a no-duh one there are some old RPGs without this. Traveller springs to mind (My version is old enough that you can still die in character creation). Levels, advancement through usage, skills, advancement points, something.

• Non-random character creation preferred. While I’m using that right now in my CoC game I originally started it as a one-shot. It’s gone pretty well, but I think non-random eliminates a lot of problems. I can work out what the average roles would be and make points however.

• Action-Reaction based: I’ve seen two types of RPGs. I don’t know if there are official terms for them, or at least commonly accepted ones, but  I’m going to call them action-reaction and shared narration. Action-Reaction is the traditional type: The player takes an action, the DM describes the result. If there is a conflict or chance of failure you break out the dice. See D&D, Alternity, CoC, BRP,  GURPS. Shared Narration can be fun, but I don’t think I want to run it right now. For those curious I count it as ‘Player succeeds at something and describes the result’ For examples see The Pool, Wuxia, Fung Shei.
  • This usually goes along with a traditional system: As in one in which the characters act continuously as in a simulation of the world. As opposed to ‘cinematic’ or whatnot systems where there are set scenes to overcome and everything in between them in blurred over. I’m mostly thinking of a game called ‘Story Engine’ or some such I played once for this. Also a game where each player uses actions & acts to influence what is happening rather then everyone declares what they are doing, and uses some abstract system to determine the outcome.

• Something I can find an adventure for. This is a big one: I don’t have time to write adventures. I’ll modify them heavily, but it has to be easy to do so. I’ve kept playing CoC because the book comes with no less the FOUR adventures. While some are a lot better then others none of my players have finished all four. (Several players are on the 4th: I’ve rerun several adventures with different groups and let players move between groups as convenient.). I’ve also bought another book about Arkham which has more adventures, and a book of adventures set in Arkham. Whereas I bought the Conspiracy X book (Unisystem edition) and have never played it as it doesn’t have a sample adventure for me to cut my teeth on.
  • This has always been my problem with old editions of D&D: How do you tell what is a fair challenge for the party? 3.X had CR, which while buggy worked pretty well though it took more math then I was willing to do. 4e has a great system for this. I need some kind of guideline
  • BRP/CoC doesn’t have this but the power curve is pretty flat. Skills go up enough that you feel like your advancing, but your not that much stronger in any one area.
  • On the other hand if I’m running a single published adventure I don’t care about this as much.

This isn’t a complete list by any means. just something I threw together to try and collect my thoughts.

I’m thinking BRP with a CoC adventure would work. On the other hand combat & dungeon crawling seems to be more popular with my players so I may go with some sort of D&D type game. Suggestions?

 

Anyway, its late and my wrist is getting sore (I injured it a while ago) so I’m going to head off now.  Until next time Stay Geeky!

–Canageek

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Participating In Class

Well, I don’t really have much time to think about gaming as of late, so I’m going to stop trying to be a cool and professional gaming blog for now and toss up a rant about class. This is something that has been bugging me since first year so listen ye well:

Answering questions in class. I do it a lot, to much probably. However I can’t stand sitting silently, waiting for someone, anyone to answer. Even if I get the answer wrong the prof will correct me and start talking again, and I learn from the mistake. While I’m sitting there for 30 seconds waiting for someone to finally speak up I’m not learning. I get answers wrong all the time, but it lets the lecture move on. No one is going to think you stupid if you get a question wrong. The prof probably also doesn’t mind it, unless your very confused and take a long time to straighten out, at which point you should just say that you’d like to talk to them after class. Even if you get the answer completely wrong it at least shows your awake and paying attention.

I also ask a lot of questions in class. When I was in first year some people posted in a class discussion board a post asking me (indirectly) to stop and accusing me of just trying to look smart. I will sometimes ask questions if I understand something mostly, but want to make sure of it, but the rest of the time I am usually confused. I talked to people around me who answered with something along the lines of ‘No! When you ask questions everything makes sense!’ It seems I asked the questions everyone was thinking, but no one wanted to look stupid asking. Especially when I’d ask really simple stuff: I’m a fairly smart guy (Not a straight A student, but pretty close- Even closer if you ignore my 1st year marks) so if I’m confused on something basic there is usually at least a few other people confused on the same thing: I’m just the one with the guts to ask the prof.

Is it that hard to speak up in class? I’m a geek so I have no fear of not looking cool or looking stupid: That is my natural state! But still, it doesn’t take much, but people seems to fear it. I had a class last year where the prof got tired of the same tiny group of us answering questions and so starting picking off the class list (Can’t remember how, might have been alphabetically) and he stopped after a couple of days as people would stop coming to the lectures so they wouldn’t have to speak in class! I mean, common people! I’ve spoken in class a lot of times and never had the roof fall on me!

In a lecture hall of 150 people I shouldn’t be the ONLY one answering questions. There are usually 2-3 of us that answer enough questions the prof stops taking our answers and then we sit for ages and ages until someone else answers. Speak up people! It is not that hard! I mean, I know in some other subjects (A friend’s stories of his commerce professors come to mind) there are a lot of judgmental professors, but I’ve found that everyone in the hard sciences KNOWS this is hard work, and are usually glad people are awake in the lecture. I mean, typically only 2/3s of us come to the class, so your already in his good books for showing up! Speak up a bit and they might remember you. Think about it: When he or she is grading the final and there is that one mark they are unsure if you deserve, are they more likely to give it to the person who was interested in class and asked questions or the person who they vaguely remember sitting in the back row?

Anyway, that is my rant, Until next time, Stay Geeky!

–Canageek

Witty Title To Be Announced

Sorry about the lack of posts as of late (and the low quality of what has been posted). There will be few to no gaming related posts in the near future as I just don’t have time to think about or right gaming material. I drew some new maps of my campaign setting on the back of a biochem test I finished early (And did rather well on considering I’ve never taken any biochem before….ok, I got an A. But if I’d got one more question right it would have been an A+, so grrr).

Anyway, I’m rather busy with university right now, so you may see me post about it if I have time, but I just don’t have time to read/think much about RPGs as of late.

In good news I have received two requests for interviews this week, one with a drug company and one with a branch of the Canadian government. –I am in my universities Chemistry Co-op program and my first work term starts this January) I’m very excited about this and spent a couple hours today refreshing my organic synthesis for the drug company interview. (Basic stuff: Ways to add a carbon, Oxidizing/Reducing agents, some spectroscopy stuff: If you have suggestions on what to prep I’d LOVE to hear them). I was rather rusty, but I think I’ve refreshed it. It is only a short phone interview so they can’t ask anything really complex.

Aside from social issues online which I’m hoping I’ve gotten sorted out (Lessen learned type sorted out, I hope) things are going well: While I’m still having trouble focusing I’m finding ways of making myself work better. I find I need set objectives to focus. I can’t just say I’m going to study Biochem now, I have to say I’m going to study X pages of biochem. It is FAR easier for me to keep focus when I have an assignment or practice problems. I find this leads me to focus on subjects that give such things then more freeform classes, but I’m getting better on that.

Anyway, I’m sure no one wants to read about me like this, but I find it relaxing and helps me order my thoughts. Also I find writing things down makes them more ‘real’. So if I write that my plan for tommrow is to finish a rough draft of my Inorganic assignment then study at least 1 chapter of Biochem and review the website for the drug company I’m going to interview with Monday I am more likely to do it. I’m not sure if I will get all that done as I’m having some trouble with the assignment (It was going very well until the last question, and my problem is almost embarrassingly stupid, but I am having trouble working out oxidation states of metals in complexes. My textbooks all either are overly simplistic and give obvious examples or assume you know how to do it. Anyway I’m sure I will figure it out.)

Anyway, I figure I’ll spin the next bit I’m writing into an actual useful post, so until next time, Stay Geeky.

–Canageek.

About My Character: McCord (Serenity) [Version 2]

I posted this character a while ago based on stats someone else wrote for me a while back. Now I’ve bought the book and have been playing for a bit so I thought I’d post the updated version. The game is being run over at DnDorks if you want to take a gander.

Captain Dirk McCord
============
Veteran | Personality: Rough and Tumble Trader
Agility      : D10
Strength     : D6
Vitality     : D6
Alertness    : D10
Intelligence : D6
Willpower    : D10

Initiative : 2d10
Life Points : 16

Assets
—–
Two-Fisted
Good Name (Minor)
Fightin’ Type
Trustworthy Gut (Minor)

Complications
————-
Loyal (Minor)
Credo (Major) (Always deal straight, Never rip a man off, Never sell tainted goods)
Prejudiced (Minor) – Alliance (Bureaucrats)
Dull sense: Smell
Dull sense: Taste
Skills
——
Animal Handling        D2
Artistry               D0
Athletics              D6
Covert                 D6
Craft                  D0
Discipline             D4
Guns                   D6
+–Pistols D10
Heavy Weapons          D0
Influence              D6
+– Bargain D8
+–Persuade D8
Knowledge              D4
Linguist               D2
Mechanical Engineering D2
Medical Expertise      D2
Melee Weapon Combat    D4
Perception             D6
+–Intuition D8
Performance            D0
Pilot                  D2
Planetary Vehicle      D2
Ranged Weapons         D0
Scientific Expertise   D0
Survival               D2
Technical Engineering  D2
Unarmed Combat         D4

Note: The above stats include 2 Advancement Points that were spent on Influence: Bargain as its something his background should have, I just didn’t have the points for it. The dull sense struck me as something that would hurt a trader like him when he is being wined and dined as he has to be careful not to let on he can’t really taste the expensive wine, but also lets him note taste the disgusting rich man’s food he never got a taste for. Didn’t make sense not to take just one as they are tied together in the human body. I gave him Two-Fisted because I love the western gunslinger who shoots with a gun in each hand and Firefly didn’t have anyone doing that. I’m thinking given his crew his next points just might go into Discipline. If not I’d like to get Planetary Vehicle up, Looking at my character again I’d really like to get Covert specialized in ‘Conceal on Person’ or Slight of Hand, or somesuch.

McCord started out as a small trader. His home planet, Redwood, wasn’t on the rim, but it sure wasn’t a core world. He ran a small shop selling tools and did it well.  He gradually bought up some other shops in nearby towns, focusing on getting basic, good tools. He discovered he could sell basic goods such as shovels for a fortune to the outer worlds. He started buying them cheaply from his suppliers then selling them at a fair mark-up on the outer worlds. He met a lot of ship captains and a lot of grateful farmers and miners. He insisted on running his own ship a lot of the time, refusing to run any business he didn’t understand. He always made sure to do his fair share of the work, even learning gunplay to help defend his goods. Then came the war, and he stayed carefully neutral, refusing to carry goods for either side.
He survived the war, carrying food and basic goods to devastated worlds, sometimes at a loss. However, in the aftermath an alliance bureaucrat ruled that his shovels had built alliance trenches and ignored all evidence that he’d sold them to reputable local stores. His business was stripped from him and given to a massive corporation that has proceeded to charge massive prices for everything as they are now the only supplier. He asked around and found that right after they finished stealing his company that bureaucrat retired and took a job on the corporation’s board of directors. He called in some favours, scrapped up his personal savings and bought an old firefly and a load of basic goods. He found some friends and put together a crew. Now starting over on the outer worlds, he’s pretty sure the Browncoats were right, and is just a little bitter about doing so.

He carries a gun at his left ankle and a small utility knife on his right, just in case. When expectin’ trouble he carries a gun on each hip in fast draw holsters, but does not do so from day to day as he believes that tells people that your lookin’ for a fight.

His accent is an odd mix of normal and high’ falutin speech since he was born speakin’ one way and spent a lot of time speakin’ the other so as not to be taken as a bumpkin.

Possessions: Unpaid: Last Chance: A Firefly class ship (well technically. It was at one point anyway). The DM has stated it has basic gear such as spacesuits and a big winch. His pilot discovered the weapons a few months after they took off and he’s not sure how he feels flying an armed ship.

Paid:

• Gun Cleaning Kit
• Patch Tape
• Purification Crystals
• Drink, Good Whiskey (2)

• Ballistic Mesh
• Knife, Combat (belt)
• Knife, Utility x3 (Misc pockets + belt)
• Pistol x2 (A small revolver, left ankle, concealed), Other in cabin or vehicle he’s driving…just in case (Stole that idea from the book Casino Royal where Bond keeps a longbarrel 45 in his car for ranged shooting: No game effects but I liked the idea)
• Derringer (In case he has to go to some fancy shindig where carrying guns is impolite but allowed)
• Commpack, Long Range
• Compack, Short Range, x6
• Distress Beacon
• Microtransmitter x6
• Laserlight Mist
• CuttingTourch
• Scarpware x4
• Scrapper’s Gel x4
• Tool Kit, Basic
• Tool Set, Electronic
• Tool Set, Mechanics
• Formal Wear (Very shiny, 40 credits, could easily pass at any Alliance company even if the fashion is a year or two out of date now he dressed conservatively enough that it is unlikely to be noticed. Think black business suit but western). He paid extra at the time to make it last.
• Newtech Pistol (x2, revolver, longbarrel) (+1 damage, Makes fancy Weerrrs and Clicks when cocked or fired. [Yes, I made sure the DM would let it werrr and click like in the show….yes I was willing to pay extra for that.)
• Medical Supplies, Emergency.
• Immunization Packets (12)
• Large Hovercraft

Cash: 91.4 credits.

The gun has a story: He was working a deal and some hotshot corporate executives took him out and whined and dined him. Took him shooting and gave him this fancy gun. Well he was a young trader and long story short he wound up with several tonnes of lead tained ‘silver’ cutlery. Never figured out what to do with it, still has most of it in a storage facility somewhere as he bought it from his company to ensure it never entered circulation. He has kept the gun around as a reminder ever since. That and its a damn fine gun, easy to maintain, takes normal ammo and packs the punch of a mule’s kick. This is based in part on a story a businessman told me once (Only it was a knife and he figured out they were trying to wine and dine him and was not fooled.) I can’t wait for the cutlery to show up in the plot..hehehe.)

Edit: Almost forgot: His reason for learnin’ to use a gun so well came up in game when told someone didn’t believe reavers existed.

“He undoes the button at his cuff and rolls up the sleeve of his nice blue shirt. As it slides up you can see a horrible puckered scar sliding up his forearm. Was about ten years back now, when I was a welp just getting started out. Made myself a bit of money dirtside and wanted to start trading into the black. Was riding on a tramp liner named the Marie Celeste looking to set up some trade routes on the rim. Next comartment over was a squad of Alliance troops being sent to some to some backwater or another. I played cards with them a time or two, good men. Three days out of Buthers world we were attacked. They hit us out of nowhere, cut through the side of the hull. Sloppy, air leakin’ from a bad fast sealjob. They tore through the luxury compartment and….” McCord shudders. “I was lucky, in last class with the Marines ‘tween me and the Reavers. Some of us that knew which end of a gun to hold went forward to help. Those weren’t met I was fightin’ they were beasts. You shot them once they got back up. You shot them twice they slowed down. We learned how to shoot them in the head pretty gorram fast. Was barely enough. Not many people who fought survived. Me, handful of marines, couple a’ others. They didn’t get past us though, all the women and young’uns survived. Mostly they used captured guns same as anyone, but some…some used blades. Serrated blades, so it don’t cut clean. They leave puckered scares.” *lets his eyes fall to the scar on his arm*

Assorted Updates

Sorry about the long wait between posts, I was a touch burned out after that last post becuse I struggled with it for so long. Then I discovered that numerous typos had snuck past me (somehow I turned spellcheck off) and most of my paragraph breaks had disappeared. Needless to say I was mortified, especially after several people I respected had read it and retweeted it. Due to this I was put off blogging for a while. Additionally I’m currently having my laptop repaired and haveing trouble getting my desktop computer’s wireless card working with linux. I’ve reinsallled windows as the linux installs seem to vanish and have inexplicable problems. ANYWAY, here are some random thoughts and musings.

I’ve still not started work on the next big post (probably on roleplaying in the Televised Dungeon Crawling environment). I don’t have a lot of DMing experience so I’m worried everything I’m saying is really obvious and unoriginal, but that could be just me being insecure. Either way I don’t plan on stopping writing as I enjoy it. If you ever see a way for me to improve do let me know.

I got some suggestions on Twitter that I forgot to work into the last article: Example advertisements for the lighthearted Televised Dungeon Crawling setting:
From @Jwyl
“::bulging gladiator holding up a small urn-shaped bottle:: After a tough day in the arena, use pain-b-gone on those sore muscles”
“::close up of a tub-shaped container and a cloth with goo on it:: No need to scrub, just coat armor and rinse for that mirrorshine”

Other suggestions by @cyclopsfan1 were for a male enhancement drink. Would YOU want your half-orc barbarian shilling for a penis enlargement drink? What if you need the money?

I’d love to have some more suggestions of advertisements for such a world, toss me a comment if you have a cool idea.

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On another note I started reading a blog that touches me closely. A women named Karen linked me to her blog after meeting on twitter. It’s a blog about her experiences as a high-functioning person with Asperger’s Syndrome. I’d like to take this moment to disclose that I have aspergers syndrome. I was diagnosed a long time ago, so long I don’t exactly remember when: I was diagnosed with ADHD a bit before that. I may blog about what it’s like to have it, though that is hard to do since I have no idea what it is like to not have it. Anyway, I encourage you to read her blog, though take the other blogs in her blog roll with a grain of salt, I personally disagree with many of them.Also as a note I took Ritalin for years and now take Concerta: Do I sound like a zombie? Follow my twitter feed. I’m (I like to think) a witty and creative young man. These are powerful drugs with nasty side effects. But if you have ADHD or ADD they are a godsend. Riding yourkid to do his/her work is NOT the solution, you will just frustrate them. I will get distracted working in a bare room with only my notes and a calculator. (I will post a link to Karen’s blog this when I have my laptop and bookmarks back)

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I’m trying to decided between first person suggestions and third person authoritative writing style. I mainly write “In this type of setting” But keep adding “I think XXX would work well” and swapping between the two is poor form. So readers, does this detract from my ruminations all that much? If I should stick to one which should I stick two? Should I learn enough HTML to put in sidebars for the first person parts?

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Also as a note I’m taking down the pictures of myself about now so bosses don’t see this blog (While nothing on here is incrminating or such I’m worried about anti-apsie and anti-ADHD prejiduce. If someone wants to recomend pictures to replace it I’d like the suggestions. In a related note I may start posting about chemistry, hope no one minds. If you want to here about anything specific I’m taking Organic, Inorganic and Quantum chemistry this semester as well as a lab class. I’ll ask my profs if they mind if I post some of my assingments for you to see, would anyone be intrested in this?

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As a final note if you are on twitter feel free to join in the Mass Twitter Fiction Event. Its a freeform systemless roleplay where we each take a roll and react to whatever @MassTwitFic throws at us. There is a long term one going on right now where we have been framed for a theft and kidnapping and are using insane methods to try and clear our name (Many of them illiegal since hey, we are wanted criminals anyway.) Other people are supporting us in more legal roles, scanning footadge I upload or going where we (Was wanted man and women [yes Man, singular]) can not. http://twapperkeeper.com/tfe/ has an archive of this event and the last one. Sorry it is so long, we are trying doing a multiday event for the first time, every other one has been only a few hours.

Anyway, I started doing this post on Aug 29th, and its now Sept 8th, so I think I’ll upload it and add in the missing links at a latter point in time. Let me know of what you think of this more rambly and random update style. I mainly just wanted to get some small point out there while I mused about my next post. (A campain idea inspired by: Highlander, Shadowforce Archer, D&Ds XP system, Scion, The Digimon TV show, The genocide section of my world history class, The Zodiac Killer, Greek/Roman Myth. Yeah, I just started writing and then did some reasurch & creeped myself out.)

Anyway, until next time, Stay Geeky!

–Canageek.

Televised Dungeon Crawling: Excess and Advertisements

Last time I discussed a very dark version of televised dungeon crawling. This time I’m going to discuss the opposite. I got a lot of comments last time talking about how my setting reminded them of certain works by Stephen King. This interpretation is more…Stephen Colbert. If the last game was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Dark Heresy this game will be Paranoia. Paranoia is actually one of the main inspirations of this setting. Its funny as heck, but it’ a dark funny. Your still going into a artificial dungeon to appease a bloodthirsty audience, just now your doing it with a giant Nike logo on your butt and witty commentary in the background. If you think of a spectrum this is at the lightest end, with my last post at the darkest end and XCrawl sitting confusedly in the middle trying to be both at once. Now the one problem I’m having while writing this is: I don’t watch sports unless the Olympics are on or the Leafs are playing for the cup (So, unless the Olympics are on). I also don’t watch reality TV or professional wrestling which are the other sources of this post. Therefore I may be misinterpreting things I see or emphasizing the wrong things. I strongly invite you to comment on this and give me your opinion.

You are professional gladiators, risking it all for the roar of the crowd, the thrill of the fight of the clink of the coinpurse. Highly trained professionals you are almost as concerned with how they look delving as surviving. Almost. Because everyone knows the real money isn’t in delving; it’ in the endorsements popular Delvers get and the most popular delver isn’ the best delver: It’ the one who knows how to work the audience.

To get the attention of the audience (and the sponsors) armour is heavily stylized: Modern material and alloys let you make just about anything into a practical suit of armour, so warriors wear suits ranging from knock offs of Sauron’s armour in the Lord of the Rings movies to ultramodern ballistic fibers and plastics such as SWAT style armours. Weapons are also often stylized and always named (It increases the amount you can market things such as versions and action figures). Rouges leather armour is always form fitting, with sculpted torsos tight bottoms. While I normally strongly disapprove of cleavage windows if there is a setting where they fit this is it. Armour shaped like bondage gear or something out of Mad Max is also popular. Wizards and others who go unarmoured (of both genders) on the other hand have been known to wear rather smallish amounts of clothing in pursuit of higher ratings. For example a male wizard may go around in tight leather pants…and nothing else. Other costumes I could see happening in a delve: Gothic armour (as in based off modern ‘goth’ clothing with makeup, studs and such), armour based off Boris Vallajo paintings, anime or the famous Chainmail bikini. Exotic weapons are common. If your game does not have stats for a cool weapon I encourage DMs to use the functionally equivalent rule. A cat-of-nine-tails is functionally equivalent to a whip. A flamburge is functionally equivalent to a greatsword. I’d be very tempted to allow modern weapons into a delve in a light hearted game using functionally equivalents: A chainsaw is functionally equivalent to a greataxe, a revolver is functionally equivalent to a longbow. This nicely solves gunporn: SURE you can have a <gobblygook here> it functions as a longbow. I know its better then a <gun> the system is no fine grained enough to notice however. Alternatively firearms could be banned so that you don’t damage the set too much, or injure the audience. Even the dungeon itself can get in on the advertising with MasterChope brand scythes in the traps and Defender brand Iron Golems.

Some delvers agree to only use a specified brand of weapon or armour and publicly endorse that brand in exchange for large sums of cash. Others sell spots on their armour or even skin, using magical tattoos to bear corporate logos. Depending on how silly you want to make this players could have a giant corporate logo on their backs or be decked out like a Formula 1 race car. XCrawl actually did a half decent job of this so if you have a copy look it up, just make sure to skip the massive amount of world information lest your brain crawl out of your head. XCrawl gives the suggestion that only treasure found within the dungeon to be used in the dungeon: Money from sponsorships can be used to buy large homes or cars but not spent in the dungeon. This is a crude but simple solution that lets the GM give the PCs as much money as he wants outside of the dungeon and let them run merchant empires or squander it as they wish without unbalancing the game. Another idea is players are only allowed to bring X amount of money into a delve. The downside is players must track the value of each item and do a bunch of math: Anyone who played Living Greyhawk in year two knows this is a bloody pain in the arse. If your playing D&D4e then you could limit the players to brining in X items of each level. For example one item for each character level they have or such. XCrawl’s system is indeed the simplest however it can lead to imbalance if you then take the PCs out of the delve. On the other hand, I get the feeling this would probably be a short game where treasure balance won’t be that important. Also outside of the delves is where your roleplaying is going to happen. There should be enough combat inside the delves to keep even the most blood thirsty players sated, so if you do want to turn this into a serious game outside the ring should be all roleplay. This will be the topic of the next post in the series. I generally don’t like the idea of players purchasing magic items, but it does fit a bit better in this setting then most.

XCrawl gives the idea of Dungeon Jockeys (DJs) running each dungeon, each having a theme or style and silly name, an idea I think is highly appropriate for this setting. For example DJ Crush is a ogre who values brute force in his crawls and as such uses other Ogres, Minotaurs and Giants heavily, backed by goblins, orcs and bugbears. DJ Death is the oldest DJ in the league, being a lich. He sends (surprise) undead at the PCs and once a year faces them himself of course returning to his phylactery (and a new body) when slain. DJ Sweet And Sour likes sending unusual mixed teams of monsters at the PCs. Now I like DJs picking their names based on their theme but this doesn’t have to be the case. For example DJ Yo-Yo, DJ Butcher, DJ Cool or DJ Shinedown.

Treasure is more then just gold and weapons in this game. Cars, magazine subscriptions, furniture. Watch a random game show and sprinkle everything it gives out throughout the dungeon (Of course, as it would be bad press for the PCs to be seen selling such things the standard contract specifies they can’t reject or sell any prize). Dungeons could include showrooms that show off the prizes players will get, for example a car on a rotating pedestal with spotlights on it or a room set up like Ikea to show off a living room set the players will win. Magic prizes should be named and interesting. Never give out a +2 short sword. Give ‘Nightwish’ a short sword that despite its mirror finish reflects nothing.

Unlike in the darker version monsters should dominate. Traps should certainly be a part of it, but nothing makes a crowd roar like seeing a giant stomp onto the field or watching a gladiator dragged down by a horde of goblins. Your standard ‘you take 4 damage’ is not going to do it in this setting: massive spell effects, huge mechanical levers dropping PCs into pits of spikes…that is also filled with angry rattlesnakes. Blood and gore makes the crowd roar. However the gladiators should always have a chance: They are not mooks to die, they are athletes who should have a fighting chance. Monsters should be as fantastic as possible. Try using the video game concept of boss fights: its used because it is highly dramatic. You should also do a video game style introductions for the monster, complete with a title and cutscene. Camera men should visibly follow the PCs around, perhaps occasionally getting the axe from an overzealous monster. While I don’t use theme music in my games many DMs do: if so you can justify it by having that music being piped through the dungeon or playing in the background on the televised feed.

Players should be encouraged to develop catch lines and special moves for their gladiator. Each player should be have a chance to give and introductory sequence at the start of each delve. While players should be allowed to work skills like intimidate & bluff into their routine the player should have to role-play this out. Additionally you should have periodic press conferences and both group and solo interviews. If you think your group is mature enough I recommend secret ballot voting on MVP awards, though this only works if all players are roughly equal power wise (Roughly the same level in D&D terms).

I think D&D4e would be ideal for this type of game, lots of flashy powers and items, powerful characters and monsters and loads of magic. 3.X would not be a bad choice if you crank the magic to 11. I don’t play many other fantasy games, but I think Alternity or GURPs might work. I think this would work for a short term game, or with a light hearted buch of hack & slashers. If you want a longterm game I’d want more roleplaying which is what I’ll talk about next time. If you think I missed something or have any questions please drop me a line in the comments below!

Until next time Stay Geeky!
–Canageek

Edit: I’m very sorry, but I somehow missed spelling checking and a bunch of paragraph breaks disappeared, so a bunch of people saw what was essentially an unfinished blog entry. I’m very sorry about this and hope I didn’t send to many people away in disgust, especially after @geekgirls was kind enough to tweet she was reading it. Well, I think I got them all, but I did edit it in a rush, so please point out any errors you see. *sigh* I’m very embarrassed about this. Anyway, Good night all, and Stay Geeky. –Canageek

For Ada

One year ago today my girlfriend Ada’s husband died. I….I have no idea what to tell her. And well, I noticed some similarities to the song in Fury of Solace. So…I wrote her something. I don’t like several of the lines, and I know, writing a filk like this is probably lame as hell, but I don’t know what to do or say as I can’t even be their to be with her. This frustration is shown in mine (Solace’s) lines, at least I hope it is. I’m not a musical person and this would probably sound terrible sung, but all I can give her are words, and they don’t seem enough so I’m willing to try anything.

Anyway:

To the tune of Lot In Life by Nick DeMatteo: See http://furyofsolace.com/?page_id=7

#WIDOW
One year ago today
My husband went away
Then this widowed girl
Thrust into the world
Carried on until today

So I’ve been told a lot in life
In each one rain must fall
I try my best to do what’s right
No one could do better

#SOLACE
Don’t know what to do
Had to be a better way
But my high-falutin’ words
and my *hugs* are just not enough #This line could use work
Unless I sucked it up and helped her anyway

Fate said carings my lot in life
For the good of all
Two lives suddnely intertwined, right?
The pride before the fail

#WIDOW/SOLACE
One life, two loves
Alone and together
And I… will never give up my love

#WIDOW (overlapping with Solace below)
So I’ve been told a lot in life
In each one rain must fall
I try my best to do what’s right
No one could do better

#SOLACE
Fate said carings my lot in life
For the good of all
Two lives suddnely intertwined, right?
The pride before the fail

#WIDOW/SOLACE
One life, two loves
Alone and together
And I… will never give up my love

Each day’s the same
All pawns in someone’s game
And I… have no choice but to survive

—————–

So…yeah. I love you Ada, and wish I could help with the pain you must be feeling. From what you’ve told me about your husband he was someone I could have been really great friends with.

Sorry about the poor quailty of the spelling and grammer in this post, I have trouble editing things like this. Hell, I have trouble writing things like this. Oh yeah. First non-RPG post.

Stay Geeky. –Canageek.

Televised Dungeon Crawling: Condemned Prisoners

For my first example of how a modern televised dungeon crawl could be done I’m going with a very dark tone: The PCs are convicts. They could be legitimate criminals, sentenced to death for their crimes. They could be political prisoners a totalitarian regime wants dead. They could have been falsely accused and sentenced to die so as to provide more fodder for the blood sports. This could even have gone so far as too make minor crimes punishable by death. (As in Larry Nivin’s Gil Hamilton/Gil the Arm books.) Then they are given an offer: they go on a ‘Delve’ into a manufactured dungeon armed with medieval armour and weapons. If they survive 10 delves all charges are dropped.

Traps and poison should feature heavily into this type of game as they have a habit of feeling unfair. Not just simple scything blades either, but massive deathtraps, with spikes and fire and such. For monsters I see Warhammer type demons and flying skulls and whatnot (I’m not a Warhammer person but I read the W40K website a lot when I was younger and I think corrupt vile demons would fit nicely, also indicating that the people running the demons are evil enough to deal with them). Undead would also be good as they feel evil and have a habit of draining stats and levels in a number of games.

Character could be forced into death fights with other inmates to earn a spot in the dungeon delving program.  After that the dungeons themselves could be done a variety of different ways. Converting part of the prison into a crude dungeon would work, perhaps as an early ‘house league’. This would explain the crude traps and weak monsters. As the players level they get sent up to move and more expensive killing complexes, I mean, dungeons. Converted factories where the equipment has been modified into deathtraps would make good dungeons. Giant swinging blades, arc wielders, assembly lines all are giant and scary. Converted shopping malls could also work, with monsters attacking from the top or bottom level and a miniboss in the food court. Finally as they get to the highest levels they are doing events with as many viewers as the superbowl. These could be obviously modern complexes as previously or perhaps finally crafted dungeons of meant to look like something from D&D.

I’d be very tempted to have huge body counts in this version. Dungeons filled with insane traps, heck run them through the Tomb of Horrors. Perhaps you could give them an offer like survive 10 delves and the prisoner is set free. Have them meet someone 1 run away. Have them talk about how they can’t wait to meet there kid and wife again. Then kill them. With his wife and children watching. If you use Dungeon Jockeys as XCrawl does or similar they should be sadistic and cruel. If the players survives 10 delves they should find themselves shunned by society, as everyone knows they are a criminal. Unable to find work they return to the games as a free man, slightly better of but still forced to risk life and limb for the amusement of the masses. Alternatively you could work with the players for reasons to return to the game. A character with political ties could join the games once again as a means of getting publicity for his or her cause.

Technology level is always a question in this game. It makes a lot of sense for prisoners not to be given firearms or explosives, too much risk of an escape vs swords and bows. If you do want them with guns and are using a fantasy game I suggest re-skinning bows or crossbows instead of stating up your own weapons as I find people NEVER balance firearms, but this is just my opinion.

I view commentary as an integral part of this type of game. In a dark game the commentators should be cruel and vicious. Laughing as the PCs struggle, mocking their failures. When PCs die, I see the prisoners standing solemn and mournful, seeing their own fate in their companions death. Meanwhile the crowd roars and jeers, bets are paid out and the commentator mocks the dead person irreverently.

The spectators should be decedent and corrupt. Corpulent oligarchs denied no luxury with young bratty kids along, the kids screaming that they ‘wanna see someone die’ (See the kid in George R. R. Martin’s game of thrones series who wants to throw someone out the window. Heck, see his entire family. Actually a lot of that series gives a good ‘feel’ for this type of game.)

While I do not have a ton of experience with different game systems D&D 4e seems to be a bit too heroic for this, though I suppose you could send them against overleveled opponents. I like the cruelty the new disease system can have, as well as the traps you can set up with skill challenges (see Kobold Quarterly #10) but still, it makes you feel like heroes, which I normally love, but doesn’t seem right for this. I’ve heard Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is good for that sort of thing. I think retro-clones or old D&D (By which I mean 2e or older) might also be good for this based on stories I’ve heard. Dark Heresy or Rouge Trader’s systems might also work though I have no experiences with them. However they are designed to run a dark universe so I suspect they are a pretty good fit. The general aim is to find a game where life is nasty, brutish and short then just re-skin it.

Now this isn’t a game I’d play, I WANT to feel like I’m a hero, and I’m not sadistic enough to DM it. An idea I’ve been kicking around for this type of game is players either have a stable of characters, so they can rotate in another one. Perhaps using the old idea of playing your henchmen as PCs when they level up. Or assign XP to the player instead of the character, though you should find some way of punishing them for dying.

Inspirations: Most of these are just for tone, not content.
XCrawl: Adventures in the Extreme Dungeon Crawl League
Warhammer 40K
The Bolo series by Keith Laumer
Any SF with escaping prisoners & blood sports
The Black Company by Glenn Cook
Gil Hamilton/Gil the Arm books by Larry Nivin
The Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martian
Neromancer by William Gibson
The 10th Victim by Robert Sheckley
I’ve not seen it but Death Race probably fits this as well.
Edit: The Dr Who Episode “Bad Wolf”

Well, my next writing on this subject will be a more light hearted approach, focusing more on reality TV with Paranoia as an inspiration. Until that time, Stay Geeky!

–Canageek

Televised Dungeon Crawling: The Introduction

I’ve been batting around this idea for a campaign for a while now, but due to lack of players and time, I don’t think its going to happen in the near future. As such, I’m going to write it up here and get some feedback and whatnot. I have stolen from a number of sources, most obviously a rather bad book by the name of: XCrawl: Adventures in the Extreme Dungeon Crawl League, followed by the gladiatorial games of the Roman Empire and some Dragon magazine articles.

Basic concept: Brave adventures explore artificial dungeons stocked with deadly traps and monsters for the amusement of a televised audience.

Edit: It seems some people don’t get this concept: You play a character in a modern setting who goes into dungeons for money or fame or whatever and all the while your exploits are broadcast out to millions of viewers. Have you seen the trailer for Death Race (Or even the movie?) Like that but based on D&D instead of Autoduel. Your modern day Gladiators, who may or may not survive each entry into the dungeon. When you hack a troll apart millions cheer, and if the troll eats you…well, your family might get royalties when they release the DVD of your adventures.

Right, so the same concept of XCrawl, –I did say I was stealing from it. However, I’m not going to put a zillion pages of useless background into this post, as XCrawl did. I also have a couple different ideas on how to implement this idea, something XCrawl only gave a passing nod too. Honestly, I don’t think the XCrawl book is work buying as it spends most of its pages on a world setting and very few on actual rules and ideas for dungeon crawling. It does have some good ideas (A dungeon scoring system, mojo points, Dungeon Jockeys) which I’ll leave for you to uncover, but really, I think someone was being paid by the page…which is why they outlined an entire setting…then destroyed it and rebuilt it, with the original setting conveyed through a magic sword. Anyway, here is what I think you can do with the same basic idea.

These dungeons could be straight out of D&D with stone walls & torches or they could be plywood and spraypaint. They could be a converted office building that’s still furnished so you have kobolds hiding in cubical farms. The important part is you have modern day people risking their necks in a dungeon as fans watch it on pay-per-view. I’ll outline various ways of doing this in subsequent posts. I’m not sure what else to say about this without going into implementations, so I will leave this here for now.

It should be noted this is different from the as of yet unnamed ‘My Work/Nova’s World’ setting I detailed previously.

In this first post I will outline a dark form of this setting, and latter on I will write up a lighter interpretation. I’m also thinking of a version of them closer to a Gladiatorial type event. I might even backport this to a Roman fantasy style setting. Anyway, as always comments are both welcome and appreciated, and until next time Stay Geeky!

–Canageek

P.S. I just realized I forgot my tagline on my last two posts! *sigh*

Edit: Added a better description based on @ExplodingDragon’s comments on twitter.