All Chargen Is Random Chargen

If you want it to be. You can make it random. Which is heaps fun.

There are two basic objections to random chargen. The first is it removes total, absolute control over the character creation process. And that’s fair enough. If your fun arc depends on you having a perfect pre-conceived idea of who your character is in your head to begin with, and then creating a system to fit the image, birthing it Athena-like from your brain, then I get how leaving anything to chance would get in the way. The second object is that it produces characters that are unplayable and unfun. Generally, this objection comes from the fact that when people hear “random chargen” they think of D&D’s random chargen where the randomness causes the power level to be random, so some players end up a bit ahead of others. That can be unfun, but of course random chargen doesn’t have to do that. Random chargen can be perfectly balanced, and indeed, you can use point-buy systems to make sure your random chargen is balanced.

The last part is the bit we only realised recently because we are Slow Of Mind. G and I adore random chargen, we love sitting down and rolling on tables and seeing whole new universes appear out of nowhere, but only so many games have random chargen – or so we thought. Last night we came to our senses. We got out Savage Worlds and made Novice level characters using a totally random system. Every time it came to spending a point, we would roll randomly to find out where to spend it. Suddenly, point-buy became random, and as usual, it was glorious.

For example, you have five attributes, and five points to spend. Roll 1d5 five times, once for each point, to see where it goes. Granted, it becomes fairly ridiculous when you do it for equipment buying but otherwise it worked surprisingly well for something as simple and rules-light as SW. Without any cheating at all, they are highly playable and mostly make sense!

Below are the characters we created but I’m really blogging this so others can use the idea. I wouldn’t want this awesomeness not to be used around the world just because other people think point-buy games can’t be random, like we did.

Water-Walker

Race: Mantis-Man

Agility: d6  Smarts: d6 Spirit: d4 Strength: d8 Vigor: d8 (Parry 4 Toughness 8)

Fighting d4, Area Knowledge (The Swamplands) d4, Shooting d6, Healing d4, Investigation d6, Persuasion d4, Swimming d6, Boating d6, Driving d4, Tracking d4, Streetwise d4

Edges: Carapace (2 points Natural Armour), Mantis Leaping (x4 normal distance), Arcane Background (Miracles)

Hindrances: Outsider, Curious, Pacifist (Minor), Doubting Thomas

Miracles: Detect/Conceal Arcana, Boost/Lower Trait. 10 Powers points.

He’s basically a scout/indian agent type – lots of outdoors skills plus low-level faith magic. I pointed out that it was weird that I had no Faith skill, necessary to use the Miracles power, so maybe I could use a substitute. Mr G brilliantly suggested I use Boating or Swimming, and together we decided that I was less a mantis and more a Jesus Bug, and that my religion was based around the philosophy of spiritual surface tension. Just like the lake, the universe is full of fluid, and we must walk softly  on it. Those who are heavy with evil or sin, or drive their weight harshly against the surface, soon plunge beneath and find nothing but death. Alas, their descent causes waves which can cause even good, softwalkers to stumble, so those of the faith must help others stand, and keep the surface smooth and taut. Such an incredible idea! We wondered why I was also a Doubting Thomas (no belief in the supernatural) but we had two options there – either he just sees supernatural things as some lies of the devil, or he is so into his beliefs and his natural environment he doubts civilisation exists.

If I was going to actually play him, I’d get rid of maybe Persuasion and Streetwise to get a few more dots in other skills and maybe swap Spirit and Smarts, but otherwise, he is ready to go! I want to play him and am sad I can’t….

G’s char was:

Race: Dwarf

Agility: d6 Smarts d4 Spirit d6 Strength d6 Vigor d6 (Parry 2, Toughness 5)

Climbing d4 Knowledge (Journalism) d4, Taunt d6, Persuasion d8, Riding d4, Shooting d4, Guts d4, Boating d4, Gambling d4, Investigation d4

Edges: Low-Light Vision, Tough

Hindrances: Slow, Young, Quirk, Vow (Minor)

With the ability to climb, taunt and persuade added to Journalism, we knew instantly that this character was a paparazzo, who would get the shots of the celebrities no matter what. (We hadn’t specified any setting, SW doesn’t do that) So we made his Quirk “Never Without A Camera” and his Vow “Never To Give Up On A Story/Photo”.  The Lowlight vision would come in handy in the darkroom (or could, in fact, just his night-scope fitted camera!). We discussed briefly which fantasy settings would have paparazzi or similar, and how they might be translated to worlds without press or photography. A gossip paparazzo is not unlike a bard, after all….

Two awesome characters, a bundle of great ideas, all from a system that – on the surface – doesn’t appear to be random. Today’s lesson is: DON’T LET THAT STOP YOU.

Fragments of Old Game Design

Was cleaning up some old notes and found an outline to an old game idea I had about ten years ago. The idea was a game based on trick taking, but with the twist that you could add more cards than just one to each hand – but of course then you’d have nothing to play at the end of the round if others still had cards. Like a weird combination of cribbage and whist. Never really got the mechanics working but I decided the setting would be a bunch of mad Scottish clans doing Gaelic Wrestling or something. And the one thing I really like doing in game design is coming up with flavour. So what I did back then was sit down and come up with four clans and their 12 members each. (I chose those numbers so I could play test the game with an ordinary pack of cards, see.) Anyway, I still have the names, so here they are for your enjoyment, or possible window in game design.

Clan Tankerus

Kilt Bill

Gundam McRoss

Savage McTavish

Mel, The Woad Warrior

Connor McWickening

Connor Seanery

Biaoughie McSlayer

Dirty MacGonagal

Di Haird

Vinn Dalziel

William Warbles

Siobhan Siobhoff

 

Clan Derstine

Ewan McHobeewan

“Doc” Mactardis

Laddie McBeth

Patrick Fitzinwell

Conner Commover

Ewan Mee

Haggis Itwitchoo

Fluyed Macanix

Apple McIffon

Meghan Mogg

Dinah Fashe

Hairy Nobb

 

Clan Samwych

Brenda Fender

Duncan Dellishers

Ronnie McDonald

Steamy William

Enormous Richard

Bloody Annoying Mary

Moira Lesse

Livia Withongions

Ozzie the Bruce

Haddie Biglunshe

“Whiskey” O’Goughgough

Ann O’Therun

 Clan Tasstick

Len And MacCartnee

Glen Orglender

Ben Toomie

James Tiekirk

Tickel M’Sporran

Skyclad Sally

Tam O’Shantern

Rob Roy Rogers

Bess Tiensho

Old Ock Waintens

Katie Lang

Johnie Coomlaitly

A musing on my two favourite genres

Just the other day, while watching Shakespeare Do The Thing He Does in Two Gentleman of Verona, I suddenly realised that my two favourite genres, farce and caper, are really very similar. Farce at its best works on the audience knowing more than the characters (Bob is hidden behind the screen THE WHOLE TIME) and Caper works on the audience knowing explicitly less than the characters (Bob switched the suitcases before the whole thing began).

It’s no wonder I love those genres, being a roleplayer, because the main reason I like roleplaying is it causes an interesting interface to occur between character, author and audience. That’s also why I like breaking the fourth wall, too. But the interesting thing about both farce and caper is you can’t actually every really roleplay them successfully, because they both depend on the audience having different information from the characters, and the fundamental principle of roleplaying is the audience are the characters at the same time.

Now sure, you can separate them in your head, but it’s not quite the same thing. It can never be. And some narrative/authorial-focussed rpgs have worked well to keep them separate, which is awesome. Again, this is one reason I adore Smallville: not only can you have “I have no idea my brother is trying to betray me, so I trust him completely” written on your actual character sheet, but the system heavily rewards you putting yourself in a situation where your complete trust is totally reversed – that reversal powers you up immensely. If there was ever a system built for farce, it is Smallville.

And of course, my love of those two genres is why I find it silly when hard-core immersionists insist that authorial mechanics totally destroy all sense of immersion. I can watch a stage and feel everything the characters experience as acutely as if I was them – yet also see the stage and the actors on it. I can see a simple cloak and know it makes a man invisible to all the other characters on stage, even though real people can see him clearly – because we can. I know stage left is a distant island while five feet from stage right which is Venice. And I know the author has set up a familiar, well-structured farcical device while at the same time feeling every ache of character embarrassment and shock as they feel nothing but chaos swim between their feet.

It’s not quite the same thing, maybe. They do say that if you see the author, it always pulls you out of the story. Unless you’re a writer, of course, because then you can never stop seeing the story. And if you’re like me, someone who you can shift back and forth between the fourth wall as if on a bungee cord. For those of us like that, authorial mechanics can only improve immersion, not destroy it.

If anything a lack of authorial control makes things more like real life – and I can’t believe in that, it’s far too facile.

The TMNT shooting script

Like some Hollywood insider, I have stealthily acquired from my sources the shooting script for the new TMNT film.

In Predator We Trust

It’s time to rethink the Predator, people. Warrior-nobility aside, we’ve been casting them as the badguy. And I’m not sure that stands up. Walk with me:

Point the first: They are “drawn to battlegrounds”.

In the first and second films, the predators are drawn to the most dangerous places on earth – in the first film, the drug war in South America, in the second, the drug war in slightly-futuristic Los Angeles. The suggestion is it goes to those places because all the carnage and killing makes it likely they’ll encounter plenty of warriors to make good hunts. But that doesn’t hold up to hunting logic. If you want to get a good challenge from a grizzly bear, you don’t go to the grizzly bear arena where grizzlies are fighting each other to the death, because then your average target will be half-chewed and eaten before you get near him. If you want a challenge, you find a quiet lone grizzly at his full strength, and you kidnap his daughter. You know, like in Commando. You don’t wait for him to come to South America and waste ammo on some drug dealers first.

And this “ultimate hunter” thing runs into trouble with point 2 -

2) They “take trophies”.

Or do they? Yes, they skin their victims and take heads. But they don’t take them home with them. The pick up vessel in Aliens vs Predator doesn’t stop to collect all the skulls the last predator must have been storing somewhere. When Arnie arrives in Predator 1, the predator has skinned his victims, yes, but he’s tens of miles from that site and shows no intention of going back after he kills his victims. So he skins people, but where does he put the skins? In a pouch?

So here’s an alternative idea: he skins his prey to scare the hell out of everyone else in the area.

Now we’re starting to get a new idea of the creatures. They go to the worst warzones on earth. They identify and track down the worst killers in the area, defeat them effortlessly and then leave their mutilated bodies around – as a warning to others.

Now hold that thought as we go through some other points:

- they’re invisible, and move in mysterious ways

- but they can be sensed by voodoo priests (Predator 2) and Native American Shaman types (Predator), so they have some kind of spiritual presence

- they have dredlocks, perhaps indicating a strong sense of spirituality and connection to Rastafarianism.

- they have been visiting earth since before the last ice age (AvP)

You see where I am now.

The Predators are gods, or aliens masquerading as gods, and they are here to HELP US. When humans are swarmed by too much warfare, and look to be consuming ourselves, an invisible force descends, butchers all the best warriors and terrifies everyone else into ceasing fighting. They are trying to save humanity from our own destructive ways. They are HIPPIES. That’s also why they skin corpses, they are probably trying to recycle the carcasses into nice hats or wallets or seat covers or something.

I know what you’re going to say: if that’s true, then why did they bring the Aliens to the South Pole for training exercises? But that’s not the right question. The question is: why did they bury everything at the South Pole under a thousand tons of ice? See, I think they brought the aliens to earth to STUDY them (assuming they didn’t just find them here already – Prometheus may have something to say about where the “jockey” came from – there were giants in the old days, people), then one day they discovered humans. Being gentle creatures and not wanting to kill the alien queen, they froze her and buried her deep under the ice so she couldn’t harm humans until they could find a way to safely extract her. By the time they had done that, they realized that the alien was not only dangerous to humans, but so were the humans themselves. This amazing new species was on the verge of wiping itself out. The solution is to become invisible and watch from the sidelines, and interfere when it became necessary. Sometimes they could be subtle, other times, they needed a nuclear bomb (hence Sodom and Gomorrah).

Some accidents occurred along the way that caused us humans to worship them as gods. Some stories leaked through. This is why all ancient myths have something like the titanomachy, where the monsters/evil serpents are destroyed by the gods, but lurk around, waiting to insert evil into us again. Only the gods can save us – immortal, invisible, dredlocked spirit masters of beyond. Predators? No: PROTECTORS. And every time we run into them, we kill them with a tree of some sort. Or Danny Glover.

And the lord sayeth, this is my blood, shed for you, and Jesse Ventura said, if it bleeds, we can kill it….

Skronch and Hrm: Or time to join the opining mob

Or my problem with the Watchmen prequels. I’ll try to keep it short for everyone’s sake.

My problem with the Watchmen prequels is this: the world of literature, not entirely wrongly, has a decided bias against serial media. And so do I. One of the great things about Watchmen is it is entirely self-contained, and thus free from that bias.

Now sure, Dark Knight Returns is pretty stand-alone, because it’s a what-if. That helps. But it is a book very dependent on what has come before. If you don’t know who Oliver Queen is, the guy with the bow and arrow seems pretty odd (I know, because I didn’t when I read it) and comes out of nowhere. It is a work that is undeniably part of the Batman mythos. And that weighs it down.

A big – a huge – part of why Watchmen can be an American Classic is because it stands alone. You don’t have to know anything about comics or superheroes to read it. Indeed, I can make a semi-cogent argument that the comic superhero commentary is relatively uninteresting and mostly unimportant to the worth of the work. Certainly its place in comics history is undeniably unimportant to the work itself. Yes, if you want to study it context helps, but again, the point of a classic is it stands up without study. Or relatively so. You can read and love Huckleberry Finn without knowing anything American History. Same goes for To Kill A Mockingbird or The Great Gatsby or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. You don’t have to know that Kesey’s Nest was a codifying of anti-establishment sentiments of the counter-culture movements of the late 1960s to get what the book is about. Some teacher can throw you any of those, give you a five minute spiel and you can see that the thing is literature without touching the Cliff Notes.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Moore’s Swamp Thing qualifies as literature as well, but there’s a very good reason why at the front of his first volume he includes a primer to superheroes for those who have come to the comics via the horror genre. And the appearances of the JLA will always be a millstone around its neck from being say, as historic and eternal as say, The Scarlet Letter.

And of course this HAS happened to great literature before. There have been sequels, by even the authors themselves. There were books published after the Great Gatsby came out, unofficial sequels in which Gatsby and Daisy run off together and have children and live happily ever after. I’m not kidding. History forgets. Sometimes it forgets rightly. And one way it is easier to forget is if things aren’t part of a series.

Of course these new prequels are optional. But in this world of high-merchandising, is anything optional any more? The Star Wars prequels are optional, and can never harm the gorgeousness of the masterpiece of Irving Kirschner, Leigh Bracket and Lawrence Kasdan. Hopefully, history will one day forget some of the things that surround it.

And hopefully, history will forget Before Watchmen. Hopefully nobody will throw around words like “the Watchmen Universe” and “canon” and “continuity”. But this is comics, where if you sneeze on a page it can end up as continuity that somebody will later retcon into important dramatic backstory. This is comics where I have been assured by fans that they literally have no control over their actions and will buy any product with X hero in it no matter what, as an issue of pseudo-religious pride and compulsive addiction – and those people love collectors editions. This is comics where we talk not of books or worlds or stories but just “runs”, when the comic was written by X – and then gets lost in the general mishmash of the oncoming tide of future runs. So I am worried.

You might say, but they could be awesome. Of course they could. Len Wein and Brian Azzarello know their shit. But I hope history forgets them anyway, because a series is a millstone around the neck of a classic that can stop it from being remembered as capital-l literature. It’s hard enough to tease out Moore’s run on Swamp Thing. Imagine if we have to try and do the same for Moore’s run on Watchmen.

Or we can sit back and wait for From Next Door to Hell, the adventures of Several Victorian Hookers On Their Day Off. There will be an animated series. And toys.  Oh there will be toys…

 

Finally reading WFB 8th ed, and the big news is…

The Fimir are back. Mentioned by name, in canon. They were never 100% written out ala squats but it was stated at one point that the skaven wiped them out. God bless you Matt Ward for bringing them back, in fine form. Not only are they back but they can kill your forces if they stumble too far into the wrong sort of mists.

If you don’t know, the Fimir are strange narrow-headed fat-bottomed swamp creatures like something crossed between Salacious Crumb and a waddling skeksis, tres Brian Froud, with a single yellow eye in their narrow heads and a mace-tipped tail ala an ankylosaurus. They can control mists and have a habit of stealing human females to aid their breeding cycles. Also, their chief habitat is the Wasteland which is the Warhammer equivalent of the Netherlands. So they’re not just awesome unique monsters, they’re also DUTCH.

Hooray for Fimir!

Meanwhile, if you want to run a WFRP LARP, have you considered buying a village?

Ah, Smallville…

Best stat line I’ve seen in a while (via RPGnet):

 

“KIM JONG-IL hates my guts d8″

 

High Valor Reviewed

Mr Chaos Grenade (of the New York Grenades) has done two big reviews of High Valor, the awesome rpg by Mr Tim Kirk with a few tiny additions by me.

Also, this is funny and about computer games.

Connecting the dots

Somebody asked me if I thought Justin Bieber’s rise to fame was part of a conspiracy of the Illuminati. They probably shouldn’t have because I responded with this…you may find it inspiring:

First of all, The song goes “baby baby baby” – a trinity of babies? Of course it’s a reference to the christ child.  Second,if you take the first letters of Justin Beiber’s name you get 10 and 2. 10 plus 2 is twelve, the number of apostles. Justin Beiber is an anagram of Bribe Injuste, which is french for Injust Payment, no doubt a reference to the 30 pieces of silver paid to Judas. If you include his middle name, Drew you get 1042, the year (French) Pope Urban II was born, the man who instigated the first crusade AND the year that Michael V died, returning Byzantine to the Christians AND the year the now-Christian Byzantine empire won their war against the Arabs, laying the foundation for the crusades. This isn’t the illuminati, this is your standard templar conspiracy to reclaim the holy land.

And Justin Drew Bieber is an anagram of Jew Tribes Ruin Bed – which bed? the sacred bed of course, the manger but also the fertile crescent (oh the unending symbology of wombs) of the holy land which the christians have long needed to dominate because it is the cradle (see?) of civilisation, of mankind – the home, clearly, of the Grail itself.

The grail is of course the centre of Parsifal, Wagner’s templar opera. Wagner of course was the hero of the Nazis, who had a fan in Walt Disney – and Disney owns Bieber. You can see Disney’s teutonic agenda in his obsession with ancient Germanic fairytales – the Wagnerian dwarfs of Snow White, the dragon-guarded virgin (aka the hidden grail) of Sleeping Beauty. Then there’s Pinocchio, the story of a small wooden boy crafted by a wise old man.

Obviously modern Disney is proceeding with his agenda (which is why he’s on ice – to come back when it’s finished, which is also why Disney’s descendants so desperately needed to get rid of Michael Eisner (a jew – and note the parallel of a falling Michael, just like in Byzantium). Bieber is the final step in their plan which has been operating for a long time, squaring the circle of the globe and controlling the young.  Note the locations of Disney theme parks: sunny Los Angeles, city of angels, sunny Floirda, home of El Dorado, Paris the ancient templar stronghold (and home of the Sun King) and Tokyo, land of the rising sun/son.  And then look at their shows: Clarissa Explains it All. Clarissa is Italian for fame – fame is the truth. That’s So Raven – Raven brought the sun to the Inuit peoples, another sun god. Hannah Montana: the blessed mountain. The shining pyramid. Oh wait that’s the illuminati. But that’s the point – it all bleeds together.

Bieber’s new album is called My World 2.0. The new world order, created under its new king.