Thursday, February 17, 2011

Jumping ship!

This blog is now an archive. All future updates will be here.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

My new campaign

I've begun an experimental game. It consists of a game of factional diplomacy and treachery by a group online (old gaming buddies and friends), and a tabletop game in "the meatspace" as one has called it. Both are using rather improvisational Fudge-based rules (I can't stand the capitals to write it properly: FUDGE). The players on the internet are part player and part-GM: they have to fight and faction, but they get points for writing game material and


This is the first time I've ever GMd in Fudge, and I finally get what the other GMs are raging about. No, I'm not claiming a wealth of comparative experience. For me, this is literally "So this is life outside of Dungeons and Dragons..." Obviously I've read other sessions. I got interested in Burning Wheel for how it linked story to game mechanic; I liked a lot of the minimalist systems I'd seen (just a few main attributes, a couple of distinguishing marks).

But Fudge is quite nice. I literally make the game up as I go along. The character sheets were composed of a mental list
  • What am I going to roll when bad stuff happens to them?
  • What am I going to roll when they want to do things?
  • What plot hooks can I use to make them dance?
That's about it. The players are doing the same thing I did when reading the rules, and using numbers instead of adjectives. Fudge attributes are rated on a scale of Terrible to Superb. I find it easy to generate enemies appropriate for a situation. If they're getting in a barfight, I figure everyone there is basically a mediocre fighter. Not poor or terrible, to be sure, but with no real skill. Or it could be a rougher bar, and a few fair combatants step out of the pack. But from a word I have an instant combat skill.

Then I just adjudicate the players' tactics. The first fight was pretty simple, not much to it. I think I have to put the players in "chunkier" terrain. The docks aren't flat wharves. Piers extend into the water, pyramid of wine casks, merchants stalls, and of course rigged ships. I haven't got any such thing as hit points, weapons, or armour yet, and I think even there I'll just distinguish between armed and unarmed, and allow for light or heavy armours (and heavy armour will have severe drawbacks: maintainance costs and the turtle-on-its-back effect).

This absurdity has gone to the point where the faction players and the tabletop players are working on two different kinds of character sheet. Why did I do that to myself? I've stopped asking for character sheets and I ask for paragraphs instead. One by myself:
A scarred veteran of the crusade against the Naratoi heresy, Sir Hector of the Redbanner Guard is a fearsome man. He served with distinction during the entire war, and after the fall of Narat he was knighted by his master the Count. A hard-headed, devout individual, he represents a pillar of stability as he leads the Redbanners through the streets of Umwart.
I had a discussion with my uncle the other night about the use of adjectives; we agreed that an adjective needs to justify itself in a text: if it doesn't tell you something pertinent, it doesn't belong. Here, the use of adjectives is strategic. I sit down at the table with a list of extras generated by the faction players (who score points to be used for deviousness whenever I use their characters). One good paragraph tells me what I know to put a character in any situation.

It's a similar experience to coding text adventures in Inform. Every word matters. You come up with a list of elements that can be manipulated, and you decide on their properties ad-hoc. So I find myself noting the prowess of the fighting challenge in the adventure, or the difficulty of a task. But really, apart from a list of characters (and after my first experience, plot hooks!) there isn't any real plan. I'm going to try to keep the system light and easy (complexity online is another manner... this thing will be a rulebook when it's done), and keep improvising. But I wouldn't mind enough rules to run one session as a tactical wargame (even a loose one), or to run a decent duel. I guess I just need a sentence, and figure out where the adjectives are justified.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

An experiment in the second person



Long time no post... I haven't had much to write about for a few months, but today I played the first session of what's looking to be a promising campaign. Afterwards we got to chatting and I admitted I had been thoroughly unrested for the game due to having discovered the strange and wonderful thing that is Omegle, in which you voluntarily dump yourself into a random chatroom with a random stranger. Yes, it's as masochistic as it sounds. Lots of horny men. Quite boring. One of my friends pointed me towards this strip from penny arcade (detailed exposition here). So I thought I'd vary the theme. I entered the chat room equipped only with this paragraph:

The dust sloughs off your boots as you enter the dimly lit saloon. The piano plinks away in the background of noisy cattlehands wasting their wages on two-dollar whisky and ten-dollar whores. But all of this fades into insignificance, for across the bar you see him, the man you've been hunting for all these months. At long last, he stands before you. He sways uneasily in his seat, having clearly over-indulged, but you feel not a hint of sympathy for the bastard. Crazy Zeke Williams...

A lot of instant disconnects. I got called a jerkoff. Several people asked me whether I was writing a novel, or assumed I was quoting something. Quite flattering. Some clearly had their own agenda, and pasted various links to sex links into the chat window as quickly as I pasted my western. But I did generate two gems. The first related the story of a young woman hunting down her sister's rapist. Having killed him, she is confronted by the Deputy, her former something (backstory was implied, but hardly explicit). In the end, she dies rather than facing a trial. It was actually one of the most fascinating gaming experiences I've had in ages.

Unfortunately, the computer ate the chat log. So you're going to have to content yourself with second place.

I will chase you across time and space for your crimes
You: The dust sloughs off your boots as you enter the dimly lit saloon. The piano plinks away in the background of noisy cattlehands wasting their wages on two-dollar whisky and ten-dollar whores. But all of this fades into insignificance, for across the bar you see him, the man you've been hunting for all these months. At long last, he stands before you. He sways uneasily in his seat, having clearly over-indulged, but you feel not a hint of sympathy for the bastard. Crazy Zeke Williams...
Stranger: reading
You: The piano picks up a familiar tune. A few of the boys sing along drunkenly.
Stranger: does he know I am looking for him, or is bhe oblivious?
You: Zeke belches.
Stranger: my actions depend on if he knows I am coming for him or not.
You: (You tell me.)
Stranger: he doesn't
Stranger: because I was stealthy
You: An argument seems to be brewing in one corner over a card game.
You: It settles down to dull grumbling.
Stranger: I use this distraction
Stranger: I walk around the opposite side of the room, while zeke looks at the argument
You: Zeke grunts, "More whisky, Sam..."
You: "Hoo boy!"
You: He laughs at what he imagines is his own wit.
Stranger: I signal my partner to set off the bar-room clearing distraction
Stranger: the distraction is an old-time flash-bang grenade
You: Your radio crackles.
Stranger: during the ensuing confusion, I take out my knife and gut Zeke from belly to throat and flee the scene
You: "You got ten minutes left, Captain. The wormhole's destabilising!"
Stranger: ten minutes? no problem
Stranger: I tell adam (partner) to high-tail it back to the wormhole
You: Your partner nods curtly as he lays the incineration charges on Zeke's body.
Stranger: too gruesome... ?
You: "No problem Captain. Just lemme mem-zap 'em."
Stranger: I say to adam: "this is what the man deserves for letting lose Barney the Dinosaur onto the world...AND inventing the teletubbies"
Stranger: no one who invents those things should be allowed to live
Stranger: ok adam, go for it. zap em
You: As the flames consume Zeke's body, Adam throws a few memory grenades at the startled denizens of the nineteenth century.
You: He rushes for the door to avoid the blast.
You: Someone says, "Now what in tarntion..."
You: BOOM!
You: You have been caught in the radius of a mem-zap.
Stranger: damn!
Stranger: wait, what in tarnation....
You: Standard protocol means Adam must abandon you.
Stranger: was adam caught too?
You have disconnected.