Category Archives: Musings

San Francisco Adventure

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My wife was in San Francisco for work this week and I had a four day weekend for Labor Day. It seemed like the gods were telling us to make a vacation of it, so we did.

San Francisco is an awesome city. Beautiful scenery, great food, cool little shops. We started the day by going to Sweet Maple, a breakfast and lunch place that apparently starts filling up immediately upon opening. Fantastic coffee (probably the best I’ve had in the States), and their Southern Eggs Benedict (with chipotle hollandaise and chorizo) was delicious. Most astounding though was the Ur-Bacon, a dish they call “Millionaire’s Bacon”. Imagine thick slabs of bacon, thick enough to need a fork and knife to eat, covered in syrupy brown sugar and black and red pepper. The description doesn’t do it justice; it is what all other bacon aspires to be.

After that we did the touristy thing: Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, the Ferry Building. The early part of our day was filled with kitsch, bread bowls, and outdoor fruit stands. Not a bad way to spend the morning.

In the afternoon we made the pilgrimage to Endgame in Oakland, a game store that really has no equal. Clean, elegant, spacious, filled with a wide variety of gaming products, staffed by friendly people. The entire second floor appears to be a gaming space. Chris Ruggiero (who works there and also worked on Race to Adventure) gave me the celebrity treatment, taking my picture (with Bulldogs! in hand) out in front of the store’s sign and giving me a handful of Endgame dice to take with me. I also picked up a copy of the Leverage RPG, which I’ve been wanting to pick up for quite a while. Chris suggested we make a stop at the Trappist, a local bar; we did, and the beer was excellent.

Bri at Endgame

After that we went to Borderlands, a sci-fi, fantasy, and horror bookstore with adjoining cafe. I must say, I like this store quite a bit and wish we had something like it in Pennsylvania; the shelves were covered with little recommendation cards and the selection was outstanding. I came away with a copy of the Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia (for research).

We ended our day (well, I say we ended it but the day’s not really over yet) at Gracias Madre, a vegetarian Mexican restaurant in the Mission. Do yourself a favor: go there. Their food is phenomenal, the wait staff is friendly and efficient, and what their drink menu lacks in variety it makes up for in quality.

Overall, a very satisfactory first day in San Francisco. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Skill System Idea

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Rob Donoghue gave me an idea for a resolution system. Here we go.

If you have a skill, you can complete a task using that skill. You’re always successful, but there are degrees of success. Some of this is cribbed directly from Rob’s post, and some of it is extrapolated.

There are four axes of success:

Stylish/Clumsy
Fast/Slow
Elegant/Obvious
Benefit/Drawback

When the GM sets a difficulty, he’s telling you what the defaults are on these axes (each is neutral by default, netting neither result). So for example, let’s say you’re tracking goblins through the woods a few days after they’ve been through. The GM tells you that this will be a Slow, Obvious roll, meaning that it’s going to take a while to find those tracks and you’re going to make kind of a ruckus doing it (so the goblins might spot you coming).

Then you decide how many Fudge dice to roll, between 1 and 4. Rolling 1 die is more predictable; you minimize your chances at mucking things up, but your chances of getting a better than default result are also smaller. More dice makes stellar success more possible, but makes a complicated success more possible too; it’s swingier.

Roll your dice and interpret your results. Each + allows you to move one of the axes into the positive column (Stylish/Fast/Elegant/Benefit), whereas each – forces you to move one into the negative column (clumsy/Slow/Obvious/Drawback). You can’t spend a – on something that’s already a negative, and you can’t spend a + on anything that’s already a positive . . . with one exception.

The Benefit/Drawback axis stacks. If you’re already getting a benefit, you can put a + there to get another benefit. If you’re already getting a drawback, you can put a – there to get another. These are important when you’ve got extra +’s or -’s that you have to use up.

Neutral results on the die are, of course, ignored.

[Edit: Tim Rodriguez sent me this nifty visual representation of the idea.]

From Hack to Game: Making Your Own Music

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Back in high school, when I fancied myself a songwriter, somebody gave me a piece of advice that I still remember: write your lyrics to the tune of a song you like, then go back and change the music once you have the lyrics written.

Fast-forward hrm hrm years and I’ve lost all illusions of being good at writing words to music, but I still write and I still find that advice useful. Why? Because it applies to game design too.

Think of a game you like; that’s the music. When you’re designing a game, a good way to start is to start with that music and write your game using it. You’re writing a hack of a game you like. This is helpful because you start with familiar surroundings and fewer things you have to design yourself. The system’s already done, right? All you have to do is drift it a little bit to encompass the things you want to include in your hack and you’re done!

I find that that’s rarely the case, though. Often, after I’ve started writing a hack, I start re-writing the rules I started with, drifting them further, incorporating elements from other games, making up new stuff. I started with the music of a game I liked but, once I’d fit it around a theme or setting I was interested in, I began to make my own music.

This, incidentally, is what’s happening with Wild Blue. It’s a useful technique. You should try it.

GenCon: Wrap-up Edition

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I realize I didn’t do posts for my last two days of GenCon, and that this one’s a little late. There are mitigating factors, I swear. Sleep deprivation, food poisoning, and simple laziness conspired to keep me from finishing the series, but here I am, ready and able, finishing it all up in one post.

When last we spoke I was bragging about an award or something. Other stuff happened since that point. I don’t remember the exact sequence, so I’ll just go stream of consciousness for a bit if you don’t mind (and even if you do).

I got my mind blown a couple of times when I met people I admire and they totally knew who I was already. This happened with Jason Morningstar, whose games I adore, and Mick Bradley, whose podcast was integral to my indie games education way back when. There were also moments of mutual star-struckedness with numerous people I follow (and am followed by) on Twitter, which was cool.

I met Monte Cook, who is a very cool dude. He shook my hand, held Bulldogs! aloft whilst getting his picture taken with me. It was pretty dang cool.

I played in John Adamus‘s Assassin’s Creed hack of Night’s Black Agents (Night’s Black Assassins), which was fantastic and fun and highly lethal. I got to play Fiasco with some friends and watched as our poor characters spiraled into depravity and, eventually, imprisonment/death/worse things. I got to participate in a Fate Core setting creation session with Lenny Balsera, John Adamus, Jeremy Keller, and Shoshanna Kessock (Fate Core is going to be awesome, by the way).

The thing that struck me about GenCon this year was that socializing seemed to far outweigh gaming. Don’t get me wrong; I did a lot of gaming. But the socializing took up more of my time and is what sticks in my memory now that it’s over. I met some really cool people (you all know who you are; I loved meeting each and every one of you), I got to see people I’d seen before but don’t get to see all that often (it was great seeing you again!), I picked up some new freelance jobs (can’t talk about either of them yet; sorry!). I even got to spend Sunday night as a supplicant, drinking at the feet of the Macklin.

So yeah, GenCon was awesome this year. Even awesomer than last year. Next year promises to be awesomer still.

GenCon Day 3: ENnies Edition

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This one’s gonna be short because it’s 2:30am and I need some goddamn sleep. I have to get this out though (brain ferrets).

I WON AN ENNIE AWARD.

Not the one I thought I would. The one I thought I had a chance of winning was for Bulldogs!, which did not win (though Galileo did win an award, a Judge’s Choice Award for Shelter in Place. No, the award I won was because of my association with Evil Hat. There’s this thing called the Fan Best Publisher Award, and Evil Hat took second place (behind Paizo, naturally; take a shot everybody). Because I work for the Hat (and do a LOT of work for the Hat), that includes me. I wasn’t sure of this initially so I didn’t go up on stage. After the fact though, Amanda Valentine told me that I totally should have because that award is as much mine as it is theirs.

Also, they gave me the plaque and the medal to take a picture with. Here it is:

image

I also may have secured some podcast appearances and I ran Bulldogs! and played in a game of Apocalypse World but in case you hadn’t heard I WON AN ENNIE.

Okay, that’s enough for now. Brain ferret exorcized.

GenCon: Day 2

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Day 2 (the first official day of GenCon) was pretty goddamn awesome. It started with the opening speech by Peter Adkinson (which was projected into the bathrooms), followed by a thorough (but not nearly thorough enough) exploration of the dealers’ hall. After that I hunted for the room where I was to run Bulldogs! at noon. Not as easy as you might think, but the GenCon staff got me there. I ran Bulldogs! to a packed table and it was a huge hit. I got to run a new adventure (which was awesome) and crazy shit happen (as is wont to happen in Bulldogs!). At one point the robot of the group sold his extra limbs for a Resources aspect (“It cost me an arm and a leg.”), and the crew used a captured criminal with outstanding warrants as a bargaining chip in a cargo trade. After that I went to Games on Demand (and also made a detour to get my copy of Technoir signed where I was shocked at the size of the line. Last year Games on Demand was a tiny room in one of the satellite hotels and you were almost assured a spot if you showed up. This year there’s a larger room and a line that goes out into the hallway. I came to try to get into a game of Dungeon World but wound up running it instead. Dungeon World exceeded my expectations in play. It’s easy to run, the conversational style of the game is both intuitive and keeps the action moving at a brisk pace, and the old school nods are fantastic. It was a memorable game for all, one we hope to continue throughout the con. Next was the GenCon Social, a dinner party at a local bar put together by Jenn Steen. I got to drink beer, eat steak, and converse with the likes of Kirin Robinson (of Old School Hack fame). Then I went to a meeting I’m not allowed to talk about (I know, I’m a tease). Tomorrow holds the promise of more Bulldogs!, more Games on Demand, and the ENnies. The excitement builds!

GenCon ’12: Day 1

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My first day at GenCon started with me getting up at 3am to fly out of Philadelphia, then arriving at 9:30 in Indianapolis after two flights and a layover. I hopped a shuttle to the Embassy Suites (Zone 6/Indy-Go, NOT Zone 2/Hotel Shuttles) and met up with my friends John Adamus (who edits ALL THE THINGS) and Amanda and Clark Valentine (who do stuff for Evil Hat, Margaret Weiss, Galileo, etc.). There was some walking and some hanging out and some meeting with other people and some going to the penthouse and then it was happy hour. Happy hour was free (yay Embassy!), and gave me a chance to hang out with people like those above as well as Jenn Steen (of Jennisodes and Project Ninja Panda Taco, who I’d actually been hanging out with for most of the day at this point), Lenny Balsera (THE Fate guy), Brian Patterson (of d20 Monkey and Project Ninja Panda Taco), and others. Dinner was at a place called Clannagh’s, an Irish pub, and though they threw Brennan Taylor (Galileo Games) out because his teenage daughter wasn’t allowed in the establishment, we still had a good time. I got to hang out more with some of the above-mentioned people and Cam Banks (Margaret Weiss), and we had some great conversations about the nature of indie games versus big publishers, the fate of D&D, and the inter-pollination of the RPG world. After that it was the Diana Jones Awards (Nordic LARP won) where I hung out with even more people and shouted over the din to try to be heard and mostly failed at that. Eventually I went back to the hotel and, after some figuring out of the sleeping arrangements (I have roommates), read some and went to bed. Aside from the DJA, there weren’t any official GenCon things happening on Wednesday. Today, though, is another matter. I can’t wait to see with the first official day of GenCon holds!

On Dungeon World

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I just got my pre-release copy of Dungeon World (I’m a backer) and I think I’m in love with this game. I’ve read a good chunk of it at this point (the moves, the classes, some of the GM stuff) and I can’t wait to play this thing. It’s delightfully old school in its tone and feel but the mechanics are like nothing I’ve ever seen before (yes, I understand that this is a hack of another game; no, I haven’t played or read Apocalypse World yet).

I’m really hoping to get into a game of this at GenCon. I don’t think I’m ready to run it yet, but I really want to sometime soon. I think getting to play the game would give me what I need to figure out how to run this game effectively.

Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. As you were.

Getting Your Ideas out of Your Head

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Ever get an idea that you just can’t get out of your head, you feel like you have to spill it out somewhere to stop thinking about it? Chances are you’re a writer or a game designer or some other form of creative type then. Whether or not you apply that label to yourself doesn’t make it less accurate (and really, you should be owning that shit).

My point is: I know what you’re feeling. It’s like a hyperactive ferret running around in your brain, flipping the lights and banging the doors and telling you to FOR THE LOVE OF PETE PAY ATTENTION TO ME I’M IMPORTANT.

So how do you sedate that ferret so you can sleep or read or do shit for your day job? The solution is easier than you might think, and probably seems scary as hell.

Write that shit down.

“But if I write it down someone might see it and not like it.” So? Will you die? Will your clothes spontaneously evaporate just as that girl (or guy) you had a crush on last year appears out of nowhere to laugh at you and point out your imperfections? Probably not.

What might happen is that it might turn out to be nothing in which case you move on, having quieted the ferret, or you file it away for later cannibalization.

Of course, it might also turn out to be something (or the start of something) which is REALLY GODDAMN SCARY. If it’s something you might have to pursue it, and the chances of someone seeing it increase along with the chances of someone not liking it.

Again, so what?

If you plan on creating things for public consumption then at some point someone’s going to hate something you made. People have opinions, and they tend to vary. We’re jerks that way. It’s not the end of the world (see above about the I’m probability of death or spontaneous clothes evaporation); you just thank those people for their opinions and move on.

I seem to have veered from my point somewhat. Here’s a secret: this post is me practicing some ferret-quieting of my own. Hell, I’m writing it on the virtual keyboard of my tablet while I lie in bed because that ferret won’t let me sleep. I believe that the point I was trying to make was that the best way to get an idea out of your head is to literally get it out of your head and onto the page, virtual or otherwise. Insecurity can get in your way (it’s kind of an asshole) but the best way to get through that is to just say “fuck it, what’s the worst that can happen?” and write the goddamn thing anyway.

It’s the only way the ferret will let you sleep.

Idea File: Parkour Deck-Building

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Just had this idea for a deck-building game about parkour runners making their way through a post-apocalyptic cityscape where the streets are full of demons/zombies/monsters/evil somethings.

The idea is that you’re competing to try to complete some goal (getting to a specific location maybe, or scavenging supplies), represented by the accrual of goal cards that represent sub-goals that you’ve completed. You complete goal cards by meeting their requirements and taking risks (risks are represented by pulling from a risk deck; it’s where a lot of the uncertainty in the game comes in).

There’s also a deck-building aspect. Your initial deck consists of moves that you can perform (crazy parkour shit, naturally), but you can take risks in order to gain advantage cards that allow you to pull of crazier shit. Taking risks to get advantages is necessary in order to accumulate more goal cards, but the thing about risks is that they’re risky. Sometimes you pull a risk card and it has some sort of deleterious effect (maybe a bad card that clutters up your deck and makes it harder to pull off cool shit).

I’m thinking you could also take risks in order to inflict disadvantages on your opponents, cluttering their decks up with bad cards.

The crux of the game is that the more risks you take, the more cool shit you can pull off, and the faster you complete your goal. Taking too many risks can break your momentum though, costing you your ability to get a goal card faster.

Just something I’m noodling on.