Merry- er, Happy Holidays!

The trouble with wanting to post something(s) on Christmas is that it means having to post on Christmas. That plan got thrown off by 5 days spent either at the households of relatives or working 8-hour shifts and then coming home to play host to groups of young cousins. But now, at last, I have access to my computer and the time to use it. . .and I'm leaving to a beach house that probably doesn't have wireless for 4 days in under 24 hours. (sigh)

Anyway, one of goals is done: I've gone over the Portraits section of my image collection, checking for duplicates and renaming all the files whose titles were just strings of numbers. The fully updated and hopefully-more-searchable gallery can still be found here; I'm still working on sprucing up the contents of the other sections.

As for the other project: It's something I swore I'd have done before 2009. With any luck, it'll be done before I have to leave tomorrow morning, to a destination with low odds of having any net connection. We'll see. . .

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We've got Spirits, how about you? (Part 1)

So against my better tastes, I checked out some parts of the Ghost Rider movie. WOW, is it bad. But some of the glimmers of potential helped push forward my own thinking and help me expand on the cosmology I started to outline in my earlier piece on souls. The following is a rewritten version of the start of this scene; it also serves as a demonstrative anecdote for what I've got in mind. . .

(Johnny stops and stares at the man inspecting his bike.)

JOHNNY BLAZE: You.

MEPHISTO: (Without looking up:) Good to see you to, Johnny Boy. Nice bike.

JOHNNY BLAZE: Stay away from me.

MEPHISTO: Oh, I couldn't do that. I'm your greatest fan. Pheonix, Denver, Houston. . .I've been watching over you, all along.

JOHNNY BLAZE: It *was* you- keeping me alive.

MEPHISTO: Oh, no, no- It's all you, Johnny! You've got that fire inside, that special something which keeps you going, always driving you on to the next big thrill. Me, I've just been here to watch it grow. And now I need that fire to make sure a little job of mine gets done right.

JOHNNY BLAZE: Not interested.

MEPHISTO: (Chuckles) You think you have a choice.

JOHNNY BLAZE: I know these games you play- they've got rules. You can't make me do anything, not if I refuse.

MEPHISTO: Ah, yes. That pesky old rule number one: No direct control over those poor souls who catch my eye. (Continuing as he points towards Johnny's chest:) But I don't see any soul there, Johnny. Just a shell; a brain and a body, going through the motions.

JOHNNY BLAZE: You trying to say I'm just a machine?

MEPHISTO: Normally you would be. But I'm a generous kind of guy, even though no one ever shows any gratitude. See, there's something special about that empty space where a soul used to be. It's the perfect place to plant a seed, and watch it grow, until the day it finally bears fruit. And believe me, ten years is nothing when you've been around as along as I have.

JOHNNY BLAZE: Whatever you want done, do it yourself.

(He gets on the bike to leave, but Mephisto closes a hand on his arm.)

MEPHISTO: It's time, Zarathos. Find the one called Blackheart and destroy him for me.

(Johnny reacts to the name as though he's been dunked in ice water. It takes him a second to remember to jerk his arm away.)

JOHNNY BLAZE: What'd you just call me?

MEPHISTO: Part of you recognizes that name, doesn't it? (Continuing as Johnny begins to shudder and gasp- he's having some kind of attack.) A part that's buried deep, and now it's clawing its way out to answer its master's call.

(Johnny tries to say something, but can't get the words out.)

MEPHISTO: I told you, Johnny- you're just a shell. It's the fire inside I want; so now I'm turning that shell inside out.

(Still struggling to breathe, Johnny manages to seize the throttle and send the bike roaring away. Mephisto watches him go with a smile.)

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What is a roleplaying game?

At the start of this year, I made a post wherein I attempted to work out my philosophy of game design. (Philosophy meaning "the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge, esp. with a view to improving or reconstituting them") Though it helped to advance my thought process, I can't say I succeeded in reaching a clear thesis at the time. The other day, while explaining roleplaying games to a non-geek, I realized I now had a clearer idea of just what (in my mind) makes something a roleplaying game:

A roleplaying game is a form of group storytelling with rules that dictate the mechanics of player success and failure. These rules enhance the experience in two ways: First, they make the story more compelling by providing concrete gauges of a situation. Second, they provide the player with a series of interesting strategic choices, turning the experience into game.

Read on for a more detailed description of what the different parts of this definition mean, as well as an explanation of how they relate to GNS theory.

"A roleplaying game is a form of group storytelling. . ."
I could get into the use of a GM here, but that's a common aspect, not an essential/defining one. Same reason that I don't mention, say, the use of random chance.

". . .with rules that dictate the mechanics of player success and failure. . ."
I had my doubts about this phrasing- I was imagining the possibility of an existing or future RPG which "killed the sacred cow" of rules dealing with player success. But then I realized that without the possibility of varying degrees of success, you can't have a game- it would just be a roleplaying exercise.

". . .These rules enhance the experience in two ways. . ."
If you want to get technical there certainly other ways that one can use rules to hypothetically improve the player's experience in one way or another. But the following two are the only ones I consider significant and defining.

". . .First, they make the story more compelling by providing concrete gauges of a situation. . ."
For example, your current level of injury. It's not actually necessary for the player to have access to a given gauge- for example, in Unknown Armies the GM keeps track of everyone's hp and just gives players rough descriptions of how their characters feel. The point is that the players know there's a gauge measuring their character's health- that there are procedures in place which will dictate what happens, even if that procedure is sometimes just "it's the GM's call".

I'm actually tempted to split this bit into two subcategories- rules as a source of consistency and rules as a frame of reference to help us understand a situation.

". . .Second, they provide the player with a series of interesting strategic choices, turning the experience into game."
I was going to say that it makes the experience fun. But fun, defined broadly, isn't essential. A roleplaying game doesn't have to involve a "fun time". It's easy to envision a well-done roleplaying game where the player's primary emotions consist of sadness and anger, and the PCs strive to achieve their goal but still ultimately fail. "Fun", in the sense of pleasant sensations, wouldn't seem like it apply to such an experience- but a different sense of the word would still be quite appropriate.

In his book on game design, Raph Koster says that games are fun because we derive satisfaction from learning how to overcome the challenges they present us with. Even faced with inevitable defeat at the hands of endless enemies, we enjoy trying to kill as many as we can. In this sense, a game can be simultaneously fun and depressing- imagine playing a game where the goal is for your character to kick as many defenseless puppies as possible within a set time limit.

How this relates to GNS Theory: As I've said before, I think Jon Edward's concept of creative agendas (as seen in both his old threefold model and his current theories) has merit because it identifies three key ways a roleplaying game can be enjoyable, but that his view of these "agendas" as separate audiences that an rpg designer must choose between borders on a violation of common sense-there is no reason why a player can't enjoy both the strategic and dramatic aspects of a given situation. What he views as different tastes, I view as different aspects of what makes a good roleplaying game. I would say that the view he describes as "Narrativist" focuses on the group storytelling aspect of a roleplaying game; his concept of a "Simulationist" view would focus on the ability of the rules to provide consistent, concrete gauges of a situation; and his conception of a "Gamist" view would focus on the game that the rules create, obviously.

I'm not quite done writing about this manner. The above is a definition of roleplaying games; but it doesn't touch on what I think makes roleplaying games special. That'll be another post. . .

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d20 Rethought: Hits and the Status Track

In d20 Rethought, hits represent different conditions that have a negative effect on a character's performance. These conditions can be due to poison, fatigue, physical injury, mental trauma or some other cause. There are many different kinds of hits, with different nasty side effects and criteria for removing them; what they have in common is that every single hit a character currently has moves them down a step on the status track.

In and of itself, the status track is an unabashed rip-off of the SWRPG Saga Edition's condition track- an escalating series of penalties. You from being fine to receiving a -1 penalty on all checks, then -2, -3, -5, -10 and finally unconsciousness. Six strikes and you're out.

Hit the jump for an outline of some specific hits and what this means for the system as a whole.

Lethal Hit: You receive a lethal hit each time you lose any amount of wound points. Whenever you take a physically strenuous action, you take damage equal to the number of lethal hits you have. Lethal hits do not go away; instead, they must be treated in order to be downgraded to subdual hits.
Subdual Hits: When you lose wound points due to subdual damage, you receive a subdual hit instead of a lethal one. Subdual hits have no special drawbacks; you can heal one per day with 6 hours of rest and two per day with constant rest. Proper medical attention doubles the payoff.
Shock Hit: Mental equivalent of a lethal hit. (You receive a shock hit each time you lose any amount of trauma points. Whenever you take a mentally strenuous action, you take mental damage equal to the number of shock hits you have. Shock hits do not go away; instead, they must be treated in order to be downgraded to stress hits.)
Stress Hits: Mental equivalent of a subdual hit. (When you lose trauma points due to stress damage, you receive a stress hit instead of a lethal one. Stress hits have no special drawbacks; you can heal one per day with 6 hours of rest and two per day with constant rest. Proper therapy doubles the payoff.)
Stun Hits: Stun hits last until the end of an encounter and have no special drawbacks.

All this has several effects on how d20 Rethought plays. The single most significant aspect is that when a PC is taken down, it will usually be due to having accumulated six hits on the Status Track and fallen unconscious. Dying by running out of wound points becomes a much more unlikely scenario, akin to death by massive damage in 3.X. Players now have a motive to avoid any sort of notable injury or mental trauma, even if they have plenty of wound/trauma points remaining. This system also makes it much more feasible to swap out mental and/or physical damage tracking in favor of damage saves, depending on the focus of the game. Picture it- an investigative horror game, with occasional violent conflicts covered only briefly with the focus instead being on keeping your trauma points high lest you start to crack under the pressure. With one quick variant d20 Rethought can handle this just as well as an action-oriented gunfighting game.

Next time, I'll likely be doing a review of all that's been posted regarding d20 Rethought's combat, and how it compares and contrasts to d20 3.X.

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Maelstrom: Preface

Maelstrom is a new setting I'm brainstorming, one that started as a series of suggestions for Mr. Skrittiblak's Elysium Nebula campaign. These suggestions were aimed at giving greater depth and originality to a setting that that on the surface is a space opera starring the cast of D&D. (My impressions is that about half the suggestions were of use to him; the background I had in mind only partly overlapped with the secrets of the background he'd already conceived.) Over the course of our discussions I realized that if you took this fledgling concept and stripped away most of the elements that were being taken from stock science fiction and fantasy, the background meant to justify the presence of those elements could instead lead me to something intriguingly original.

Of course, this also makes the resulting concept really hard to summarize. I have only myself to blame.

The best way I can put it is this: You know how Firefly was the wild west in space? Maelstrom's "____ in space" is the world of the 19th century as depicted in fiction. And not just modern works, but a range of fiction that extends past pulp magazines to include the famous authors of the time, such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Jules Verne. Picture a vast and diverse realm- you have hard-bitten settlers eking out a living on the frontier, ambitious scientists racing towards new discoveries (that could lead to triumph a la Tesla or tragedy a la Jekyll and Frankenstein), intrepid explorers who venture deep into unknown territory, and strange natives of unknown civilizations whose leaders wield mysterious powers. The "civilized world" has its intellectuals and industry as well as its fair share of armed conflicts and bogeymen in the shadows. Mysterious foreign empires are known through countless legends and a handful of firsthand accounts.

Take that all, and spread it out not between continents but between large numbers of moons surrounding four gas giants which all follow the same orbital path around their star. In this solar system the would-be vacuum of space is instead filled with Aethereal mists and populated by an ecosystem of strange and varied creatures. Space fills the roles of both the open frontier and the high seas, as towering starships sail past herdsmen on crystal-winged mounts.

I don't see Maelstrom as resembling the 19th century in any aesthetic way- the 'space cowboys', for example, wear goggles and breath masks while having no need for wide-brimmed hats. I'm just using the time period as a guideline for creating a believable world of mystery and adventure; a place where society is close enough to our own to be sympathetic and understandable, without having advanced enough for you to know whether the note on the map saying "here there be dragons" is true.

Make sense?

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Elysium Nebula: A brief anecdote.

If he hadn't noticed the cut power lines from the other side of the engine room, Keller would probably have strolled right into the assassin's blade. As is, the human mechanic had stopped in the doorway and thus had an instant for several thoughts to cross his mind as the black-clad figure stepped out from behind the generator and moved to close the distance between them.

The first thought caused feelings of frustration. After the last mysterious sabotage attempt, he'd spent a full day customizing and augmenting the ship's security systems, and assured his crewmates that no one would be able to hack this vessel like they had before. But he hadn't accounted for someone hacking the systems in a more literal fashion.

The second thought was more practical, and led to a surge of fear. Keller was no anthropologist, but his trading days had given him enough experience with elven culture to identify the oncoming figure's robes as the traditional garb of an adept. Which meant this mysterious enemy his group faced was in all likelihood a very dangerous one- and more to the point, so was the individual charging at him now. No one was more dangerous at close range than one of those martial mystics.

The third thought ran through his mind almost casually: Keller wondered if the attacker knew that he wasn't the only one in the have studied the eldritch arts.

As the figure rushed towards him, the human turned and bolted towards the toolkit he'd left open on the shelf yesterday, chanting under his breath. After all the hours spent juggling metal spheres without letting them touch his hands, it took only a moment for him to tap into the waiting current of power and send the arc welder hurtling across the room into his outstretched hand. He spun around and dropped into a crouch as the blade slashed through the air where his neck had been, thumbing the activation on the welder as he brought it down against the floor.

Even with his free arm held over his tightly shut eyes, the light given off by the welder as it scored along the metal floor was enough to blind him for several moments. But as his vision cleared, Keller was treated to the sight of his assailant staggering back and clutching at his face. And that's why you always wear a welding mask, kids. Never one to waste an opportunity, Keller lunged forwards.

The elf sliced the arc welder in half with a one-armed swing of his sword, eyes still closed. There were times when Keller really hated magic.

The tech backpedaled as the assassin stabbed at him, but by going for the welder he'd trapped himself in a dead end. Desperately he began to intone the ritual chants once more, this time focusing on the blade in the attacker's hands- as stupid a gamble as he'd ever had to make. His opponent probably had a lifetime of experience with using and countering tactics like these; an attempt to disarm him with telekenesis was doomed to fail.

Keller inhaled and made a forceful gesture, tugging the blade to the left. The adept reacted by tightening his grip on the sword, maintaining his hold even as Keller dropped the feint and pulled the blade in the opposite direction with all his strength. And because of this the elf was still in full contact with the blade as its tip plunged into the adjacent generator.

The human watched in amazement as his assailant was thrown bodily against the wall, the sword still wedged into the sparking generator. The smell of ozone and burned flesh rose in the air as the elf slumped over. Keller breathed a sigh of relief as he rose. "Well, I guess that tells us a little more about- OH, COME ON." The assassin was staggering to his feet. Keller took the sight in for a moment, then decided to retreat while he had the chance. Let's let the people on the crew with *guns* handle this.

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Strange Bedfellows: Red/White, Part 1

Blue: "You know what's wrong with Blue?" says Red to White. "They don't care. All those precious lives you seek to preserve, all those higher ideals you aspire to, blue is completely apathetic towards them."

Black: "You know what's wrong with Black?" says White to Red. "They don't care about how anyone feels, including themselves. Rather than doing what feels best they hurt themselves again and again, leading miserable lives because they think that just a little more power over others is going to make them feel happy. It's insane."

Red and White can both get behind a passionate dedication to a higher cause. They believe in something so strongly that they want to fight for it.

White: "You have gone astray in your fervor; your eagerness makes you impatient. The right way to achieve your ideals is through an ordered society." White rejects the words of its forefathers thusly: "Your faith in organized systems blinds you to how they violate the ideals on which they are founded!"

Red: "You have gone astray by becoming fascinated with the abstract. You want to know the key to being happy? Doing things that are fun, rather than putting it off because you worry that something wouldn't be 'fulfilling' enough." Red rejects the words of its forefathers thusly: "Real pleasure is the kind you earn, by working hard to do what your heart tells you is right. You can't imagine what it's like, because you've never tried it yourself."

Green: "If only you two could see," muses Green. "Your heart's in the right place and you'll fight so hard, but you have so little idea of how to achieve your goal. You fight the symptoms but have no conception of the underlying issues. You want to make the world a better place through destruction, to be a martyr for your cause even though you could do so much more for it if you took the time to ensure your own survival."

(As always, feedback is most definitely welcome.)

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