No one is ruining the RPG hobby.

"I can't play the game I want to play because of someone on the internet."
                                   -No One Ever

A hobby is not a religion or a political movement. It is not harmed by the opinions on topics not related to the actual hobby. The only opinion that matters is your own. This means that your opinion isn't shit to other people unless they really want it to be.

Don't be a baby about people who think differently than you. They aren't villains. They aren't 'part of the problem.' There is no 'problem.'

Take some god damn responsibility for yourself. Stop thinking that stranger from the internet is going to take away the things you like in games or force in things you don't like. That will never happen. That's not how RPGs work.

I could spend all my time writing on this blog about things I don't like in games, bit that would be a waste of time. Those things don't effect me. I'll stick to writing about things I like. Those are the only things that matter.

What I Will Be Doing at Gen Con 2013

I will be attending Gen Con this year and with only nine days to go I am getting very excited. I attended last year but didn't really do much other than tool around the exhibition hall, play one game of Savage Worlds, play a single game of Dominion, and volunteer for four hours each day. It was still fun, but I couldn't help but feel like I missed out on the Gen Con experience.

This year will be different. I've taken full advantage of the event registration system and will not be volunteering at all. I will be playing in five different RPGs and a ton of Arkham Horror games. My schedule is so packed that I will be making rations packages because I will not have time to leave the convention center for a meal on some days. It's going to be a very busy four days.

Here is what I am looking forward to:

DC Heroes

I've been wanting to play this game since the early 1990s when I purchased the second edition box set and several supplements with my allowance. It was my first RPG but I just wanted it for the books of stats and background on various superheroes. I read some of the rules but never worked up the courage to ask someone to play it with me before eventually selling the set on ebay. It was a real missed opportunity since I didn't get to play an RPG until I was an adult.

I'll be playing in a Justice League game of DC Heroes at Gen Con. I"m currently re-reading the rules since I'm expected to know them for the game. This is probably the one game that I'm looking forward to the most because I can't wait to see how it actually plays at the table. The MEGS system seems like a strange rule set, but it's surprisingly simple and facilitates much more improvisation that its universal measurement system lets on.

Doctor Who Games

I'll be playing two different Doctor Who-related games. The first is a session of the Cubicle 7 official Doctor Who game. The second is a Savage Worlds game that mashes up Doctor Who with the Firefly universe. It seems that many of the games at Gen Con are big, high-concept, mash-up extravaganzas and The Great TARDIS Robbery sounds too cool to miss.

Ever since I registered for these games I have been binge-watching Doctor Who, viewing every episode from the beginning of the rebooted series. There's something terrifying about playing as characters from the series, especially the Doctor himself.

Dice

I'm not much for shopping in the exhibition hall, but it's very hard to resist the siren call of the giant bins of dice at the Chessex booth or the beautifully designed dice of Q-Workshop. Hopefully I will be able to resist buying another coffee mug worth of dice, but I will be on the lookout for unique dice that I can add to my GM arsenal.

Arkham Horror

I'll definitely be getting my Arkham Horror fix this year with three games, including a session of To the Barricades, which adds all of the expansions for a massive 18-player game. I don't play all that much Arkham Horror, so that game sounds terrifying for many reasons. I may be biting off more than I can chew, but the epic scale of the game is hard to pass up.

Being the Player

Since jumping into the hobby three years ago, I have been the player in a game only once and that was at last year's Gen Con. GMing a game is fun and exciting, but it is a very different experience than that of the player. The level of mystery and urgency isn't there. A game experience is so incredibly different when you are on the other side of the screen.

I'll also be playing in a Vampire: The Requiem and Castles & Crusades game, and I'll probably hang out at Games on Demand should I ever find myself without something to do for a good chunk of time.

Meeting New People

This is a weird thing for me to look forward to since I am an extreme introvert, but people at Gen Con are generally good people. Being surrounded by people with whom you have a shared interest and no pretense really helps bring the most staunch introvert out of his shell. I've heard a lot about people being dick heads at con games, but it seems to me that most people want to make the absolute best of their short time at Gen Con and are therefor on their best, most charitable behavior.

Dungeon Robber: Flash Game That Takes You Through Appendix A

What started as a Kickstarter for a cool poster that presents Appendix A as a flow chart dungeon map has ended in the creation of a flash-based game that leads you on an adventure through a dungeon that generates as you go.

Dungeon Robber is a very fun game, being a very stripped down version of a dungeon crawl from the oldest of schools. You start as a penniless robber with a club and gradually become a hero with cool magical items. Just be sure to leave the dungeon and go to the bank to level up. And also be careful fishing. I caught a sea monster with my hook and was promptly killed.

Play Dungeon Robber.

Wild Card Creator Public Beta Released

Almost one year ago a young man walked up to me as I waited to get a seat in a game during Gen Con 2012's Savage Saturday Night and handed me a business card. The card directed me to a Kickstarter campaign for a Savage Worlds character creator that would take all of the heavy lifting out of generating a character. Although it isn't exactly a nightmare to create a character in SW, I immediately thought of all the time I could save when creating characters for a new campaign, with new players. I backed the project as soon as I got home.

One year later Wild Card Creator has been released as a public beta. I've been a part of the closed beta for a while but now anyone can jump in. The cost of the beta (and the finished product once it is done) is currently $20.

Wild Card Creator is a very simple program that runs in Java and has builds for Mac, Windows and Linux. The no-frills approach provides an easy to use interface. Once you've created a few characters, you'll find yourself breezing through the process in less than a minute. After you've created the character, it can be exported to a setting-specific character sheet or a basic, clean print-out. The character can also be saved for easy advancement later.

For all its simplistic beauty, I'm hesitant to praise Wild Card Creator too highly. Currently there are several key features that are missing, such as creating custom Arcane backgrounds and Knowledge skills. While I can get around the Arcane Background problem, I believe that the Knowledge skills are a key way of making a character unique on the fly. To get around this you will need to create a homebrew campaign and manually create these custom skills, which is a lot of work for something that is designed to be easy. 

One of the selling points for Wild Card Creator is the ability to import all of the special character rules from various published settings, just by owning the PDF. This is the feature that really sold me on the program since my SW PDF collection is only growing day-by-day. Several PDFs are already supported, such as Realms of Cthulhu and the Fantasy Companion, but I expect the inclusion of additional settings to be very slow coming. The promise of this product makes being patient very difficult. Wild Card Creator is the work of one man, which means that updates are few and far between.

All things considered, Wild Card Creator is shaping up to be a fine product. If you're committed to running Savage Worlds in many different genres, it's definitely worth checking out. Just don't expect it to be a perfect product any time soon.

My Biggest Gaming Hate: Codified Roleplaying

I, like most other committed GMs, are on a constant search for The Perfect Game, that one game that has the perfect set of rules for our play style. Unfortunately, it seems that no such game exists. So while the hunt for the Perfect Game, seems to be ultimately fruitless, it does have the added benefit of honing our sense of what we like and what we don't like in a game.

Recently I have come to identify one common element that I hate above all others: codified roleplaying.

I hate games that tell you how to play a character and are built upon mechanisms that don't work unless someone plays the character "right."  The reason I think this sucks is that rather than naturally flowing with the story and reacting like a real person, the player must remove themselves from the scene to analysis how the character would best approach the situation. If she's playing a game in which there is a mechanical reward for "good" roleplaying, there is a potential for analysis paralysis as she considers the best way to game the system with her character's next action or dialogue.

There are a lot of games out there that are based around codified roleplaying, and there seems to be more and more every day as the story games become more popular. The earliest example of codified roleplaying is likely the nine alignments of AD&D, but now there are games like Fate Core that are almost nothing but rules on how to play a character "right."

I want very much to like Fate Core. It has a lot going for it and truth be told it's quite a brilliant game. If I were to every run a setting that is completely unlike anything published with concepts like superpowers or time travel that are hard to nail down, I'd probably turn to Fate. Since the character is composed of descriptive Aspects defined by the player, they would have a great idea of what a character can or can't do. The rules are also very simple, which is something I love as a GM.

But then I think about how a game of Fate Core would actually play out. Because the rules mimic conventions in fiction, it seems to me that Fate is more about playing a narrative device than a character. When you define a character with tropes, its just the tropes that you're going to be playing with. On the other hand, most traditional games have characters that are defined by characteristics directly related to actions. When the dice are thrown, it's in regard to how successful the character is in performing an action, not whether or not the invoked trope will work out in the narrative.

Savage Worlds probably has the most about of codified roleplaying that I can handle as most of the Hindrances offer no explicit mechanical benefit. The underlying mechanism is that when a Bloodthirsty character kills the already subdued enemy, he gets a benny. The problem I have with this as a GM is that I have a terrible time keeping track of roleplaying Hindrances and don't reward them when I should. A player would likely need to look me in the eye and say, "I am killing him because my character is Bloodthirsty." Talk about breaking the scene.

In my Perfect Game there would be no rules that dictate how a character should be played. Evil characters are such because of the actions the player takes, not because of what is on the character sheet. Likewise, charming characters are not so because they have that trait on their sheet, but because their players make them so at the table.

It can be argued that codifying character personality and social skills allows people to play characters that are dramatically different than they are in real life. The awkward loser can play a dashing knight and the shy wallflower can play an intimidating thug. My solution to this problem, rather than ruining fun with codified roleplaying, is for the GM to give the players a fucking break. If someone is trying to be smooth in my game, I let that play out, even if the truth is far from the fiction. If someone is trying to bully an NPC and that character has given them good reason to be afraid, that NPC will be shaking in his boots.

I believe that roleplaying is something that you just end up doing in an RPG. It doesn't need to be force onto a player, nor should the GM have to enforce "correct" roleplaying. When that dungeon door opens and a giant poisonous caterpillar spills out, the most natural reaction will always be the best.

Review: Lamentation of the Flame Princess - Rules & Magic ("Hardcover" Edition)

The latest printing of the LotFP rules has the publisher breaking from their tradition of compact box sets with a beautifully designed hardcover. Largely this is the same rules that appears in the Grindhouse Edition, with the exception of an overhaul to the layout and the addition of rules for early modern firearms and armor.

At this point I feel that there are enough reviews of LotFP as a game that I don't need to go into much detail in that regard. However, I do want to reiterate that this is an excellent game. I would go so far as saying that it is the best retroclone on the market. The changes that it makes to Basic Dungeons and Dragons are all excellent and greatly improve the game experience. When I run a game of "D&D," even with elves and dragons and magic wands everywhere, I use LotFP. It's just a good game.

Also, LotFP has the best character sheet I've ever seen. Everything a player would need to know is displayed clearly with no mental math and no rules memorization. Other game publishers can learn a lot from these character sheets.

If you want to see why this is such a great set of rules, even for high fantasy games which it is not intended for, check out the free no-art version.

So is the art worth paying $5? Definitely.

LotFP gets a lot of attention because of the art in its products, especially the core books. The art alone is the reason for the 18+ warning on the cover and has caused quite a bit of controversy. I have some mixed feelings about the art because I feel it draws too much attention away from the rules and presents the game as specifically a horror game. I know that's how James Raggi, the creator of LotFP, runs his game, but the rules do not demand any specific setting or tone. That aside, the artwork in this book is amazing. Many of the pieces from the early editions return and other less evocative works are replaced with art that better captures the weird fantasy vibe.

The way that the artwork is integrated into the layout is also spectacular. When reading the no-art version, keep in mind that every large block of white space is filled with something awesome in the full version.

The major addition to the rules is the appendix for early modern firearms and armor. These rules clearly are the product of diligent research and playtesting. The price of the book is worth it for these rules along, as they go so much further than reskinned crossbows. The artwork is also essential for this appendix as if gives you a crash course in early firearms, complete with detailed illustrations of these awesome but wholly unfamiliar weapons.

With this edition I really think LotFP has established its place as a leader in the OSR movement. It's a testiment to the quality one can expect from the publisher and a beautiful packaging of my favorite old-school ruleset.

You can buy LotFP Rules & Magic in PDF at RPGNow and in print at the LotFP store.

Planet Motherfucker Character Template: Black Metal Berzerker

Black Metal Berserker

PURE FUCKING EVIL!!! With the unholy strength of Satan (or cruel pagan gods, if you prefer) you shall burn a demonic path through the wastes of Planet Motherfucker, with all those left in your wake thoroughly impressed by your grim coldness. 

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d4, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d8, Lockpicking d4, Shooting d4, Stealth d6, Investigation d4, Notice d4, Survival d4, Intimidation d6, Faith d8
Charisma 0; Pace 6; Parry 5; Toughness 6
Hindrances: Bloodthirsty (+2), Quirk (must convince other of his pure evilness) (+1)
Edges: Arcane Background (Miracles), Berserk
Gear: Spiked Mace (damage: d6+d8, +2 vs. rigid armor, Parry –1, 2 hands), Black leather armor (+1), $50 in trade goods (toilet paper and beer)
Spells: Fear, Smite
Power Points: 10