Fate Accelerated Character Experiment

So, one of my favorite things in the world is music. When I find a good album, I’ll obsess over it like crazy. And, sometimes, I’ll see glimpses of a greater story peeking out of the lyrics. I’ve used playlists before to represent my character’s relationships with other player characters, but I thought I’d take it a bit deeper. What if you used an album to create a character for Fate Accelerated Edition? Song lines can be aspects, if selected well, can be aspects, and you can also draw inspiration.

My Five Step Campaign Creation Process

So, I'm a brand new GM. I never GM'd a long-term campaign at all. It's something I wanted to do for a long time, but I never really got the chance to do. Part of it was a lack of time. And part of it was a lack of confidence. Not about ideas.I always have those. I was more afraid that I couldn't get the characters to interact with the plot that I wanted.  I had always heard that players will inevitably marr the story that the GM wants to tell, so I decided to abandon this idea and work with my gaming group to develop a story that was based off of the characters wanted to make. These were the steps we followed, and I thought it has turned out smashingly well.  

The Sharn Codex: Thoughts on Character Improvement

First off, I want to thank +Jacob Poss for being such an accommodating game master today. I had a personal matter which came up unexpectedly, and he was cool when I told him I wasn't going to be able to make it. Thankfully, the issue resolved before play finished, and Jake allowed me to jump in for a fun time. 

A Tribute to Season One of MonsterHearts

The ongoing MonsterHearts campaign +Seth Harris runs is currently on hiatus as season 2 is being set up. I've got to say, MonsterHearts has been a really rewarding experience for me. There's a couple of different reasons. 

First, Rueben is probably the most dangerous character I've ever played. He's obsessive, he's manipulative, and he's fun to play. I don't know why, but I've been having a lot fun getting into his head.  Probably one of the reasons is that I've been playing totally against my personality. And I have to say, being the nasty guy is kind of fun.  

A Game is a Game

So, it's Superbowl Sunday. Just like almost everyone else in the Greater Baltimore Area, I'm pretty excited about having the Ravens in the game. It's a chance to unite behind something and just enjoy the spectacle.  I can't believe the last time they were in the Superbowl, it was my senior year of high school.  God, I'm old...

By the way, check out the always awesome
Sheldon by Dave Kellett

To be honest, though, my interest in football is just a social thing.  It's a way to connect to my dad and my brother. They're both far more into the sports thing than I am. So, while they're wearing jerseys for specific players, I wear my custom jersey that I had made for Poe, the Ravens mascot. Literary reference and football solidarity in one move. I dig it. 

A lot of my friends who are nerds who are nerdy have no interest in football. Some are interested in other sports, like hockey or disk golf. Some are apathetic to sports in general. I totally get those sentiments. Sports is the realm of the dudes who beat us up in between third and fourth period, after all. Let us stick to smashing imaginary mosters in Dungeons and Dragons, and they can stick to smashing each others out on that hot, stupid field. 

But the reality is we're really not terribly different--we just have enthusiasm for similar things portrayed in different ways. And it comes down to an idea I've had for a long time but have never really codified. 

Every single game, no matter what form it takes, is a narrative. Be it told on a gridded map or a gridiron, it's still a story.

A lot of games tell elemental, binary stories. It boils down to who wins and who loses. But we attach bigger meanings to it. A great example of this is the card game Gloom, where the players create a narrative of bad stuff. The winner is the person who can make their family of characters suffer the most. You can find out more about it in the following video.

Other examples of win/lose games take on other forms. Games like Risk, Chess, and Warhammer 40K are supposed to represent military battles. Other games, like Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride, have a socioeconomic bent. But they're still about who comes out on top. RPGs can combine a multitude of themes into the game. Killing the dragon and take it's treasure works as an introductory quest because it has both the military aspect and the economic factor, and it's pretty easy to delineate the winner and the loser (the party versus the dragon). Things get more tricky when you start adding in character motivations, but player versus player in RPGs is another post for another time.

The iconography here is incredibly potent with story

At first glance, football is a win-lose narrative. Simple. Clean-cut. But that's only what happens on the field. There's so much more when you think about it. Add in the factor of the people who are involved in the Superbowl XLVII, and you have a really amazing story.

Just as an example, Ray Lewis. Far and away, he is the player who is associated with the Baltimore Ravens. He's flamboyant, charismatic, widely considered one of the best to play his position. But he's also old. He was the second player to be drafted by the Ravens after they moved from Cleveland, and he played his entire career for Baltimore. Earlier this year he announced his retirement. So today is his last game ever. What's he feeling right now?

Another story that's attached to this particular game is the passing of the Ravens original owner, Art Modell. He was a loved man in Baltimore, loathed in Cleveland, and his passing just before this season began provided a strong well of emotions.

The Ravens are playing the 49ers, and that's a really cool story right there because the coaches are brothers -- John and Jim Harbaugh. Not only that, but Jim Harbaugh was the quarterback Ray Lewis got his first NFL sack against. And he later served as a Raven as their quarterback in the 1998 season!  Imagine how hard it would be to lose your first Superbowl appearance (assuming the Ravens win) to a team you used to play for. The brothers aren't the only reunion, though. Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice and 49ers Right Tackle Anthony Davis were teammates at college.

These stories are not things I really went looking for. It's just stuff I knew from keeping track of local news and looking at friends' Facebook posts. But it's really neat to see this kind of thing. It gives me even more investment in the game.

I realize that some people aren't into football. Conversely, I understand that my own interest in table top gaming is something others won't get. But I do think there is common ground. We're looking for a story. We're looking for something to connect to. And that human need is even more important than the game.

Announcing Future Awesomeness

So, while this is still going to be my personal space, I wanted to share with you about another project that I'm really excited about.

Last year, I began talking to my friends and gaming group about starting my own campaign. I had been reading a bunch of narrativist games, like Fiasco, Microscope, and Apocalypse World, just to name a few. So I wanted to take those more narrative based games and apply some of the techniques that they introduce. But I still wanted to  take them and apply them to a "traditional" campaign using a ruleset familiar to most of my group, the excellent (and free!) Mini Six.

To add on top of that, I had the hubris to think that this would make a good topic for a podcast. So I bought an audio recorder and asked my friends' permission to turn it on. After some thought, I decided to name the podcast "Bone Throwers Theater." It's supposed to be a play off of the concept of dice being similar to a diviner's fortune-telling bones.

We recently began recording, and we've got a nice buffer built up, so I can feel comfortable announcing that the release date will be Friday, March 1st.

I'm really excited about this whole experience -- probably a little too excited. But I'm enjoying it for the time being, and it's letting me put my audio editing skills back to use (I love editing audio). I made a little one-minute promo announcing our release date, which you can listen to here. I hope you enjoy!

 

Beware the Lightsaber Lens Flares

Have you heard? There are a lot of rumors floating around about whether or not J.J. Abrams is directing the new Star Wars movie. Personally, I like Abrams's work but I don't think I want him directing Star Wars. There are a few reasons why. To lay them out quickly, it comes down to variety, variety, and variety.

What? Too vague? Ok, I’ll go into a little bit more detail.

I’m not going to go into the Trek vs. Wars arguments. I like them both. Star Wars a bit more, but that’s beside the point. I’m more concerned about the quality of both franchises. If you have one person masterminding both creative universes, then they’ll burn out. This is precisely the same reason why I don’t want Joss Whedon directing Ep. VII either. He’s doing fantastic stuff with the Avengers. Let Abrams and Whedon do what they’re doing and enjoy the gratification of watching quality projects.

This brings up something that I’m incredibly afraid of in terms of fandom in general, anyway. There’s a trend towards a homogenization in taste. Abrams and Whedon have become the two largest faces in nerd cinema. Christopher Nolan would be the third in the triumvirate. These three men are the trendsetters in geek film. And, where film goes, the rest of geek culture follows.

When it comes to concepts and storytelling, homogenization is anathema. It is staleness. It is ad nauseum.  If fear is the little-death that brings obliteration, homogenization of thought is the big-death that brings submission to mediocrity.  Where is the forward thinking in genre these days?

Yes, all three are talented craftsmen. But I would argue that their better work is in the smaller vehicles. They have their own motifs and agendas (in the case of Abrams, vagendas), and I would argue that an artist's vision works out better in their own worlds than it does in a licensed world. In my opinion, Super 8 is a much better movie than Star Trek. Serenity beats the pants off The Avengers. And Memento is more moving than the entire Batman trilogy (which, aside from the first, fails because of its own hubris). This sentiment is mine alone, though. I think it's because I'm moving more towards favoring stories that are about smaller, character driven situations rather than stories that are about Big Idea. 

So, if not Abrams, and not a big name, who would I like to see to direct Star Wars Ep. VII? Honestly, I don't know. It would be nice if they could honor the tradition of the original Ep. IV and bring in a director and actors that no one knows. It doesn't have to be a director who isn't established, but it should be one that people haven't heard of.  If I could have my way, I think I would have either someone from Hong Kong or South Korea direct at least one of the new movies. 

It seems like a bit of a stretch, doesn't it? But I don't really think so. Think back to the roots of Star Wars. A lot of Lucas's original inspiration came from a Japanese movie called Hidden Fortress. The Force has strong Buddhist and Taoist overtones (I once heard the Jedi described as Buddhist monks running around with laser swords). It would make sense to take visual aesthetics from that part of the world  and apply them to a fantasy universe that tries to combine both Eastern and Western sensibilities.

Of course, Hollywood isn't about what makes sense, and it's not about making art. It's about's making a buck, which Ep. VII will deliver. 

Fate Core: The Sharn Codex pt 1

This game is turning out to be a lot of fun. First off, I love that I'm finally getting to learn how to play FATE. I'm the kind of guy who will read the gaming books and just kind of sit there scratching my head. Rulebooks are abstract, nebulous things to me. I've got to actually see some kind of demonstration to understand the rules, and play is what really solidifies the system to me. 

If you haven't looked into FATE Core, I'd highly recommend it at least throwing a dollar at it, just to read the book. It's actually pretty crazy to watch the crowdfunding happen for this project. The kickstarter is going gangbusters. Yesterday, Evil Hat announced that, if they hit $400,000 (!) dollars, they'll release a new, condensed version of their Dresden Files RPG.  They're currently over the $314,000 mark with 6 days to go, so... I think they have a chance.

Another cool thing for me is getting to play a different kind of fantasy game. I've played Dungeons and Dragons for a long time. Like a lot of gamers, it's what I cut my teeth on. But I typically play in more science fiction games. So fantasy for me feels like D&D quintessentially  It's ironic to say this, but this Eberron game feels more awesome than most D&D games that I've played. 

First of all, my character, Sim Delvoor is a beast, absolutely killer when it comes to social situations. In both our introduction session and this one, I was able to use my "contacts" skill to rally a group of people to help the group win the combat sessions quite handily.  He also wasn't useless when I decided to have him swing a sword, which is nice. 

Of course, Sim's not the paragon of charismatic charm he thinks he is. Part of FATE's main aspect is the ability to compel the characters. Basically the aspects can both be positive and negative. The game master can compel the characters by offering them fate points (in-game currency) to have something happen to their character. The group failed to interrogate a character. He said "no" to Sim. My character got angry and went to extremes. He made it so that this non-player character could never say no again. 

(This brings me to another thing I've learned recently about roleplaying -- making the Bad Choice can be more interesting from a story perspective than being the Bad Ass. I'll have to write something up about that at a later date.)

In the process of cutting out this poor goon's tongue, Sim developed in personality. He earned the aspect "Loose Cannon." Sure, he may be a smooth talker, but the guy has anger issues. I have to figure out which aspect I'll swap out with that. Which is hard, because I really like his character aspects. But mechanically, it's helpful because it will help me learn more about FATE's advancement process. 

An Inter-Office Fiasco

+Aaron Merhoff, +Seth Harris, +Ariana Ramos and I played a fantastically horrible game of Fiasco using the "Business Casual" play set from the new "American Disasters" set.


WARNING: Language, situations, violence, and pornographic use of fast food.

What I love about Fiasco is how it breaks down how movies, TV, and plays tell stories. The scene-sharing and imrovisational aspects lets you explore the characters' relationships. Also, because everyone collaborates on the character/world creation, it takes away the load of game mastering. I've played it a few times, and each time has been full of win.

Monsterhearts 3

Another game that I've been playing a lot of recently is MonsterHearts. I had wanted to try games based off of the Apocalypse World engine for a while, and +Seth Harris offered to run an introductory game for us. We've played a couple of different sessions, and they've all been fun.

Later in the game, there was a bit of an interruption in play. So, if you skip from 2:23:04 to 2:32:20, you should be able to enjoy the recording with minimal interruption.

True confession: at first, I didn't really want to try MonsterHearts -- basically because I've only ever heard it called the Twilight of role playing games. Ick, no thanks. I like my vampires to be from Nightwatch and my werewolves as the Narnian Secret Police.  But I agreed to play it because I wanted to try out the mechanics.

But, in honesty, as I looked over the rules, and I saw where the creator was coming from in the mediagraphy, I warmed to the game. Being Human, Misfits, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Let the Right One In are all high entertainment in my list. And playing a game where I can be a messed up vampire like Mitchell or Eli really makes my day.

A word about this game -- the characters which populate it are flawed, messed up little snowflakes. In the above video, my character, Rueben, kills two different people, maims at least one, and is pretty dispassionate when he finds his old love dead. This is not a game about being an honorable individual. There are two drives--coming to terms with who you are when you're a teenager, and having to deal with the consequences your actions bring about.

As of right now, I've got two different MonsterHearts games occuring. Rueben is in the game featured above. That game features +Ariana Ramos as Mackenzie the witch, +Meghan Erlacher as Taylor the witch, +Chuck Durfee as Liam the werewolf, and formerly featuring +Robin Botes as Peter the fay. I made a musical playlist to act as a mental guide with Rueben's relationships with the other characters.



The second game is a game I'm MCing for Seth, Ariana, and my friend +Stephanie Grove. I'll post about that here, as well, but it's going to be it's own series of posts. More updates about MonsterHearts to come!

Dark Lanterns: The Sharn Codex

I went for a while before I was involved in another game that was recorded over Hangouts. But this one, I'm excited about. It's a hack of Eberron (a D&D setting I've always wanted to play) as run in the new FATE Core. As of right now, we're using the pre-release PDF that you can grab for a meager $1 over at the Kickstarter pre-order page (At least, for the time being).

I've been interested in FATE for a while now, but it's one of those games I didn't understand until I started playing.  It's a narrative driven game that can be very crunchy. I don't do well with crunch unless I can actually get to play the system. This session was really informative, helping me grasp what's going on mechanically. The other players are also really awesome, coaching me through the sample combat.

One of the coolest parts of the game was I was able to create a character that was exactly up my alley. In D&D terms, my Changeling would probably be a rogue. But in my mind, he's a fantasy version of the main character on the TV show White Collar. It was really easy to build the character, and he really feels like a fleshed out character.

This is an ongoing campaign, so I'll be posting about this more in the future, as the games progress.

"The Coin's Hard Edge" Playtesting

This was my second opportunity to play in a Google+ hangouts game. I was actually very lucky to playtest "The Coin's Hard Edge" -- +E. Bryan Rumph's rules lite RPG. It was narrated by +Ellie Schnee, and she did a great job setting up the world. I kind of got distracted about halfway through te game because I was writing notes for the playtest. Also, since I was really  new to the whole thing, I was really quiet. But it was a lot of fun! And if you want a rules-lite story game that has my name in it as a playtester, you can download the game from it's official website.

Introduction

So, this blog is more of an archive. I've recently starting playing role playing games on Google+ using hangouts. It's been an experience that I've really enjoyed. There's a lot to like about the ease of the technology. And it's also expanded my gaming groups to include some awesome people.

I decided to start this blog as an archive of the games I've played in. Not all of them have been saved, unfortunately, but those that have been posted on youtube I'll try to post those here, too. I'm also involved in some other RPG projects, not related to Google+, and I may mention those every once in a while, too.

Enjoy!