Digital Ogre Fanzine Issue 3

My old fanzine, Digital Ogre, was a monthly publication. At times, this was not enough time given many of us were producing original and varied content. There were, if I recall correctly, differences of opinion regarding the direction, layout, and general content. It was a labor of love, however, and looking back these fifteen years, I feel more respect and admiration for my friends and fellow gamers. The December 1996 issue contains the following:

Suspiria Soundtrack Review
Lovecraft Fiction Review
Fearless Vampire Killers Review
A Horror Filmography
White Wolf RPG Review
The Second Part of An Original Special Operations RPG
Fantasy/Sci Fi Quiz
D&D Campaign Supplement
Sci Fi Short Story: Weightless Dreams
Horror Short Story: Living with the Dead
Horror/Sci Fi/Fantasy Crossword Puzzle

You can find links to this issue and others on the right side of this blog. Enjoy!

Dark Heresy Final Sanction: Part 4

Having dispatched or ran off a few genestealers on the outskirts of the Promethean factory without injury, we hurried inside. Immediately, three genestealers flanked us, and two watched from atop varous ledges and piping. Our psyker, Dynn, was reluctant to use any sort of pyrotechnic for fear of promethean pumping through the various duct-work.

Gradually we were able to make our way through a maze of piping deeper into the building and presumably closer to our target; the Brood Lord. There were occasional signs of previous struggles; blood and bullet holes, but no bodies. The genestealers, being able to charge from great distances, would attack unexpectedly, then quickly retreat into the shadows. Because of our need for lighting there was no chance for sneaking.

A few of us sustained minor injuries until I made an unlucky dodge roll and Jeff, our game master, made a lucky attack. I went from +20 to -22 in a single strike from a genestealer. I, of course, spent a fate point to stabilize until Dynn could revive me completely.

This was a night of near constant battle, the maps and dry erase markers in constant use. Unfortunately, it was well after nine by the time we ran in to the Brood Lord, so I had to leave my character in my friend's hands*. I hurried home to my wife and daughter. Later my buddy texted that the Brood Lord was defeated after some serious firepower and three more fate points. Sheesh.

* Our team is complementary and balanced, so we never take our characters with us when we leave. This way if one of us can't make it, someone else runs the character.

Digital Ogre Fanzine Issue 2

This is the second issue of a fanzine my friends and I published in 1996. Like the others, this issue contained original art and ideas. It included movie and music reviews, dungeon master advice, a military rpg called "Mission One", campaign maps, character sheets, short stories, and a crossword puzzle. You can read it here, or by clicking on the link to the side of this blog.

Digital Ogre Fanzine Issue 1

In 1996 a few friends and I created a fanzine called Digital Ogre dedicated to, you guessed it, gaming. We included reviews, stories, and rules for existing and new systems. I still have old hard copies of each of the four editions we ended up printing. The name of this blog, in fact, would have been "Digital Ogre" if it hadn't been taken already. In 1996 I was playing a lot of both fantasy and science fiction games, so I wanted a title that articulated such a dichotomy and so lend itself to multiple genres.

Looking back over these pages I see that I'm posting similar reviews, stories, and rules today, but through my blog. I notice how much easier it is to publish and share through a blog medium today than it was through a photocopied fanzine in 1996. I'm also struck by the similarity in my thinking and style from 1996 to the present. I'll be scanning and uploading each of the four issue over the next few weeks. You can see our first issue by clicking here.

A Slippery Slope or There and Back Again

I live in Cleveland, so I get plenty of snow. I have also been growing a beard for about four weeks. At this point it’s nothing a dwarf would respect, but it's long enough for me to notice things. For example, I was shoveling a few inches of fresh snow off my driveway when, as usual, my nose started running. I won’t disgust you with the details of how I dealt with this situation. My point is that with a beard a runny nose is a totally different and not entirely pleasant experience.

As you can tell from this blog, I enjoy role-playing. So as I’m shoveling I’m also entertaining fancies such as dungeon layouts, snow modifiers for combat, and other such imaginings. My runny nose gets me thinking about poor dwarves in winter; how uncomfortable they must be when their, usually larger than human noses, start running. Then I start thinking about how unpleasant life would be in general for the poor dwarves. What with dragons, demons, and all manner of ill-beasts running about in a life that is already brutal and short without these added elements. Then I start thinking about how terrifying a dungeon would be for said dwarf. They’re hungry, cold, aching, probably wounded, and committing to a series of death duels with littler sleep and with people they tend not to trust. I expand further; encompassing poor humans, elves, gnomes… the entire range of demi-humans living in constant pain and fear. I ask myself incredulously; this is the game I enjoy playing?

You can see that the slope I was on was far more slippery than my driveway. This reminded me of a recent comedy I saw; The Onion. There is a clever scene where a friendly group of people are getting together for game night. Instead of playing their typical Murder Mystery (you’ve seen those boxed sets, which are essentially socially acceptable LARPing kits) they choose to play a Rape Night Mystery. Just as in their normal Murder Mystery kits, there are different characters and they must work to solve the mystery/crime. In this case, one person is picked to be the rape victim complete with an outfit I won’t describe here. They are, as we can imagine with a grain of empathy, uncomfortable with the role and eventually the game falls apart despite numerous past successes.

It’s funny. I also think it’s also what I’m doing in my mind on my driveway. Dungeon crawls are epic, large-scale, terrifying situations. They are so far removed from my own comfortable reality that I don’t think twice about saying, “I kill it”. I have very little in common, in terms of general activities, with slaying foes and facing possible death at every moment. However, starting with something small, such as a runny nose, I could quickly slide down an absurd path, landing in an untenable situation. I basically ran in mental circles for half an hour. Oh well, at least the driveway’s clear.

Dark Heresy Final Sanction: Part 3

I enjoyed a good game of Dark Heresy last night. It was a good blend of investigation and a series of ascending minor battles. Our Psyker and Assassin earned most of the kills, but we all worked well as a team. Last week we learned not to split the party when there are Genestealers around and we stuck to the game plan.

Having picked up where the previous Inquisitor (Kalistrada) disappeared, we finally settled on a destination based on various clues we gathered. We’re headed to the Fabrika district where we think the Brood Lord may have holed up in a Promethean factory. This bothers my character as I have massive third degree burn scars from not one, but three other Promethean fuel mishaps.

We’re now headed deeper in Kalistrada via the sewage canals (no Nurgles, I think) and starting to bump into pockets of Genestealers. Were they sent by the Brood Lord to feel us out?

Cyberpunk: The Techno-Sublime & Rock and Roll Slime

My wife and I have been talking about cyberpunk definitions. The discussion ranges from high brow post-graduate thesis to gutter-talk "I know porn when I see it". I believe this is altogether proper and fitting. Here is a concept statement. One that, I think, does a good job.

As a label, “cyberpunk” is perfection. It suggests the apotheosis of postmodernism. On the one hand, pure negation: of manners, history, philosophy, politics, body, will, affect, anything mediated by cultural memory; on the other, pure attitude: all is power, and “subculture,” and the grace of Hip negotiating the splatter of consciousness as it slams against the hard-tech future, the techno-future of artificial impermanence, where all that was once nature is simulated and elaborated by technical means, a future world-construct that is as remote from the “lessons of history” as the present mix-up is from the pitiful science fiction fantasies of the past that tried to imagine us. The oxymoronic conceit in “cyberpunk” is so slick and global it fuses the high and the low, the complex and the simple, the governor and the savage, the techno-sublime and rock and roll slime. The only thing left out is a place to stand. So one must move, always move.

Resource

Cyberpunk and Neuromanticism

Istvan Csicsery-Ronay

Mississippi Review
Vol. 16, No. 2/3 (1988), pp. 266-278
(article consists of 13 pages)

Published by: University of Southern Mississippi

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20134180

Art: Kabuki

In the mid-nineties David Mack wrote and illustrated a fantastic comic book called Kabuki. Set in Japan in the near future, it's more esoteric "punk" rather than "cyber", but I still consider it on the fringe of the Cyberpunk genre. In this piece I used a pose from the original series of the main character, codenamed Kabuki.

Mack used a variety of mediums to tell a story that was more memory and subjective recall rather than straight-up typical comic book action. Here, I sketched the image using a number two pencil, then composed the final in black ink.

The story and characters, by the way, would make a fantastic Cyberpunk 2020 campaign.

Personal Note: This marks my 50th post here on Digital Orc. I've finally settled on an aesthetic, layout, and content for this blog. My plan is to continue publishing art, maps, and documents for a variety of existing systems and making up a few of my own. My current projects include a zombie rpg/board game, an angel rpg, Labyrinth Lord (LL) adventure module, and LL campaign setting. Thanks for reading and your feedback. I'm proud to consider myself both a gamer and member of the OSR!

Player Feedback

I ran a Vampire: The Dark Age campaign for over a year in the 90's. We played once a week religiously and always finished our session with some intense multiplayer FPS on the N64. Like many of you, I oscillated in my self-evaluation as a GM. I'm guilty of constant and nagging self-reflection and over-planning. This is a trait that has served me well as both a classroom teacher and GM.

Once in a while, at the end of a session, I would hand each player a sticky note (I always have index cards and sticky notes at hand while running a game). I asked them to give me one thing they liked and one thing they disliked. That's it. There are other, more complicated, ways of soliciting and analyzing feedback, but this worked for me and that's why I chose to share this method here.

The next time I sat down to plan the upcoming session I'd go over the notes. This format is succinct enough to make a thoughtful but quick impact on the planning. Sure, sometimes I'd receive non-serious responses (see picture above), but often I would see the game from a new and helpful perspective. If nothing else, I was listening to my players and was better informed to give them what they wanted.

Dark Heresy Final Sanction: Part 2

"Move along, move along, like I know you do,
And even when your hope is gone,
move along, move along, just to make it through."
-All American Rejects "Move Along"

I had a fantastic night of gaming tonight! I showed up at the game master's house early and we chatted about various things, some actually having to do with gaming. As most of you may know, early reg for Gen Con emails went out a short time ago, so that was a topic of discussion. Mainly we discussed how the Con is growing, almost to the point of being overwhelming. Ok, Ok, we're well past "almost".

Last Gen Con, Jeff (herein referred to as the Game Master) and I met up and hung out at in the middle of the dealer's room at the White Wolf booth. The booth was actually a bar, which was fairly interesting. I don't remember seeing something like it before. Pretty girls and guys done up in Victorian and turn of the Century New Orleans dress (with fangs, of course) served expensive Heinekins as we sat on antique furniture, surrounded by gamers navigating the labyrinthine floor. Has anyone else ever felt that Gen Con dealer's room is so large now, and so filled with people, that navigating the bloody floor takes nearly as much attention as the merchandise?

Anyway, back to gaming tonight. We discussed some of the mechanics of Deathwatch and Dark Heresy in general. I developed a better understanding of mass warfare, and came to the conclusion that I should stop looking at Dark Heresy through my Labyrinth Lord lens. I love Labyrinth Lord and Dark Heresy, and appreciate the differences each bring to the table. My GM said that his biggest motivation and pleasure is in storytelling. He spends enormous amounts of time doing back story and developing maps, etc. He has a firm understanding of the mechanics, but the main purpose of the mechanics is to allow the story to unfold.

That said, the story last week left us looking for the brood lord. As we continued into the city, we came into a building were we captures a low-level mutant we were able to question. Immediately after questioning we made the mistake of splitting up to take on what we thought was a frontal attack. Soon we heard a scream from our scribe at the side of the building. A genestealer had attacked and done enough damage in a single round to put her down. I immediately came running, but was set upon by a smaller warrior. I managed to do some damage before the larger beast came into range and put me into the negatives right away. Luckily, I didn't pass out.


I decided to stick it out, and had a series of rolls that are, at this point, the luckiest I've ever had in my life. I had two percentage rolls both fall below ten when I needed them to. I then had three rolls above 90 of another series of percentage rolls when I needed them. Back to back! Side note: As the meat shield, it was doing my duty to die trying to protect my boss.

Backup came in the form of our psyker, Dinn, and in no time I was healed, but only after barely escaping death. I've played this character for over a year every Wednesday now and, while I try to play the character accurately, I still didn't want to die. Tonight was the closest I came. I only hope it doesn't bode poorly for the future (yes, that's my character turned over in the picture above).

It was an exciting game, book-ended by stimulating discussion about role-playing games in general. It's a night I'm glad to be a gamer!

Art: The Lost Angel

Nearly ten years ago I designed, wrote, illustrated, and even got around to play-testing a role-playing game based on angles. I had just seen The Prophecy with my friends and thought the topic would make a cool game. All but this illustration has been lost lost through various moves and floods and, like all lost work, grows steadily in reputation in my mind. In reality I doubt it was much of an accomplishment. Though it would be cool to find a copy (I made ten in my "first edition").

I remember creating three basic alignments; good, bad, and neutral. I created an Angelic language and level names based on various angel references in the Bible, Book of Enoch, Gnostic Gospels, etc. I also created a series of alternate worlds aligned from heaven to hell. Much of the mechanics are now lost to memory.

Above is a class picture from the "bad" alignment. I called them something along the lines of "Zakyim" or "Zakikym". Most of my names were amalgamations of Latin. The "good" guys were the "Actinalbu"... I think. Angels were powerful, multi-dimensional creatures who were essentially immortal in the physical realm. They could be, however, destroyed through various extra-dimensional means. I also remember creating modifiers for combat and skill checks the further away from their base dimension they traveled.

I know various angel role-playing games have since been published, such as In Nomine. This game, however, will always remind me to keep sketching, keep designing, keep playing, ... and start making copies.

A Delicious Recipe

You find yourself running an adventure tonight (in one hour to be exact) and you have no idea what system to use or what to plan for the adventure. You haven't even played an RPG in years, let alone run one. Relax. Take a deep breath and follow these simple steps, bake at 370, and serve warm.

Ingredients
computer
dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20) (optional)
internet
paper
pencil
people
printer

Directions
Step 1: Download Labyrinth Lord Core Rules and the screen.
Step 2: Visit Gozzy's, then build and print the dungeon of your choice.
Step 3: Skim through the rules and screen while you eat chips and salsa while Pet Shop Boys or Midnight Oil plays in the background. Wait for your friends to arrive.
Step 4: Ask your players what class/race they want to be and visit the Labyrinth Lord Character Generator. Generate and print a character for each player.
Step 5: Use page 104 to populate your dungeons as your players explore.
Optional Step 5: Use this Random Dungeon Generator to not only build your dungeon, but populate it, provide locations and all pertinent monster data.
Optional Step 5: Just use the pre-made dungeon from page 129-131 from the Core book.
Optional Step 5: Visit the forum and download one of the many adventures that sound appealing.
Step 6: Play game. Refer to screen as needed.


This dish is best served in a relatively quiet area. Tradition calls for a basement, but bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms, and even tents may suffice.

This post is dedicated to Aaron. A great friend with a great mind.

Gaming & Technology

Introduction: The Question

Having read several Old School blog posts about the upcoming Dungeons Crawl Classics project, I got to thinking about technology and format in role-playing games. Joseph Goodman asks the question, “What if Gygax and Arneson had access to the Open Game License when they created D&D?” This is an interesting question, one that leads me to; “What if Gygax and Arneson had access to today’s technology when they created D&D?” I won’t pretend to know enough about either of these gentlemen to even begin putting words in their mouths. However, I think this is a valid question since the Old School Renaissance (OSR), arguably, would not exist without certain modern technologies such as PDF’s, online forums, blogs, and eBay. It’s a question I hope the OSR community takes the time to consider. Below are a few of my, albeit incomplete, thoughts on the matter.

PowerPoints and Flowcharts

I have often wondered why I don’t see more of these in the OSR community. Combat mechanics, especially, lend themselves well to flowcharts and flowcharts can be organized easily in PowerPoint (PPT) format. The PowerPoint would be especially useful for people who aren’t familiar with the rule system. It also might be a way to bring more people into this hobby. In fact, the PPT could replace the page by page format altogether. Choose your own adventures are easy to do in PPT format, but that’s not my suggestion here. I’m thinking of ways to use PPT for sandbox play rather than railroading players in a game that doesn’t really need a referee. Instead, imagine a PPT that includes links for dungeon and character generators, combat flowcharts with linked slides, build-in number generators, etc. This format wouldn’t have to replace dice, character sheets, or books, but it could if the players wanted it. It could if it made playing more fun and inline with the writer’s intent. This format would also make pick and play (able to play a game with little prep time) a viable option for more complicated games that, in the past required considerable prep time. I acknowledge that some of this prep time is what some people love about gaming. I’m not saying it should be removed; I’m saying PPT format increased the options for all players by making pick and play available where before it wasn’t.

Smartphones and PDA’s

I’ve started using iPod Touches and current generation Androids in my classroom and can’t help but see equal viability in role-playing games. Smartphones offer innumerable apps, many of which are helpful at the gaming table and beyond. Phones can be used for long-distance play. The fourth generation iPod Touches that I use, for example, have high-definition video and picture capability. Skype, a free app, can be used to play games with anyone, anywhere. There are bestiaries, number generators, and many other apps both referees and players could put to good use. Some of the number generators, for example, actually allow rolls that aren’t possible with standard rpg dice sets. Nearly all of the technologies I discuss here can be run through a smartphone.

Blogging and Metagaming

A fairly recent Gnomestew (I am unable to link the Gnomestew article I cite here because their site is currently unavailable due to a server move) article discusses “metagaming”, a concept which has stuck with me. Metagaming is playing the game outside of the normal game time. For example, when a referee works alone to build worlds, populate them with monsters, characters, and artifacts, they are metagaming. Player characters, however, usually experience far less metagaming for a variety of reasons. Building a blog or wiki for a campaign has become fairly common and represents a convergence of various technologies that increase metagaming for players. A referee, for example, may build a blog for a specific campaign in which players characters become “builders” of the world. They can upload their art, dialogue with various NPC’s, build artifacts, etc. This enriches and enlarges the gaming experience for all involved. This does not necessarily mean all players arrive on game night laptop in hand, but offers everyone more options. I, myself, see some technologies as getting in the way of the immersion of role-playing games. A referee could easily ask all players to use laptops for metagaming and bring only paper and pencil to game night if they shared my theory of game immersion.

Projectors, Lasers, and Slates (Oh My!)

Nearly every classroom I’ve visited in the past three years have had an interactive whiteboard. Their ubiquity attests to their efficacy. Again, what is effective in the classroom can also increase fun on game night. Projectors are now far cheaper than wide-screen TV’s and transport easily. Laser pointers and remote slates (which allow digital manipulation away from the keyboard) offer referees methods by which to both wow and inform the players. While referees may easily build 3D models of their worlds and dungeons, that’s not necessarily what I’m talking about here. Campaign art, combat flowcharts, brief videos, real-time sketches, and grids can impact players on a several layers making the entire experience more invigorating.

Generators

Gaming generators are programs, often stored online, that can create objects, names, maps, characters, or creatures on the fly. Generators allow referees a greater range of depth and variability. Generators are fairly easy to program and many exist online free of charge.

Online Spreadsheets, Polls, and Documents

Referees can solicit player feedback through free online polls. Game designers can use spreadsheets to inform their design process. While working on various games I use my spreadsheet that I have programmed to give me immediate central tendency data on a variety of rolls. For example, column A is the number of die, column B is the number of faces on the die, C is the minimum result, D is the maximum, E is the outcome range, and F is the median outcome. I then use columns A and B to program the other columns to automatically calculate the minimum outcome (=A2), maximum outcome (=A2*B2), outcome range (=D2-C2), and most importantly, the median outcome (=(E2/2)+C2). These landmarks effectively inform my mechanics design. I can run through thousands of different game mechanic ideas extremely quickly. All of these documents can be created, shared, and stored online. Referee can use Good Documents, for example, to make players either editors or simply viewers. They can make players and referee editors and the entire gaming community viewers. There are countless options with these technologies.

Conclusion

These are just a few technologies that impact gaming. I conducted only a cursory amount of research on this topic and so, have likely missed important previous contributions that are, in all likelihood, superior to my own. My goal, then, is to continue my research and practice in this topic. I also hope to get more feedback on this question by submitting this post to other bloggers who have far more readers than me (not a difficult prospect, as you can see). Having recently converted to Labyrinth Lord (LL), another goal is to do what I have discussed in my second paragraph; create a Labyrinth Lord PPT containing a flowchart. I’ve started my outline, so my next step is to contact Goblinoid Games and finish my draft. Regardless, it’s an interesting time to be a gamer.

What's In A Name?

Introduction

Names take getting used to, but once they’re set, they’re well remembered and connected deep with memories. Whether you’re playing or gaming you will need to create names. Referees will need to name things more often, so this post is geared more towards them. I use several methods to create original and not-so-original names through five methods.

Inspiration

This is where you take a name directly from something you like; a movie character, author, toll booth attendant, whatever. Sometimes it’s a nod towards influence and sometimes it’s just a name. A human settlement in my current campaign includes Pirsig, an unabashed nod to Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. My cat’s name is Barnaby after DCI Tom Barnaby from Midsomer Murders, a favorite show of mine. While this might be fun for the referee, it can be in bad taste for players, so I advise you to use this method sparingly or for obscure references. I doubt, for example, many players will have strong associations with Pirsig or Lanyard Gates, so I feel they’re safe to use.

Originality

Sometimes it’s fun to invent your own language, and short of that, your own names. I sketched out an Elven language for my Amur campaign, creating basic nouns and used them to create certain names of characters and locations. Fuelletomol, for example, is their name for home forest, which I also call the entire continent. These names are interesting because there is little to no associations to cloud the waters of connections.

Word Play

I will always remember the scene in Rosemary’s Baby where Mia Farrow’s character uses Scrabble to work through anagrams to unveil an important plot point (no spoilers, see the movie; it’s one of the most accurate film interpretations of a novel). Anagrams are fun and there are websites you can use if you don’t have a Scrabble board handy (http://wordsmith.org/anagram/). “Digital Orc”, for example, makes over 400 terms. Some of the funnier phrases include Tragic Idol, Coital Grid, Triad Logic, A Colt Rigid, Taco Id Girl (I’m going to use this in Cyberpunk), Cat Gird Oil, and Liar God Tic.

Generators

There are plenty of digital and physical name generators. I own the Dwarf Handbook for 2e, and it includes a name generator section. Many of these, though, are also easy to find online. The Labyrinth Lord character generator includes name generation. Here is a dwarf name generator, and here is another (http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=dwarfnamer). The second generator, in fact, includes Dark Elf, Lovecraftian, Goblin, Vampire, and Pirate Ship name generators. Google searches for “name generator” will provide more sites than you need for this purpose. These are very helpful for on the fly games or when you’re really stumped. Some may take offense, however, since they remove some of the cerebral effort from world design.

Google Translate

When I’m looking for a cool name, or one that feels right, I often turn to Google Translate. For example, I recently wanted to create a magical double-bladed battle axe geared towards Black Dragons. I kept coming back, with increasing desperation and despondency, to “Double Dragon”. I hated the name for the video game connotations, but loved it otherwise. Finally, I turned to Google Translate. I typed in “double” and “dragon” and ran through a series of languages (Google offers over 50), eventually settling on German. “Double” is “doppel” and “dragon” is “drachen”, so I created the Doppeldrachen. I often blend languages, break grammatical rules, and make other modifications of my own to meet my own aesthetics. What this approach offers, however, is an original name that still echoes with various cultural associations. I will even take this approach further and associate certain races in my campaign with real world languages to create a feeling of continuity. For example, my Dwarven language often uses Germanic influences, my Elfs are Italian, humans speak Latin, and Goblins Welsh. Finally, Google Translate offers to read the terms aloud, so even languages like Arabic and Urdu are fair game.

Conclusion

Gamers and referees alike can take advantage of these methods to create and use names that become memorable locations and characters. Names are important. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, but that without a cool name is soon forgotten.

Magical Weapon: The Gwyntmar

The Gwyntmar, also referred to in ancient texts as Moartavant or Halalszeal is a +1 double-bladed magical battle axe. The handle is wrapped in leather of Human, Dwarf, Goblin, Gnome, and Elven skin dyed black. Seven leather thongs hang from four skulls of unknown species below a larger humanoid skull. Mounted into the skull are two black blades.

All major cultures have myths that, in some way, reference what is thought to be the Gwyntmar. The age of this magical item is disputed by Old World historians, however, because the weapon contains several skins of species that have supposedly never co-existed at the time of its forging.

The Gwyntmar emits Fear at a radius of 15 feet. Whoever picks up the Gwyntmar must make a save versus spells. A failed save causes the character to commit suicide using the weapon. If the character saves successfully, their alignment becomes chaotic. If any living creature is killed by the player using Gwyntmar, the corpse resurrects and becomes a permenant zombie retainer after 1d4 turns. As long as the character has possession of the Gwyntmar the zombie retainers will follow all verbal commands. If the character attempts to destroy or abandon the Gwyntmar, they must make a save versus spells or commit suicide. If the character successfully saves, any remaining zombie retainers will immediately fight the character to the death.

Zombie Retainer
No. Enc.: -
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 60'/20'
Armor Class: 9
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: 1 (bite)
Damage: 1d6
Save: F1
Morale: 20
Hoard Class: None
XP: 20

Zombie Retainers are slow moving reanimated corpses that are gradually decomposing. They are immune to charm and sleep, and attack last each round. Unable to use convention weapons, they tend to overwhelm opponents through numbers. They have an insatiable desire for humanoid brains. Zombie Retainers follow simple verbal commands.

New Amur: Mythos

Far in the past, before Dwarf or Man, there existed one enlightened super being, their self-referencing name being long forgotten. Dwarven cultures refer to them as the “Ur” or “Urmenschen”. Several Elven histories call them the “Light Ones” or “Uomo”. Human’s tend to use “God” or “Godhead”. Goblins call these super-creates “OrDragos” or “MaUr”. Other cultures have their own names, too. For disparate reason, these enlightened super beings were split apart into separate races; Dwarf, Man, Elf, Gnome, and Goblin. Each race was, and is still, unable to mate outside of their race, and so quickly formed their own cultures.

Dark Heresy Final Sanction: Part 1

My gaming group got together after a two week break to resume our Dark Heresy game last night. We've only recently switched over to Deathwatch and I don't have a copy of the book (though I did just get a PDF of Ascension), so I'm not up on the new rules. My game master, though, is pretty good about mechanics, so I feel somewhat safe in saying we need to modify mass warfare. It's ironic that I'm playing a role-playing game that is based on large army miniature battles that has cumbersome mass combat mechanics. By cumbersome I mean the amount of rolling per battle per participant quickly becomes a handful if you have more than ten or so. Thank god our party's psyker, Dynn, is adept with Holocaust and several other abilities that tend to wipe out swaths of enemies often wrecking the enemy's morale in the act.

Anyway, even though I've referred to our campaign as "Final Sanction", our game master has significantly modified the story from the Deathwatch text. Officially the campaign is broken into two large sections; one in which the PC's land and resist the Tyrranid swarm and two; the PC's pilot a ship into the hive in a suicide mission. This second part is an optional adventure, and I should think so. My current character requires eight pages of information. For those of you who don't know, Dark Heresy is a fairly crunchy game with books for character sheets... I'm not kidding. Part of the girth comes from recording every spent XP on various upgrades as you progress through your "Career Path". I'll save this topic, though, for another post.

Having dropped on the planet, we moved into the capital city of Lordshomme and quickly came across evidence of genestealers. The big question is; how far gone is the planet? Coming into the city proper, we discover all transmissions are jammed and things don't look up for the good guys. Uh, I forget who the "good guys" are at this point...

We engage and defeat small PDF forces and other groups and move into the Governor's property. There, we are finally able to communicate with the guard and gain access to the main structure. Inside is a surprising scene; the governor is in full-on denial mode. He doesn't accept our assertions that the planet is being overwhelmed. He asserts the genestealer problem has been blown out of proportion and victory is near. We barely stop our boss, Inquisitor Graves, from smashing this guy with his power fist when, you guessed it, a group of genestealers literally drop in, causing extreme destruction. I, myself, am referred to as the "meat shield" and was nearly killed. The governor, by a series of extremely unlikely rolls, manages to evade death and locks himself into a back room. Eventually we clean up the mess, largely with our psyker's assistance, and move into the back property.

There we come across a massive army which, again, our psyker basically defeats single-handed by dropping his fetters and immolating the army. In the aftermath of this battle I am reminded that Dark Heresy needs to streamline their mass battle mechanics, and that our party, which is composed of three warriors, one scribe, and one wizard (psyker) is largely impotent compared to the psyker. I'll get into a discussion about balance in another post.

Now we are faced with several decisions. Is the planet doomed? Do we bother looking for a brood lord? How do we find the brood lord? We continue to investigate...

Wandering Thoughts on Game Design

I enjoy both playing and designing games. As a school teacher I have used and designed games for use in my classroom to help my students meet their learning goals. Outside of the classroom I have also designed and modified games for my gaming friends. Again and again I have likened a good game to a car, where the mechanics are the engine. Normally, I dislike analogy, but make a rare exception here. In this post I discuss aspects of game design including number of players, fun factor and meta-gaming, goals, and mechanics.

Mentzer’s Red Box included a single-player game. Several of the following B-series modules could be run by oneself. That is, the person playing was both the referee and player. This may fly in the face of some gamers, but why? Clearly role-playing games have social aspects, but, when created properly, some rpgs can be just as much fun alone as in group play.

Is the game designed for multiple players, but is also fun when you’re not playing with others? In my opinion, this is something that can increase the fun factor no matter what genre or goal. Most role-playing games have a high meta-game factor for the referees, but not for players. How to increase this for players is a question a good designer asks themselves.

What makes such a game fun? Each person may have different concepts of fun, but if we’ve gathered around a common game, there must also be something each person can get out of it to derive pleasure. Fun is critical, but it is also vague and only part of the picture. I agree with Ian Schreiber that a game designer should pay close attention to, not only how much fun players are having, but what they spend their time doing during game play. Do the players spend large amounts of time in melee combat when the goal of your game is political maneuvering? Good games are designed to reward players based on the game’s goal.

What is the game’s goal? This should be an important consideration when designing a game. Akin to learning objectives for teachers, this is the framework or praxis that undergirds everything. The mechanics, art, layout, pace, etc, all feed into a concept which attempts to accomplish a goal or goals. All aspects of the game don’t have to drive towards a goal, but most should.

What mechanic is used a lot? Is it used consistently? Can gamers understand it easily? Does it match the goal/setting? Do the mechanics increase or decrease fun? Is working out a good combination of rolls a fun and challenging part of the game, or does it get overly complicated and bog down the fun? The answer to these questions varies from gamer to gamer. They are questions to consider, however, when designing a game for your friends. Will they want to understand the mechanics?

Dice probability quickly gets complicated. What referees and players are asked to do with the outcomes and the use of charts further complicates the math behind the mechanics. However, just because the mathematics behind the rolling is complicated doesn’t mean understanding how to play the game is complicated, too. I’ve had fourth grade students learn to play a variety of card games successfully that have extremely complicated probabilities behind them.

When designing games it behooves the designer to understand, to some extent, probability. In this way, s/he can create a game engine that does what s/he wants it to. I’m not talking about balancing of powers, but balancing of probabilities when it’s needed. The goal of the game, in many cases, dictates what the mechanics should be. For example, are you designing a near future game, with a focus on politics? A good game design might be to increase the probability of death by firearm combat and increase the chances of both succeeding and needing to apply political means. Understanding a little about probability also enables gamers to create effective house rules.

Bell curves offer a quick way to understand probability. Image the x-axis as the number of different possible outcomes and the y-axis as the probability of those outcomes occurring. The frequency of the rolls is important when selecting dice and combinations. For example, if rolling for stats, you should probably increase the number of dice rolled to “flatten” your bell curve. If you have a low number of dice for stat rolling, there is a greater probability of rolling extreme stats. On the flip side, if you’re doing a specific roll often, you may want to reduce the number of die. You will adhere to the bell curve over time, while still allowing players a higher probability of extreme rolls (which are fun in combat, but not so much during character generation). As the number of dice in the pool is increased, the standard deviation also tends to increases and the mean result lowers. In other words, as you increase the dice pool you are more likely to roll closer to the average.

As you increase the number of faces on your die, you obviously increase the number of possible results, but you also increase the range of results. A low number of die with a high number of faces provides an extremely wide bell curve. Assuming you add the die results, as you increase the number of die in the pool, the bell curve gets wider and flattens out on top. As you increase the number of faces on the die, only the bell curve base widens.

Die Roll Combinations

Low die/high face: With this roll, extremes are likely. When there are large number of possible outcomes that are nearly equally likely to happen, this is a good selection. Charts and tables benefit from this type of die roll.

Low die/low face: This combination gives a small range of likely outcomes. This works well for damages. It provides a tightly controlled variation of outcomes. When there are a small number of possible outcomes that are nearly equal, this is a good selection.

High die/high face: This works well for conflicting roll. When you need an extremely large number of possible outcomes, this is a good selection.

High die/low face: Large range, average or close to average likely. This works well for character stats. When there are a large number of possible outcomes, but most results are grouped around the mean, this is a good selection.

These are a few characteristics of role-playing games that I consider when playing, running, and designing games. They are far from clear or complete. I hope to continue these thoughts in future posts.

Resources

http://hubpages.com/hub/tabletoprpgdesign

http://www.scattershotgames.com/index.php/design/role-playing-game-design-no-really/

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-create-a-DD-style-tabletop-game/

http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2010/09/05/tabletop-rpgs-and-level-editors/

Cthulhupunk: An Interesting Genre

By 1995 the Cyberpunk genre had been going strong with movies and literature for over a decade. Successful games such as Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun had proven it was viable as an RPG as well. The Cythulhu Mythos also had, at this time, a very strong gamer fan base with Call of Cthulhu. Cthulhupunk, written with Chaosim’s permission by Chris McCubbin for GURPS, was an interesting hybrid of these two genres. The book lived through two editions and, while out of print now, is fairly easy to pick up online.

There is little online evidence of this specific genre. There are a few outdated sites here and there, but the genre, as a whole, seemingly failed to take hold as an authentic “-punk” genre such as Splatterpunk. Movies such as Event Horizon and games such as Dark Heresy demonstrate that otherworldly horrors and near future settings can work in cinema and gaming, so, while the term itself may never have caught on culturally, the blended genre is certainly successful and pertinent.

Regardless, this book is a fun read with plenty of characters, spells, scenarios, art, and interesting speculations about the Old Ones in the dark near future. Some of the “punk” in Cthulhupunk is a little strained, but this is also true in Cyberpunk 2020. I picked up a copy for a few bucks on eBay and find it to be a nice compliment to both my sci fi and horror games.

Note: The first edition cover art (pictured above) is far inferior to the second.